Market Economy

The streets are filled with people, food, cars, and chaos; the air is a mixture of dust, exhaust fumes and garbage. Akwaaba, this is Macola Market. As a white person, the market is often a trying experience. You attract more attention than the average patron and you are also charged much more if you are not careful. Walking through the market area is a constant barrage of “Oburoni!” and “Akosua!,” or whatever other Ghanaian name they decide to give you at that moment and every second is a potential sensory overload to the unaccustomed visitor.
Upon arrival at Macola Market via a 45 GP trotro ride to Tema Station, you are at once within a world pool of minibuses and fast moving people, Ghanaians never move as fast as they do in the markets. One must be constantly aware as this place is like a minefield of potential collision, both human and automobile, and pedestrians and drivers alike are expected to look out for themselves. It is this initial area that can be viewed as a market summary: most things that can be found throughout the market can be found in this collection of meandering rows, each about 200 meters long. If you know your way out, you reach the street and on the ‘market days’ of Wednesday and Saturday, every viable space is filled with some entrepreneurial attempt, and voices from all sides are professing the worth of their products, some with loud speakers. Some sellers have tables, others use handmade display shelves, and still others merely lay their goods out on the ground. It is often difficult to make ones way quickly through the market as walk ways are not arranged to accommodate the effortless passing of slow movers or those heading in the opposite direction. Besides this, one is under pressure from sellers; they grab your arm, shout for your attention and hold out their goods for your close, if unwilling, scrutiny. Walking through the streets of the market it is easy to get lost and easier to find everything you could possibly want than any shopping center in America.
Vendors in African markets are overwhelming female but there are gender stereotypes in terms of who sells which items. For example, DVDs and shoes are overwhelmingly sold by men, while it is a rarity to find a male, whether young or old, selling pure water from the top of his head. In a society where women are often seen as subordinate, with little economic strength, the market is their kingdom. There has been created a community within this sprawling market and each vendor understands their place in it: the new comers, the veterans, the aggressive, those there daily or those there helping a relative. A community is built every few blocks of the market as many of these vendors see each other every day. While there can be tension when similar goods are too closely set, most vendors will direct you to a specific neighbor if they don’t have a particular product and a relationship of mutual consideration is fostered.
One fundamental part of the traditional market culture, as opposed to modern, western market economy, is bargaining. While it may always be composed of the same song and dance between buy and seller, it is paramount in their relationship. “Ghanaians love a good bargainer, it keeps them on their toes.” A sale between two Africans might go something like this:
“How much for the drum, brother?”
“Oh, I’ll give it to you for 50,000 kwacha”
“What? No, no no no. Look at it, it is just a small drum. I could not possibly give more than 20,000.”
“Brother, this is a good drum, I made it myself. It will last you until your grandchildren have grandchildren. The lowest I can do is 42,000.”
“That is too much. Give it to me for 27,000.” He wipes his hands together signifying a closed deal and waits for the next sequence.
“No, I cannot.”
“Okay, I will buy it somewhere else.” The man walks away only to be called back and they settle on 35,000 kwacha for the drum, a fair price and both are satisfied.
The market is also semi-organized in terms of what items or type of items are found in the same vicinity or block. There are sections of cloth vendors, a shaded side street of school supplies next to wood working and furniture, as well as stretches of bags of rice and alleys full of kitchen supplies. While it might seem that these vendors would be in competition with each other, they have their own loyal customers. Especially in the smaller villages, most buyers have some manner of connection to their vendor of choice, usually familial. For example, they will always buy their tomatoes from their sister’s husband’s niece and their rice from the woman that attends their church. In the cities, it is often linked to convenience, but can sometimes be drawn along tribe lines. The Ewe woman would be more likely to buy from another Ewe if it was as readily available.
