Street Justice and Small Boys - December 2005

It was inevitable. You can’t live here for three years and not get into a car accident. I am amazed I lasted as long as I did driving in a country full of people with such varied levels of driving ability and such a wide range of vehicles on the road, in so many different states of repair. Just last week I saw a Ghanaian driving the newest model Porsche behind a horse and wagon. I often find myself frustratingly tailgating the car in front of me, with the car in front going its maximum speed of ten miles per hour. The streets in my neighborhood are full of cars with “Driving School” painted on the side, filled with dangerous, potentially-licensed drivers (mostly women unfortunately) behind the wheel and nervous-looking male instructors intermittently grabbing the wheel at the last minute to avoid one of Accra’s famous ditches lining the roads. I guess I should take comfort in the fact Ghana has driving schools to begin with.

So in my rush home to see my baby after work last Wednesday, I got into a traffic accident. A bicyclist shot out in front of a taxi I was following entering the famous Danquah traffic circle during rush hour. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes but had no brake lights. I slammed on my breaks, but not fast enough. Tires screeched, heads craned, and I ended up crushing the taxi’s back left taillight and cracking a plastic thing under my bumper. So, we had to do the old stop-get-out-of-cars-in-the-middle-of-rush-hour-while-cars-are-honking-furiously thing, and then motion to each other the international sign of “let’s pull over on the side of the road and talk this out.” Then the fun began.

A crowd quickly formed. The bicyclist (the only one who escaped without damage by the way) was furious! He kept yelling at the taxi driver in the local language. All I could understand was when he would interject “stupid fool!” every forty words or so. I just stood there watching calmly and exchanging many repetitions of “Oh, so sorry” and “Are you ok?” with the taxi driver and the taxi passengers. I called my husband for reinforcement. Luckily, no one was mad at me, even though technically, I was at fault. I had to tread very carefully because if an Obruni (the foreigner) is rude or hurts a local in any way, the crowd can turn on him/her in a second. So as long as they kept yelling at each other, I was in the clear.

Then the bicyclist started getting into it with some of the female taxi passengers. Who knows why? Things got physical but not overly so. Everyone had an opinion of who was at fault. Strangely, no one thought it was me, or if they did they kept it to themselves. The biker was mad at the taxi driver and the taxi driver and his passengers blamed the biker. Over the course of about thirty minutes, three Americans I knew on their way somewhere stopped by to see if I was ok. The crowd wasn’t getting ugly and I assured them it was under control. My husband arrived. He had called the police and they were “on their way.”

More talking, more looking at the cars. After about 45 minutes, one Ghanaian man assumed the role of judge and interpreter for me and my husband and the taxi driver. He told stragglers to keep on walking, controlled the crowd, sent the biker home and helped everyone determine that the damage was minimal, why get the police involved? Even with the police station a few blocks away, they hadn’t arrived. The “judge” suggested we just work with the taxi driver to come up with a solution. He said that involving the police would just take even more time, and since no one was hurt, why not just pay and we can all go home. The crowd agreed. So, my husband had a chat with the taxi driver, paid him double what he said he wanted, very publicly passed him the money, the crowd dispersed, and $25 bucks later, we all drove away.

Of course this whole thing could have been a scam. There have been multiple incidents where car crashes have been staged with Obrunis to extort money out of them, or worse, rob or car-jack them. But hey, if we were scammed, it only cost us $25. That’s worth it just for the story. So now you know what to do in a minor fender-bender in Ghana if it ever happens to you.

In another bizarre incident, my husband acquired a strange rash at the back of his neck along the hairline. After it became the size of a finger and was infected, we went to see a doctor. The doctor took one look at it and said, “That is a bug bite. Do you remember something falling on your head that felt like a leaf from a tree?” Yep. Just another of the dangers of African diplomacy.

On the baby front, our eleven-month old acquired two more teeth. He now has four teeth in total and loves to eat bites of his parents’ food in addition to his own. He also started walking one month ago. One day he took four steps in a row, and he never stopped. When he gets tired, he stumbles like a drunk. He loves to suck on the top of Daddy’s beer bottle. The nannies that chaperone other kids at the playgroup he attends dubbed him “Superman” because of his strength and walking abilities. He is loving life.

What else—I looked at last year’s Christmas update prior to life with baby. I mentioned that things were getting “hot” in Ghana given the Presidential election craziness. Well this year it is even hotter politically. Major government officials here are involved in a corruption scam. The highest-level member of the President’s political party was caught on tape discussing bribes to government officials. Excerpts of the text first appeared in the newspaper and then the tapes were released to the media. Forums are being held on corruption with politicians from the President’s team openly discussing how bribes are really “political contributions” and “not necessarily kickbacks.” My husband commented, “It doesn’t get any better than this if you are a political officer at an Embassy.” Another friend ominously noted, “December is a popular time for coups in Africa.” Let’s hope that is not the case in Ghana. As much as I like to see corrupt regimes go down, I don’t like to be in countries when coups occur.

On a less dire note, every day I walk into my office, the guards at USAID ask me about my “small boy.” Here in Ghana, young people are “small girls” and “small boys,” and Ghanaians love children. In this society where elders rule, someone like me, a woman in her late 30s, is also definitely considered a “small girl.” But the emergence of young, highly educated potential leaders is putting a kink in the whole “small boy” culture, so popular among the old guard. There is a Ghanaian journalist in Accra who was in my husband's class in graduate school in the U.S., and who hosts a very popular local radio show. In his early 40s, he has also been referred to as a “small boy” because, regardless of the level of his education, in Ghana, it’s the elders and the chiefs who are given full respect and should be listened to. On his radio show recently, one of his contributors challenged this tradition saying that Ghana should learn from other nations that have developed economically at an accelerated rate – these countries always respect their elders, but have learned to respect the wisdom acquired by some of the younger generation that has helped them move forward. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that someone was willing to come out publicly and say this, and have since encountered a number of young Ghanaian professionals who completely agree with him.

But change is never easy. The most recent Afro Barometer survey shows just how tired Ghanaians are of paying the price for democratic and economic reforms in Ghana. In spite of free and fair elections, record economic growth, and falling inflation over the last few years:

-Three out of five people surveyed in Ghana think that market reform has worsened the gap between rich and poor in the last few years.
-Over half perceive that there has been a decline in their standards of living.
-66% agree that government economic policies have hurt most people and benefited only a few.
-78% think it is better for all civil servants to keep their jobs even if paying their salaries is costly to the nation.
-41% think that government should bear the main responsibility for the well being of people.
-73% believe it is better to pay school fees to raise educational standards than for children to have access to low quality free education.
-45% went without medical attention over the last year.
-37% went without water over the last year.
-36% went without food.
-73% go without a cash income.

The survey results just prove how hard it must be for African leaders to make the reforms necessary to improve their economies. The African street doesn't have the patience to wait for the benefits of reform. Hell, I'm impatient too. But on the other hand, where has a country improved from where Ghana is to where Ghana needs to be in less than a generation? Even if Ghana's economy grew at double at its current pace, it wouldn't make it to middle-income status for another 25 years or so. We all need to inject a bit of realism into how hard it is going to be and how long it is going to take to markedly change a place like Ghana.

At the same time, this survey also reinforces what I already knew—deep down, we are not that different. Ghanaians want the same things that everyone else wants in this world—good jobs, better education & services, better health care. If you want to read more, check out the website www.afrobarometer.com. And remember to be happy for what you have this holiday season.