I say BARACK, you say OBAMA!

I thought that escaping to Ghana for a summer meant that I would also escape the politics of the upcoming election. I’d miss out on all the “OBAMA 08” stickers, hats and t-shirts and would undoubtedly never come across his name in a newspaper, television program or radio show. After all, this is Ghana and they have their own elections in December. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Around every street corner, there’s another hawker selling colorful OBAMA 08 bracelets in red, green and yellow. Ghanaian men wear hats with the Senator’s name and logo scrawled across the front. I can’t pick up a paper here without reading at least one story about him. And, of course, whose face do I see the one time I’ve turned on the television here? That’s right- Barack Obama. There are even songs about the guy, with catchy rasta rhythms accompanied by chants of “Barack Obama” so close together it sounds like the name of some country we’ve never heard of. And in a sense, Barack Obama is his own country here—one that represents the hope and peace of the African continent. Africa is no longer the stereotype we as westerners still see it as; there’s not always a need to duck and yell “Everybody down!” every time a car backfires (we actually did that). One man asked me if I could vote twice in America, just to make sure Barack secured the presidency. His question alone represents what Obama means to this entire continent—the chance that whites (and especially Americans, who Ghanaians seem to adore) could trust a black man to lead their country. Now, I know Obama is only half black but that’s a step, right? I think Ghanaians see it as a huge step—they all smile and ask us to vote for Barack when we say we’re from America.

Perhaps the most colorful display of Barack-o-mania I’ve seen thus far in Ghana was at Republiq Day 2008, a Ghanaian celebration similar to the 4th of July. The timing was perfect—Republiq Day fell on Tuesday, July 1st so we all had a long weekend and time to celebrate with the Ghanaians. Michelle, Jessica, Elon and I piled into a tiny taxi with torn, sticky seats and missing door panels. We paid the humble-looking driver 5 cedi and he sped down Medina road, somehow knowing each and every shortcut to avoid the holiday traffic. We arrived at Labadi Beach to find utter chaos—people were lined up to pay admission into the beach, men were peeing on the side of the road despite the stern verbal apprehensions from policemen, and cars piled up like dominoes outside the main beach gates. Litter flew through the air with the sea breeze, scattering like fall leaves across the busy highway. We were finally let through the gates—four Obronis in a sea of Ghanaians. We claimed our free drinks (a Coca Cola) and my three companions graciously accepted when a promoter handed us free (sealed) packets of gin. Using my better judgment, I opted for the boxed Sanrgia instead, its sweet nectar running ike honey down my dry throat. We met with a few friends from our neighborhood of Okbungalow—I guess we really stood out in a crowd of thousands of Ghanaians. One of these friends, Tiny (or Tony, we can’t really tell), is a nice guy and gets us a table under a thin metal roof just before the afternoon rains pour down onto the dry earth. It rained heavily for close to an hour, but with our Sangria we were feeling content. The rest of the group arrived a few hours later and we met up with Daniel, our friend from Coconut Grove. Pavi was there too, a sweet kid who makes Obama bracelets. We met him at the University on our first day out in Accra. Once the band sets up, we dance for awhile in a literal sea of Ghanaians. I’ve honestly never seen more people in the same place at once, save for Autzen when it’s not raining. The cowd went wild for an MC saying jokes we couldn’t understand, but we tried to blend in by going wild, too. After dancing and protecting our purses, six of us decided to go home. The beach was beautiful and had great music, though, and I probably could have stayed there forever and been OK.

Back at our humble Okbungalow (pronounced oh-pung-low) abode. Jessica, Ken and I decided to make dinner together. Much to our dismay, the light burnt out so we cooked by flashlight instead. Our meal of pasta and potatoes turned out well, but much to our dismay the light started working again just as we finished—go figure! Cooking by flashlight was an experience, though, but I have to say that I’m glad no cockroaches found their way in to our pesto sauce…

I woke up bright and early the next morning (Wednesday) for my very first day of work. My capris were pressed and dried and my shoes polished—I’d never looked so presentable at 6:30 in the morning! Leslie arrived by taxi to give me a ride to work since I hadn’t been yet. The other 12 students I’m here with started on Monday, but my employer gave her employees a four day weekend. I like this job already!

Along the way, we stopped at a “coffin shop.” People here are absolutely obsessed with funerals, but not in an unhealthy way by any means. They take out huge ads in the newspaper to invite the whole town; they dress in their best clothes, white for old people and black or red for young people. The clan of mourners walk through the streets together, singing and chanting traditional hymns in memory of the deceased. Sometimes, older men beat drums in tune to the wails and chants of the group. The deceased are buried in decodent, hand made coffins carved from the finest woods of Ghana. The coffins are meticulously carved and painted, though their shape varies. At this particular shop, there are papaya coffins, coffins in the shapes of guns, a cruise ship coffin decorated in green and yellow, a chicken shaped coffin, and a huge eagle coffin, its wings outstretched and its eyes fierce and yellow. I wonder silently what each of these coffins represent- if I were buried in a cruise ship, could I live my second life on the high seas? And if I were buried as a papaya, would I lie on a beach in the tropics eating papaya and mango all day?