Markets can also be found to be organized along religious lines. For example, there is a market in the Airport Residential Area of Accra, Ghana that is centered around goods specific to the Muslim community. Whereas in the main market you would find piles of western clothes of t-shirts and denim, at this particular market the clothes in piles are all long sleeve tunics and caftans. There are also many stalls with slippers commonly worn by Muslim men as well as scarves and hijab for women. There is a mosque in the middle of this particular market and outside one finds many very old Muslim men on sitting on a row of mats under umbrellas with tins set out for begging. Begging often occurs in markets in various forms. Around the Accra mall there is a whole outfit of young caramel skinned, bronze haired children from Niger. They speak little English but they do know that touching their finger tips to their mouths displayed their desire for food. One can find these young people all over populated areas, much to the aggressive distain of Ghanaians. While seeking directions from a man at Circle, a small girl came up and tugged my arm, at which point The Man Selling Shoes smacked her forcefully on the head. Everyone wants to eat and, no matter the country, its people don’t appreciate outsiders taking their jobs or their resources. Being a white person often encourages people to approach for money or food: if their intent is to beg, a westerner is a prime target for pity. While shopping for batik clothe with my roommate, we were approached by a particularly uncouth young Ghanaian man. After being refused money he got down on his knees, and when we turned to ignore him he retaliated with a barrage of English curse words. Only after the owner suggested he try someone else did he leave while stringing his barely coherent insults behind him.
Pale skinned while wandering a market is to experience more attention than anywhere else. Vendors are already prone to making cat calls to passersby, but when to stands out relative to everyone else in your midst means you will be singled out with whatever word they give to foreigners. In Ghana the default word is ‘oburoni,’ Twi for ‘one who come from overseas,’ and it is often followed by the command, ‘bra!,’ meaning ‘come!’ Other words and phrases are thrown out but as it is assumed not to be understood, it might as well be for the sake of any Ghanaians in ear shot. Another tactic of vendors, mostly commonly from older women, is to assign said oburoni a Ghanaian name for the sake of calling it out to get their attention. Generally, the name used is Akosua, and when Oburoni corrects the name usage something like this happens:
“Akosua, bra! Akosua, you need onion!”
“Kukua. Sistah, my name is Kukua”
(pause for general laughter in the area) “Kukua! Kukua, ete sen?”
And all of this occurs in the 10 seconds between entering the vendor’s line of sight and walking to far away to shout. Knowing a few phrases in Twi never fails to get a string of laughter from those who hear it. On some level it is frustrating to be laughed at while trying to be polite and ‘do as the Romans do,’ but it comes down to the sheer novelty of hearing a white person speak like an African that reduces Ghanaians to giggles.
The modern idea of the market economy was spawned in places just like Accra’s Makola Market. While the contemporary ‘market’ is increasingly electronic and detached, it was once a very intimate choreography of community, loyalty, and bargaining. African markets are centered on mutual necessity: one needs the money while the other needs the goods; while the market financial system of the western world is often about exploitation by corporations and the slow decline of the small business man. This, of course, can all be understood by looking at the individualistic cultures of the western world, and the significance given to the family and community in Africa.
Unfortunately, I must apologize if any part of this is less than factual. It was taken purely from personal observation and conversations with friends and strangers. Between the information garnered from the porters at Volta Hall, The Lady Who Sold Me Garlic, The Man on the Tro-Tro, and a few others, it is easy to still be confused by the culture of African markets. They are unlike anything western, except maybe a ‘flea market’ and would arguably never work in those societies where the smell of pigs feet in the sun is found to be unappetizing and 3 feet of personal space is almost a requirement. While an afternoon at the market never fails to be a tiring experience, it can also be one very much about learning; learning to haggle, learning to be patient, learning how to weave through a crowd with an armload of bags, or learning when to entertain attention and when to ignore it.

