The Fetish Priests of Modern Ghana - self serving soothsayers or prolific prophets?

(Some) Ghanaians take their fetish priests seriously. So seriously that the poorest of folk are willing to bet their last pesewa on lotto numbers read out by one such priest during a ‘trance’.

Yesterday’s local media covers the story here:

MASS WEEPING AS FETISH PRIEST’S LOTTO NUMBERS FAIL TO DROP

Despite the failure of the spirit man’s predictions, you can’t take these guys lightly – they even have a Wiki page!

Traditionally, despite the influence of foreign religions like Christianity and Islam, people have consulted fetish priests for everything from illness to financial troubles.

Here’s a quote from Africaloft blog on the topic:

“It is not strange to find many Africans walking the gray line between their accepted religion (Islam/Christianity) and traditional religion. For example, a woman who might be having problems conceiving might be visiting a traditional healer on Saturdays while going to her church on Sundays. Are traditional healers quacks? I believe that is a story for another day. But, many educated people outwardly state that they are while they inwardly fear them.”

Driving across Ghana’s rural expanse, one can see small signboards peeping out from the tall grass along empty stretches of road, with the advertisement of a powerful fetish priest – claiming to cure everything from AIDS to sexual frigidity.
Sure enough, there will be a narrowly plodded footpath leading away from the road, toward this mystical man’s chambers. I’ve always wanted to venture in, but have reigned in my naïve curiousity and limited myself to taking photos of some of these wild and wonderful roadside signs from the safe seat of our 4x4.







But some of Ghana’s mystical miracle workers have come to meet me (and others) in the modern world of websites and e-mail consultations!

Take Nana Kwaku Bonsam. His website intro reads:

Nana Kwaku Bonsam is ready to help. Be it spiritual guidance, business promotion, bareness, visa problems, marriage problems, want revenge, ?, etc

There’s an orange button on the site just below this that says: Send me your problems: GO!

Now there’s a modern traditional man. I have to say I’m amazed how easily his craft lends itself to the online world. I have no idea how many people use his services, but he has been interviewed on local media and youtube features some footage of his ritual performances…



His services page claims that wherever you are in the world he can assist you with: visas, barrenness, madness, poverty, spiritual attacks, impotence, vengeance and others.

He claims to charge nothing except the things needed for the rituals, but makes an open threat that those who fail to honour this stipulation will be further cursed…

Scary stuff.

I encourage everyone to take a virtual tour of the site.

On a serious note however, due to lack of education in many instances, and a failing medical system on the other, many Ghanaians (and other West Africans) attribute undiagnosed illnesses to the spiritual world. It is common to hear that someone is under spiritual attack. January 2011, Ghana reported that a well known Nigerian actress is suffering in this way.

ACTRESS SIKIRATU SINDODO UNDER SPIRITUAL ATTACK

The spiritual world also dominates the entertainment industry with Nollywood (Nigeria’s Holly/Bollywood) being the third largest film industry in the world, and pumping out nearly $300m worth of movies every year, many with such a theme.









I've watched a few minutes of Nollywood's finest here, with the bad special effects, showing serpents escaping from people's mouths in the night, and 'witches' disappearing with a snap, only to reappear in another scene. And though I was less than impressed, it was the hordes of Ghanaian kids, huddled around the TV in my compound, enthralled, and shrieking with fear, that got me wondering how much of this was taken as fact, and carried along into adulthood as a cultural belief.

And this week's lotto disaster has sadly answered that question.

Breakfast in America, lunch in Bhutan - What the world eats each week

Fourteen years ago I underwent 'food baptism by fire' in Ghana, having arrived in the country as a Canadian and shipped unceremoniously into the home of a local family, invited from day one to eat all my meals with them.

I spent the first few months missing diet coke and salads as well as the junk food I'd come to love, while getting used to a diet of spicy, palm oil slicked soups with mystery meat chunks and heavy carbs in the form of fufu, banku, plantain and cassava.

Though I lived with a 'rare' middle class family in Ghana, I was shocked by how cheap it was to feed the family of 5 - 7 including my son and I. Nothing came from a supermarket (might have had something to do with the fact that there were no supermarkets), and almost everything was fresh and cooked from scratch. No processed foods (except for the ever-popular but nasty sodium laced Maggi cubes used in every soup and stew!). No snacks or junk food. Beer and coke were offered up on special occasions and were quite cheap as well. (Ghana still uses the refillable bottle system and families have a case of each at home which can be returned and filled again for quite a reasonable price).

I used to meet up with fellow volunteers on the weekends and take trips to the one store filled with foreign groceries - Kwatsons (which later became Koala). We'd walk up and down the aisles and marvel at the things we recognised and couldn't afford... Iceburg lettuce at $20 a head, Frosted Flakes at $15... but for the most part the things were just not available.

