Today I visited the house of Mrs. Sackey, my host mother here for three months. I hadn't intended to call, but I was in the neighborhood, so my friend Orlando and I decided to swing by. We walked down from my newspaper office, past the Karldorf bar and along the dirt paths that serve as sidewalks. When their wasn't enough room for two to walk abreast, one of us would step over the sewer ditch that divides the path from the road and walk on the pavement until a car came. We strolled under the green leafy trees, thick with branches that would be infested with bats when dusk came. The walls of villas lined the side of the road, and we peeked over here and there to see the huge, but not exactly wealthy looking, houses inside.
From the main road we passed left on to the street that led to Mrs. Sackey's. The concrete of the road crumbled to rocks and then dust beneath our feet. The street bent right under the white washed walls of a villa, and stretched out straight before us. It is a quiet street, lined with palm trees and the almost-grand houses of the rich. And beneath their windows are the wooden stands that serve as shops in the day and houses at night. Rich and poor share the same space, and the same attitudes, in Ghana.
Behind a low wall on the left there is a chop bar that serves local food. It is always swarming with women and their young kids, and everything is such a mess that I can hardly imagine they know which kid is whose. But one of kids is distinct from the others. I stepped inside the wall and spotted him in the corner. He was standing looking in to space. I waved to all the women, who instantly recognized me and the scene that was going to follow. One of the woman yelled to the child, who looked up, saw me, and began screaming in terror. As he ran away yelling, the tears gushed from his eyes like they were waiting there, just for this moment. All of the women laughed uproariously, of course, and I, too, admit to seeing the humor in scaring the wits out of a poor kid who once told his mother that I was an 'agent of satan'. Well, this demon has visited that child six times now, and there has never been any abatement in the pure unadultered terror I instill. I wish I had this power over some other people!
Well, next we passed the little old lady who is always sitting on an upturned crate by the side of the road. We had to be careful, she is definitely suffering from some kind of dementia, and always wants to talk for an endlessly. The next gates on our left were the entrance to Dromie Villa, the Sackey residence. I peeked over the top; Mr. Boeti, the security man was there. I woke him from his doze, and he opened the gates a crack to talk to me. He thanked me profusely for the gifts I had given him when I had left the house, and called upon God to bless me so many times that if God was watching he might have seen me blushing.
Then there was a voice from inside the house.
Mr. Boeti: (whispered) Quick, go, before she sees you. (yelled in response) gobbledeegook Orlando blablablarg.
Orlando: (playing his part admirably well) Hi Mami, how are you?
Me: I run around the corner and wait while Mrs. Sackey comes out and talks to Orlando for a while. What were they talking about? Me, of course. She has told Orlando that she was very angry because I had yelled at her on the phone that day. She had been in a rush, and it had been very rude of me to ask for the ten seconds of her time that it took for me ask if I had left any keys in the house and her to respond in the negative. She hadn't stopped there, however, but had gone on to explain how badly she had been treated by whites when she had visited New York, or, more specifically, JFK airport. She also had passed something to Orlando that we was supposed to turn over to me: a little neatly wrapped parcel containing exactly everything I had left in my room: 600 cedis, or six cents. I could accuse her of nothing.
If running and hiding from her seems stupid to you, its seems stupid to me, too. That said, I have always taken a little illicit thrill in these of cat and mouse that we play. I go to the kichen at night and make some toast; she finds out and hides the toaster, 'to save electricity'. I go to the kitchen at night and eat a banana; she locks the bananas in the dining room (thank god there's no lock on the door to the kitchen like there is on every other fucking door, cabinet, drawer in this fucking house). I go to the kitchen at night and make a sandwich, quietly... no response, no countermeasures. Again, I go to the kitchen at night and make a sandwich, quietly... I do it again and again and am not stopped! Victory? well, perhaps, but I wish that there were more edible things in her fridge than cheap jelly. White bread and and jelly can come together to make a sandwich, but not a good one. Still, I do it again and again, and never leave any evidence of infraction other than a few missing slices of bread. Does she count the slices, once in the evening and again in the morning? Does she measure the height of the jelly? I wouldn't put it past her.
I'm not sure how Mrs. Sackey has spent her younger years, but if there was any meaning to her life, it has long since departed. As far as I can tell, her life consists of cleaning the house, yelling at the numerous underlings she keeps to clean the house for her, locking things at night, and harassing her grandchildren. How could their parents be so unwitting as to leave them in the grips of this robustly evil old lady? The girl, Gifa, she punishes relentlessly for such crimes as fidgeting and talking. 'Why do you always worry me?'
