From last week

We realised just yesterday that we’ve been making a social faux pas here. L called us to see how things are going in the new place, and she admonished Miia a bit because we never call her or E. Earlier that day we had received a call from our friend WO, who is currently serving in the Congo and is bored out of his minds because he can’t leave the compound on weekends. Our friend Henry also ‘flashed’ us, which is where you call and let it ring just once then hang up – just a little hello that costs nothing to say.

What we’ve realised is that we’re supposed to keep in better touch with our Ghanaian friends. We sometimes wonder when they call us, what do they want? In Canada, unless it’s a long distance thing, we generally call to make arrangements and plans but not just to say hello I was thinking about you.

I think this is especially true now in E and L’s case because they’ve let us stay in their apartment, we’re supposed to check in periodically. Ahh the little cultural differences.

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Last night we went to a party at the senior correspondent’s house, which is in the shi-shi downtown core, called Osu, where all the foreign restaurants are also found. We decided to kick things off with some Indian food with our new friend Chantal, who is a friend of our good friend Marlene and recently arrived in Ghana for a stint with UNDP. We talked about things we have in common: travel and bikes. We worried about reverse culture shock on our return, pictured our bored friends saying things like “how long do you think Chris can go without saying the word ‘Ghana?’”

Then we danced. The senior correspondent has a pad in a compound with several other oborunis and a few Ghanaians, with an open patio in the middle. They had some serious speakers, I assume rented, and played great music including Shaggy, Sean Paul, and other butt wigglers. The crowd, like the makeup of the compound itself, was mostly foreigners and a few locals. There were some seriously sexy people swaying together most sexily, much flirtation and checking out, ahh the impetuous exuberance of youth.

We made a few attempts at conversation and I met a few of the Journalists for Human Rights gang from Canada, one of whom is a producer at CBC. He was a bit perplexed when Miia forbid him from asking the usual questions (i.e. how long you been in Ghana? What you doing here? When will you return home?), so he focused his attention on me. He was recovering from typhoid and had a rough start to his assignment at the Joy FM radio newsroom. When I see the experience of the JHR people I don’t feel bad about not having got that job.

The senior correspondent welcomed me with a hardy handshake and we bitched to each other a bit about work and colleagues, danced a little, and she was off. She was the consummate host, spending time with everyone in short ADD-like bursts.

And we all danced some more. “My one complaint about white people is they get together and don’t dance,” said the JHR reporter who works at the Statesman (she write for the Globe and Mail back home), but she was soon proven wrong as we were all busting a groove, white and black, and just letting loose. A much needed release for me as I had been feeling a bit depressed, both about staying two more months and about going home afterward. Crazy.

Alas, Miia was feeling a bit feverish again – we think she has a stomach parasite, which is a repeat of what she had her entire time in Nicaragua. On Monday she’ll go for tests to confirm or disprove those suspicions.
[editor’s note: Miia’s feverishness was malaria, but she’s all better now!]