On My Life Lately

Makola

Why don't I catch everyone up with my activities over the past few weeks. I have so many things I want to blog about that an update seems the way to incorporate them all into a post.

As the semester nears the end all of the NYU in Ghana students have been unpleasantly surprised by papers and assignments, things forgotten about over the last 3 months. Exams have already begun and University of Ghana and though some of my housemates have already taken theirs, most are nervously cramming in the common spaces and the library at the academic center. Even though I too have work, I am determined not to waste my last three weeks in Ghana sitting inside reading. I am already beginning to feel that I haven't done enough since I've been here. I blame that partly on my own procrastination and idleness, but mostly on the heat and humidity. It's really just not that nice to do anything outside in the middle of the day. That said, I am desperately trying to convince friends to hit the beaches around Accra a few more time before we leave. My tan is pathetic.

The malaria put me out of action for a while, but I quickly regained my strength and am already feeling more like myself, except for my left wrist, still sore and swollen from the the IV at the hospital. My first major outing (other than going to get food) took place yesterday. As part of the internship seminar I take to supplement my internship fieldwork, the class organized a student-led conference to discuss aid effectiveness as a response to a similar international conference held in Accra in September. The conference took place at the University of Ghana and was attended by NYU students as well as students from UG and Ashesi University. It came off surprisingly well, with informative student presentations and fascinating guest speakers from NGO's, the World Bank and the UNDP. Though we had already discussed many of the topics to death in our class, it was refreshing to hear the beliefs and opinions of Ghanaian students, especially in reference to aid in their own country.

Feeling confident that attending the conference means that I am almost cured, I bounded out of bed this morning, or should I say, early afternoon, and went to Makola market to buy fabric. I've realized that with only three weeks left here, I need to start getting christmas presents for my family. I decided long ago that the easiest solution the pre-christmas shopping headache was to buy a lot of fabric and ask our seamstress to make dresses, skirts etc for my sisters.

Makola market is the largest market in Accra, annexed by a tro-tro and bus station. Anything you could ever possibly need, can be found at Makola. The food stalls give way to the fabric shops, men selling fishing nets, women selling beauty products, shoes, food, water, soft drinks, bags, hats, combs, hardware, you name it. Let it suffice to say that I day at the market can be quite overwhelming and thoroughly exhausting, especially when it is 30+ degrees celsius, like today.
I made the mistake of wearing jeans and a t-shirt on the excursion. Before long I wished I had worn nothing at all. I was dripping with sweat and slinking from one patch of shade to another trying to bargain down yards of cloth while wiping my face on my sleeve every two minutes. Within an hour or two almost all of my money was gone and my large shoulder bag was stuffed with close to 30 yards of various materials. Now all I have to do is decide what to make with it all!

Every time I walk through the large markets in Ghana, I imagine what it must be like for the men and women vendors who sit in their shops or behind their stalls almost every day of the week in the unyielding heat amid shouts of other vendors, honking taxi horns and the fumes from the slow moving traffic. Some of the women have their young children by their sides. I wonder if some of these women grew up in the market the way their children are. Some women boast proudly that their children are in university or working abroad. They all laugh when we use the two or three words of twi we have retained. Sometimes the women selling cloth will find our linguistics effort so endearing that they will give us a better price; others smile stiffly and mutter things to each other, probably along the lines of "these stupid obrunis trying to speak twi and rip us off".

Luckily the t-shirt I wore to the market is my election t-shirt with a big picture of Barack Obama's face on it. Ghanaians LOVE Obama. Hisses and whistles and shouts came from construction workers and then, "OBAMA!". Women and men we passed on the street would smile and mumble the same thing. But yeah, Obama and knowing how to say "please" and thank you" in twi are the only small advantages I have in the market struggle. When inquiring about the price of material in one shop, my friend began to bargain and the salesman said to her, "The price is fixed". I turned to him and laughed. I've been in Ghana long enough to know that, as I told him, "Nothing in Africa is fixed".

So now I'm doing what most people without a life do on Saturday nights. Sitting in bed while most of my housemates are at a Wyclef concert, still full from the dinner I inhaled at 6:30, doing homework and illegally downloading music. And I keep telling myself to make the most of Ghana... Well I'll use the same excuse I've been using for everything the past week - I have MALARIA! I'll be using that one for years to come.