Mamobi Mary, the Banana Lady...

As my time here is Ghana is starting to come to a close, I find myself philosophically looking at what mark I have left on Ghana, and what mark Ghana has left on me. I know that many of the students here are wonderful; funny, energetic, creative, and they have certainly left an impression on me that will last for years to come. It is my hope as a teacher, that I have made a positive impact on them that will not be too quickly forgotten. As much as my year here has been about teaching, education, and students, I believe that it has been about something greater still.

The whole mission of the Fulbright program is to encourage and promote "mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries of the world." This being stated, I have also found it to be true. My time here has been full of amazing adventures and experiences that will leave me with a lifetime of stories. None of those stories, adventures, or experiences would be possible if not for the connections made with other individuals. In my own thoughts on the topic, I keep coming back to the word “connections.” I am not sure how exactly to explain it, but here is a story that may help paint a picture.

One of the most rewarding experiences that I have had in Ghana thus far has been the connection I have made and friendship developed with the “Banana Lady.” Her name is Mary, but I rarely use it as I learned it 7 months after meeting her. Outside of Accra Girls’ School, at the entrance to Mamobi (a poor, but respectable, neighborhood) there is a women who sells bananas, oranges, pineapples, papayas, and groundnuts (peanuts). All of the fruit is beautiful. Just across the street, further away from the school, “Banana Lady” sells the exact same fruits for the same prices. When I first arrived here, I bought bananas and things from the lady just outside of the school, but I never made any connection with her and our dealings were always very business-like. One day I happened to walk by “Banana Lady”, bought some groundnuts and she was nice and we connected. Since then I will only buy from her. She is great and I love her. At lunch during the week I will go and sit with her on her bench, have a few bananas and some groundnuts, and just talk with her. Every time I travel she gives me a jar of groundnuts to take with me and she will always “dash” (give) me extra fruit. Most of the time she does not even charge me- a women who may make all of 4 or 5 dollars in a day will just give me fruit for free, knowing full well that I can pay easily. Sometimes I will take what she gives me, but then the next time, I will give her twice as much money as needed and tell her I don’t want change. I have introduced her to most of the other Fulbrighters and they will, on occasion, come and visit her. When I bought my moped, I stopped by and gave her a ride. Most Ghanaians that I have met want something, but she is just as friendly and as genuine of a person as I have ever met.

Now that my sister is here, each day we will go running together and finish at the Banana Lady’s stand. Often times the highlight of my day is the hour or so after my run. I usually feel pretty good and I sit with Mamobi Mary, the Banana Lady and my sister on the corner where she sells. Next to her, is a lady who sells corn each night and Evelyn, a 14 or 15 year old girl who de-tassels the corn for her. For that hour at dusk, my sister and I will help Evelyn de-tassel corn and talk about what she learned in school that day and what she wants to be when she grows up. We will play with the children that always seem to be at the corner; Patrick, Monica, and Regina. I tickle Regina until she smiles and yells, swing Monica until she is dizzy, and tease Patrick about being a Kotoko (a local soccer team that he hates) fan until he smiles and just shakes his head at me. The corn lady has taken to trying to give my sister and I each an ear of corn each night. She is quiet, but just as sweet as Mamobi Mary. Mary herself will sit and watch out for us and periodically yell to me that a passing trotro is going to Nima (a ghetto in Accra that is well-known to be full of thieves and criminals). She yells “Nima boy, this is your trotro.” I call her a “Nima Girl” and she says “No, no, no; Mamobi Girl” and then laughs like only Mary can laugh. All the while the pure water girls are dancing and chasing after one another and from time to time they yell to me “Hey, Nima Boy.” Each day before we go she tries to give my sister a mango, bananas, pineapple, or groundnuts. Never will she give me something, but always to Susan, knowing full well that I will probably be the one that ends up eating most of it.

However, the connection is stronger than just an hour or so each night. Whenever I go out to buy food on the street, I will always buy twice as much and split it with Mary. Usually, I will sit at her stand and eat with her while she sells bananas. In return, Mary has given me much more. On multiple occasions she has made dinner for me; when she goes to market to buy her fruits, she will always buy an avocado or two just for me, and when I finish running she is there to hand me a sachet of cold water. Before President Obama visited Ghana, I walked out to see Mary wearing a polo that had a picture of President Obama on the front and President Atta Mills of Ghana on the back. She was so very proud of it and when I told her it was very cool, she presented me with a one of my own. It is a second hand, stained, XXL, white polo with the two men’s pictures; a gift that I will treasure forever. That same day, in the evening, she, without me knowing, gave my sister a set of earrings and a matching necklace. In terms of Ghanaian standards, the jewelry was expensive. There was no talking Mary into taking any money for them. Instead, she did except the earrings that my sister was wearing in return. Each night she continues to try and give my sister some fruit or something out of the goodness of her heart. So many Ghanaians see Americans and want money or a visa, but Mary has never asked for either or for anything.

I have greatly enjoyed my time here in Ghana and in West Africa. The most rewarding experiences that I have had have been making connections with people. Of those connections, the one with Mamobi Mary, the Banana Lady, is truly the epitome of my entire Fulbright experience.

President Barack Obama...

Yesterday President Barack Obama visited Ghana and the entire country was in a tizzy about the trip. The visit has been the talk of Accra for a month now and going around town one cannot help but notice the American flags everywhere, the banners with pictures of the President and the First Lady, Michelle, that “Welcome Home” the First Family, and the cloth that has been specially printed with different variations of pictures of President Obama, the First Family, and Atta Mills, the Ghanaian President. It is interesting to note that as much as Americans feel that Obama is their President, Ghanaians feel much the same way based not only on ideology and policy, but also (if not more so) on skin color.

