Time Flies

What you understand about time, or fruit, or fruit flies all depends on whether you understand the various meaning of the word, “like.”  It is the ambiguity in the statement and the uncertainty about which meaning is intended that evokes the double-take among native English speakers when they read Groucho Marx’s argument.  Imagine the confusion of a non-native speaker.

I suspect that I have fallen victim to these kind of misinterpretations on more than one occasion in Ghana.  This happens frequently in the half-English, half-Twi communications I have with the Extended Family.  Any level of understanding is a kind of success, even if there was no communication at all.  Unfortunately, there is no way to verify if the intended message is getting through.

One recent example. . . In this blog, I recently commented on the identity of the word, “nkruma,” (meaning “okras”) and the name of the first president of Ghana (“Kwame Nkrumah”).  This realization came up one day in our kitchen, when Suzy, Agatha, Kwame, and I were discussing the impending trip to the market in Kotei.  Agatha volunteered that “okru” was one okra, or okra in general.  But if you wish to enumerate okra, you would refer to two, three, or more “nkruma.”  Suzy immediately made the connection with the First President, and the African heads nodded when they saw the light bulbs appear over our heads.  We were sure that we had discovered a cultural pearl, like learning that an English person named “Fletcher” likely had an ancestor that manufactured arrows — the kind that fly like time.  We were wrong.

Our mistake became apparent when we actually met someone named “Nkrumah.”  Andrew Nkrumah is a member of Suzy’s religious group.  When we were introduced to him at the Baha’i center, and Suzy heard his name, she immediately acknowledged her understanding of its meaning.  But wait!  That is not correct.  Okras are “nkruma;” Andrew’s family name is “Nkrumah.”  Two completely different utterances, Gringos.  For okras, there is an upward inflection on the last syllable of the word.  The name “Nkrumah” has flat intonation.  Very different.  Hmm.

Is that the final word on the matter?  Or, am I missing subtle shades of meaning; the kind that humorists and third-grade joke-tellers depend upon.  Are the pronunciations of the words so different that native speakers do not even notice the similarity.  If so, why did Kwame and Agatha nod approvingly when we demonstrated our ignorance?  Is it that they simply enjoy witnessing our complete lack of a clue?  Could it be that Andrew has been plagued all his life by school chums enjoying the alternate pronunciation of his last name?  Could it be the equivalent of a family name like “Butz,” or “Lipschitz,” or “Fokker.”  I do not know, but I am going to have to take the issue to a more knowledgeable authority.

Then there are the verbal exchanges that defy interpretation altogether.  What follows is the gist of a conversation that I had with Kwame a few days ago while he was driving me to work at the medical school.   This conversation occurred a few days before the election (which is now taking place as I compose this entry).  Kwame has gone to his hometown near Cape Coast to vote in the election, so he is not here to verify whether he understood the meaning of our conversation.

I noted that the rain had not damaged the recently graded road into our neighborhood – “The road is good” (in Twi), followed by the more complicated concept about the grading in English.
Kwame acknowledged his assent.
I said, “It seems to be raining a lot for the Dry Season.  Is this normal?”
“Cape Coast not like here — Kumasi is forest region – different — but rain is more now — last years, since Kufuor.”  (He is of course referring to the sitting, two-term President of Ghana and leader of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) who will be replaced in the election.)
“It rains more since Kufuor became President?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you think it rains more because Kufuor is President?” I asked jokingly.
“Yes.”
“So you think Kufuor controls the weather?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause while I considered this response.  So, I took a different tack.
“Have you decided who you will vote for in the election?”
[without hesitation] “NPP.”
“So, you like more rain?”
“Yes.”

Is it possible that Kwame is a single-issue voter in the national election, and his issue is more rain?  Or, was this conversation just a strange series of misunderstandings?  I am not sure.  Sometimes he expresses acknowledgment when I know that he has not understood.  Alternatively, Kwame has demonstrated magical thinking more than once.  He is educated at just above the elementary level, so fluid mechanics and meteorology may not be his strong suits.  Again, I will need guidance to understand this interaction, or I will have to learn the local language better.

