10-21-10
There’s no real beating around the bush about it. Damanko has given me a nice house. Three or four generations of volunteers have added their own touches to it, making it that much more….well, better. Sometimes I feel guilty about this. I feel guilty that because of who I am, and where I’m from, I get a place to live that is still at better standards than most of the people here. Of course there are perks here that Americans prefer to have that most Ghanaians really could care less for, but still, I am a participant in what Peace Corps lingo is known as “Posh Corps.” My counterpart, Kofi, assuages some of this guilt by not begrudging me anything, even though I know my house is in much better shape than his, and by personifying good Ghanaian hospitality for its guests, especially ones that have proved themselves in the past, such as American Peace Corps Volunteers. I really consider this house almost as much his as mine, since he has poured much of his blood, sweat, and, well, not tears, but energy anyway, into its maintenance and upkeep. He’s planted trees, painted walls, fed the cat, organized many of the landscaping tasks, helped furnish it, and basically guarded it like a police dog both when volunteers occupied it, and the year its stood vacant. So, I allow him his indulgence in his very overt protectiveness over the house (and to some extent its occupant). He is as territorial as a peacock. The pawpaw has brought this out bright and clear.
I have three papaya trees in this yard (that is enclosed by a gate I can lock, but it’s a hassle to do so), and a fourth one that is not bearing fruit. Known as pawpaw in many parts of the world, they are apparently very coveted items—as one of my friends said “Because it is Obruni’s (the local word for White Person) pawpaw”. The fruit is beginning to ripen, and people’s mouths are beginning to water, so to speak. Each tree can bear as many as 20 great big pawpaws and they must be plucked when ripe. This means one must either climb the tree (good 10 to 20 or so feet in the air) or get a long stick (of which there are plenty in front of my house) to push one off. If you don’t “drop” them, they don’t fall, they will just rot on the tree. Most of them are still green, but edible, and now everyone wants one.
I let the girls from the sewing school next door drop 6 or 7, some of which I kept, but if I didn’t stop them, they would drop them all. When I offered Kofi one, his guard flipped up and told me he told them not to do that without him there, otherwise they would drop them all. At the time I thought, “Goodness it’s just pawpaw, and besides, me and the school’s master were there to make sure they didn’t take them all.” I asked him what has been done with all the pawpaw in the past, and since the Chief is the landlord, some of it goes to him, which is perfectly suitable. Several days ago, a couple boys came from the Chief’s wife’s house to ask for a pawpaw or two, and Kofi was here and told them no because there weren’t any ripe ones yet (we dropped some this morning for the Chief’s wife when they had ripened). Even the Chief’s son has come by to ask for one. I heard voices and noises in my yard one time, and rushed out to find Kofi’s own wife with a stick in the tree (okay, well, she’s entitled.) Two days ago I was talking to my sister when I heard some noise in my yard and caught a boy red-handed with a stick in his hand trying to drop a pawpaw. He promptly ran off. Even just now, as Kofi and I rounded a corner, we saw a posse of young boys around my gate and a stick behind the wall sticking up into the pawpaw tree. “See,” Kofi told me, “this is why you need to start locking the gate when you leave.” (I always lock the house but get lazy with the gate except when I travel. I was only gone a couple hours.) Then he donned his police persona, took off at a dead run and scattered the boys. He puffed up (which always brings to mind an cat on the offense all arched and hair standing on end) in the very particular way Ghanaians do when they get angry at someone in order to tear them a new one, so to speak; and had some choice words for the boy (yes, the very same boy I previously caught—most unlucky at thieving, poor kid) he caught with the stick. Kofi is not a big guy, but when he summons the authority he has as an older youth exercising power over a younger one, I’m sure he looked humongous and scary.
Watching Ghanaian anger is very fascinating and quite entertaining as well. Most of it is display. It reminds me of when I worked at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute at my university. Whenever we went into the viewing area of the chimps’ enclosure, they would “display” to us, claiming the small space they inhabited as their home, and communicating to us that we were intruding upon it. We were there on their terms. The displays asserted their dominance over us by puffing themselves up to make themselves look bigger, quick and determined pacing, and displays of strength and vocal volume. It could go from calm to full display in 0 to 5 seconds, and be over just as quick. The chimps weren’t really angry or upset, they were showing us their power. If they can display enough of that power to scare you away, then they win. Ghanaian anger is much the same. It can puff up quickly, and be gone just as fast. There is yelling, furrowed brows, fast words, intense eye contact, and broad gestures. Same ingredients of the chimps’ displays, but expressed incredibly differently. Ghanaians don’t use politeness as a mode of interacting and resolving conflicts that Americans do until there the anger shows itself for real. There is rarely any real rage, whoever has the strongest presence of anger and argument wins. Yelling and broad gesticulating (minus the presence of any real anger) is also an indicator of seriousness. If one party is quietly listening, displaying nothing, then the other party feels he is not being taken seriously. This is especially evident in Kofi because he doesn’t see a lot of gray, and when he makes an opinion about something, he will defend it tooth and nail. Any admonitions against it strikes him personally and against his rigid sense of what is right, honorable and the proper course of things. And so leads him to his intense protectiveness. “This is your first warning” he was saying as I got there, “I catch you again, I will punish you thoroughly” (which could mean he could haul him home for a beating or even off to the police station). Stealing is a grave offense in Ghana. Stealing even small things is not a misdemeanor. For many transgressions, one can go to the police, but the Chief or any official elder can withdraw the case and settle it in the community. For certain offenses—homicides, rapes, and stealing—they go immediately to court, and more often than not, there is jail time involved. That probably would not happen to this boy, but the important thing I am noting is the rank that stealing has with other grave offenses. These are the things I learn while hanging out at the “police station”. J
Still, I can’t help but wonder if there is something more complicated behind this boy trying to get at my pawpaw. Things are usually more complicated than they appear on the surface. But even so, be careful who you mess with. I might have to sick my Kofi on you.
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