Albeit President Obama’s first visit, and only stop in, sub-Saharan Africa, it is not the first time that a sitting US President has made the trip to Ghana. Both President Clinton and President George W. Bush have stopped, on separate occasions, in the country and were each warmly welcomed. President Clinton addressed millions of Ghanaians in Accra and President and Laura Bush visited hospitals and donated millions of dollars in aide money (the “George Bush Highway,” as locals call it, is currently under construction in Accra).

However, the fervor for which Ghanaians greeted Obama has been unequalled. In the days leading up to President Obama’s arrival, the Daily Graphic, Ghana’s most widely circulated periodical, printed such headlines as “History Beckons,” “’I Want To See You, Obama; Thousands of Expectant Fans Say’,” “Here Comes O-B-A-M-A,” and finally, upon his arrival, “Welcome Home, Obama.” Not to mention that recently a “Hotel Obama” has opened and market vendors now hawk “Obama Pure Water” and “Obama Biscuits.”

He arrived late Friday night and was formally welcomed at the airport. Saturday, he had a business breakfast with President Mills of Ghana and later addressed, in a televised speech, the Ghanaian Parliament and Dignitaries. He visited a local hospital and toured, with his family, Cape Coast Castle and the infamous “Door of No Return.” Cape Coast Castle is believed to have been the single largest exit point for Africans bound for slavery in the Americas and the “Door” was the last moment millions of Africans would ever touch African soil.

As quickly as President Obama and family arrived in Ghana, they left. There was a formal departure ceremony at the airport, which, I and my sister, along with the other Fulbrighters, were lucky enough to attend. All together, there were, on my best estimate, nearly 3,000 people there. Being an American citizen in Ghana does have a few perks however and we were let into a smaller, reserved, section with only a few hundred people.

When President Obama and President Mills arrived, they each briefly addressed the crowd and then shook hands with some of the onlookers before President Obama and the First Family boarded AirForce One and returned to the United States. Unfortunately, neither my sister nor I were able to shake hands with the President, but we were able to get a few pictures as we were, at one point a mere 4 or 5 feet away from him. It was a long afternoon of standing and waiting, but well worth it in the end.

The Great Mouse Hunt...

My sister is in Ghana with me now and will remain here until I return Stateside in August. It is nice to have her here. I love my sister dearly. With that said, she is still my sister and from time to time I wonder if we really are related

The two of us do not live alone here in my house. We have a third roommate that eats much of the food and defecates everywhere; we have a mouse, or rather, had, a mouse. For the past number of weeks I have known that there was a mouse living under the stove in the kitchen. If I would leave anything edible on the counter, even though it be sealed, I would find little nibblings on it in the morning. One night, in the middle of the night, I walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water and as I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light, I felt something soft under my foot and realized that I had just stepped on the mouse. I am not sure who was more startled at this point, but I lifted my foot to see the mouse, disoriented, run in circles around the kitchen. I was able to re-focus my wits enough to grab whatever was handy and throw it at the mouse; the nearest thing being silverware. After a few seconds of hurricane-like commotion; me yelling at and throwing spoons, forks, and butter knives at a rodent that is no bigger than my ring finger, the mouse disappeared under the stove and I was not inclined to try to move the stove to continue the confrontation.

After the incident, I went out and bought two mouse traps. I brought them home, set them, put food on them and went to bed with a smile on my face. However, in the morning when I checked, I found the food gone, but not mouse. The same story played out for the next week or so. I just continued to feed the mouse. At one point I learned that the mouse was probably too light to spring the trap. I attempted to set the trap so that even a feather would spring it. After having the trap snap on my own hand in the process, I moved on to plan B.

With all my expert knowledge in engineering, I thought it best to put a larger piece of food on the trap so that when the mouse got on, the weight of the rodent and the big piece of food would set the trapoff. Again, the next morning, no mouse and no food. Me feeding the mouse each night went on for another week before I realized the traps would only accomplish creating a 400 pound mouse. I claimed defeat and hoped that the mouse would stay in the kitchen.

Not the case. The mouse began to scurry almost everywhere throughout the house. One night, as my sister and I sat in the living room, we saw the mouse scurry onto the bottom shelve of a bookcase. He thought he was hiding out of sight, but we could still see his tail. The two of us went into attack mode and took the flip-flops off of our feet and put them on our hands. I hit the book that he was behind and he ran out of the book case and under a chair next to my sister.

At this point I should tell you that neither myself nor my sister are, ever have been, or have any interest in becoming, hunters. Assuming this mouse presented himself to us on a silver platter, we probably would not really know what to do with it. My sister knew that the mouse was under the chair and decided, on the spot that the best plan of action would be to flush him out towards me. As she bent down and put her face next to the floor to look under the chair, the mouse, instead of being flushed out towards me, galloped directly at her. My sister, being almost as cool under pressure as I was in the kitchen when I threw silverware at it, reacted by screaming, throwing both flip-flops off of her hands and jumping up in the air. Once again the mouse had out muscled, maneuvered, and simply, out-smarted us.

However, it was our luck that the mouse ran into a closet that was near an exterior door. We quickly devised a plan of action and built a coral out of whatever we could find from the entrance of the closet to the exterior door. When we were both armed with a broom or mop and had both built up enough confidence, we did all that we could to get the mouse to come out of the closet. When he did, he ran around in circles looking for an escape route, we both yelled, and brandished out weapons at him, and in only a few seconds, the mouse ran outside. Our hunting skills honed, we quickly shut the door and our great mouse hunt was successfully ended.