January 9-2010
Today was the fateful day that I had to go to Immigration and “beg” for more time.
I’m in a bit of a tough position right now because I don’t have a resident permit because in order to do so, you need to have a job or a husband. Since I don’t have either right now I am left to buy more time as a TOURIST which I HATE if I am permitted to use that word. HATE HATE HATE!!! Buying more time!
The thing that ticks me off is that one of Ghana’s most NOTORIOUS B-I-G sayings is “Feel Free!!” and when people ask you how you like Ghana and you say yeah, you like it, they always reply with that little “free” remark like, “Yes, Ghana is very free” or “Don’t you love how Ghana is so free??”. Discrimination, I tell you. Who is it free for?
So I head to immigration, find out last minute that I’m going to be heading this ship alone as my friend who is a driver for another friend is tied up. That leaves a panicky sensation in my stomach because not only do I have to search out the dang place (my sense of direction hasn’t improved YET**) but I’ve got to come up with a believable excuse of why I need to extend my extension. Yes, I have already extended it by two months. So I left at the crack of dawn (well, not exactly, but it feels like an ungodly hour when I have to force myself to wake up) to fight the dirty smoggy traffic of downtown Accra.
Having been in Ghana for some time now, I was well aware of the kinks that could rumple my road. I was trying to clear my mind because a good excuse wasn’t coming to me. Until I thought, you know what, I am a special case. So I’m just gonna march myself in there and tell them, you know what, I’m doing community development work and I’m not finished yet, which is the absolute truth. The thing that stinks about coming to the country alone is that you have to fight for your own way, and that can be tricky as a young white female.
So the long and the short of it was that I got all the way there and didn’t have everything they were looking for. The kindly (NOTTTTTT) gentlemen who called himself Shadrack wanted a passport copy of the friend who wrote the letter I brought to them saying I was in her care. So close yet so far, as the saying goes.
So I left there, and went all the way back to my lady friend who was so gracious to give me taxi money so I could make it back there quicker this time.
You know—you get good at crossing roads in Accra. Especially if you go too far on a tro-tro, miss your stop and have to back track, which is not an uncommon happening in a day in the life of Esenam. So here is the awful thing that happened as I am heading back to Immigration to catch a taxi on the otherside of a busy double-highway.
So picture this: the traffic is going in two directions, and I would believe there’s about four lanes per direction. That’s a heck load of traffic, lots of people, you get the picture. I got myself spoofed up, you know, afterall, looking good for the immigration peeps can never hurt… so I bolt it across the first highway when it’s safe…..
And there’s a thin median/garden between the traffic going in two directions. I think my foot didn’t adjust so well to the change of terrain because as I’m running to jump onto the median as traffic is passing me on both side I trip and fall straight down into the dust. And I’m drinking pure water out of a satchet which also goes everywhere making the dirt stick to me. You know, half of me, in that moment, wanted to roll around in the dirt and lay there, hoping that I could just crawl underground to the other side. But everyone saw, I jumped up and brushed myself feeling mildy ill because I just ate something before I took the fall. And people driving by who saw are calling out their window, “Sorry! Sorry!!” as they are zooming and zinging past me. It was a rough day.
But apparently today is my lucky day because I got my one month extension, which the immigration officer was acting like he was giving me a check for a zillion cedis rather than just one month.
For those of you who are reading this and are pray-ers, I’m in a bit of a pickle…. I have one month to land a job so I can apply for a proper resident permit that won’t require me to keep extending and buying more time. I have a national identity card being processed but I don’t have a permit, funny how things work here. But I love this country and I just keep telling myself that the things that are worth the effort are never easy. The struggle continues….
In a few days, I am hoping to go to Toh-Kpalime bringing the money that was so graciously raised by a certain group of wonderful Canadians back home who believe in my passion to get another certain group of amazing kids a school building. My hometown awaits.
I am really looking forward to getting outside of the busy capital for some R&R and good visiting with my Ewe family and place of origin . I will be checking on the progress of the building so far, taking pictures, asking questions, holding meetings and helping to mediate between two groups that haven’t exactly been on the same page in the recent past. It has been a challenge explaining to both sides that it isn’t any one person who will benefit, but the benefit is for the kids. No one will be chopping any money. Everyone will add what they can, including their ideas to make this project inclusive and successful.
This is the very reason I am in Ghana, but because I tend to act with my heart before my head, I have had to struggle a bit to organize things so I can survive before I extend myself to the village that I want to help.
I haven’t been in very good health recently. In my place right now I do not yet have a fridge or a stove, so I have been eating outside, which I think has been to the detriment of my stomach. But I look around me now and I see how blessed I am. I have a safe place to call home. I have wonderful friends who have understood my vision and have given me a step up when I am down, have fed me when I was hungry. I have family back home that supports me even though they don’t always understand my moves. And I belong somehow.
When I was entering the gate to my place last night, the kids in the house saw me coming and starting greeting me, “Auntie Esenam!!Auntie Esenam!!” so I went to them and they are calling me to come and meet ‘Vanessa’. So I venture over to a pretty young woman sitting in front of the house with some of the Aunties in the house. She asks me what is my name and I tell her, ‘Esenam’. I can see she’s surprised and instead replies, ‘Where do you come from?’ So I reply her in ewe that I come from Toh-Kpalime, Volta Region. She’s more surprised than the first time! And I love the comment that one of the younger girls tells her, she says, “Yes Aunties, it’s true! She’s an ewe!”
It feels good to belong. Especially here when I am always fighting to be recognized as a ‘sista’ and not an ‘obroni’ (white person). To be taken in and accepted as part of things cannot be underestimated. It means more that you can know. It’s a lonely road, otherwise. As Lucky Dube said, “One people, different colours” and as Bob Marley said, “Let’s get together and we’ll feel alright….”
