"She is not correct"

Many Ghanaians assume that all obrunis are wealthy and in most cases, relatively speaking, we are. The ex-pat obrunis are in general far wealthier than the average VSO volunteer. This perception means that I am regularly asked for money. The kids who having politely greeted me or just shouted ‘obruni, give me thousand’, are not a problem. They can be dealt with easily with a look of mock surprise and indignation. They never persist and know that they are just trying their luck. Obrunis in Koforidua are not that common so they have to make the most of any opportunity. When I go away for a few days there are the people who say, ‘so what did you bring me from Tamale/Accra/UK?’ In these cases I am just apologetic and say I didn’t bring anything for them.

There are other requests which are harder to deal with and before I start on this I have to say I totally understand why people ask and I do not blame them for doing so. Ghana is a developing country and obviously the majority of people have very little. I very rarely do give away money, partly because if word gets around I would be inundated with requests and partly because I know that if I agree to give every time I am asked I would have nothing left. I am left trying to salve my conscious with the thought that theoretically my work here is donation enough.
With the people I don’t know, I have no way of telling how genuine the need is but others are all too apparent and very sad. There was the boy whose flip flop had broken and needed a small amount of cash for new ones. Footwear is a good indicator of relative wealth and is something of status symbol. At work, my colleagues and I wear shoes. Sandals are worn by some and the poorer people wear cheap imported flip flops. The very poorest, of course, walk bare foot.
This week I was buying porridge oats and jam at Mobil 2, neither commodity bought by the average Ghanaian and probably regarded as luxury items. I was approached in the entrance to the shop by a young lady. She asked if I would buy an ice cream she could take back to her young child. This would entertain the child while she did some household chores. She then decided to introduce me to some of the goods on sale in the store pointing out that there were products designed to be convenient and nutritious, effectively wonders of the modern age. She spoke calmly in good English. When she left the shop, the assistants noted that I had clearly made a new friend and said that the lady was ‘not correct’. This is an expression I hear from time to time. There are many expressions in Ghanaian English which have different meanings to other variations of the language. I have not quite decided whether ‘not correct’ in this context meant that the lady’s behaviour was inappropriate, ie that she should not have been begging or that she was, to use another euphemism, ‘not right in the head’.

Another thing which was not correct this week was the offer I was made on Friday morning. A group of men sitting just off my road to work beckoned me over. They pulled back a sheet to reveal two very scruffy, but decidedly dead cats. Both had blood stains on their necks. I know that cat is eaten here and regarded by some as something of a delicacy. Later, when I mentioned my encounter at work, I was told this was not correct. This was not because I was offered cat but because you should never take a cat which is already dead or where the means of death is even slightly ambiguous. The offer was also rather ironic. For the past three weeks I have been cat sitting for one of the other volunteers. As I write this there are two young tortoiseshell cats peacefully sleeping within a foot of my lap top. They don’t like leaving the house and in the circumstances this is probably just as well.