Gyinyase – my kind of town

There is a small village (small suburb) situated on the paved road between Kotei and Atonsu (larger suburbs) that I habitually pass through on my preferred, circuitous auto route to the medical school.  It is the preferred route because I like passing through Gyinyase (“Jin-ya’-si”).  It is clearly part of the Kumasi Metropolitan Area, but it could be a stand-alone village in any part of Ghana.  The Kotei-Atonsu road becomes “main street” in Gyinyase, and there are a few speed bumps at one end to let you know that you have arrived in an area of human concentration.  Once in the center of Gyinyasi, the houses that front on the road are small cinder-block and corrugated roof structures that are closely spaced to one another and the roadside.  Yet, there is room for petty traders to erect stalls, to sell vegetables, cellular telephone credit, and Ghanaian fast food of all varieties. I have it on excellent authority that the stall with the handpainted “Kenkey Special” sign is the place in town to buy kenkey (steamed, fermented cornmush wrapped in leaves).  At the heart of Gyinyase, there is an open square lined with modest shops, all facing a grassless soccer pitch with goals at either end.  The square slopes gently downward toward the road, for drainage purposes, creating a distinct advantage for the soccer team aiming at the roadside goal.

Suzy and I went to dinner to celebrate my 60th birthday a few nights ago.  I usually drive the car on such occasions, because neither of us likes the idea of having Kwame waiting for us in the car while we dine.   And we know he is not an adventurous eater, preferring kenkey to many of the foods that we prepare for ourselves at home.

I am not enthusiastic about driving here, but I have a license, and I can manage to be almost as aggressive as the taxis and tro-tros when called upon.  But driving here is intense and requires maximum attention, particularly at night.  To me, it is more like playing a video game than it is like driving in Ann Arbor.  You have to steer clear of potholes to avoid breaking an axle and slow down for speed bumps to avoid losing your muffler.  You must adjust to taxis passing at inappropriate and unexpected moments.  You must watch for pedestrians who cross haphazardly and who seem to be required by some unwritten law to dress in all black clothes at night.   Chickens, goats, and zebu cattle appear as random obstacles.   And finally, nearly all of the roads in urban Ghana are bounded on either side by 3-foot deep concrete open drainage conduits that serve as leg traps for unwary tourists on foot, and force local pedestrians to walk between the cars and the open drain.  For cars engaged in the driving-video-game, they serve the same purpose as the gutters of bowling alleys; once you’re in, you lose your turn.  Game over.  It will take several stout men to get your car back on the road.

Needless to say, I am very careful driving through Gyinyase, especially at night.  And I have pulled over to the drainage conduit on many occasions to allow an overly-anxious taxi to pass at speeds that defy reason.  Pedestrians are not well-respected here, and they know it.  Parents keep their children close when they are near the roadside.  Hand-holding is the rule.

The night of my Birthday dinner, there were big doings in Gyinyase.  The square was lit up and abuzz with activity related to the 3-day Crusade for Christ.  Rows of blue and red, plastic chairs, mostly occupied with supplicants, were set up facing a make-shift stage next to the south soccer goal.  An electric band was entertaining the crowd with amplified, high-intensity music that one rarely associates with religious events, but which was undoubtedly devotional in content nonetheless.  I was tempted to stop and check it out up-close, but I reasoned that the Crusade would require some face time and more than a few cedis, so I yielded to my hunger and yen for Indian food and passed up the local festivities.

Dinner at a fine Indian restaurant 3-4 miles northwest of Gyinyase was superb, but expensive.  I had red wine for the first time in 2 months – a bottle of very decent Cabernet from Australia for only 14 cedis.  The maitre d’ who served the wine was a tall, slender, and stunningly attractive young woman wearing a vest and trousers and sporting an explosion of tressed and gold-tipped hair on her head.  In a very brief conversation after paying the bill, we learned that she was also a resident of Gyinyase and was unaware of the big doings there that very night.  I assumed that she would miss the Crusade altogether because of the hours of her job.

