After

We go grocery shopping. Apparently peanuts are called groundnuts here. We finish. We come home. We chill. I unpack more. They talk. I squeeze in a quick nap. The conversation makes it clear that their experiences as “volun-tourist” has been heavily impacted by their whiteness. Every time they describe how they’ve been treated by men or children I wonder if they realize how much being White Americans has changed how Ghanaian culture receives them. They are “Obruni.” They are other. And I can’t decide if my blackness will help or hurt me as I try to do work, make friends, and contribute to these communities. If I spoke twi or gah this would be easier. The looks of disappointment or the feeling of invisibility wouldn’t affect me as much. But here I am an African American. And obvious relative trying to traverse a cultural canyon. Young girls in the Labadi Town Center, who were watching as I painfully attempted to pick up the language, discovered my tattoo and asked what it meant. I didn’t think to ask them if they know what slavery was. I said something to the effect of  “my relatives, great-great-great-greatgrandmothers and father were here once, then they were stolen and taken to America. That is way I don’t understand Gah or have a Gah name.”

Night Time:

We walk to Fish & Friends to meet up with Serge and The Boys. I am introduced, I make a round of hugs, I take my seat. There is one, the light-skinned one, who is called White (because his mother is white?). His name is Albert. I call him Albert. I know, I think too much and over analyze everything, but there is something unsettling to me about the whole ordeal. I love The Girls and The Boys are so much fun, but I couldn’t help but speak up when the girls were trying to get one of the boys to show them his muscles. It just felt too “ooh what a stud” slave auction-esque for me. We danced SOOO much. I’m beginning to learn Azonto J. I just had to ask one of the boys how they/he ended up hanging out with all these white women. He laughed and assured me it was nothing and he understood how I saw it and how it may be an uncomfortable idea from an outsider looking in, but they are friends going out to have a good time and one of their friends happens to be involved with a white woman who brings her white friends around.

Tomorrow. I got to school. Nobody knows how the kids will react to me. To quote one of The Girls  I am “an experiment.”