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This blog was inspired by a buzz feed article about 20 reasons why you should date an Aid worker.
These are 20 reasons when you know you have been living in Ghana too long and you should probably be ready to go home:
1. When the patent pending Ghanaian child rearing technique of if its crying give it a slap, if it's still crying give it a boob, if it's still crying, it's probably something serious and you should take your child to a hospital, seems like sound parenting advice and you think you could make a small fortune introducing it back in England.
2. When people shout at you in the street in your home town/village, more than 50% of the time they use your real name and not some variation of white boy in either English or one of the local languages ("Oi, whitey give me five.." is probably my favourite so far).
3. You take the Peace Corps route and shout back 'Black man, my name is not white man, it's James!'
4. You are no longer shocked by the things said by colleagues that would be considered very non-pc back home (although every now and again you get thrown a curve ball. Last week I was introduced to a room full of children and a few adults as 'the person who is better than all black people….')
5. If an unattended infant wanders into your place of work or knocks on your door your first port of call is not to call the police or franticly search for their mother but to play with him or put him to sleep on the sofa until, sometimes hours later, someone will casually come looking for him.
6. That an afternoon nap on the sofa in the office is not frowned upon but actively encouraged and you take advantage of this fact.
7. You turn up 2 hours late for work in the afternoon due to inadvertently falling asleep and no one even notices!
8. You start using a minimum of two openers in a sentence and words you have discovered in the thesaurus that you have no real idea of what they mean but you use them anyway even if they don't make sense in your writing.
9. When a gaggle of small children turn up at your door and start burning your rubbish, weeding/clearing the foliage around the house and washing your motorbike despite your rather tame attempts to convince them to stop, and you stop seeing it as child slave labour and part of village life because the one time you gave them something for doing these chores, 5 children turned to 30 the following day!
10. You stop using Ghanaian sayings like "ssaarryy", "it's not easy" and " oohh" ironically and start using them seriously in everyday conversations with friends, colleagues and family because you can't help yourself.
11. You have finally given up on turning up to meetings on time 'even though you promised yourself you would never do this during your whole placement because you wanted to set a good example' because you realise that in the past year you have probably wasted over 100 hours (at a conservative guess) of your life but feel super guilty if you turn up late to the one meeting that everyone else seemed to have got the memo that it was going to start on time except you.
12. People in your office actually tell you in advance that there is going to be a bank holiday the following day and you don't turn up to work and realise you are the only person that did not know. (And then get told repeatedly, "but they broadcast it on the radio? So why did you not know?")
13. Arriving less than 2 hours after you should when travelling to another town/city is seen as a major win! Same goes to less than 3 breakdowns.
14. You are finally allowed to give input into a budget that you did not write yourself! (This will be covered in a future blog)
15. You no longer feel awkward and have a pressing need to fill the long silences that seem to pop up in every social conversation you have with a Ghanaian.
16. Your mock outrage at things that seem to have no bearing or meaning on local life, or the conversation you are having or because you have no idea what is being said but have taken social cues from other members of the group, turns to real outrage at the injustice of it all!
17. If you are not in bed by 9 (Ghanaian midnight) on any day of the week then something is seriously wrong.
18. You actually crave the local balls of carbohydrate and start to choose them over more 'conventional' foods (My fufu lady went travelling for almost two weeks to Kumasi and it nearly sent me into a tail spin)
19. You finally get over the optimistic feeling you get when someone tells you, "It's coming", "soon" or "it's not far" and realise what these words actually mean is 'I have a feeling it may be coming but I have not based this opinion on any actual facts or information I have been given", "this could be any time period from 20 seconds to 7 hours," and "my understanding of the difference in distances is based on incredibly optimistic guesses that have no basis in reality".
20. You wish that England was a little bit more like Ghana!
Not all of these relate directly into life back in England (or wherever people are reading this blog from) but hopefully there is enough in there to brighten up your day.
N.B After writing this and before posting it I thought it would be fun to send it out to a few VSO volunteers and see if they had any of their own they would like to add. Below are the results!
Leela - When you have a collection of symptoms which are probably the prevailing malingering parasites of malaria coming back again and rather than freak out or hospitalise yourself, you think of this as a slightly annoying set back to you day and perhaps do a bit more napping.
Leela and James combined - When stopping/crashing into a pig/goat/cow/chicken/monkey is an everyday occurrence and hardly worth a mention (but seeing a camel is still a treat although this can often lead to a similar finish).
Ellie B - When you are such a regular at the borehole that the borehole regulars no longer invite you to skip the queue or rush to pump the water for you (sad times!). Although as a man, when I go visit I obviously jump straight to the front because that is bore hole etiquette!
Ellie B - Someone in my office just asked if it was Tuesday or Wednesday and I literally couldn't be sure - there's the (I was going to say slow creep but it's actually more like a quick march of) senility!
Alice and James combined - You start to believe the urban legends that are presented to you as fact. (eg The bush fires are started by hedgehogs spikes rubbing against the grass)
Alice- When your favourite schools and communities are the ones that give you pito/tomatoes and want to sit all day and chat and not the ones where actual work is being done!
Finally Christmas is coming!!!! If you would like to send me a card or a small gift you have two options. First, my father will be doing a quick stopover in Ghana for a weekend and if you can get the card to the below address by the 22nd of November it will be hand delivered.
James Heale,
38a Queens Gardens,
Bayswater,
London,
W2 3AA.
Your second option is to send it to me directly!! Again you should probably send it by the around the 22nd of November to ensure it makes it for Christmas. If you have forgotten its:
James Heale,
PO Box 18,
Tumu,
Upper West Region,
Ghana,
West Africa.
James xxx
- comments
anna Jimbo, I love this blog and it really made me giggle... I definitely think that it is time you come back to the mayhem of teaching in a London school when you don't have a spare moment!! Joys.... I will be sending something out with Daddy, but he has told me that it has to be very very small as apparently mummy is sending everything that is available to you! Love you loads. xxx
ellie Love this James! Although I'm sure your phrase "my fufu lady" has left your friends who do not know what fufu actually is wondering if it's a euphemism.... Lots of Love Ellie Fro. PS Looking forward to seeing you x x x
Fent Jimbo, you'll be v happy to know I've given you another full 5 stars for this one! Although I'm pretty pleased you're coming home soon after all that..! Buzzfeed is hilerious, I waste far too many hours on it! I'll get something in the post, promise. Xxx