Today, my life as an expat is quite different, as is the availability of goods from around the world, in the cosmopolitan city of Accra. We have a mall, supermarkets, choices. My diet today is quite different. Lots of salads and diet coke when I want it. Our weekly food bill has also skyrocketed.

To live a true expat life in West Africa, enjoying all the food comforts of home will run you between $200 to $350 a week for a family of 3 or 4. That doesn't include nights out at restaurants which constitute the majority of social interactions.

Considering that close to 50% of Ghanaians earn about $1 a day, or $30 per month, our $1000 a month on food is indulgent at best, grotesque at worst.

It has always amazed me how people manage their money here - how they can feed their families with such little resources.

I found an amazingly intriguing glimpse into the food lives of others, courtesy the great bloggess Skinny Gourmet, and just had to share.

This excerpt is from a book called Hungry Planet - in which a sampling of families from around the world open their homes up and show us exactly what they consume in a given week. Each family is photographed with their entire weekly food/drinks spread in their kitchen, and the amount spent is recorded to the penny.

Fascinating. It says so much about culture, about wealth and poverty, about who we are and where we come from. I wonder how I'd feel displaying my weekly shopping in the same way?


Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07





United States: The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week $341.98





Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11




Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09





Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27




Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53




Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55





Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03




Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23



So many things are striking - the sheer cost of living in Germany, the massive prevalence of process and take-away foods in America, the absence of all processed foods in Egypt and Bhutan and the glaring poverty of the family in Chad with just over $1 a week to feed a family of six.

Next time you head to the Piggly Wiggly or Safeway or Tescos or Pick n' Pay, think of this exercise. Where do you fit in?

Extreme Beauties

Beauty is defined by Online dictionary as follows:

beauty [ˈbjuːtɪ]
n pl -ties
1. the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind
2. a very attractive and well-formed girl or woman
3. Informal an outstanding example of its kind 'the horse is a beauty'

It makes no reference to the cultural reference points which determine what is considered beautiful. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we have to assume that culture molds and defines what the beholder finds beautiful.

This photo depicts what is being presented in the West through magazines, television, models on the catwalk - as the feminine ideal. Zero percent body fat, size zero...



This photo was posted by a Ghanaian on facebook - the comments from the Ghanaians - both men and women were all positive - the women with envy, the men with enthusiasm about the great shape this lady has (not to mention the practicality of having a table surface on your anatomy! hee hee).



There are so many factors that have come together to create the current beauty ideals across the cultures of today. Fat, thin, tall, short, some cultures promote the filing of ladies teeth into sharp points and elongating their necks with heavy metal neck rings, to the point where they can no longer hold them up on their own.

At the end of the day, we can't all meet the ideal of our societies or cultures -
should we reject them? Analyse and overturn them? Can we ever get away from the importance placed on beauty in our societies?

Heavy questions for a random Thursday afternoon - I just wanted to put up these pics that show such extremes. (I'm busy working on a meatier post about our excellent trip to Kruger Park game reserve in SA).

Enjoy!

Controversial - Obruni tears down Ghana and builds it up again

I am sure I will take alot of heat for posting this article - but it was truly interesting, thought provoking and it crudely tears open the wounds that neither Africa nor the West want to face...

A Ghanaian colleague of mine found this article on a popular news and editorial website here called Modern Ghana, written by a British man who lives in Ghana (who I have somehow managed not to meet)...

Please read the whole thing, before making sweeping judgments... by the end, the guy has come full circle on his appreciation of Ghana.

Happy reading! For those of you who really know Ghana - what do you make of this?

“What do you want in Ghana? Go back to your country!”

Are you the kwasia (idiot) who shouted this at me yesterday from your taxi while I was minding my own business and waiting for my tro-tro at Presby junction? What made you come out with such an exclamation? Was it just too much apio (akpeteshi - local moonshine), or do you have a matter you want to discuss with me? Have you been to aborokyire (abroad) yourself and learnt only the bad things from there, like racism and anti-social behaviour? Did you witness my brothers sticking pickaxes in your brothers' heads, simply for having the audacity to possess beautiful black skin, and has this made you want to treat all non-Ghanaians with a similar contempt? Why didn't you come back when I asked you “woye hwan?” and signalled you to “bra!” (come), so that we could continue the conversation? I wanted to know what warranted such an uncalled-for verbal attack, and to ask you why you are so keen for me to go back to my country. As you were too much of a coward to stop the car and allow me to answer, I am forced to write my reply down and publish it on the web for you. Your provocation will not make my readers happy- this article isn't going to be quite as positive as the rest.

