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19 November 2001 Business Names of the Week: Going Home Limited (a hearse) Modern Brains Academy (a school)
Super Power! Super Energy! Daddy Jesus When? Why Me? Keep What You Get Righteous African Star Mama Feels Good Notes on the Neighborhood I’m celebrated beyond my due by the children on my block. They rush up to me when I round the corner and laugh, then call my name in a happy little bounce through the three syllables. This is what it must feel like to be a rock star. It is marvelous. The ringleader is a ten year-old girl named Joyce, formerly known as Patience, as she decided to change her name last month. Joyce tells me stories, mostly the kind where the characters die in the end, unfortunately. It makes me immensely sad to see that Joyce has to sell little baggies of water out of a cooler in front of the U.S. embassy’s visa building all day instead of going to school. One night last week I walked to an Indian restaurant and ate great, expensive korma and naan. It was a long walk, and I was called out to almost every step of the way—nothing aggressive, though, which is the nice thing about Ghana. One group called, "Good Evening, Shorty!" I turned and asked if I seemed short to them. "I'm not too short," I said, and walked up the road. Then, coming back, I called out to them, "Hello Shorties!" They laughed and said they were calling me "shorty" only to mean "girl" because of the song with the lyrics "Shorty you're my angel, you're my darling angel." The other notable stop on our block is the Lenklin Spot, where lots of women and men congregate to have a drink or two in the evening. It is one of a few neighborhood bars that are basically sheds with windows and chairs in the dirt outside, but they manage to produce a festive atmosphere. You can drink akpeteshie there, as well as palm wine. These are both much too strong for my tastes, though. I stick to the $1.50 bottles of wine! *** Last weekend we went up the east side of the Volta and visited a beautiful village in the green, low mountains. We hiked to the Wli Falls, which are the tallest in West Africa. The hike was lovely, since we walked through jumbles of trees covered with vines. The air was clean and it was quiet enough to hear the bugs of the forest crackle and click. When we reached the falls, however, the scene changed to one that could have been MTV Spring Break Ghana. There must have more than a hundred Ghanaian college students beneath the falls with boomboxes, float toys, basketballs, and a need to yell and throw their picnic trash everywhere. The guide who took us up the paths was livid as he walked around and collected the discarded Styrofoam and cans. We didn’t go into the water, since it didn’t seem fun to be in the middle of a rowdy water wrestling match. Several of the students approached us and demanded we take their pictures, then hounded us for our addresses in the U.S. After the falls, we went to Tafi-Atome village, where there are four squads of Mona monkeys, each with forty-five to sixty members. The village has been sustained by tours to the monkey sanctuary, and we were welcomed by the people whose back yards we were invading to catch a glimpse of the monkeys, who were already mainly out of sight. We had arrived too late. But Gladys had the bright idea to buy some plantains and coax a couple of monkeys down to the top of a shed to retrieve them. So, we were able to see a little monkey business. The next day I walked through the beautiful village where we stayed and hiked up into the hills, where I was met by several people carrying things like palm nuts and bamboo out of the forest. The people in the village seemed content and called out, "Fine morning!" when I said hello as I passed groups of families or children in front of their houses or washing clothes in the stream. It was Sunday, so most people were dressed in their beautiful, church-going finest clothes. Photos from this trip » |
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