On the way back through Gyinyase, the band was gone, and the clergy had inherited the stage.  There was a white-suited personality with a hand-mic preaching to the believers, backed by women in choir robes and a life-size cut-out of Jesus mounted behind and above the stage.  Again, I was tempted to stop, but I needed to attend to the reflux that was already surging upward after the Indian Birthday dinner and half a bottle of cabernet.

At the intersection of the Kotei-Atonsu road and the unfinished road to the medical school, about halfway between my neighborhood and Gyinyase, there is now a tall radio antenna.  We had watched this structure being erected during the past several weeks, by men tethered to and hanging from the sides of the rising tower, securing sections upward by hoisting them from the ground, in the absence of a building crane.  Now, the tower is complete, and the imperiled workmen have moved on to another project.  But the tower is now the tallest object for miles in all directions.  It is clearly visible from anywhere in Gyinyase.  So, proceeding east down “main street” before it curves rightward outside of town, the tower appears to rise from the middle of the road ahead.  I like to think of it as the Eiffel Tower of Gyinyase, a notion that Kwame finds amusing, even after I explained the reference.

The day before Kwame left for his village, he drove Suzy and I back from the campus and through Gyinyase.  We stopped to buy fresh eggs and groundnuts from one of the petty traders on the roadside.  Kwame parked on the right roadside, inches from the drainage conduit and only a few yards from the north soccer goal.  I waited in the car, watching the dismantling of the Crusade.  The chairs were mostly stacked at this point, the 2-D Jesus had left, but the loudspeakers were still operational and were being used to broadcast cheerful, rhythmic music.  An overweight, middle-aged woman in a Ghanaian print dress with matching headcloth, danced across the road in front of our parked car.  It was a momentary and involuntary act, and she resumed her matronly demeanor when she stepped over the drainage conduit and onto the square.

I realized that I had witnessed, or more correctly passed-by, the cultural life of Gyinyase.  And it is probably the same in all of the neighborhoods of Kumasi.  We have found little evidence of theater, concerts, public lectures, or the like here.  There is nightlife, which consists of drinking and dancing to tympanum-busting music in bars, and there are occasional events related to the tribal past, at the Asante Cultural Center and the Asantehene’s Palace, no more sustaining than watching Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace more than once.  The cultural life of this city centers on the churches (Sundays) and on funerals (Saturdays).

Dead people get first-class treatment here.  It is not unusual for family members to finance billboards proclaiming the passing of a loved one with a photograph and a message – “gone too soon” one says.  The funerals are not dour events.  They are celebratory. The attendees typically put on traditional dress in black or red, and they attend a lively, loud event with music, devotion, and socializing, and of course, a burial.  Funerals are much like the 3-day Crusade for Christ focused on the deceased and condensed into an afternoon.  Responding to my questions about the cultural opportunities in Kumasi, a colleague at the University pointed out the church-funeral axis of activity to me.  He commented to me, somewhat derisively, “The Asantes like to play with their dead.”  Clearly, he yearns for the nightlife of Accra and Europe.

Honestly, I do not share his yearning.  I am busy with my work and with writing entries for this blog.  I am finding wonder in very simple things here.  On my last trip driving through downtown Gyinyase with Kwame at the wheel, I broke into song. . .

“My-y-y-y kind of town. . . Gyinyase is my-y-y-y-y kind of town. . .”

[Kwame erupted with laughter.]

“. . . my-y-y-y kind of people, too-o-o. . . people who-o-o, smile at you . . .”

[Did he know this song, or was he just laughing to hear the obruni singing?]

“. . . (modulating up one whole step) and e-e-e-each time I roam, Gyinyase is. . .”

[Who cares if he knows Sinatra, he’s laughing.]

“. . . calling me home. . .”