SEBE.
I might have retorted by telling you that I can't go back to my country because the UK has been taken over by millions of African immigrants, asylum seekers and illegal workers, leaving no jobs, houses or white girls left for the obroni. I'll go back to my country if you can remove all the Ghanaians from there first. Or, perhaps I should have laid the blame for my continued presence here on the procrastination and incompetence of your empty-promise government, who invited me over here in 2007 for discussions that are still to be had (“The minister has travelled to South America to collect some more cocaine, the secretary will be with you as soon as she finishes playing Solitaire”). Perhaps you were just jealous of the injustice of our respective visa regulations and angry that it takes you ten times more money and a hundred times more documents to get a visa to my country than it does for me to get one to yours. Maybe out of the vexation your aboa (silly) question laid on me, I should have lied and answered that, like most foreigners, I'm here because it's so damn easy to deceive the black man and even easier to sleep with the black woman. Whichever reply I chose to use would have been an angry one: your unprovoked, out-of-the-blue comment from the safety of a speeding taxi really pissed me off. I wasn't in the mood to “fa wo adamfo” (make friends with you), buy you a Star and tell you the real reason why I'm here, which is because there's no waakye and nkati cake in aborokyire (abroad), and because the GHanja is a hundred times cheaper than the ganja. And don't you know that a true prophet is never recognised in his own country? Imagine if Jesus Christ had been told to shut up and go back to Bethlehem every time he went out to preach his Father's word.

Anyway, why do you have a problem with foreigners in your country? Don't you want us to bring in our dollars, pounds and Euros to help prop up your feeble economy? Does “Travel and See” only apply to Ghanaians struggling to get “inside”? Tourism is Ghana's third highest earner of the money you expect to magically appear in your pocket every day. The money's definitely not going to end up in your pocket if you permit the perpetuation of the paradox that the most loved tourist hang-outs, like the bambootastic Tawala Beach Resort in La and Kumasi's Four Villages Inn, are built and owned by foreigners. Your other big earners are begging the IMF/World Bank/International Donors for loans, and all your yahoo contacts and “bogga” friends and family for remittances. Doing something yourself to create wealth doesn't seem to strike you as being possible (and dozing in your kiosks and containers every day selling foreign crap to each other does NOT create wealth). If you do really want all the foreigners out of Ghana, do you want them to take all their foreign inventions and imports with them when they go? Should the Americans and Germans leave with all their cars which you sit in, should the Chinese tear up all their roads you drive on, and should the Japanese take back all their mobile phones you talk on? Do you want the Indians to leave too? How on Earth will you survive without all their razor blades, matches and biscuits? Your people will probably die of thirst if the Thais cancel all their deliveries of Vitamilk. You probably want the South Africans to head back south too, but you love their Accra Mall with its fancy apparel, expensive food and Hollywood movies, don't you? Let's also tell the Norwegians and Canadians to go back to their fjords and Rocky Mountains and take all their mining equipment with them, leaving you to dig up your own oil and gold with a stick. And just make sure that you can produce your own corned beef and rice before you kick out the Argentineans and Vietnamese, OK? Are you sure you are able to function as a 21st century citizen alone? You haven't even caught up with the 18th (toilet in every home), the 19th (electricity in every home), or the 20th (shoes on every child) yet. Should the British take back all their educational legacy, Eurocentric textbooks and Cambridge curriculum, leaving the black man to devise and implement his own more acceptable, appropriate and Afrocentric schooling system? (Well, actually, yes they should.)

The latter matter goes to show that, even though I thought you put your point across in a rather rude and very un-Ghanaian manner (you didn't even greet me first!), you are arguably correct. The white man has done nothing but rape, pillage and underdevelop bibiman (the black man) since he “discovered” it hundreds of years ago.



He tries to hide the fact that by that time it had already for thousands of years been the home of mighty empires, luxurious palaces, golden warrior kings, rich internal trade routes, and the world's first great universities, religions, civilisations and bushdoctors- a time when Europe was wallowing in Dark Age squalor and dying from bubonic plague. It's all gone downhill for Africa and uphill for Europe from then on: the white man should have been told to go home as soon as he arrived, just as strongly as you told me yesterday. Perhaps your forefathers should have had your same strong convictions back in 1471 and told the Portuguese to “Vai tomar no cu!” when all this kwasiasem began. Instead, they deferentially allowed them to build their dirty slave castle on Elmina's sacred ground in exchange for a few bags of shells and bottles of cheap whisky. Ayikoo (good going!). Why didn't your great-grandfather tell my great-grandfather to stick the Bond of 1844 up his sorry white ass, instead of sycophantically signing it, thereby forcing his own free black people to become subservient to some faraway white queen? In 1957 the “colonial master”, after making himself fat and rich through 300 years of slave dealing and 113 years of natural resource stealing, “granted” you independence of your own land. How noble and gracious of him. At the time, did your fathers follow your proud and outspoken example and cry foul over this “Mickey Mouse Independence”? Obviously they didn't, because Lucky Dube was still singing about such empty emancipations more than fifty years later.