The boy, Ethan, is just a toddler, and Mrs. Sackey actually professes affection for him. But she expresses this affection by rushing after him and scooping him up everytime he gets to far away. For Ethan's benefit, the screen doors for the kitchen and the front entrance have both been replaced by models with heavier springs. Also he has been supplied with the most annoying invention known to man, little shoes that squeak when he walks. If I had to wear squeaking shoes, I would certainly go crazy, but maybe Ethan wants to stay sane until he's old enough to take his revenge on his torturess.
Well, Mrs. Sackey may hate her grandchildren, but I think they are wonderfully cute. As she was trying to make Gifa stand still, I would dance with her and chase her around the house. I think my bad influence on her kids biased her against me even more than my messy room or my late night ventures in to the kitchen. I could tell she didn't like me because of the coldness and condescending attitude of servility she always put on around me. But it was very rare that she would actually admonish me to my face for percieved faults, although she did sometimes complain about me in front of my face to someone else. I wasn't perfect, I could have kept my room tidier and taken more care towards keeping her everyday scrubbed tile floors totally white, but if communication is the key to a good relationship, she might as well have been speaking in Twi.
Thats why it came as a surprise when, one morning, coming home, I found the staff of Projects Abroad sitting on the patio talking with Mrs. Sackey about me. I should have expected something; the night before Katie and Fergal had shaved my head in to a mohawk (which I still have, by the way, although the hair on the sides of my head have grown out long enough to prevent anybody from thinking I look like a 'mafia' anymore). But I had seen Mrs. Sackey that morning, and she hadn't said anything to me, although I had of course tried to keep my distance from her.
I went out for an hour, came back at ten or a eleven, and, voila, Mrs. Sackey had called Projects Abroad and told them she 'couldn't live with me anymore.' So I sat down with everyone else, and Mrs. Sackey still went on about how awful I was with out ever once looking me in the eye. Highest on my list of offences was me 'being naked around the house.' collective GASP! When were you naked in the house Matthew? I, too, was nervous. What could she be talking about? Then I remembered that one night when I and some volunteer friends and some of her grandkids and their nannies were all goofing around out front of the house, and Mrs. Sackey was skulking somewhere inside, I had mooned Fergal. Funny at the time, yes, but one of the nannies had told Mrs. Sackey, and, between my bald ass and the bald sides of my head, Mrs. Sackey could not concieve of a more despicable person than myself.
Well, she was not serious about her threat to throw me out of the house, and the only result of that meeting was a sort of tacit agreement between Sackey and I that we would never speak again. Sometimes, when we were forced to share the space of the same room at the same time, she chuckled in her ugly way, 'heh heh'. She continued to speak to other people about me, even taking my friend Orlando as a confidante. He would communicate what she said to me, and I was surprised that she invented outright lies about me. I forget most of them, but i do know that she pretended to Orlando that my messiness was the reason that my room mate Fergal had left the house (he had moved out of Accra to work in an orphange) and that also she also said that she had had a long talk with my mother during which they traded stories about how bad I was.
In fact, she was always telling little lies like this, right until the last day, when we wanted to take a picture with her. 'Oh no, heh heh, I won't take pictures with you people, heh heh. You people always tell me that you will send them to me and then you never do.' Well, first of all, who said this picture was for your benefit, you old hag? But whats worse is that I knew this was not the real reason she didn't want to take a picture with me. The reason was simple: she didn't like me, and if she could hurt me by refusing to pose for a picture with me, she would do it. Well, I've lived with you for the last three months, but if you want to forget me and you want me to forget you, fine.
I have written all this, though, just so I will not forget you, Mrs. Sackey. Not that you are such a memorable character, but you are enough example of how not to live that you are worth writing about. I don't even feel any real sort of grudge or anger towards you, despite the obvious vitriol of my writing. Mostly this little rant was inspired by what I'm reading now, Philip Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint'. And I should add here that you can be hospitable enough when you choose to be, and you worked diligently enough preparing me the same four dishes for three months of dinners, although perhaps your boiled yam was bit dry. But if its true what you told me, 'you white people are look down on us blacks, you always expect us to do something for me' (I asked you to put on some water to boil for tea! And I would have done it myself if only you let me!), then perhaps you should let the whites find their own way in Ghana from now on and not waste their time like you wasted mine.

Heres a post I wrote a week ago on my laptop.

Today is Tuesday, December 12th, the day my volunteer project with Projects Abroad is officially up, the day marked on my flight itinerary for me to leave. But I'm still here! and I'm gonna stay here! I talked to KLM, and they said 'its ok that you dont want to leave December 12th, you just come back here and tell us when you figure out exactly when you would like to go.' No charge, no rules to follow, Dutch airlines are very nice to students.
