Something that is standard in Ghanaian culture, and something that I will miss greatly, is the practice and art of bargaining. With the exception of foreign, manufactured goods nearly everything is open to bargaining. One must bargain for a taxi, clothes, fruits, vegetables, jewelry, food at a chop bar, and if you feel you are being cheated by the mate, you can even bargain for your tro-tro fare. I am a young man of modest travel experience. But in my short time in Ghana I have already come to realize that you will only get out of the culture as much as you want. And no matter how much you want, you will only be able to get as much as you can understand. If you do not know the language, no matter how much studying you do, you will be limited. You will be limited in the depth of your conversations and interactions with locals. You will be limited as to what you can read on the signs and billboards. You will be helpless when you know that people are talking about you, sometimes in a slanderous manner, but you have no idea what they are saying, nor can you do anything about it. And quite frankly, if you do not know the language, you will be limited in your bargaining potential. Whether I like it or not, Ghanaian’s, and most people in developing countries for that matter, view white people as rich. Whether I am trying to catch a taxi, or inquiring about the price of six yards of fabric in the market, I can expect to be overcharged. So it is imperative, and the culture demands, that I be able to bargain. I believe that the best way to illustrate the bargaining experience is through a personal anecdote. The anecdote takes place at Makola, Accra’s largest market located in the central of the city. Traders there sell everything and anything. It is quieter than it used to be as stall holders are no longer allowed to set up in the streets around the market. Nevertheless, the rabbit warren of aisles inside the market still holds plenty to see…
The markets are split into sections. There are no signs that say, “This is the fabric section,” or “This is the produce section.” However, with a few trips to the market and some time an patience, one will gain a grasp of where everything is located. Two Saturdays ago I went to Makola Market with my host father, Charles. Charles and I have quickly become best of friends so I was happy that he could join me on my trip to the market. But more than that, I was extremely fortunate. It is always wise for a foreigner to go to the market with a local. Locals have a sound grasp of the language, the prices, the lay of the land, and appropriate bargaining techniques, so I was thankful that Charles came along. As I made clear in my first blog post in Ghana, I am a man after my mom’s own heart. As is the case, I become insatiably excited by the prospect of shopping. The swarms of people crowding the walkways, the diversity of goods, and the personalities one meets at the market all energize me. On this particular Saturday Charles and I went both “pleasure shopping” and “necessity shopping.” We finished our pleasure shopping first, and then had to go buy oranges and pineapple so that my auntie and I could make our own juice at home. We needed enough oranges and pineapple for two batches of juice, and we wanted to have enough so that there would be leftovers to eat should we please. We found a lady who was selling both oranges and pineapple, and we approached her stand.
“Mepaakyew, Ankaa wura ete sen?" (Excuse me, orange seller how are you?) I said. As has become the standard reaction whenever I open my mouth and speak Twi, the woman looked at me with an illuminated face of surprise and yelled, “Oburoni ote Twi” (White man understands Twi). We continued conversing. She asked me what my name was, both my real name and my Ghanaian name. She asked me where I was from, about my family, and what had brought me to Ghana. In order to effectively bargain, especially as a foreigner, it is important that one first establishes a relationship with the seller. This makes for a comfortable, easy-flowing exchange, and it insures that you don’t come across as a flippant and ignorant tourist. People are much more open to negotiating with customers if they feel like they are gaining a friend and loyal customer in the process. After introductions and some small talk, I explained to Ese (I came to know her name) that I wanted to buy some oranges and pineapple. “Mapaakyew, meto ankaa ne aborobe” (Please, I will buy some oranges and pineapple). “Wope ahe?” (How much do you want?) she said. I told her that I wanted forty oranges and six pineapples. Ese told me that forty oranges would cost four Ghana Cedi (roughly $2.74) – ten Pesawas per orange. Pineapple varies in cost depending on the size. Ese told me that the ones I wanted would cost one Ghana Cedi each. Six would be six Ghana cedi. Ese was a nice vendor; she was not trying to rip me off. We agreed on the price. Usually when buying food, it is customary for the buyer to ask for what is referred to as a “dash,” or a little extra. I was about to ask Ese for a dash since I had was buying so much fruit. “Mepaakyew, to so kakra,” (Please add a bit) I was going to say. However, before I could ask, benevolent Ese beat me to it. She told me that because I spoke Twi with her she would give me ten extra oranges and an extra pineapple free of charge. This was very generous of her, and I thanked her for her generosity. She told me that I should come by her stand whenever I return to the market. I happily agreed. “Yebehyia bio,” (We will meet again) I said. “Yoo, mate,” (All right, I hear you) she said.