If your vagina could talk...

The stage is set up like a jazz lounge, as the cardboard and glitter words reiterate on the back drop, the small tables are surrounded by six young women dressed in fitted and low cut, feet donning stiletto heels bounce atop crossed legs; thirty minutes late but right on African time, the production begins with a murmur of nervous giggles.
“In Ewe, they call it ‘kulo.’”
“In Ga, they call it ‘tuntun.’”
“In England, they call it ‘fanny,’” she pauses dramatically as she turns around, showing the crowd her full figure, “even though in America that means your booty.”
I saw an advertisement for the open audition weeks ago and was instantly curious: Vagina Monologues being performed in the most conservative country I have even visited was not an event to be missed. My mind reeled at the thought of how this play, controversial by its own American standards, would be accepted in such a patriarchal, predominantly Christian, traditional country. Would they be supportive, engaged, offended, confused, or intrigued? Would Ghanaian women want to talk about their vaginas on stage, in front of the whole world, and would their peers pay to hear them rant and rave in western feminist fashion? For the weeks between the audition advert and the production announcement I entertained these ideas, hypothesizing and analyzing, until less than a week before the production date my apprehension found an outlet with the help of Edna.

**************

During the bus ride to campus from our hall’s anniversary party the last week of January, Edna and I occupied ourselves with small talk until my interest in working with high school students came up. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, “I have a program you might be interested in.” No sooner had she uttered the words, “HIV prevention workshop” and I was ready to talk business. With career goals pointing more and more towards sex education, this was exactly what I had hoped to participate in while living in Ghana. We discussed the goals of the program, I shared my previous experience working within the field, and we parted ways enthusiastic about working together in the coming weeks. The day drew near and I felt familiar nervousness. High school students want to learn this stuff, I told myself; just remember objectivity, empowerment, and cultural relativity and the rest will flow at its own comfortable pace. The first two I was more than prepared to deal with; the latter, however, presented the real problem, I would come to find out.
I was unprepared for the degree to which this small group of willing high school students was in the dark about the basics of sex and sexuality. In many countries, mine own included, students are being let down in a very intimate way. Claiming myth as fact, selling church ideology as empowerment, and a strategy of scare tactics involving gruesome films and photographs where how I ‘learned’ about sex and, unfortunately, the group of students sitting before me that first Friday afternoon were even more starved for information. After introducing ourselves and trying to loosen the students up, we opened the floor for questions. In what seemed like an instant, the students were paying attention. While not all raised their hand, they all listened to the questions being posed and locked their eyes on the front of the room as we addressed them. One student, a gregarious first year female named Mena, raised her hand and with confidence I could have never shown under similar conditions, asked, “What, exactly, I mean, what is masturbation?” Okay, I thought, this is good. I took a breath, collecting my words before they began to spill. Edna, however, took the reins.
“Masturbation is bad. Studies show that if you do it you can become addicted and later in life your sexual relationships will not be satisfying.”
Houston, we have just lost cabin pressure.

*******************

The young women on the stage were met with a mixture of acceptance and indifference. The crowd was overwhelming white and female as, unfortunately, were the actresses. Of the seven young women, 4 were American and they were all given the more powerful, high energy monologues. The first night, the monologues remained just as Eve had spoken them, mentioning US cities, decrying the comfort of tampons (which do not really exist to African women), and chanting ‘cunt.’ Later nights, however, subtle changes brought the monologues closer to home. While there were cat calls, the few men in the audience generally played along, even if some seemed to be ignoring the stage in what appeared to be complete discomfort. There were rumors after the first night that the show was to be canceled, “too vulgar” they said. While I would not have been surprised had this occurred, luckily, it did not. The show continued in the same manner as the high school workshop: while the message was important, it was not as easily passed as I might have hoped.
As a global community, we still struggle with the idea of gender equality. Whether it be professional, emotional, or sexual, there are few cultures that do no profess a difference (if not deficiency) between the sexes. Fuel to this problem is the way in which many young people are learning about sex and sexuality. Young girls are taught about their bodies as the sexually acted upon or as the carriers of babies and boys know even less. While it might be easy to point fingers at this institution or that government, there is no such effortless solution and I cannot bring myself to say that it is about personal choice or open-mindedness because I am seeing more and more that choice and any manner of mindedness are not often in the cards.