After contemplating the afterlife, our cab driver wound down Spintex Road, the area I’d be frequenting daily on my way to work. Small shacks dotted the roadway, and the pollution clouded our otherwise healthy lungs. We finally reached a large white sign, where scrawled in red we saw: ABANTU FOR DEVELOPMENT with a giant arrow pointing down a dirt road. After turning, we were met with a swampy, muddy lake where the road should have been; the cab driver shut off the engine in a silent allusion to his unwillingness to drive his car through the mess. Leslie and I hiked our skirts up around our knees, took a deep breath and plunged into the swamp, trying to stay on higher grounds to avoid total submersion in the mucky mud. After navigating through the pond, we finally arrived at the Abantu House, a bright turquoise house with a red tin roof on a small plot of land. A roster crowed a loud welcome as we entered through the big wooden doors. Chickens scurried about in the yard, pecking furiously at the red dirt—I can’t imagine ever working at a place like this again, so I let all the sight soak in as we waited for Auntie Grace. Oh, that’s another thing I can only hope to encounter at my future places of employment: all of my coworkers are called “Auntie.” There’s something very comforting in going to work and greeting your coworkers as aunties—it makes me feel right at home.

The physical building of ABANTU isn’t much- there are a few very small offices, a microwave (hooray!), a nice bathroom with toilet paper (double and triple hooray!) and a large conference room. I work with three other interns here: Nargus is a Canadian working on her master’s degree in conflict resolution, Forzia is a Ghanaian-Canadian working on her master’s degree in political science, and Matilda is a soft-spoken Ghanaian studying social work at the University of Ghana. She has a million questions for me about America and desperately wants to know if I’ve met Barack Obama (again with the politics). I learned that Ghana just recently passed a Domestic Violent Act to protect women—Forzia is focusing her entire thesis on the implications of this Act and I hope to follow her a bit to find out more about it. All I know, really, is that the Act outlaws the marital rape clause in the original 1992 constitution, a clause that made it legal for men to rape their wives. According to Ghanaian culture, when a woman and man marry, despite the circumstances she must submit to him at all times (including the bedroom). No protections were allotted to young teenage brides who were forced to marry, nor to protect those women subjected to widow inheritance (a widow is ‘given’ to her brother-in-law after her husband’s death). The Act has caused great controversy, but its passing is a landmark for Ghanaian women. In fact, a domestic violence shelter just opened in Accra and I hope to visit it before my internship is over.

I read a lot of literature regarding the political climate in Ghana toward women. One of the main goals of ABANTU is to inspire women to run for government office—unfortunately, many women are intimidated by cultural norms, traditions, and men. Women often don’t even support each other for fear of repercussions at home. While there is no clear way to fix this problem, ABANTU is working to educate women about politics and the political process to make them more apt to run for office.

I wish I had more to report from my first day on the job, but I really didn’t do much but read. Once I get my feet on the ground, I think it’ll be a great and very worthwhile place to work.

The real adventure of the day came on the ride home. Forzia and Nargus were kind enough to show me which trotro stop to wait at, but I didn’t expect to have to figure out which trotro to take home. Somehow, I thought that perhaps the broken down, beat up buses would have a sign that said, “LOGAN, TAKE THIS ONE” or something equally as far-fetched. Sure enough, I wound up waiting around for about 20 minutes before one maid drove by, screaming out the window “OKBUNGALOW!OKBUNGALOW!” Now there’s one I recognize. I ran as fast as I could toward the green van and asked the maid breathlessly “Okbunglow Junction?” A faded sticker of Jesus looked down on me from the rearview mirror as the young boy with a white do rag scooted over in the hot leather seat, making a small place for me. “Thank you,” I said under my breath to the sticker as I climbed in, the only obroni in a hot van full of grim-faced Ghanaians. I learned quickly that they aren’t as friendly as usual after a long, hard day at work so I quit trying to talk to them and instead, focused on edging away from the sweaty boy on my right.

My clean, pressed and polished self from 6:30am had morphed into a tired, hungry, pathetic looking thing resembling a person by the time I got off that first trotro. I must have looked pretty green, too, from all the bumps and twists and turns because as soon as I got off, another obroni at the trotro stop asked, “Didn’t anyone tell you to bring Dramamine?” That first ride took about an hour—we narrowly passed under bridges, crept along red dirt roads and creaked over huge rocks lining our “shortcut” path. The second trotro, my so-called “connection,” was a welcome change from the first. The ride only took about five minutes and seats actually had some cushioning left on them. I arrived at Okbungalow Junction right at 5:00—that red dirt road and those dirty goats have never looked to beautiful to me.