My story recounts an experience I had in bargaining for fruit. That was not the only bargaining I did that day. Prior to that, I bought two football jerseys. Nicer clothing items such as this require more shrewd, patient, and skilled bargaining. Charles spoke significantly more in this encounter as my Twi skills are too novice at this point to be able to engage in a fifteen minute bargaining battle. He did marvelously and showed me how to operate with patience, kindness, and sternness. The seller initially wanted thirty-five Ghana Cedi for one jersey, but we ended up getting two for twenty Ghana Cedi. I could never have gotten this good of a price on my own. To be honest, I probably would have given in too soon. But I am learning by experience. After all, as goes the Akan maxim: “Culture is caught, not taught.” You must be nice so that the seller finds favor with you; however, you must also have the willpower to commit to a price and not allow any efforts of man to change your mind. It is understood that when buying luxury items (such as football jerseys) the seller will mention a really high price. If you pay it, then it is his lucky day and you are a softy. It is expected that the buyer then returns with a very low offer and through patience, time, and some witty banter a “fair deal” is met. Goods sold in the markets and along the sides of the street do not usually have fixed prices. One is therefore expected to bargain with the seller. However, the prices of goods in shops are fixed, so one does not normally bargain in shops. Occasionally, especially if it is a small shop, a customer may ask for a discount or a reduction of the price. Fruit and vegetable sellers usually add a few of the items they are selling as a gift, especially if the customer buys a sizable quantity. Ese was kind enough to do this for Charles and me. We walked away content with our jerseys, fifty oranges, and seven pineapples. I plan on returning to Makola and bargaining with Ese and vendors like her some day soon.
Friday, November 13, 2009
A Little Nugget of Ghanaian Cultural Values
Over the past three weeks my comrades and I have attended a few introductory lectures at the University of Ghana. These lectures have been surveys of Ghanaian culture in the areas of Ghana’s economy, cultural values, and classes and tribalism in Ghana. This blog post is devoted to the blending of the latter two. There are many cultural values within a society. In addition to humanity and brotherhood, there are religious values, communal and individualistic values, moral values, family values, economic values, political (and in some cases chiefship) values, and aesthetic values such as art and artistic symbolism to name a few. However, for the sake of brevity and practicality, I will devote this blog entry to only two: humanity and brotherhood. This blog entry is a more educational piece. I feel that it is both an appropriate and necessary time to try to relay some of the observations I have made on Ghanaian culture through two months of living in the country. My blog posts up to this point have in large part been self-focused. I have told about my experiences, my challenges, and the lessons that I am beginning to learn. This makes sense because I was a newcomer to Ghana – ignorant to the language, religious practices, social norms, and standard living conditions. I was hardly ready or capable of drawing any accurate conclusions from the things I saw. And even now I still find myself in this weird transitory state. I have been in Ghana for two months. I am no longer a tourist, but I am by no means a local. I learn something new about Ghanaian life everyday, and this post, instead of being about me, is about my surroundings – surroundings that have proven to be both intricate and complex. Specifically, I will try to explain how the “cultural values” of humanity and brotherhood are able to be ever present in a society with such great ethnic diversity. I will draw on both my notes from the lectures I attended, and from my own impressions from the two months that have come to pas since I have been in Ghana.
