Lifestyles of the Far-flung Expat

Life as an expat in a far away land can be so varied, so many diverse experiences await you. But the one thing you are pretty likely to have in common with every other expat is the annual trip home.

You will be sitting with your desk calendar months in advance, plotting and planning and marking the potential dates… then you wait. You get on with your own reality for the time being.

But then, before you know it, time will have eaten itself in silence and you will notice the penned circle on your desk calendar, pinpointing a number which is approaching with speed. The blue ink swirls, a reminder that you aren’t prepared!

You will find yourself, a few weeks before the annual departure date, stealing time at the office, scouring TripAdvisor and cheapcarrental.com and booking the many flights…
oh the flights. Because there will no doubt be more than one place, one family, one set of friends to visit… not to mention the dentist appointments and drivers' license renewals! As an expat, your holidays are not your own. You know there will be time juggling ahead, and that despite your best efforts to spread yourself as thin as possible on those limited days… there will always be someone slighted, an old friend or aunt that feels hurt that you didn’t make that call, arrange that afternoon for tea. Sigh…

And there are the self-inflicted expectations… Afterall, you live in a tropical hothouse and hence you can’t very well return home, pasty - looking as if you haven’t been outside in months. So despite it being the rainy season in your adoptive home country (when you are lucky to see the sun poke it’s shining face through the wall of clouds for a few minutes in any given day), you wake on those last few Sunday mornings before the departure date, praying to various gods, just to allow you one hour to bake a bit, to tease out a slight bronze from your milky depths… to no avail. But you push this to the level of embarrassment, by donning a bikini, gauzy cover-up, and flip-flops, packing up your big beach towel and favourite book and heading down to the pool. You pass security guards and grounds staff in their winter’s finest – toques and windbreakers, and nod a quick hello. You lie, like the underbelly of a fish, a greyish white, on the recliners, chilled by the prickly breeze. You might be defiant, but you are betrayed by your skin - like a plucked raw chicken, you shiver - you are laughed at by the thick storm clouds above. Eventually you retreat in total defeat and pass the same staff, chuckling inwardly they must be, at the habits of these silly Obrunis**.

The last Saturdays hold their own pressures. You will suddenly start to appreciate the rich culture around you, the artifacts and beautiful fabrics, you will see all the vibrant colours and you will be thinking… gifts! Who recently had a baby, who will be celebrating their birthday while you are visiting, who would appreciate that special something that doesn’t come from a generic chain store at a western shopping mall? So therein follows the mad last minute panic shopping. And then you get all this nic-nacky stuff home, spread it out on your bed, beside the battered suitcase, and you wonder… does anyone really want all this stuff? Sigh…

You will realise that the beauty that these artifacts represent, is not in the items themselves, but in the boisterous sellers, in the jovial banter of the bargaining process. The beauty of the colours is reflected in the sun and the smells and the culture that they are a part of. And once removed from their environs, wrapped in your case and carefully unraveled on the other side, it is only your stories that accompany the gifts, that will breathe life into their fascinating charm. You can try to describe the lady, with the sleeping baby strapped to her back with a soft, worn wrapper tucked so carefully; her headload towering two feet above her small frame, who took the time to indulge you, who laughed and joked with you, and gave you a good price... Deep down you will know, sitting in a western living room, observing the glazed eyes around you – there will never be enough words to describe what constitutes your daily life, back home in expat-land.

There will be no words to cover the vastness of the open markets, where you were bumped and jostled along, loving every minute of the hustle and bustle, the voices, the cargo, the cloth, the charm, where you did your final shopping.

You will never be able to convey your ecstasy last week, at finding Cheddar flavoured Sun Chips (what?! In Ghana?! OMG!), on display out front of a random roadside shop, so excited in fact, that you almost caused an accident with a trotro and a traffic savvy goat, just to pull into the lot to buy them. Not to mention the cavernous open gutter you narrowly missed being engulfed in, to get there… and then to think to yourself, “Oh no, I’m supposed to be on diet this week, so I don’t look like such an elephant in my swim gear at the poolside barbeques back home”, and “now that I’m traveling, I could get Sun Chips every day!” Sigh…

But you will have fought the airport crowds and discomforts of the day long journey, and you will be home. To the familiar faces and smiles and the laughter that doesn’t forget you and invites you back in every time. As the partial observer you are, even of your own culture, you will notice the flaws and the beauty of those who will always love you, and who despite all your running away in life, you know you will always love in return. The time will be fleeting and the days will melt together, and before you know it, you will be back in expat-land to your alternate reality. And you will feel absolutely exhausted, and at the same time ‘at home’.