A quick note of introduction

I have attached the February travel journal I wrote for Wellness Times, but wanted to include more details for concerned friends and family. I apologize for waiting so long to write, although, it is only just now 3 weeks. It feels like I’ve been here 2 months.
The first week and a half was spent on “Orientation.” I was annoyed to see before I left that I was shelling out $1300 for what I thought would be lame and largely unnecessary. I must now eat those words as it was an epic beginning to the trip. Unlike South Africa, Ghana EAP allowed us time as new students to acclimate with the other students in the group, forming bonds and friendships, traveling, attending a few lectures about Ghana, its history, culture, taboos, music, and languages; and generally getting comfortable with our first outlets of foreigner frustration. Rather than being thrown in an expected to survive, our hands were held and we were guided through it. This, of course, was annoying after a few days but endearing, nonetheless.
The second day we drove around Accra in a big, tourist bus. I was mortified but tried to be a good sport. The first week was stressful if for no other reason than the heat: 90 degrees, 100% humidity. It isn’t so uncomfortable now. In fact, I would liken it to San Diego in the summer.
After a bit of finagling and moving around, I have finally landed in Volta Residence Hall where the motto is “Ladies With Vision and Style.” They live up to it like their residency depends on it. There are only 10 international students in Volta, all from EAP, and that is what makes this place better than International Student Hostel, where the other 10 EAP students are. It is mostly obrunis (white people), far from campus, and not able to compete in sports unless the person affiliates with another hall. Hall sports here are key and I was greeted with much enthusiasm when I told the girls I used to long jump. After that, my participation was no longer a question. Molly is my roommate and we get along brilliantly. Her hair is very very short and super curly so she gets a lot of Africans touching it and saying it is almost like theirs.
The woman on campus are so beautiful, I’m really not sure how the men are able to put up with it. They all wear tailored dresses made from striking African fabrics of bright colors and bold design. I’ll have one made eventually but wont have the curves these ladies fill them with, unfortunately. The people are incredibly kind as it is a big part of their cultural ideology to be welcoming to outsiders. Everywhere we go, especially outside of campus, we are greeted with “Akwaaba” (welcome!), “Ete sen?” (how are you?) and “Obruni! Please come!” in which case, they want us to buy their things and mostly just chat. I’ll leave you with this small bits for now, as you have a bit to read. I’ll be blogging more often so please check that once a week or so (blakecason.blogspot.com) eventually there will be pictures.
eventually.