Ghana gained its independence from British rule in 1957. Though Ghana is now an independent nation with definitive political boundaries, its people have retained allegiance and pride in their tribal roots that date back to pre-colonial days. There are about forty-one ethnic groups (i.e. nationalities) in Ghana. The major ones are the Akan, the Ewe, the Dagomba, Ga-Adangbe, the Mamprusi, Gonja and Kokomba. Most of the nationalities have sub-units. For instance, Asante, Fante, Akwapim, Ahafo, Brong, Kwahu etc, are sub-units of the Akan while Anlo, Some, Tonu, Avenor, Ewedome are sub-divisions of the Ewe. Each ethnic group thinks that it is the best in Ghana. It is not uncommon for certain ethnic groups to attribute a certain set of negative qualities to every other group and to each sub-unit of the latter. Even within one and the same ethnic group, each sub-division has a set of fixed prejudices and stereotypes about every other sub-unit. Thus, it is common to hear platitudes like: Members of nationality A are lazy, corrupt, pretentious, money-minded, trabalistic, flamboyant, boastful; those of nationality B are nepotic, tribalistic, wicked, blood-thirsty, inward looking; while those of C are unreliable, opportunistic, cowardly, vicious, impulsive; and those of D are lazy, primitive, backward, sensitive, hot-tempered etc.
In fact, each ethnic group thinks it is the best in Ghana. In many ways this has become a “Catch 22.” It is always good for one to have great pride associated with his roots. However, in some sever cases, such as in areas in the north of Ghana, the few virtues that each ethnic group reluctantly sees in the other nationalities are heavily outweighed by the negative traits it attributes to them. This and other dimensions of tribal ill-feeling frustrate nation-building and national development in Ghana today. Individuals or groups of people are discriminated against by people in authority on the basis of their ethnic origins as regards employment, promotion, retrenchment of workers, selection for football and other sports teams, allocation of contracts, credit facilities, etc. Thus, often times, many a square peg is found in many a round hole, misfits in jobs or playing roles for which they are unskilled.
These are a few facts regarding the ethnic diversity in Ghana and some of the symptoms of tribalism. I mentioned these symptoms in an effort to be fair and objective in my analysis of Ghanaian culture. It would be unfair to say that the ethnic diversity of Ghana has only resulted in feelings of dissonance, contempt, and racialism. Just as it would be inaccurate to say that despite the ethnic diversity, each nationality is able to live in complete harmony with the other. However, through my brief stay in Ghana, I have come to believe that the latter assertion is a more accurate representation on the whole of Ghanaians. I suppose this is true for a variety of reasons, one of the chief ones being the pervasive role of religion in Ghanaian society – the centrality of God and other supernatural beings. Religion is a large topic, and so I will devote a separate blog post to that. However, in order to be able to effectively understand the concept of brotherhood in Ghanaian society, one must first acknowledge and have a brief understanding of the role that religion plays in the equation.
Ghanaians recognize the dignity of the human being and, in consequence, hold a deep and unrelenting concern for human welfare and happiness. This can be seen in many traditional Ghanaian maxims (proverbs) and prayers that pay particular attention to life, fertility, and the birth of many children. The thoughts, actions, art, and institutions of the Ghanaian people are replete with expressions of concern for human welfare and the importance of the human being. Recognition of the value of humanity is intrinsically linked with recognition of the unity of all people, whether or not they are biologically related. This deep appreciation for humanity is reflected in such communal social structures as the clan, the extended family, and complex networks of social relationships and the Ghanaian (and African for that matter) custom of opening’s one door to strangers and showing them acts of generosity and hospitality. The Ghanaian view of humanity and the value that is attached to it probably derives from the belief that humanity is a creation of God. As an Akan maxim expresses it:
"All human beings are children of God; no one is a child of the earth."
The insistent claim made in this maxim is based on the belief that there must be something intrinsically valuable in God: the human being, considered a child of God, presumably by reason of having been created by God and having in his or her nature some aspect of God, ought also to be held as of intrinsic value, worthy of dignity and respect. Indeed, because the average Ghanaian believes that we are all children of God, we are all inherently brothers, related by virtue of having the same Lord and Creator. A new friend of mine called me his brother the first time we met. He then proceeded to ask me if I understood why he called me his brother just after meeting him for the first time. He told me, “Nick, we are all brothers, no matter what your skin color or tribe. If you cut me you, I bleed red blood. If you cut yourself, you will also bleed red blood. We may be different in appearance, but that is superficial. When you get down to our cores, we are all human beings worshiping one awesome God and bleeding the same blood.”