That's one of the messages Kwame Nkrumah was trying to tell your predecessors before the CIA had him killed off. As well as Osagyefo, you have many more historical figures you can be proud of, who did stand up to the Imperialist immigrants, but can you tell me about some of them? Probably not- you didn't look very educated. Most schoolchildren should know the name of the Ejisu Queenmother who bravely defended the Golden Stool in 1901, but how many can name the Akwamu chief who whipped some Danish ass in 1693 to become the Governor of Christianborg Castle- the only African to ever gain such a status on the Gold Coast? Name the Asantehene (1720-50) who demanded that the Europeans set up factories and distilleries in Africa, instead of forcing his people to buy imported goods. When your son gets back from school tonight, ask him why MacCarthy Hill is called MacCarthy Hill, and what happened to MacCarthy before he became a hill. I'll pay his school fees for a year if he knows. The Ashantis should be proud of chopping off that white invader's head in 1824. But are your children learning about and celebrating these great people and moments in black history, so they will be inspired to become great themselves? Or are they just traipsing 5 miles to their dull little concrete schools every day so they can memorise some Babylonian nonsense in order to regurgitate for the BECE then forget it? More worrying still, where are today's freedom fighters and role models who will be the future inspiration for your children's children? Osofo Kantanka can't do it all by himself. Who is going to stand out from the crowd and make sure that Ghana 2050 is not just a photocopy of Ghana 2010 (only with more layers of plastic waste)? Your leaders will never achieve anything for you and your people by dressing in suits, flying in planes and attending conferences, Bretton Woods negotiations and HIPC summits. Don't tell me to go home to aborokyire, tell them to come back from there.

Perhaps you shouted at me to go back to my country because you also realise that no state which uses a foreign tongue as its official language has ever progressed, and no economy that relies on foreign aid, Structural Adjustment Programmes and 98% foreign trade has ever grown. Do you also agree that Africa can never develop until it breaks its dependence on the white man? Are you also aware that the West is deliberately keeping Africa poor so that they can remain rich? I can empathise with your point of view; you want the obroni to stop meddling in Mother Africa and allow her to go through her own agricultural and industrial revolutions, without which no developed country has ever been created. Next time you drive past your Vice-President, will you have the balls to shout at him that begging for Brazilian tractors is not the answer?

However, please don't make the assumption that all foreigners are wicked (only most of us). There are a handful of abrofo afrophiles with no hidden agenda who are here for positive reasons, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm one of them. I challenge you to charge me with any offence against Ghana (apart from the herbs, which I only use in my own home with a police officer present). I have never taken money, natural resources, state secrets, smuggled cocoa or trafficked children out of your country (but I do always return home with a suitcase full of Golden Tree chocolate and Mapouka Cream Liqueur: why are these delicious Ghanaian products never available overseas, but I can always buy overpriced European Mars Bars and Baileys here?) I am not one of these “foreign investors” who your government seems to love so much, despite the fact that even if these vampires invest a million dollars, they're going to suck out more than a billion in the future. I have no interest in profiteering from your people by owning a telecommunications company, Lebanese supermarket or Irish bar. I am not here to impose my English expertise on the primitive African. In fact, the opposite is true: I have learned more here about respect, personal relationships, spiritualism and good living than I gained from decades in Europe. I am not a paedophile or a batty boy. If you don't believe me, ask my wife. If you don't believe her, ask my girlfriend. I'm different to most Englishman in that I learn other people's languages, instead of expecting the whole world to speak mine. I've already written at length about the myriad reasons why I've chosen to leave my unfriendly country of birth and live in asomdweman, none of which I believe are detrimental to Africa. Quite to the contrary, I only want to lead a conscious life here and do as much as I can to help my beloved adopted country. That's why I'm writing this column- nobody's paying me for it, but I hear on the grapevine that a lot of people are “feeling” it. That's the only form of payment I desire. I'm also doing my utmost to bring more tourists to Ghana- if you and your friends would stop shitting on the beach, then I'm sure it would help to attract a lot more.