Lunch time with the Togobo's

Once again I am sandwiched in the back of a taxi as we bump and shift over a red dirt road on the out skirts of Accra. Today was a bad day to forget my handkerchief as the air is a constant assault of thick dust from passing cars and heavy smoke from burning rubbish. Even though it often makes me feel like a finicky, hand sanitizer-using, bottled water-drinking, restaurant eating, shopping mall obruni*, I kick myself for not having something to filter my breathing air. I try to time my breathing between the dust of passing cars while our Ewe driver skillfully maneuvers amidst sink-sized pot holes like his compact Asian import is instead a stout Range Rover. Bless, sitting in the front seat, requests the radio be turned up. The driver chatters, gesturing from time to time at the radio, and there begins a ping pong of discussion completely indiscernible to my ears but entertaining in its tone and inflection. The DJs are interviewing some of the appointed officers to the recently inaugurated president; Akorfa rolls her eyes and looks out the window: politics are for the home.
We pass young children walking along the side of the road amid palm trees and bamboo covered by a thick layer of rust colored dirt. They carry 10 foot long bundles of wood, water, and small items to sell all balanced on aluminum disks atop their shaved heads. Their poise is impeccable; why tire your arms and disrupt your center of gravity when given a few years of practice one is able to carry very large loads while keeping their hands free. I have often seen women running with such loads in the middle of traffic for the sake of selling a 30P bag of fried plantains. It is small moments such as those that illuminate the Ghanaian reality for the staggeringly large lowest class.
The short cut we have taken on our drive, arguably deemed so only for its distance, takes us through several different villages for a very slow moving thirty minutes. Still full of banku and okra soup and with fingers stained orange from palm oil after another lesson of eating sans cutlery, the meal prepared for Molly and I from scratch took 4 hours but the sibling’s plans for us was yet to culminate. “The tourist center” is our final destination, any further information must have seemed unnecessary.
Molly and I were picked up at 10:30 by an enthusiastic Akorfa and Bless, after I was invited to a home made Ghanaian meal at their home a few days earlier. “We will first take you to the market, buy all of the provisions and then we will cook you a proper meal,” she smiled broadly as we acquainted ourselves over banku and fufu at the campus food stand center. They smiled as I awkwardly ate away at my ball of fermented corn and ground nut soup; banku is an acquired taste but scores a solid 9 in its novelty. Between pauses in the conversation, I watch the women pounding cassava into a flavor-lacking concoction of dough-ish consistency called fufu. The women work in pairs, one rhythmically pounding a large four foot long pistil while a woman sits, turning and adjusting the cassava (or corn, for banku) and adding more at intervals. The result is then meant to sit for 3 days to ferment and rise before it is submerged in various soups and eaten with greedy hands. When I first met them eating on campus, only my finger tips were orange while nearly their entire hands were involved in the feeding process. Later, at their home, while struggling over the gooey consistency of the okra soup, we were told to take the soup in our hand with the banku-like dough called akbley, wave it over the bowl until it seemed to stop its dripping, turn up your fingers and aim for your mouth; and I thought chopsticks were difficult.
While we sat under the shade of their coconut trees, cooking over charcoal in the mid-day breeze, we were visited by the local school children and friends, many of whom became photographers for the many pictures for which we were asked to pose. The siblings, Bless and Akorfa, share a 7X7 room taken up mostly by a bed and television, though electricity is almost rare, accompanied by a stack of mostly American DVDs. Since their village is on the far outskirts of the city, their home sits on a roomy 50’x50’ plot of land comprised of their small dwelling, several coconut trees and cassava plants, and a half erected building on the opposite side. Buildings of similar condition are found all over Ghana. Large extended families save up enough money to begin construction and work until the money runs out, going back to their respective homes and save until they can continue building again. This means there are skeleton houses everywhere, standing grey and uncomfortable, concrete walls left half built throughout the often several storied structures, succumbing more and more to an ever-encroaching forest. “Times are small now,” Bless explains sheepishly when I ask about his skeleton-house, “Soon, though.”
While their condition is far more precarious than I would have imagined for a well dressed social worker and house painter, our drive to a reconstructed Danish plantation, the “tourist center,” brings us closer to those with even less. As we drive, Akorfa looks out the window at the dwellings of mud and stick along side those of rusted tin and plywood. I wonder which is considered the better home as she turns to us and laughs saying that these people were “primitive.” I think she must be so unaware of herself but then cede that perception is relative and change the subject. I ask her to teach me more phrases in Ewe and she brightens as I begin to parrot words and laugh at the ineptitude of my tongue.
I sometimes wonder if traveling to countries so markedly different than one’s own is a sort of masochism: the room for embarrassing yourself is huge and unavoidable. On campus people may smile when we momentarily lose ourselves and stretch out the forbiden left hand only to pull it back and blush, but in the market place doing that to the wrong person may illicit a grimace. You could easily form bad habits living on campus; they are accustomed to “us” and don’t react to our various faux pas, but on the “outside” most obibinis* know little more about American culture than blond hair and hip hop. I’d like to keep it as such, however. Ghanaians still respect each other and themselves in a way westerners are rarely capable. Greeting people is important and often the key to their assistance. Time is not money at this point in Ghana’s history and if you cannot inquire about my day, I may not be able to get the information you seek. For this reason alone, I find myself enamored with Ghana and its people, no where else have I been more welcomed and comfortable, if only in terms of new friendships and safety. Having just scratched the surface of my time here, charley, there is still big time left to go, if I might quote a bit of Ghanaian slang, and things have only begun to settle.

Translation:
Obruni: the Twi word for foreigner, often shouted at a non-African for no other reason than the opportunities of use are few.
Ewe: one of the larger ethnic groups within Ghana. Their language is called Ewe, unlike the largest group, Akan, which has several dialects, the most prominent being Twi.
Obibini: the Twi word for an African, the cheeky response to an obnoxious “Obruni!”

Gypsy 1

In the past I have called myself an itinerant. A gypsy traveler, a rolling stone, one looking to see the world and dance barefoot on sandy beaches and distant peaks. I was that young girl once and I will be that young woman in short time. This time last year I was in the middle of a 6-month continental drift. Tramping from Africa to Australia to Asia, the common thread of experience was one of intrigue, awe, and eyes-wide-open learning. The rhythm of my life spent abroad is similar to a camera shutter’s click-click, like the Canon that perpetually hung from my neck: exposure to the seemingly unconnected worlds and cultures gave me constant opportunity to open up the loving embrace of my mind, absorb the sights, tastes, sounds, smells, and then bring together all of these pixels of experience and create my own intimate picture of what that moment, those people, a whole country was for me. I feel that in some cases the shutter has yet to close and I am still counting on a return visit to solidify the final print.