I believe that one personal anecdote of a seemingly insignificant gesture best illustrates the Ghanaian’s devotion to humanity. In Ghanaian society, human relationships are highly valued. Greeting people one meets is an important element in enhancing human relations and in making people feels good about themselves. The greeting is considered a way of acknowledging the other person as a fellow human being. And a person may feel deeply hurt if you pass him by without greeting him. The failure to greet him would be regarded as a failure on your part to recognize that he shares your humanity. The recognition of individuals by the social act of greeting is therefore a social as well as a moral obligation.
I buy water from the same woman everyday at work. Her name is Abenaa, and she sells cooled 500 mL sachets of water in her home across from my school. I greet her everyday on my way to school, about three times during school when I walk over at various times to buy a sachet of water, and I again bid her farewell when I am leaving work at the end of each day. However, last Monday on my way to work I failed to greet Abenaa. She looked to be reprimanding her young son for something that he had done wrong, and I did not want to interfere or bother her, so I walked by without greeting her. When I came back to her home about an hour later to buy my first sachet of water she had a hurt look on her face. She asked me why I had failed to greet her in the morning. She told me that she was hurt, and that I walking by her without acknowledging her presence made her feel like I did not take our friendship seriously. Initially I felt that she was overreacting, but I apologized nonetheless. “Mepa wo kyew, fa kye me” (“Please, forgive me”), I said. “Yoo, me fa kye wo,” (“Yes, I forgive you”) she responded.
The great value placed on human beings is also demonstrated by the response to the death of a member of the community. The death affects not just the specific group or clan to which the deceased belonged but the entire village or community. All normal economic and other activities are stopped, usually at great cost; but the values of the Ghanaian people are not in terms of economic production and the maximum use of one’s time. For them, as an Akan maxim says, “it is the human being that counts.”
Another, but certainly not the last, way in which the Ghanaian concept of brotherhood is illustrated is in the various languages. In almost all Ghanaian languages there is really no word for “race.” There are instead, the words “person,” “human being,” and “people.” So that, where others would say, “the black race” or “the white race,” Ghanaians would say, “black people,” “white people,” and so on. And instead of “people with mixed race,” they would say, “people of mixed blood.” This expression is vague, however, since “people of mixed blood” also describes people of dual ethnic parentage in Ghanaian/African societies. But, for the Ghanaian, the important point is that the offspring of any “blood mixing” is a human being – a child of God – and therefore belongs to the one human race of which we are all a part. That is all. European colonialism – the venture for economic exploitation of other peoples that started in the eighteenth century – introduced racial categories or distinctions and racialism into Africa.
Whether it is in the celebration of life through funerals, the opening up of one’s home to a guest, or the simple greeting of friends, the value that Ghanaian’s place in humanity and brotherhood is evident in their hospitable, generous, and communal nature. Earlier I alluded to an anecdote of when I passed by my friend, Abenaa, and failed to greet her. She was deeply hurt. I mentioned how I initially felt that her reaction was melodramatic. We all make mistakes. Sometimes people are in a hurry and they simply do not see you. However, after further examination of cultural values, I have come to appreciate the fact that Abenaa took issue with my failure to acknowledge her. Whether it was intentional or inadvertent, it matters not. Abenaa was not even really condemning me. More, her dissatisfaction with my action shows me that she truly values our relationship, no matter how new it may be. She considers me her friend, her brother. She strives to make me feel at ease by making a concerted effort to speak to me in my language – English – even though I am in her country. She makes mistakes, and I correct her. I in turn speak to her in Twi – and make infinitely more mistakes – and she corrects me. She is a Ghanaian; I am an American. She is black, an “Obibini.” I am “Oburoni kokoo” (literally: “red colored white man,” what I am identified as because of my slightly darker complexion and tanned skin). I am a southern poindexter. She is an Akan; her husband is an Ewe. However, it does not matter what tribe she or her husband are from because their children will be a mixture of both, learning to speak both languages. Ghanaians are highly religious people. Seventy percent are Christian; twenty percent are Muslim; five percent practice some non-affiliated traditional religion; and the other five percent do not align themselves with a specific creed. In Ghana, it is better to at least believe something than to not believe in any God at all, and one is met with puzzled eyes if he says he is atheist. I do not believe that an individual must be religious in order to value humanity and take interest in the well-fair of his brother. However, I do suspect that in the case of the average Ghanaian, one’s religious beliefs heavily influence his treatment towards his fellow man, friend or stranger alike. The average Ghanaian believes in a supreme Being, that there is one giver of life, and we are all apart of His family. Despite our differing nationalities, skin colors, and languages, we are, above all else, human beings belonging to one race: humanity. Therefore, we are all brothers and sisters. The day I walked by Abenaa and failed to greet her, I failed to acknowledge this brotherhood. It is as the Akan maxim says:
“Man’s brother is man.”
