Back to Ghana

It was with a sense of great excitement that I returned to Ghana after 2 very festive weeks spent in the U.K, I was encouraged to see how much I looked forward to going back as coming home after only 3 months away it could have been very unsettling. As soon as I stepped off the plane the familiar surge of tropical heat hit me and as the smells of mangos, household soap, roasted plantain and sewage washed over me, I knew I was glad to be back.

I returned to my apartment to find that the hammatten had been and gone (winds bringing the sand down from the Sahara to west Africa) and had left a fine dust over everything, the mosquito screens and plastic slats I have for windows had not done much to shield the inside of my house so I spent the next day cleaning the place and getting settled back in.

I was delighted to find the women downstairs ready to great me and even insisted on carrying my suitcases from the car to my house for me, they told me about their Christmas break and were really pleased with the presents I had brought them, just some tea, biscuits, chocolates and some bits for the younger children. As I have alluded to before I am really happy in my apartment and the ladies that live downstairs certainly have a role to play in that. I live in a house, divided into 2 apartments, I Iive in the upstairs one which has 2 bedrooms and downstairs lives Agatha, Becky, Gladys and Sarah. Agatha is in her 30’s, Becky is 25 and Gladys is in her teens, they are all sisters and Sarah who is a very beautiful one year old belongs to Agatha. These ladies are always happy to great me, they look out for me and are concerned if I am later than normal or if they haven’t seen me for a few days, I often get a phone call asking if I am ok, or hear the younger girls calling at my door ‘Auntie Emily do you have...’. The sense of community in Ghana never ceases to amaze me, communal living is the norm, and people are always very surprised to hear that I live on my own. In the compound behind my house (which I can see directly into from my bedroom) live a number of families, or perhaps they are the same family, brothers and their wives and children. They live together in a small compound and from 4am (after I am woken by the call to prayer from the mosques in the nearby Muslim neighbourhood) you can hear them clattering around with pots and pans, peeling yam, feeding babies, washing clothes and rather annoyingly the men revving their taxis ready to start a day’s work, the way they live together is literally on top of each other but it almost makes me envious, perhaps that is the way we are supposed to live. In the west we tuck ourselves away in a little bolt hole which we may spent almost all our money on or spend years saving for a property for ourselves because someone once told us (and the media continues to tell us) that in this we will find security – how bizarre to think that security can be found in bricks and mortar!? Many of us in the west don’t even know our neighbours, let alone invite them in to their homes, for some this must be a lonely existence. I can’t help thinking that the Africans have got it right, their homes are where their community is, they share everything with their friends and families, eating, sleeping, washing, even birth and death – to me it seems to makes much more sense.....although I don’t always think that at 4am when someone has decided to rearrange the cooking pots outside my bedroom!!!

In Ghana life is public, there seems to be almost nothing which you would be embarrassed or uncomfortable with others seeing, from men and women urinating on the street, to mothers breast feeding whilst selling street food, to my boss greeting me in his vest (it is worth pointing out that this was whilst working out of town in a hotel). One Sunday evening I was just finishing my washing up thinking that I would have an early night when I hear some shouts and knocks at my door...’Auntie Emily’... it was the ladies from downstairs, they were concerned that they hadn’t seem me for a few days so they had come to greet me. I was only wearing a wrapper at the time (a fairly large piece of brightly printed cotton, which is worn wrapped around the body like a dress, many women wear them in the house because it is so hot, I would never want to be seen outside in this!), I wanted to change before answering the door, but there was not time. I opened the door and the ladies were so happy to see me they barged past me and came into my lounge, needless to say they were wearing similar things themselves so it didn’t matter that I was wearing this, in fact it probably helped. The ladies sat and we talked about some ‘small’ things as they would say here, but talking was not their objective, neither was tea, they were happy to sit and just be in each other’s company – it was truly a special moment for me, the fact that they were happy to just sit and be comfortable with me in my space indicated I was starting to become part of the community....