Getting arrested, the Triple F cups and the Chameleons

Memorable moments from Makola market...

These days I’m quite careful about what comes with me on our indulgent Saturday market visits. After all, it is a crowded market in the 'developing world' and theoretically I and my friends would be walking targets... I usually wear a pair of multipocket pants that can house little wads of small bills. I don’t wear any jewellery and I leave my watch behind. Because of what we’re likely to step in, I wear the most basic chale-wotes (flip flops) that can be easily washed off, and most of all, I leave my iPhone behind.

This is all precautionary, since despite the swarms of people I find myself amongst, I’ve never had a thing snatched or stolen. In 13 years of Saturday market adventures.

This week’s visit started out more exciting than most. I drove into my trusted parking lot at the edge of the chaos that is Makola, lost in the stories of my market buddies T and J as we chatted in the cocooned world of my air-conditioned 4x4. Targets on wheels in this case...

As I came around the corner, a uniformed female police officer was in my path and made some motion to me. I assumed she was ‘asking’ if I was turning into the parking lot and I nodded and headed on in. I parked and we gathered ourselves, ready to head out into the heat and congestion, when at my passenger door there was the same police officer and her male colleague, faces pursed and annoyed. I knew immediately NOT to open or even unlock our doors, and feared we had a long tedious argument on our hands.

I rolled the window down half way. They immediately started with the verbal assault.

Female officer (indignant): “Madam, why?! I was arresting you, and then you kept driving! You didn’t mind me!”

Me: “Oh! Madam I didn’t realize! I was just parking. What did I do wrong?”

Male officer pushing forward with furrowed brow: “You are arrested for passing through the traffic light.”

Me and friends: “WHAT?!”

MO: “It was red!”

Me and friends: “No it was not!”

I knew this like I knew my own name. The truth is that though I have my Canadian driver’s license and I keep it valid, I haven’t updated my Ghanaian one since 2000. *Bows head and blushes*… Maybe I am lazy, or more likely it’s that I like living on the edge. Some bungee jump, I drive with a non-valid license… Anyway, for this reason, I make sure I do NOTHING wrong on the roads, lest I find myself in a situation such as this one!

For this reason I knew the officers had simply spotted a few obruni ladies and figured ‘easy target’ for a Saturday shake down… But we weren’t having it.

Just then, MO shoves his sweaty aggressive hand past my friend, indicating at me,

MO: “Where’s your license and registration? Give it!”

We ignore this demand the first time around, hoping the argument T has sparked with the FO about how she is sick of Ghanaian police taking advantage of obrunis, would sway his attention. But he asked again.

Me – really hesitantly: “Please I don’t have it with me”

MO – “Ah! Why?” deeply furrowed brow now… (I’ve given him some ammo!!! Oh no!)

Then the din of T’s indignant protest, assuring them we did nothing wrong and that they were unfairly targeting us, became quite loud. And a miracle happened. Their brows slackened and they backed down. No bribe, no demand that we be taken to the station for processing…

MO: “Do well and be honest. You passed through the red light, but I’m just warning you.”

Me: “I did not run the red officer, and thank you.”

And they skulked away, without a pesewa of bribe money. We felt proud and relieved and giddy. It’s not that often you get arrested and then let off with a warning!



And then we were free to start our market adventure. Phew! Ghana police 0, market mongers 1!

As we headed out of the parking lot on foot, J glanced to her side, to the mobile phone seller’s wooden hut a couple meters from us. She cringed and grabbed my arm.

J: “Oh my god! That was…oh… bad.”

T and I: “What? What was it?”

J: “The man in there that was petting a cat… he just squeezed it’s head and shoved it in a bag. Next came the hammer.”

Me: “Oh. I’m sure that was the meat for today’s soup. Sorry-o. They do eat cats here.”
J: “I know, just didn’t want to witness the slaughter…”

Ok, onto the street. Deep breaths. After all, this is adventure day!

And all around us life swirled and screamed and splattered itself across the pavement. Carried along with the tangible heat and jostled limbs.