Abenaa got married this past weekend. As such, she was not home selling water all last week because she was busy preparing for the wedding. Below is a condensed and fragmented recount (for spatial and practicality purposes) of my conversation with her this past Monday upon seeing her as I was walking home from school. We met less than two months ago. Nevertheless, by the playfulness in our speech and the kindness of her words, you can tell that that does not matter. She still refers to me as her friend.
Twi
Nick: Mepaakyew, merehwehwe Abenaa. Abenaa: “M’damfo! Mehuu wo akyi.” Nick: “Mewo ho. Ete sen?” Abenaa: “Onyame adom me ho ye. Na wo nse e?” Nick: “Me nso me ho ye” Abenaa: “Yeda Onyame ase. Woreko he?” Nick: “Mapon adwuma nti meko fie seesei. Nanso yebehyia okyena” Abenaa: “Yoo, mehwe w’anim. Nante yie”
English
Nick: Excuse me, I am looking for Abenaa (Playfully looking around as if I can’t see Abenaa).
Abenaa: My friend! It’s been a long time since I last saw you. Nick: I’ve been around. How are you? Abenaa: By God’s grace I am fine, and you? Nick: I also am well Abenaa: We give thanks to God. Where are you going?
Nick: I have finished work, and so I’m going home now. But we will meet tomorrow.
Abenaa: All right, I’ll expect you. Safe journey
Ghana gained its independence from British rule in 1957. Though Ghana is now an independent nation with definitive political boundaries, its people have retained allegiance and pride in their tribal roots that date back to pre-colonial days. There are about forty-one ethnic groups (i.e. nationalities) in Ghana. The major ones are the Akan, the Ewe, the Dagomba, Ga-Adangbe, the Mamprusi, Gonja and Kokomba. Most of the nationalities have sub-units. For instance, Asante, Fante, Akwapim, Ahafo, Brong, Kwahu etc, are sub-units of the Akan while Anlo, Some, Tonu, Avenor, Ewedome are sub-divisions of the Ewe. Each ethnic group thinks that it is the best in Ghana. It is not uncommon for certain ethnic groups to attribute a certain set of negative qualities to every other group and to each sub-unit of the latter. Even within one and the same ethnic group, each sub-division has a set of fixed prejudices and stereotypes about every other sub-unit. Thus, it is common to hear platitudes like: Members of nationality A are lazy, corrupt, pretentious, money-minded, trabalistic, flamboyant, boastful; those of nationality B are nepotic, tribalistic, wicked, blood-thirsty, inward looking; while those of C are unreliable, opportunistic, cowardly, vicious, impulsive; and those of D are lazy, primitive, backward, sensitive, hot-tempered etc.
In fact, each ethnic group thinks it is the best in Ghana. In many ways this has become a “Catch 22.” It is always good for one to have great pride associated with his roots. However, in some sever cases, such as in areas in the north of Ghana, the few virtues that each ethnic group reluctantly sees in the other nationalities are heavily outweighed by the negative traits it attributes to them. This and other dimensions of tribal ill-feeling frustrate nation-building and national development in Ghana today. Individuals or groups of people are discriminated against by people in authority on the basis of their ethnic origins as regards employment, promotion, retrenchment of workers, selection for football and other sports teams, allocation of contracts, credit facilities, etc. Thus, often times, many a square peg is found in many a round hole, misfits in jobs or playing roles for which they are unskilled.