Right now I am typing on my laptop in the bed of my 'peculiar friend' Katri-leena. She broke up with me a few weeks ago, but chooses to torture me by lying in bed with me all day. Shes talking about Finland and her friends and her plans for the future, and thats nice, but I have a hard time concentrating when you're absent-mindedly running your hands around my stomach and my back. Ahh! It is not fine, as people say here. Still, I appreciate her and her roomate Mari very much. Collectively, they are known as 'Finland' to me and my Projects Abroad volunteer friends. If I'm going to hang out with them, I'm going to hang out with 'Finland', if I'm going to sleep at their house, I'm going to sleep at 'Finland'.
Their room is in the bottom floor of a story building. They have one room, some boys from Benin here learning English have another, and some men from Nigeria live in the last one. The kitchen and bathroom are shared, as is the electric hot plate where we make our porridge in the morning. 'Finland' is something of a meeting house for neighborhood friends, they're always having visitors over. The two most common guests are Edmond and Richard. Edmond is a very handsome, very muscular young man who works for his older brother at a local fried rice joint called Papa Nesto's. They are very cheap and always go out of there way to make dishes palatable for vegetarians, that is, Katti and Mari and I. Edmond's father was a very famous musician in Ghana, a sort of big band television performer like Ricky Ricardo. I'm sure I could make a more apt comparison to someone else, but damn!, Im only 18. Anyway, Edmond is very poor now, works like a dog, shares a bed with his senior brother, and is always in good spirits. He is head over heels in love with Mari, who likes him back but unfortunately cannot return his advances because she has a boyfriend back in Finland. But Edmond never seems to let this get him down, and is often over at the girls house entertaining them with his knowledge of funny African customs and his musical and dramatic talents.
Richard is as skinny as Edmond is built, and likes music and acting even more. He is a born entertainer, always beginning a freestyle rap in his native tongue Twi or telling weird jokes or imitating people he has met. By day he works at a curtain shop, but business is slow, and he dreams of becoming a hip-life rapper. He has a gig at a festival soon, which he got by submitting his friends album. So now he has to go there and pretend to be his friend! It will be hard, because his friends voice is a very deep baritone. But I bet he can pull it off, or I at least hope he can. As far as I can tell, he shares a skinny bed with two other men.
The people here will never cease to amaze me in how resilient they are in their poverty, and how little they let it affect their happiness. Of course, they hope for more, but they know the importance of being happy now. And I am going to have to learn from them. I never had to share a bed in my life in America. But, for the next three months, or however long I stay here, I will be dependent on the kindness and sharing spirit of others. I will be sleeping with my drumming instructor in Menkassim, I will be sleeping with Katti and Mari in Finland (pure deliscious torture, lying between two undressed girls), I will be sleeping with my friends Orlando and Siebe at their respective houses, and I will probably be reliant on the kindness of others. I am excited and nervous at the prospect of leading such a itinerant existence. I will be living out of my bag, and the future is uncertain except that I know it will never stop coming on and on and has to taken used. And, if things get too hard, I will just get on a plane back home. Not exactly Down and Out in Paris and London, but still uncertain enough to keep me on my toes.
Well, the future beckons! I have to catch a tro-tro to Menkassim. I'll write from there.

Hey, y'all, I'm in Ghana and roughing it! That is, I'm done with my volunteering organization, and am going it alone. I'm entering phase two of Operation Ghana. My plane ticket was scheduled for today, but I canceled it and am staying on here until I get sick of it or just get miserably sick. Hopefully, the first will happen before the second.
I'm back in the town of Menkassim, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post. I'm here to take drumming lessons with Francis, but when I arrived here today, he was nowhere to be found. I don't blame him, I told him I would be coming in the morning and didn't actually arrive until 6 p.m. Still, though, I was a little nervous. Of his whole family and everybody else who stays at the compound where I was to stay as well, he is the only one who seems to speak any English. My fears were ill founded, however. One young girl here seems to have taken a bit of a fancy for me, and enjoys mothering and caring for me, the helpless obroni. Last time I was here, she scrupulously washed and cleaned my sores. Today, as soon as I entered the compound, she commanded me to sit in a chair, brought me a foot stool and some porridge, and brushed my hair. Very nice!
The rest of the family was excited to see me, and everybody gathered in the courtyard of the little compound and made a fuss over me. What they were saying, I don't know, but they all remembered me as the obroni with the funny hair and who loves dancing. One of the boys put the stereo on his room, and I entertained the family by dancing with all the small children. Dancing with the kids here is great, they do a move and then you imitate it, or you do a move and then they do it. I'm not kidding, small kids here have made me the accomplished dancer I am today.