Living in South Africa for 4 months, attending classes and generally carrying on in skewed normalcy was undoubtedly the nearest to South African reality that most travelers in the country will ever encounter. As a student, I saw the next generation of South African professionals straining to maintain grades as well as a flow of money to large extended families in their poor township homes. Often finding myself the singular young white woman in the places I would go, I was forced to acknowledge my age, skin color, and gender as both a huge liability to my own safety as well as a basis for trust from others. As I came under siege of both irritating catcalls from some and others merely seeking genuine friendly conversation from this noteworthy traveler, I realized that while South Africa is far less “African” than many realize, it is still an African country struggling under the weight of its past and stumbling toward an uncertain pursuit of wealth and westernization in its future.

In 2007, over 220,000 other American students were studying abroad all around the world. While the top destinations are English-speaking countries like the UK and Australia, there is growing interest in places like China and South America. Ten years ago, destinations like South Africa or India would have had new international students numbering in the hundreds each semester, compared to the thousands going to place like Italy or even the beautiful, but often ignored, Sweden. Today, however, places that were once too uncomfortably foreign, often without running water, and mostly void of reliable medical treatment, are falling in step with increased globalization and the tourist industry, backpackers and students alike are running to these cultural gems while they still are.

I will once again pack my life into a surprisingly roomy, I-could-probably-sleep-in-it sized backpack, hop on and off 4 different planes for over 24 hours, and finally land 7,561 miles from home prepared to reestablish my life abroad for no less than twelve months. This decision was made what seems like ages ago but was really only last year while I sat in the crowded, noisy computer lab at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa. This time Mama Africa draws me into her callused palm: West Africa. Really, though, “palm” is a euphemism as the African continent has always appeared as a clenched fist and wrist to me, with Ghana, my future home, nestled in the middle of its hot, equatorial thumb knuckle.

Home to one of Africa’s largest ports, Ghana was the beginning of the end as many Africans knew it as they boarded one of a stream of European and American ships that arriving there for to buy slaves. Accra, its capital and home to the University of Ghana, which I will be attending, is a bustling, tumultuous third-world capital city like many others, full of people trying to make a living in a place where they are shrinking fish within an ever-increasing ocean. I will bring with me a few preconceived notions of what life will be like there (hot, humid, cultural pride, open markets, strong Christian presence, very hot, stereotypically “African,” drum circles, exquisite languages I don’t understand) but will spare you the details until then. I am fortunate enough to once again step into the role of ambassador, both for my country and myself. Representing America this time around may just be more trying than attempting to represent the person I’d like to become while enduring the unfamiliar pressures of an alien land.

Like my camera’s shutter, my experiences will be brought in close for inspection and recorded for others to examine. My only hope is that through my chronicles, others might see the commonalities inherent in all human beings without regard to nationality or income. I have yet to meet a soul with which I could not relate on some level, whether it be recognizing what the pits of desperation can bring out in us or in the desire to help someone if for no other reason but as an attempt to show that “we are not all like they say, sista.”

We will speak soon, dear friend. Until then, the light in me reflects the light in you.

I am a current student at University of California, Irvine but call Bakersfield home. Now entering my fifth and final year as an undergraduate, I will be finishing my dual degree in psychology and anthropology in Ghana. When I am (often) asked of my future career plans, I can only smile and say that I plan on saving the world. My intentions are generally humanitarian within the growing third world, but the more people I talk to the more I see that hardly narrows it down. That is, these are all easy ways for me to explain my intention to work hard and always leave room for opportunities to just fall in my lap. While in Ghana I will be conducting my own research project and am hopeful about a proposed internship with the World Health Organization.

This is the first of a monthly chronicle of my personal African adventures. Enjoy.

If you have comment, questions, suggestion… email me at blakecason@gmail.com .

Also published in Wellness Times, December 2008