We browsed the 'selection' clothes that the girls line the streets, selling by hand, and hid them when the AMA goons came by to whip them or steal their goods in a bogus attempt to 'clean the streets' of hawkers... I found a near exact replica of my favourite expensive perfume for GHC18 (about $12), down to the Made in France label. I opened it and tried it out... Exactly the same as the real one! Market bargain!! (That one made my day, really). I won't however, mention the little tied black plastic bag, literally full of shit, that T stepped in, since there was a trusty 'pure watah' seller on hand and a full on the spot wash of the chale-wotes was done...



I was struck by all the things around us that needed documenting! That needed to be photographed. But alas, in my caution of ‘traveling light’, I left the trusty iPhone at home. So it wasn’t to be.

I’ll have to leave to your imagination the transvestite in full yellow leotard in Rawlings Square, dancing for the huge crowds, his painted face melting through the streaks of sweat…

The huge bowl of dried, once alive, chameleons for sale, alongside buttons and brightly coloured cloth and Maggi cubes… just in case you need to cast a spell after cooking and sewing.

The triple F cup naked mannequin, proudly jutting out of the little shop selling cheap Chinese ladies clothes. She stood in front of two other less endowed mannequins, with a rack you’d find difficult to fit any shirt over… How, why?

The how and the why of the market are never answered, which is what gives it the intrigue and the charm. It leaves us all covered in dust and sweat and with fresh coconut juice pouring down our faces, slurped and gulped straight out of the coconut, sliced open for the parched, by a machete wielding seller. It leaves us with the deep desire to come back again the next available Saturday.

Drive-by shopping in Accra

Yesterday was a holiday - there was holiday traffic in Accra. Today was a business day - there was weekday traffic in Accra.

We left the office midday to head off to a meeting - but the roads had different ideas of how we should spend the next hour and it wasn't sitting around a boardroom table. That would come later (after we'd made calls apologizing for being late due to traffic).

In the meantime -I thought I'd expand on a post I once did - that listed all the items for sale by hawkers in traffic...

This time it's a visual account. Enjoy!!

When traffic came to a standstill, the hawkers lined the streets fully ready for business...

Tiger nuts. These fibrous little balls grow in the ground and taste like coconut... Personally my mouth just ends up full of dry little bits after a while. Not my snack of choice...


Pillows. This guy was definitely hoping for a bulk sale. He was swamped by his wares!


Pirated DVDs - usually with three sets of indistinguishable subtitles embeded... they sell pretty much anything from Africa movies to American series, but the 'shoot 'em up movies seem to sell best...

Designer ties! No less than Burberry, Gucci and Giorgio Armani. Notice the white gloves for his delicate merchandise.

"Wanna buy a watch" - I get visions of a guy in a long trench-coat.


Loved this seller's t-shirt. Canadian Idol!! He had a complete barbering set and a scale for sale...


A single pair of men's shoes. He was really convinced I might want them. How did he know they were my size?! :)


Shoes for the whole family. Now that's more like it!! Especially liked the USA flip-flops.


Boiled peanuts (which are quite good and as addictive as any snack food), and dictionaries...


Ties.


Popcorn (sweet or salty)


Plastic wall clock. Like gold!


Unrefrigerated yogurt drink. I always fear the wrong kinds of active bacteria will be in there after a day in the sun in traffic...


Basketballs, footballs (Soccer balls) - these must do well...


Salted cashews and cashew butter - yum!


Handkerchiefs - everyone seems to have one in Ghana for everything from sweat removal to nose blowing.


Various power bars and sockets and even a universal television remote. This guy was a walking hardware store.


This was my favourite. The portable gym - Tummy Trimmer AND a scale to check if it's working!!!


Last but not least - the lord Jesus poster. The bigger the better for your lounge.

The Ghanaian Job

Or, The Expat Experience, or 'An Exercise in Frustration'...

So my friend and interior decorating inspirational counsellor and I conspired to revamp my son’s bedroom and bathroom recently.

In our attempt to do it all on the cheap in a company provided, 70’s throwback style house (which was incidentally the Libyan Embassy in Ghana before we lived in it…), one of the aspects of our clever plan was to paint the en suite bathroom walls gold (to bring out the best in the hideous tiles). I mean, seems natural enough? No? Well, you’d be surprised how difficult it is to find gold paint in Ghana. Or maybe you wouldn’t…

So, as we do, we picked a Saturday when we were feeling particularly brave and energetic, and headed into ‘the Market’, the infamous neverending rolling squalor of Makola…There is a saying that anyone who has traversed the pathways of Makola knows, ‘You can find anything in that market!’ … but you might not find your way back out!!