When I was sweaty, my little mommy found a bucket for me and some soap and a washcloth. I went to the compound of the queen mother of this part of town, the grandmother of my francis, my drumming instructor, and got my suds and bucket shower on. Now I am clean, happy, and slightly hungry. Francis has just arrived at the internet cafe, and we will probably go for killy willy, small sliced spicy fried plantain. My mom here has put up a mosquito net on the clothes lines, and I'll be sleeping outside with the rest of the family, who forego the net. Ok, nighty night!

I haven't written anything for a while, sorry for that. I was staying in Menkassim for a while, and plan on going back there soon to live there for a while longer, but last weekend I came back to Accra for a visit. Everything was nice and good until my girlfriend prepared a dish from leaves and vegetables called kotomuri. Ugh! I swear, it makes me sick to my stomach now even to think about it. But, at the time, it looked very deliscious, and tasted good, too. I kept sneaking more when nobody was watching.
So, the food was eaten. Now, another circumstance that may have contributed to what followed: relations between Katrileena had been a bit icy, and after we had finished eating and found ourselves alone together, she told me perhaps the four most ominous words known to man: 'we need to talk.' I took that as my cue to run away. I made my home through rush hour in twilight Accra, walking slowly in a bit of a dazed state, not really thinking much but sort of relishing the self pity I felt.
When I got home, I went to my room and lay down. Soon, I began feeling feverish. I put on jeans and a long sleeve shirt, and even requested an extra sheet from Mrs. Sackey, who wondered aloud why I would want one when it was so hot out. No reply. Well, I took some Tylenol, turned on some music, and lay in my bed for a few hours, and the fever passed. All's well, right? wrongo.
Soon, I became aware of having to use the bathroom. I went and passed a big 'loose stool', if you know what that is. But when I went back to bed, as soon as I lay down I immediately needed to return to the bathroom. By this time, I was aware of feeling shitty.
I have never passed a longer night. I would doze for a while, then get up and have to use the bathroom. But each time I went, I was aware that more was on its way, but I never could make it come before I went and lay down again. Then I would instantly have to stand up and return to my throne. Sometimes this would happen four or five times before I could lie down with any security.
Morning finally arrived, and I told Mrs. Sackey of my condition. She called the volunteer organization, and someone arrived with some anti-diarrheal salts and a taxi to the hospital. I did not feel like going to the hospital, though. The upset induced even by walking to my door and talking to Kwame for a minute made me rush back to the toilet and actually vomit. It was actually a bit of a dilemna, whether the urge to vomit or to shit was stronger, but I chose the former, and everything ended happily in the toilet bowl.
This shuffling between bed and toilet lasted a couple days, during which no food passed my lips but one piece of bread and a nibble of spaghetti. None the less, my body found things to pump out. Looking in the mirror at the end of the ordeal, it was actually disgustingly obvious where my body had found these things: I was visibly emaciated. Rest assured, Im back to my strong and beautiful self now, only a few days later, but it was scary then to see how prominently all my ribs protruded.
I finally condescended to go to the hospital. They diagnosed a stomach virus, no malaria or anything, and gave me some pills, and I bought a collection of Sean Connery films on DVD ($5!) as a reward for my suffering. I am convinced that what was more important than actual medical attention was just the fact that I forced myself out of the house and away from the tempting bathroom. Once I left in the morning for the hospital, I, who had previously been shitting every hour, just did not have to go that bad. Certainly, I was miserable when I was sick. But, in a sick way, I enjoyed this misery, relished being weak and helpless and the accompanying freedom from any responsibility. I'm reading Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain right now, and he has a lot to say on the subject as well, dealing with Tuberculosis patients whose illness is often nothing better then conjectural. Well, a little self pity never hurt anybody, and here I am, working hard on my blog again.
Anyway, the day after I went to the Htal, I stopped by my girlfriends place, and she clarified things. "I just want some space right now." Well, so we're through. Later that night, she stepped on a buried fire pit at a beach party and suffered disgustingly horrible burns on her foot. She's the one who believes in Karma, not me! Anyway, she had a really unpleasant time at the hospital, and now shes hobbled, hopping around on one foot, although theres usually an african guy around more than willing to demonstrate his strength by carrying her. Thats certainly a service I could never offer her for more than about twenty feet!
Last night we went out for drinks, we talked and laughed nicely, and while we were waiting outside her house for her friends she leaned on me (being a cripple) in a suggestive manner, if one can lean in a suggestive manner. That is, there was a lot of unnecessary back stroking and even a bit of butt handling. Basically, I got the impression that this cats in the bag, and I need only reach out and grab and she'll be mine again. Fine, I will do it, but girls are really very bizarre!
Okay, I've written enough, matt out!