Of course, I agree with you that there are plenty of wicked, Godless, money-grabbing foreigners in Ghana who do deserve to be on the receiving end of your scathing attack, and I forgive you for getting me mixed up with one of them. They're the ones who are doing their best to keep Africa down, whether it be by stealing your oil, imposing the price of your cocoa, braindraining your best graduates, transplanting their “foreign expertise”, or forcing you to be generation after generation of hewers of wood and drawers of water. We refer to these neo-colonialists who are feeding off the dying remains of your continent as “white men vultures”. I'm sure you have heard the local appellation of “Obroni p3t3!” (white vulture) - I half expected you to add that one when you were shouting at me. Even though these people share my colour, they certainly don't share my principles, and I want to get them out of Ghana as much as you do. These people definitely do not deserve your country's Akwaaba (welcome). I can't wait for the day when Kofi Wayo becomes president- he promises to arrest all the Chinese vultures who are buying up your factories and farmlands and galamseying in your rivers, and send them all to the firing squad. With Blakk Rasta as his vice-president, there would be a similar fate in store for all the depraved sexual deviants who are coming here to rape your sons and daughters, and for all the crazy junkies who are flooding the country with their evil Colombia powder.

I might even go so far as to say that any foreigner in Ghana who is not a tourist, volunteer, charity worker, philanthropist, prophet, or anyone like Joseph Hill with a desire to help “bring back the money with the sign of the Lion on it and take back the money with the sign of the dragon on it” can be referred to as obroni p3t3. The businessmen, miners, foreign lenders, hoteliers, vehicle dealers and makers of porn movies are all here to enrich themselves at your expense, so I don't blame you for being angry when you see a white man in your country. Nor was I surprised when a Rasta man who didn't know I was one of his brethren shouted “Slave master!” at me as we passed recently. Rather, I'm surprised that I'm not at the receiving end of these anti-white sentiments more often, considering the brutal and exploitative way in which my forefathers have treated yours over the past 500 years.



I'm sick of hearing, when I reveal that I'm British; “Oh! Our colonial masters! We love you! You taught us everything we know!” If Ghana had colonised Britain and sold my ancestors into slavery, I don't think I would be so friendly to Ghanaians. So your outburst was actually a breath of fresh air. Maybe more Ghanaians should be like you and strive to kick the bad foreigners out- they're only going to continue downpressing you if you don't. But get out the car and talk to them first: there's a small chance that you might actually like them. Strangers are only friends who have never met.

Ian Utley is the author of
“Culture Smart! Ghana, the Essential Guide to Customs and Culture”

'Tis the season - Ghana supermarket style

When I moved to Ghana all those years ago, I had to leave behind all my Western consumerist obsessions – Diet Coke, Kraft Dinner, chocolate bars - even boxed breakfast cereals for my little boy were things of another world. Firstly, they weren’t available. Second, even if they were, on our volunteer ‘stipend’ we wouldn’t have been able to afford them.

But there were always days when, buried in the blur of culture shock, we all longed for a ‘taste of home’. There was a small Lebanese grocery store called Kwatsons that we'd visit, at the top of the Osu main strip, just admiring all the expensive imported foods. And once in a blue moon I’d buy a little block of cheese, or some real butter (as opposed to the cheap and readily available, non-refrigerated mystery bread fat), a jar of jam and a fresh baguette bread.

Kwatsons became Koala over the years, though I assume it’s the same family who owns it. They’ve grown and expanded and today you can pretty much buy anything you might want. And these days I don’t have to look longingly, I just get on with the grocery shopping.

Accra has a big mall now, up the other end of town, through throngs of traffic… but I still prefer the family run Koala. They really try. Last December, in the blazing heat, they set up a fake snow machine outside the door, so when you were at the check outs looking out, it appeared as a blistery winter’s day in Canada. (Now THAT’s trying). They acknowledge each holiday – from Easter to Eid and of course Christmas.

It could be said that they are just capitalizing on the season. That there’s no authenticity, no heart. That maybe the staff who string these things up have no clue of the cultural significance…

I was in Koala on the weekend, and noticed they’d put up a Christmas tree this year!

I just had to take a photo and share. Here it is (and no, I did not stand on my head to take the picture):

Today’s lesson in cultural imperialism

We have a couple of lovely visitors staying with us from the land down under. They were both raised on rural dairy farms and are quite down to earth.

I have been asking about the cultural relations between the Aboriginal population and those of European ancestry in Australia. Their perspective is quite honest and derived from personal experience as opposed to academic. They are not concerned with political correctness or viewing relations objectively. I find their candidness refreshing.

Last night I heard the following story: in the white farming community where our visitor *Pamela grew up, there was an Aboriginal grouping quite close by, living on what they called a ‘reserve’.