So true to it’s legend, as we trudged through with green solid slime gutters underfoot, chickens and goats skirting around, and a constant flow of hot pulsing bodies surrounding us under the oppressively beating sun, we poked in and out of crowded alleys and deeper and deeper into the abyss, and alas we stumbled upon some sellers with.. wait.. GOLD SPRAY PAINT!!! So I bargained and bought two tins. The seller assured me this would easily cover a small bathroom. (All the walls are tiled halfway up).

We found our way out of the maze, after walking the ‘gauntlet’ of used clothes sellers, and buying more than a few “Selection, Madam!” items…at about $2 each..

And as things go in Ghana, we didn’t actually plan to do the dirty work ourselves!
We’d have Eric, the house help do it… Therein lies the ultimate Ghanaian experience. You want something done. It seems simple and straightforward. You convince yourself you are too busy etc. and ask the ‘helpers’ to do it. What could go wrong???

Silly question, really. Monday morning I armed Eric with three week’s worth of old Sunday Times, an industrial roll of tape, and the two spray paint cans, with strict and precise instructions – cover all the tiles, ceiling, sink, toilet etc. with the papers…

Monday I arrived home from work and opened the door of the bathroom… drum roll please…

The two empty spray cans tossed on the floor caught my eye first. Then the white walls... What’s wrong with this picture?

Then I opened the door further and there in the back corner behind the door, on a 2 x 2 ft. section of the wall, was gold.spray.paint. Newspaper was taped to the tiles below, about a half inch below where the tiles begin (hence the top of the tiles is now gold spray painted), and every few inches a piece of tape, placed vertically, right into the spray painted area of the wall. So that when you remove the tape, there is a tape shaped white rectangle on the gold portion of the wall.

Question to self: Where is Zen when you need him? Deep breaths. This is funny, right? Cute even... Don't snap, just avoid Eric for the day...

Really I should just leave it. What did I expect when I said, tape paper over everything? That it was assumed the REASON for this was to create protection from the gold paint? And how else would one tape up the paper, if not with thumbstrips of tape?! You mean you wanted the paint to be uniform?

I looked up at the ceiling – a fine mist of tapering gold…

When I asked Eric, determined to stay calm, about all these absolute F^&%^ ups, not to mention the fact that he didn’t bother to spray across the wall but over and over on the same spot until both cans were completely empty… he shrugged and said “Oh Madam, the paint wasn’t plenty, o. The man who sold it to you was cheating… And I forgot about the paper for the ceiling. Also, I don’t know how to put paper up on the ceiling. Madam, please, it will fall. …”

I’m tempted to give up, just as is and leave the mess that is there. After all, TIG (like “This Is Africa”, but my more dear to the heart version, ‘This Is Ghana’…). But I just can’t. So I will painstakingly explain what I REALLY meant the first time about the tape and then describe how one goes about spray painting, and send Eric himself into the market to find more of the paint…

I’m a glutton for punishment and Eric may never find his way out of the market…

Cosmopolitan Ghana - the Accra of today

The Accra I met more than a decade ago, on my arrival in Ghana was a crowded, hot humid yet dusty hive of activity. For the naïve volunteer set, of which I was a gold star member, it was an overwhelming sense of the absoluteness of cultural difference. There was nothing remotely familiar and we basked in the alien experience.

All of us were from the west, where a market is a tame organized centre for buying a variety of goods. In Accra the experience was quite different.

We were a procession, a snake like pinkish spectacle, chained together by sweaty fists and with a look of fear and excitement in our eyes. All conscious of where our money was hidden – strapped to our moist middles, under our cotton t-shirts and missionary style long shapeless flower skirts (prescribed by the NGO offices back home). We were paraded through a real market – African style.

People as deep as quicksand, we sunk deeper and deeper, away from the paved road into the colours, smells and sounds of the market. Smoked fish piled high on balancing trays, hundreds of tomato sellers in narrow rows, wide smiling African mamas, low down, faces behind their identical wares, each hoping their charm would win buyers and they would rise above the anonymity of their trade, to make enough to feed their family for the day.

