Last day as the lone Obruni

Thursday, June 20, 13

            Today marks three weeks here in Ghana, and a day more since I left home.  Although I’ve been here alone moving from town to town conducting research, it’s been nice to keep ties with friends and family back home via phone, internet, even snail mail.  Fortunately, this evening I’ll be traveling to Kotoko International Airport with James to pick up my former calculus teacher and friend, Keith Hubert, his childhood friend Dave, and a group of high school students from my alma matter, The Marin School.  Like I’d done twice before, these students have come to Ghana for a real cultural immersion experience – they’ll travel the country via public transportation, sleep in $7 a night hotels, go without AC, and eat what seems like mountains of Fufu.  I’m lucky enough to join this group, at least as far as lodging and meals goes, for my journey up north over the next three weeks. I'm looking forward to adorning the costume of white tourist and shamelessly taking photos of everything I see (for weeks now I've been very conservative, I didn't want to bring attention to myself). 

            Although I had a few plans toady, the rain has kept me in.  Immediately after breakfast, I set off for town to add some credit to my internet USB stick (without the added credit, you wouldn’t be reading this!)  To my surprise, I just happened to board another trotro with a preacher at the front.  This one was just as loud as the one the other day, but sold “Express Bibles” for 1GHC (and they were popular!).  After walking tot the Vodafone shop to top up my USB credit, I searched for some phone credit, and ended up just returning to Fise.  Here, I picked up a few mangoes and a pineapple, as well as some more phone credit, before the storm that has been looming overhead the last few days finally hit.  Ever since then, I’ve been stuck in my room listening to the thunderous downpour and joking with Pamela, who now wants to marry me (it’s a common request I get as a well-off white guy, you’ve got to take it with a very large grain of salt).

            I don’t have much more to say today, so I’ll end on this small interaction.  As Pamela and Jane cleaned my room, I tallied up my expenses from the past two days, NOT including lodging and meals here at the lodge.  I buy in bulk when I can, and the expenses followed: 9GHC for 5 waters, 7 GHC for 3 Mangoes and a Pineapple, 22GHC for phone credit (about 4 hours) and 45 GHC for my internet for the rest of my time in Ghana.  All together, the total was about $42.  Pamela looked over my shoulder and asked what I was doing.  It took her a moment to understand my expenses book, but she pointed to the 45GHC Vodafone charge and said “You have spent my salary.”  Not a daily salary, not a week’s worth, but a month.  Although I consider Ghana to be on the rise in economic terms and stable as a democratic country, it’s clear that my conception of what reasonable prices and the value of a Cidi are far off from reality here.  I didn’t say anything to Pamela, and she left, wistfully humming “here comes the bride.”