The story goes, that when one of the influential and well known Aboriginal chiefs died, the priest from Pamela’s village insisted that he officiate at the funeral, and ‘splashed out’ on a fancy, expensive coffin of hardwood and a plush interior for the chief.

After the funeral, the priest made a courtesy visit to the chief’s family some time later. What he found was that the body had been dug up and the children of the chief’s family were found in the coffin, splashing around in their makeshift bathtub.

Imagine the shock for the priest! I’m sure he was incredulous. To this date, the majority of whites assume that the people were simply ignorant, uncultured and ‘wild’…
_______________________________________________________________________________

So after Pamela’s narration of the story , I decided to investigate/research the beliefs and practices surrounding death and burial amongst Australia’s Aboriginal groups.

What I found cemented the notion I had about the blatant cultural/religious imposition.

Aboriginal groups have a completely different concept of what happens to body and soul after death and the traditional practices differ widely and wildly from the Christian conservatives who settled in these areas and proceeded to set up missions.

I found a highly detailed article online here (for those of you who might find this interesting), about the complicated funeral of an influential Aboriginal chief in 1997.

Basically, after a Christian funeral (to appease the ‘whitefellas’), the body is transported to a specially selected cave, removed from the coffin (which is simply a mode of carriage to the spot), and arranged on a high platform, protected from animals and exposed to drying wind.

After two years the bones are collected and ceremonially treated, and then presented to the family of the deceased in an elaborate ceremony of mourning and remembrance. Traditional belief sees the body being locked up in a box and sunk ‘six feet under’ as against the natural procession for body and soul.

Can’t blame them really…



Find here a very concise and well presented site on statistics regarding Aboriginal Australians.

*Any names of real people in this story have been changed to protect their identity.

When a dictionary doesn't help - language across cultures

Living in a foreign country provides so many opportunities to look at language – specifically the language you take for granted as your own – in my case English – and look critically at how it is taken for granted as universally understood.

The truth is that language is more of a cultural and societal construct than we realize.

Last night I got a call from one of my Ghanaian colleagues:

Me: Hello?

GC: Hello

Me: Yes, hello?

GC: Good evening

Me: Good evening
(This exact banter comprises the beginning of every telephone conversation in Ghana – except if it’s morning, then there is the good morning greeting…_If you are very unlucky, the hello, hello, hello can go back and forth up to 10 times. I’m not kidding)

GC: Holli, please can you tell me, what is a jackass?

Me: (amused) What?! A jackass is like an idiot, why?

GC: OH! That is serious then! Well I was reading on the Internet that President Obama called Kanye West that word.

Me: Well it’s true. He is a jackass. But Obama did not say that officially! It was ‘off the record’

GC: Off the what?

Me: Nevermind. Is that all? Don’t you guys know the word jackass?

GC: No not at all. Is it anything like baloney?
(This refers to a conversation we had two years ago when George Bush visited Ghana and in his speech said that the rumors that the US wanted to build a military base in Ghana was ‘a bunch of baloney’. This was totally lost on most of Ghana…)

Me: (Laughing) No! Not like baloney…

GC: Also, what does he mean when he says ‘cut the President some slack’?

Me: Oh, well he just means to give him a break, not be so hard on him…

GC: Wow. Americans have some funny English!

Perhaps they do… It’s just that phrases we know seem so normal, so obvious…

When I hung up I decided to write a little list of phrases that are common in Ghana in English, that I found bizarre when I arrived:

1. 'We know ourselves' – meaning we know each other

2. 'We’ll advise ourselves' – meaning we’ll reconsider or think twice

3. 'That girl is tough' – meaning she is chubby or big

4. 'I’m getting bored' – meaning getting annoyed

5. 'Please, I’ll alight here' – used in a vehicle, meaning I’ll get off/out here

6. 'I’m going to buy provisions' – nice fancy old colonial word for groceries

7. 'Bend right or pass right or curve right or branch right' - when giving directions it means simply to go right

8. 'I had a blast last night' - refers to a tire blow-out on a car, NOT a fun time!

9. 'He is a 'blow-man' - this refers to a fighter - used alot when identifying characters in action movies

10. 'What's for chop? What did you chop?' - referring to food - what's for supper, what did you eat?

Can anyone else give me some examples of how English is a whole different thing, depending on the where and when??

Obamarama - the mania is over but the message persists.

With Obama’s visit come and gone – been there, bought the t-shirt (two actually) – Accra has returned to normal.

Definitely the Obama family had a profound effect on the country. Firstly, the cities of Accra and Cape Coast were literally brought to a halt on Saturday, and the circling helicopters made us feel their presence.