We pushed on by, and through, sweating and squinting and averting the hoards of brown smudged fingers that reached out at our inadequately protected, sun beaten, damp white skin… shouts randomly from all directions, above the black heads and fleeting rainbows of colour and patterned cloth, “Obruni, obruni!!!”.

We managed to push our way through and were led single file past a grimy door into a tiny room. It was cooler and quieter than the outside, but the hum of the market surged palpably behind the grease coated glass. It was a Chinese take away. Our guide had apparently heard that Westerners like Chinese food and this was to be our treat, our solace for the day. The room had a few plastic patio tables with rubberized flower patterned table cloths. Each table boasted graying dust caked plastic flowers in tiny decorated pots. Roaches and ants scurried about. Random people leaned or slept at the tables. Just beyond the ‘dining room’ was a visible kitchen – the walls coated black with fuzzies caught in the dull greasy layer – far above the wall appeared to have been painted blue in some distant time. The metal surfaces were covered in random wilted vegetables and dirty piled plates.

We all stood huddled. There was an unspoken agreement that none of us were eating anything from this place. We compromised and ordered cokes. The reluctant waitress was woken up, wiped the saliva from the edge of her sleepy mouth, and as if in slow motion, she moved across the room to gather the bottles from the loudly buzzing overworked Coca Cola fridge. We rubbed the rust from the tops, and gulped the luke warm syrupy liquid, just wishing we could be transported magically back to the main road, to become invisible, to be out of here. Instead the return journey was more of the same and the group whined, complaining of sun stroke, heat stroke and bad tummies. Food choices that evening would be from very local, very peppery, very sketchy roadside ‘chop bars’. The restaurants in town were few. Either massively expensive and out of our reach, or more like the Chinese take away…

This was a typical first induction into being a volunteer in Ghana. Those of us who stayed – not many – have learned so many lessons since then. The market still thrives, writhes, dances daily. But now we know how to navigate. We’ve discovered there are actually things to buy and we can now bargain with the sellers, amusing them with local terms. We can be cut throat in our bargaining techniques. We are no longer amateurs.

But those who arrive today, in 2008, meet an entirely new Accra. The cosmopolitan city is arising, despite the persisting poverty and the traditions and the resistance. There is a new Accra for the trendy set, the academia and the professionals alike.

Today I found myself alone at lunchtime and popped in to ‘Cuppa Cappuccino’, a funky café near my office serving great salads, wraps, sandwiches, smoothies and of course – cappuccinos! In the big bowl mugs…

On any given day, the clientele pile in and out – alone to write or surf the net using the wifi, or in groups, chattering and nibbling and sipping. All dressed in 2008’s trends, talking about the relevant political and social issues affecting the world in general, and Africa specifically. Most are foreigners but definitely not all. In fact the groups are quite mixed.

Today I was alone so I observed. The scene was something absolutely unheard of 10 years ago.

The waitress smiles and is efficient and remembers my order. She sees I’m alone and brings me a few magazines to browse through while I await my greek salad and Diet Coke. I open a thick shiny mag with a gorgeous profile of an African model on the front. The make-up and lighting make this photo true art. I open the pages haphazardly at first, flipping along through glossy photos and adverts and admiring the artistic edge. Then I recognize some of the advertisements and the local jewelry in the modeling shoots. It’s a local magazine! On the cutting edge artistically and stylistically. Another absolute impossibility 10 years ago. Back then all printing had to be sent out of the country, or the images would be overlapped and discoloured, words cut off mid sentence…

This was something else. I wanted it as a coffee table centerpiece. It was called Canoe Quarterly. However, it is so ‘cool’ that I could not find out how to order it. But there was a web address: Canoe Quarterly. I visited the modern simplistic site and found some of the photo shoots from the magazine. The one below is from their site and speaks for itself…



So, I left the café, bumped into a few acquaintances at the other tables - some expat teachers from the International school, a couple of South African geologists… Then I heard many voices on the patio and noticed on my way out, a table of 12 new volunteers on their orientation. I knew this because they exuded newness, inexperience, and openness. Their Ghanaian guide was briefing them on some aspect of Ghanaian culture, while they sipped Mango Manias, café lattes and picked tiny triangles of brie and avocado sandwiches from their plates.

Things sure have changed since my day…