In the northwestern Ghanaian town of Wa Abu Iddi arranged for me to have a room in his compound, a compound on the other side of town from his family house where his wife and children lived with his father, his mother, his brothers and their families, and his unmarried sisters in a sprawling maze of little houses packed together, connected by narrow twisting pathways, enclosed in a white plastered wall. But Abu Iddi’s compound, the place I was to live, wasn’t a family compound, but just a small group of unrelated people who shared a common courtyard, a few couples, some with little children, a few single men, a few married men like Abu Iddi who preferred the privacy of his own place, preferred to have his wife come every day with metal bowls of food, preferred to visit her at night in the family compound. I’d rather have been in the family compound but I had little choice in the matter for I was attached to Abu Iddi. I was dependent on him and his motorcycle to get me to the people I’d come to Ghana to study, the people who reared cattle in the north, the traders who bought cattle from them, and the traders who brought the cattle down in articulated trucks to the big cattle market in the forest city of Kumasi. Abu Iddi’s family had been involved in the cattle trade in Wa for generations, he was the nephew of the most important cattle trader in Kumasi. I needed him and I needed his good will.
I had slept in my room in Abu Iddi’s compound for a few nights without electricity, for whatever wiring there had been it was no longer working. Abu Iddi said he’d have someone come by to fix it. But days passed and still no electricity. I asked him when it would be fixed and he said, not to worry, he’d take care of it. On the fourth day of no electricity I went to the market and found a booth with a sign reading, “Electrical Repair,” and I hired a man to come to my room to wire it properly.
With the lights on, I went to Abu Iddi to tell him I’d solved the electricity problem. He was furious. I told you I would take care of it, he said. You can’t just go off on your own. This is my town, I live here. You are my stranger and everything you do reflects on me. But, I said, I was trying to help, to solve it on my own. No, he said, you are not on your own. Here in Wa, I am your father, I am your mother, I am your brother. I nodded, shocked and embarrassed. Patience wasn’t going to come easily.
This whole Patience! thing has me firmly in its grip. I really want to understand it, but it's so difficult. Hasn't Abu Iddi ever been to New York. Hasn't he ever tried grabbing a cab in the rain, or ask a waiter to go back into the kitchen find out why the food you ordered almost 20 minutes ago is taking such a long time to come out? OK, I think if I hang in long enough I perhaps can start to get it. But I can tell already that there are going to be a few more bumps along the road. At least.
ReplyDeleteWe learn so much about the culture in this short paragraph, and about an author who is incredibly observant, the Margaret Mead of Ghana.
ReplyDeleteGood intentions snarled with cultural do's and don'ts! The living compounds...we're left wondering - is it that he wants distance between this stranger and his family? And is he drawing a line too firmly when he doesn't fix her electricity to the stranger's expectations...the turmoil between cultures is full of possibilities --conflict and good will intertwining
ReplyDeleteSuch a good story, so well told -- impossible to predict what is a right move and what is a wrong move in this very foreign culture.
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat little slice of this narrator's time in Ghana! I like how at the end, Abu Ibbi got mad, "you are my stranger!" This reminds me of the books I read in college about westerners and Peace Corps volunteers going to Africa and living amongst the villagers, and the clash of cultures that they experienced there. Also the cattle traders in Africa, too!
ReplyDelete