Apart from that, there was a buzz in the air, and all radio and TV stations were focused on the historic visit, following Obama on his few planned and strictly controlled visits. The streets were lined with supporters - with flags, scarves, t-shirts...

Everyone wanted some little part of Obama – of the fame, the hope, the power that has now come to signify his name. This was a visit that topped any of the other foriegn dignitaries or prior American presidents. Ghana and Africa felt a deeper sense of connection, they claimed to welcome Obama HOME. There was a wild pride in the air...

But Obama did more than shake hands and smile and feed the politicians of Ghana and Africa what they wanted to hear. He was firm in his speeches, asking the African leadership to take responsibility for the future of Africa. He focused on the US supporting Africa’s independent development and made some giant steps away from the typical western leader’s promise of never-ending aid. At his farewell address at the airport he pointed out the Peace Corps volunteers and asked that if these youngsters had come so far to work in the communities, there was no reason that the youth in Ghana and in Africa could not do the same. And he was right.

In a way, I believe that only Obama could have gotten this message across without any repercussions of being labelled racist. After all, he is considered ‘one of us’ among Africans.

This is a point that has annoyed me during the presidential campaign last year and the ramp up to his recent visit.

How is it that a man who had an absentee father (who happened to hail from Kenya), but was raised completely by his white mother and grandparents and Indonesian step-father, far from Africa, can be called an African man?



Surely we cannot forget the woman that raised him single-handedly, with the support of her own family, while his father lived out his life continents away with other wives, other children. Where is the acknowledgement for those that played the key role in his biological and cultural upbringing, when Africans proudly exclaim Obama’s blackness and African heritage?

It all seems a bit hypocritical, if not deceptive.To put it in perspective for Ghanaians - it would be like Scottish people taking credit for the accomplishments of J.J. Rawlings. It would be like other Europeans welcoming Jerry 'home' back in his heyday, for being the first 'European' leader in Africa. But we all know that despite Jerry having a Scottish father, he is culturally a Ghanaian and there is not much of a connection between him and Scotland. This is because his father did not play much of a role in his life, and he was raised in Africa as an African. The same is true in reverse for Obama...

I agree that Barack Obama has the X Factor, that he is extremely intelligent and an excellent motivational speaker. He is one of the only politicians that I honestly believe has positive motives for genuine change.

Whether Africa or Africans or black America can take the credit for a man with his history and upbringing is quite another story altogether.

I think it’s fair that we ALL take pride in such a leader, globally, and stop harping on a simple biological fact that did not entirely shape Obama’s character.

He is a global citizen, an American, and a figure for positive change. He is not technically a BLACK man nor culturally an African – and it doesn’t matter in the least!

Hair woes - culture shock at the saloon

I have definitely written enough Ghana criticism for at least a few days. Even I am wincing under the negativity. Even if all I wrote is true… Time to think about the lighter side of life.

I received a mail today from a guy who happened upon my blog – always nice when that happens… Anyway, after the usual ‘niceties’ between bloggers, “Great blog! Keep it up!” etc., he directed me to his blog, which is actually a link to his book called The Year of No Money in Tokyo. My curiousity was peaked so I went to ‘visit’ the site. It’s got a lot of great photos he’s taken in Japan that appeal to the ‘kitsch’ in every westerner. I love the ‘lost in translation’ signs in Asia…

I also jumped around on the site and found a great post he had written, which was featured in the Washington Post, about his experience getting his first haircut in Tokyo. He is a black American guy and had avoided the barber shops for fear of the blank looks he’d get when he walked in. The complete lack of experience they would have with his type of hair, and the social awkwardness that would ensue. And it did…
I can totally relate. My hair has been subjected to a myriad of cultural ‘mishaps’ in Ghana. In fact, in hair terms, it could be called abuse.

First memory I have is back in my volunteer days – the days where I would try anything... I had happened upon a free hair treatment offer at a trade fair near my office. A local company that sells African hair products had set up a makeshift salon and was offering a variety of treatments. I decided I would be spontaneous and dye my hair.
I have had it dyed every colour in the book over the years, from nasty brass blond courtesy the 80’s fad spray, Sun-in, to black and accidentally green in my teen years (trying to mix permanent black dye with a temporary rinse that hadn’t been drastic enough), to pink (during my downtown Toronto punkish-steel-toe-boots-with-miniskirts phase), to every colour of highlights, from chunky blond to 6 colour tiger stripes…. SO, what harm could a box of free hair dye, applied by professionals do?