These are a few facts regarding the ethnic diversity in Ghana and some of the symptoms of tribalism. I mentioned these symptoms in an effort to be fair and objective in my analysis of Ghanaian culture. It would be unfair to say that the ethnic diversity of Ghana has only resulted in feelings of dissonance, contempt, and racialism. Just as it would be inaccurate to say that despite the ethnic diversity, each nationality is able to live in complete harmony with the other. However, through my brief stay in Ghana, I have come to believe that the latter assertion is a more accurate representation on the whole of Ghanaians. I suppose this is true for a variety of reasons, one of the chief ones being the pervasive role of religion in Ghanaian society – the centrality of God and other supernatural beings. Religion is a large topic, and so I will devote a separate blog post to that. However, in order to be able to effectively understand the concept of brotherhood in Ghanaian society, one must first acknowledge and have a brief understanding of the role that religion plays in the equation.
Ghanaians recognize the dignity of the human being and, in consequence, hold a deep and unrelenting concern for human welfare and happiness. This can be seen in many traditional Ghanaian maxims (proverbs) and prayers that pay particular attention to life, fertility, and the birth of many children. The thoughts, actions, art, and institutions of the Ghanaian people are replete with expressions of concern for human welfare and the importance of the human being. Recognition of the value of humanity is intrinsically linked with recognition of the unity of all people, whether or not they are biologically related. This deep appreciation for humanity is reflected in such communal social structures as the clan, the extended family, and complex networks of social relationships and the Ghanaian (and African for that matter) custom of opening’s one door to strangers and showing them acts of generosity and hospitality. The Ghanaian view of humanity and the value that is attached to it probably derives from the belief that humanity is a creation of God. As an Akan maxim expresses it:
"All human beings are children of God; no one is a child of the earth."
The insistent claim made in this maxim is based on the belief that there must be something intrinsically valuable in God: the human being, considered a child of God, presumably by reason of having been created by God and having in his or her nature some aspect of God, ought also to be held as of intrinsic value, worthy of dignity and respect. Indeed, because the average Ghanaian believes that we are all children of God, we are all inherently brothers, related by virtue of having the same Lord and Creator. A new friend of mine called me his brother the first time we met. He then proceeded to ask me if I understood why he called me his brother just after meeting him for the first time. He told me, “Nick, we are all brothers, no matter what your skin color or tribe. If you cut me you, I bleed red blood. If you cut yourself, you will also bleed red blood. We may be different in appearance, but that is superficial. When you get down to our cores, we are all human beings worshiping one awesome God and bleeding the same blood.”
I believe that one personal anecdote of a seemingly insignificant gesture best illustrates the Ghanaian’s devotion to humanity. In Ghanaian society, human relationships are highly valued. Greeting people one meets is an important element in enhancing human relations and in making people feels good about themselves. The greeting is considered a way of acknowledging the other person as a fellow human being. And a person may feel deeply hurt if you pass him by without greeting him. The failure to greet him would be regarded as a failure on your part to recognize that he shares your humanity. The recognition of individuals by the social act of greeting is therefore a social as well as a moral obligation.
I buy water from the same woman everyday at work. Her name is Abenaa, and she sells cooled 500 mL sachets of water in her home across from my school. I greet her everyday on my way to school, about three times during school when I walk over at various times to buy a sachet of water, and I again bid her farewell when I am leaving work at the end of each day. However, last Monday on my way to work I failed to greet Abenaa. She looked to be reprimanding her young son for something that he had done wrong, and I did not want to interfere or bother her, so I walked by without greeting her. When I came back to her home about an hour later to buy my first sachet of water she had a hurt look on her face. She asked me why I had failed to greet her in the morning. She told me that she was hurt, and that I walking by her without acknowledging her presence made her feel like I did not take our friendship seriously. Initially I felt that she was overreacting, but I apologized nonetheless. “Mepa wo kyew, fa kye me” (“Please, forgive me”), I said. “Yoo, me fa kye wo,” (“Yes, I forgive you”) she responded.
The great value placed on human beings is also demonstrated by the response to the death of a member of the community. The death affects not just the specific group or clan to which the deceased belonged but the entire village or community. All normal economic and other activities are stopped, usually at great cost; but the values of the Ghanaian people are not in terms of economic production and the maximum use of one’s time. For them, as an Akan maxim says, “it is the human being that counts.”
