The brown girl, the ankaa wura, the police and a running mate = One hell of a commute.

The last couple of posts have been pretty serious so I've decided to be a bit more lighthearted and share this crazy story that happened to me a couple of days ago:

After class earlier this week, we decided to hire Isaac to take us to the craft villages outside Kumasi (this is when the two-hour conversation occurred I shared in the last post). We hit some traffic and managed to get back fairly late.  I have about an hour commute from my home to the campus in central Kumasi and have to make a trɔ trɔ transfer at Sofoline.  Sofoline is a market-like area that is an explosion of trɔ trɔs, taxis, people, food, and dirt. And at night, it's not lit so when I found myself in the midst of this crazy spot after dark I was eager to get out as quickly as possible. Particularly with a backpack full of pricey crafts and kente I just purchased.

I walked to the general area where I catch my second trɔ trɔ and confirmed with the mate that it would be going past my stop (the mate is the trɔ trɔ driver's assistant, he's in charge of money and getting people in and out).  I get in, tell him where I'm going, and pay.  You can imagine my surprise when two minutes later the  trɔ trɔ turns in the direction away from my home. I tell him he lied to which he insisted he didn't and just misheard me. Suddenly everyone in the trɔ trɔ is riled up calling him a liar and demanding he give me my money back. I didn’t bother staying to argue over 20 cents, I just wanted to get home.

I have no choice but to get off, I know where I am and the direction I need to go, so I find myself standing on the side of this dark road trying to flag down a trɔ trɔ that all seem to drive past me, completely full. Suddenly, an ankaa wura (orange seller), whose name I later learned is Cecilia,  a lady that's at least 70 and doesn't speak a word of English comes up to me very confused and asks (in Twi): Obruni, where are you going? I tell her I'm going to Tanoso, to which she responds "Me too!", packs her oranges, grabs my arm and starts this old-lady-on-a-mission power walk down the road, scolding her granddaughter along for walking too slow.

We walk a couple of blocks to this corner where a bunch of people are all fighting to flag down the full trɔ trɔs. This woman is on a mission and determined to get me home, I couldn't understand everything she kept mumbling and/or responding to all the calls she got from surrounding people, but the general gist was a mixture of“ Ha ha! She’s brown. She’s Indian. Isn’t it funny? ” and "I'M GETTING THIS OBRUNI HOME. AND DON'T YOU TRY TO STOP ME OR JUDGE ME!" [Every every every every single person, I’ve encountered in the last four weeks, every single one, from professors, staff, my host parents to the creepy strangers on the street think I am Indian, rarely do they ask it, usually they chant it and laugh. It is by far the most frustrating thing to deal with day to day*].

Along our walk, of course, I was approached by some guy amused by my broken Twi and insistent on getting my number. He and Cecilia seemed to now each other and were having quite a chat on my Indian-ness before being interrupted by a frantic water girl. Before I could decode what the hype was about I am quite literally being dragged down the street by a running Cecilia, pushing people, tables and schoolchildren out of the way to get us on a trɔ trɔ. “Move!! I have an obruni! I’m getting on this one!!” The mate was amused and excited to get us on and squeezes us in, leaving himself squatting with half his body out of the vehicle.  He asked me what I understood as ‘where are you from?’, when I said Colombia the entire trɔ trɔ broke down into laughter.  I didn’t really misunderstand him, he was talking about where I was from, but nonetheless laughter ensued. **

I’m just glad to be on a trɔ trɔ and finally on my way home, when frenzied talking begins, and the mate suddenly jumps out and starts running down the street.  If there is something about trɔ trɔs is that they always function with a driver and mate, they work in pairs, no matter the situation. Even if you have rented and pre-payed a trɔ trɔ and don't really need a mate , they will both be there for every moment you are using the vehicle.  So you can imagine my surprise when this mate starts suddenly running away into the night.  Before I can even begin to figure out what’s going on the trɔ trɔ stops and there is a flashlight lit in my face by a police officer. He looks around, laughs (of course, it's a confused Brown girl in a van full of Black people), comments with the group about how Indian I am, and we go on our way.  A few moments later, the mate comes running back and hops on. 

When I got home I was able to piece it all together: the police had set up a check point to make sure trɔ trɔs where not overfilled, since the mate had no seat, he simply jumped off for the inspection and got on afterwards without being seen.

A few minutes later I was at my stop. Along the way everyone continued to be amused either at me or the situation, I’m not sure.  I thanked Cecilia for her help, and was simply glad to be home.  These are the crazy things that happen to me getting around this country. 



*According to Isaac he always thought Colombian people were Black, as most of our soccer team is.  Little do people realize that many of the horribly horribly dubbed soap operas they religiously watch every night are Colombian (Seriously, Caracol/RCN soaps, all over TV here).

**One of the cultural differences that takes daily conscious effort to deal with is this idea of laughter.  People laugh here quite often in my presence; they do honestly want to laugh with me, not at me. They laugh not because something is particularly funny about me (although sometimes they are just laughing at me), but because they think that if they laugh, I will laugh too, and I’ll feel welcomed.  It’s not easy to distinguish which is which, and one automatically goes on the defensive when someone laughs at you, especially if they are talking about you in another language. But you have to work to convince yourself to understand that they mean no insult or disrespect. It’s a lot harder than it may sound.