Bad question, worse answer. The first thing is that I got that blank stare when I entered the little flimsy walled salon (however to be precise, it was a saloon- all hair salons in Ghana are called saloons… bring to mind some bar in the wild west with swinging doors! But I digress) –the blank stares from the hair technicians and the chattering ladies in the seats. I know what went through all of their minds, “An obruni?! (the local Twi term for white person or foreigner). Obruni hair is different. It’s like straw! What would she want us to do to it?!”. In retrospect I should have followed their instincts… and turned right back around. But I am stubborn and was determined.

I piped up and shoved my way to the front of the loosely formed queue. I chose my box of dye from the shelf – it showed a confident African American lady, with a relaxed smile and very short, tightly curled golden blond hair.
The hair colour made a nice contrast with her toasty brown complexion. And then there is me. Dark brown hair. Long, straight. Somewhat pale skin (some say olive complexion, but my high school science teacher was convinced I had yellow jaundice due to the yellow undertones in my skin). Basically blond hair would not compliment my complexion. The chances were it would make me look sullen and ill, but as I mentioned, I am stubborn and was now fully determined.

The lady sat me down and a small crowd formed to watch her section my long, bone straight brown locks and lather with the strong smelling dye. Though she pulled my hair in the most awkward way and tangled it beyond recognition, she managed to sauce it all up and then tied a plastic bag around my head. In the busy salon I was promptly forgotten. I sat observing the activity around me. Sweat trickled down my scalp and the itching was intense, but I feared touching my head, thinking it might squish the toxic dye out around the corners of the plastic and scorch my neck or ears or even blind myself. So I sat patiently and waited. And waited.
And time escaped me, and eventually many of the women who had been in the salon when I arrived had left and a new set of chattering bodies filled the space around me. I was gripped with panic. I knew they had forgotten me and that the dye had been left in too long.

I frantically pointed to my head and said “excuse me” to the general area where the technicians buzzed about. One of them looked at me. I saw surprise and fear pass briefly across her face. She had realized exactly what I had realized. The obruni!! We forgot about the obruni!

They all whisked me over to the sinks and spoke in hushed Twi, one of the local languages that I am semi proficient in…I heard enough to know they were worried.
They washed and rinsed and gasped. They literally gasped!

I forced my torso upward like a rocket, pushing against their hands that fought against me. I caught a glimpse of myself and also gasped.
My wet hair was white. Bright, milk white with a yellowish tobacco stained hue to it. It glowed.

No one knew what to do. But in true Ghanaian spirit, the same enthusiasm that can convince you a shoe fits you when your heel is hanging an inch off the back, they tried to console me.

“Madame, it looks nice! It will be ok.”

I was incredulous and sick to my stomach. “NO! You have to fix it! I have to give a presentation tomorrow!” (and that was true).

They explained that there was nothing they could do for at least two weeks as my hair was now very weak and might all fall out if they tried to dye over it.
I was weak in the knees and just stood up and walked out the door, back toward my office. EVERYONE stared at me.

On the way, through my tears, one man approached me. “Are you albino or a white?” he asked, genuinely curious and definitely not shy. I just kept walking.

When I got to the office the gasping continued. My boss took me aside. “What happened? What have they done to you?!”. I broke into tears. (Tears do not go over well in Ghana unless someone has died.). Everyone was awkward. My boss started shouting about these stupid, uneducated, inexperienced girls…and she demanded we walk straight back there and force them to fix it.

My other colleagues came up and touched my hair. Many laughed, most shook their heads and commiserated with me. I just wanted to disappear. I wanted my mommy, I wanted to start the day over and not have decided to be bold and spontaneous…

My boss was a very powerful Ghanaian woman. Standing 6 feet tall with an unforgiving stare and steel eyes, you never wanted to be on her bad side. She dragged me back up to the salon and through the crowds, who parted and whispered, and she presented me like something the cat dragged in. She laid into them all, pointing at the disaster they had created. Their comeback was priceless:

“But madam! The obruni! Her hair is different! She insisted we use the product on her hair but it is not meant for her! The hair is weak and soft! It’s not our fault!” and the others all nodded in sympathy. And the all looked at me as if I could explain. How dare I try and circumvent nature? Be something I wasn’t…
I wanted to disappear.

Eventually one of the women begrudgingly agreed to dye it over with a midbrown, but her disclaimer was shouted to all the witnesses in the room. “If her hair falls out, it’s not my fault.”

The next fifteen minutes of dye time was carefully measured, but took a few slow hours, while my stress levels reached a crescendo – convinced I would be bald…
My hair did not fall out, though it remained a strange, tye dyed reddish colour for weeks and I feared even brushing it as it felt like powder that could blow away at the slightest tug…

Sadly this is not the end of my hair nightmares in Ghana. It takes a lot to tame a stubborn girl and many more cultural faux pas before I gave up on the cross cultural hair adventures…

To be continued….