Another, but certainly not the last, way in which the Ghanaian concept of brotherhood is illustrated is in the various languages. In almost all Ghanaian languages there is really no word for “race.” There are instead, the words “person,” “human being,” and “people.” So that, where others would say, “the black race” or “the white race,” Ghanaians would say, “black people,” “white people,” and so on. And instead of “people with mixed race,” they would say, “people of mixed blood.” This expression is vague, however, since “people of mixed blood” also describes people of dual ethnic parentage in Ghanaian/African societies. But, for the Ghanaian, the important point is that the offspring of any “blood mixing” is a human being – a child of God – and therefore belongs to the one human race of which we are all a part. That is all. European colonialism – the venture for economic exploitation of other peoples that started in the eighteenth century – introduced racial categories or distinctions and racialism into Africa.
Whether it is in the celebration of life through funerals, the opening up of one’s home to a guest, or the simple greeting of friends, the value that Ghanaian’s place in humanity and brotherhood is evident in their hospitable, generous, and communal nature. Earlier I alluded to an anecdote of when I passed by my friend, Abenaa, and failed to greet her. She was deeply hurt. I mentioned how I initially felt that her reaction was melodramatic. We all make mistakes. Sometimes people are in a hurry and they simply do not see you. However, after further examination of cultural values, I have come to appreciate the fact that Abenaa took issue with my failure to acknowledge her. Whether it was intentional or inadvertent, it matters not. Abenaa was not even really condemning me. More, her dissatisfaction with my action shows me that she truly values our relationship, no matter how new it may be. She considers me her friend, her brother. She strives to make me feel at ease by making a concerted effort to speak to me in my language – English – even though I am in her country. She makes mistakes, and I correct her. I in turn speak to her in Twi – and make infinitely more mistakes – and she corrects me. She is a Ghanaian; I am an American. She is black, an “Obibini.” I am “Oburoni kokoo” (literally: “red colored white man,” what I am identified as because of my slightly darker complexion and tanned skin). I am a southern poindexter. She is an Akan; her husband is an Ewe. However, it does not matter what tribe she or her husband are from because their children will be a mixture of both, learning to speak both languages. Ghanaians are highly religious people. Seventy percent are Christian; twenty percent are Muslim; five percent practice some non-affiliated traditional religion; and the other five percent do not align themselves with a specific creed. In Ghana, it is better to at least believe something than to not believe in any God at all, and one is met with puzzled eyes if he says he is atheist. I do not believe that an individual must be religious in order to value humanity and take interest in the well-fair of his brother. However, I do suspect that in the case of the average Ghanaian, one’s religious beliefs heavily influence his treatment towards his fellow man, friend or stranger alike. The average Ghanaian believes in a supreme Being, that there is one giver of life, and we are all apart of His family. Despite our differing nationalities, skin colors, and languages, we are, above all else, human beings belonging to one race: humanity. Therefore, we are all brothers and sisters. The day I walked by Abenaa and failed to greet her, I failed to acknowledge this brotherhood. It is as the Akan maxim says:
“Man’s brother is man.”
Abenaa got married this past weekend. As such, she was not home selling water all last week because she was busy preparing for the wedding. Below is a condensed and fragmented recount (for spatial and practicality purposes) of my conversation with her this past Monday upon seeing her as I was walking home from school. We met less than two months ago. Nevertheless, by the playfulness in our speech and the kindness of her words, you can tell that that does not matter. She still refers to me as her friend.
Twi
Nick: Mepaakyew, merehwehwe Abenaa. Abenaa: “M’damfo! Mehuu wo akyi.” Nick: “Mewo ho. Ete sen?” Abenaa: “Onyame adom me ho ye. Na wo nse e?” Nick: “Me nso me ho ye” Abenaa: “Yeda Onyame ase. Woreko he?” Nick: “Mapon adwuma nti meko fie seesei. Nanso yebehyia okyena” Abenaa: “Yoo, mehwe w’anim. Nante yie”
English
Nick: Excuse me, I am looking for Abenaa (Playfully looking around as if I can’t see Abenaa).
Abenaa: My friend! It’s been a long time since I last saw you. Nick: I’ve been around. How are you? Abenaa: By God’s grace I am fine, and you? Nick: I also am well Abenaa: We give thanks to God. Where are you going?
Nick: I have finished work, and so I’m going home now. But we will meet tomorrow.
Abenaa: All right, I’ll expect you. Safe journey
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
