(Dis)orientation

Today was like the first day of school. Dress up nice, pack your books and papers. Try to make a good impression. Meet the other kids. Go through orientation.

The WUSC office is not far from Suma Court, so Annette, assistant to Patience, arrived on foot to walk me to the office. She showed me a convenient back route that doesn’t take us along the busy Atomic Road filled with morning traffic of honking taxis, careening tro-tros (mini vans that function somewhere between a taxi and an informal bus system) and myriad other vehicles of all shapes and sizes, from scooters to 18-wheel transports, with engines in varying states of repair, many spewing noxious and nauseating black smoke the likes of which I haven’t seen since an unfortunate walk in Oxford that ended with dry heaves on Madgelan Bridge, but that is another story.

Patience. What can I say except I’d do almost anything to have her on any team I was assembling. She is truly wonderful. Very smart. Very efficient. Warm and welcoming. Organized and flexible. We did the business of orientation. She asked me to draw a picture of myself on my sheet of expectations so she would know who it was. This was, of course, a big mistake and the funny egghead with Harry Potter glassed and spiky red hair was unexpectedly startling. She gave me information and advice. I asked questions. But mostly we laughed. Patience epitomizes old and new Ghana: a woman in traditional dress (the most amazing blue with pineapples) coordinating an army of volunteers from her laptop. This is someone who gets things done with an iron will and a smile. We ate fried plantains, chicken and red-red (a sort of bean stew) at her desk, and then we make the trek into Accra proper to the offices of Child’s Rights International, to meet the executive director and staff and other volunteers.

I am keenly aware that I have now gone up and down that road 5 times, from the airport, to the mall and back and now to CRI and back..... and yet I yearn for a landmark, for something vaguely recognizable from one trip to the next. Part of this is that the kind of stable markers we Canadians use are irrelevant on roadsides with an ever changing vista. Some vendors go home and others take their place. Some places seem to have more stable booths, while others clearly change from day to day as someone acquires a stack of tires to sell or comes from the country with trays of freshly baked bread or plantains or chickens (live) or a crate of puppies. These vendors come and go so they offer the stranger no point of reference.

One might think that billboards offer a stable landmark but even these seem to be in perpetual motion. This illusion is caused by the astonishing overabundance of signs of all shapes and sizes that line the roads and positively congregate and somehow add to the aura of chaos and congestion of the junctions. There are so many billboards and signs that one’s attention is constantly shifting. On the way from the airport it was Vodofone signs; today’s themes were different. First, at the junction by the Achimota School and Police Station, there was an astonishing trinity of giant billboards: the centre on roared, “Repent. Jesus is Coming Soon” while, like the two thieves on either side at Calvary, hung equally large “Castle Milk Stout. Smoothness Inside You” and “Guiness Foreign Extra. One Nation. One Game. One Beer.”

There are multiple advertising disjunctions that knock one off balance. There is a lingerie shop in the mall, much like La Senza or Victoria’s Secret, with the same skimpy, diaphanous underwear that wasn’t designed for more than 20 minutes of uncomfortable wear. The store mannequins are all white women in this very black culture. The same fascinating intersection of race and gender is mirrored on the numerous lingerie billboards but, from what I can see so far, these are virtually the only white faces in advertising.

There is another set of advertising signs and fliers that appear with overwhelming frequency and are in startling parallel. There are religious signs everywhere, some urging repentance, others advertising evangelical meetings or Christian conferences. Religion is reflected in more mundane signage, as well, the By His Grace Fitting Shop (tailor), the Black Jesus Barber Shop, With God Furniture or the God’s Time is Best cell phone booth. Equally evident, however, are the exhortations of educational institutions: come and upgrade your marks, gain foreign accreditation, TOEFL scores improved, study by distance, placements in universities abroad guaranteed, American curriculum, British curriculum and even Canadian curriculum offered. These dubious purveyors of one the most highly prized acquisitions in Ghana – a good education – promise people salvation and success akin to the evangelical promises.

So, with such distractions, I have yet to learn my way to the office..... maybe tomorrow......