i see them...swarming

My first days back in Ghana – oh my goodness I was such a grumpy ‘I miss London’ girl. Seriously. I went to Tesco before I left and stocked up on chocolate, microwaveable meals, cookies – I even went to Pret and got an extra TBM sandwich to bring back to Ghana with me and eat in front of all my friends. Terrible. I don’t really care though because all of them are busy posting photos of the amazing weekends they had while I was gone, so I will keep complaining.

Seriously though, you cannot blame me for being a little grumpy. Going from Africa to the UK back to Africa in the time span of a week is a mind trip – you have to switch your entire thinking back and forth. I went from being an Obruni to an American, from clutching onto my purse like it is my child wherever I go to being able to listen to my iPod when I walk down the street (a HUGE no-no in Accra), from eating fufu and plaintains to eating…whatever I want, from bartering with cabs to having a meter system and a night bus and the metro, and from ‘going out’ to reggae on the beach to going out to pubs and nightclubs that do not have their own ‘local’ vodka. And I could drink the tap water! Amazing. So when I got off the plane in Accra, if I didn’t know I had to get back into the obruni mindset, I was reminded by my reception in the airport. A young tall white girl traveling by herself at night in Accra – not so smart. When I walked outside to wait for my driver (yes, I arranged to have a driver, do not judge me) I got so many stares and saw so many men nudging each other and pointing, I felt like a circus freak. Which is how I feel most days, but that is besides the point. A fellow obruni who was hanging out with the Ghanaians even approached me asking if I had a ride, where I was going and if I needed help because, he said, as he looked around suspiciously, he could see the men ‘swarming’ around me. Uh huh, and you are one of them creepy obruni, so do not expect me to run thankfully into your arms.

Moving on, Tuesday was my first day at WAAF, and it was awesome. I felt like such a grown up because they gave me a desk with a computer to work at. Every time I typed I felt like a child who doesn’t know how to type or even read but is at her mom’s office and wants to seem grown up. What they’re going to have me and the other intern work on is the Peer Education program they have – they train twenty students at five different schools on the basics of HIV/AIDS - prevention, transmission, treatment, testing - and these students are supposed to educate the other students in the clubs that have been set up at these schools, called Passion Squads. Since they did the training the students just haven’t been having club meetings so our job is to go to the schools, figure out times for the meetings to happen, and then attend the meetings and help the peer educators lead them. We’re also creating and conducting questionnaires to see what information the students are missing or not getting in terms of HIV/AIDS. One of the things that came out of the last questionnaire was that a lot of students believe the disease can be contracted by ‘deep kissing’, so we need to make sure the students are getting the right information. We’re supposed to be coming up with creative ways to help the students learn and also to get them excited about attending meetings, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Yesterday we went to the first school to meet with the teacher in charge of the Passion Squad, and once again, it was awesome. The school is three long buildings that surround a huge dirt opening. When we arrived – two young blonde white people walking across this red-dirt field – the students went crazy. All of them were screaming ‘Obruni! Obruni! Hi Obruni!’ and waving and smiling and laughing, grabbing our hands or running up and poking us and then laughing hysterically and running away. I still felt like a circus freak, but the coolest circus freak in existence. The teacher we were meeting, Victoria, was so nice – she was holding a three-month-old little girl named Esther who was adorable, and when I did the required oohing and aahing over her Victoria immediately handed her over and let me hold her for the duration of our meeting. Taking notes really wasn’t necessary, it was much more important to play with this baby. Seeing all of the kids so excited and happy to see us made me so much more enthusiastic about working at WAAF – I thought I wanted an office job, but really I could spend all day hanging out with these kids, even if it’s to talk about AIDS and how deep kissing is not dangerous.

After I came back from the school, Maggie and I went back to Makola market because it has been a week without any new clothes from Marjorie and that needs to change. I thought that I somewhat knew my way around the market after having been there a few times, but I was proven wrong yesterday. Maggie and I wandered a bit after our first stop for fabric and when we saw a small road – which some might call an alley – we decided to wander down it and see where it took us. Well, it took us into this whole other realm of Makola market. I felt like this alley was the equivalent of the wardrobe leading us to Narnia. The space to walk went from the entire road to about two feet with people walking both ways, and the amount of people selling things quadrupled. Even walking felt like an obstacle course - a lot of times the path would become rocks or boards over holes that you would have to maneuver across. You were completely surrounded by things and people and stands and more people – it was ridiculous. When I imagine a market this is what I originally thought of, and yesterday we actually found it. And the other thing about where we were was that there was no exit – you had to keep walking straight because there was just no way to get out, and I felt like we were getting further and further and deeper and deeper and we were never going to escape.

Of course we got the stares we usually do, and the calls of ‘obruni!’ and ‘white!’, but it was also my first real experience of people reaching for us and touching us and grabbing our hands. Maggie was proposed to and men would also call out, ‘My wife!’ and then reach for us. Another man saw me, grabbed my hand, and asked ‘Are you from England?!’, and I was so flattered that I let him grab my hand and then faced the predicament that he didn’t want to let go. Luckily, I had Mama Maggie walking behind me who, without slowing her pace, gave his hand a giant heave away from mine and kept us going on our way. At one point we reached what I can only describe as a shoeland of sorts – for a good couple of minutes on our walk through this magical place the only thing being sold was shoes. Piles, and piles, and piles, and piles, of shoes. All kinds of shoes! Some pairs were tied together, some weren’t. The men selling them were just chilling around or on top of their piles – it was honestly really strange. I don’t know how we escaped from this place or if I could ever get back there again – I don’t know if it was even real, but it was amazing. I wish that I had brought my camera, or as Maggie mentioned, I wished that I could just have a boob cam on me at all times because taking pictures really does not do the experiences we have justice.