“How much you want to pay?” he asked.
“A thousand,” I said.
“Yes,” he said instantly, and kept walking.
Then guilt. The ever-present guilt. What the amount meant to me as opposed to what it could mean to him.
“He expected us to bargain,” said Katie, as though reading my mind. “If he didn’t like the price, he wouldn’t have agreed.”
As we ascended, the vistas opened out, revealing wide fields of brown grassland dotted with rocky outcrops and occasional clusters of trees. Sometimes we’d see a village, its round huts huddled together like bodies around a fire.
“I wonder why they’re so close together,” said Katie. “You’d think there was a shortage of space.”
It was puzzling. Perhaps the vastness was just too overwhelming—all that space and light. A line from T. S. Eliot sprang to my mind: “Humankind cannot bear too much reality.” We press together for comfort, clinging ever tighter, like a child digging his knuckles into his eyes, trying to forget the largeness, the terrifying domain of rock, tree, dust, and bush, all brimming with powerful, unfathomable life.
Caught up in the somnambulistic rhythm of the walk, I fell into a reverie. I’d gotten a very sweet letter from Michael recently, forgiving me for the phone call incident and then some.
“Forget the guilt when you think of me,” he’d written. “Life’s a big mess. Know that I love you and that means whatever you need it to mean to be happy.”
His generosity of spirit floored me. My thoughts drifted to a hike we’d once taken in Colorado. We were almost to the mountain’s peak when he remembered he’d left his wallet back in the tent. He wanted to go straight back for it, but I said, “Come on, we’re almost there. We’ve been going for hours—we might as well check out the view before we rush back.” I kept telling him to let it go, and he kept getting more and more frustrated. Finally he stripped off all his clothes and threw them and his daypack off the side of the trail, shouting, “Take me as I am!”
What a drama queen he was! I smiled to think of it, but it left a melancholy aftertaste. The one thing he asked of me was the one thing I couldn’t give him: simple acceptance. The very thing he gave so naturally to me. The very thing I was never quite able to give myself.
A few hours later, we came to a dusty clearing where gnarled old men leaned against equally ossified trees, shelling groundnuts and popping them into their mouths. Their shirts were in shreds, strips of fabric hanging on their bony frames. Their faces lit up when they saw us.
We had arrived at Tenzuk, the mountain village that the famous shrine protected. This village had a chief as well, but he was away on business. His nephew, a soft-spoken young man of about eighteen dressed in immaculate Western clothes, offered to show us around the family compound before we climbed up to the shrine.
“You like to make snaps?” the chief’s nephew inquired politely, flashing us a shy smile. “You get a nice view of the shrine from here,” he added in carefully articulated English.
We stood on the roof of a granary. Like the villages we’d seen earlier, the compound was a miniature city of about twenty huts, surrounded by a circular mud wall. Inside was a teeming warren of narrow passages and archways so short that people had to bend nearly double to enter them. Women sat in the low doorways, weaving hats from dyed grass, crushing chili peppers on flat stones, nursing babies. Children barreled down the slender corridors, chasing each other. This chief had quite an extended family.
“The shrine is there,” the young man said, pointing at an impossibly steep cliff directly behind us. He smiled at the look of panic on our faces.
“Do not worry, we will help you,” he said kindly. “You snap here first? You snap with me?”
We took turns posing, our arms around the smiling young man.
“You send me the snap?” He turned to us with disarming eagerness.
“Of course,” said Katie. “Why don’t you write down your address?”
“Sure you will,” I murmured in her ear.
“You give me a gift for the snaps.” He extended his hand.
“How much?” I sighed.
“Please,” he seemed surprised. “You give what you want.”
I ungraciously forked over 200 cedis. He looked at Katie, and she did the same.
After our brief tour, we returned to the clearing outside the compound.
“Myself and these men will accompany you to the shrine,” said the chief’s nephew. The old men were rousing themselves for the journey. Our guide was sound asleep under a tree.
“The shrine belongs to the fetish,” the nephew explained gravely. “The fetish protects the village.”
“What’s a fetish?” I asked bluntly. I’d heard the word so often, yet I was never completely clear as to what it meant.
“The fetish is only a statue, but the spirit of a very strong ancestor, a chief, speaks to us through it, through the fetish priest,” he explained. I pictured an elaborate carving, perhaps a giant totemic mask, with froglike features and a head of wild, fleecy hair.
“People offer fowl to the fetish, and then they ask it for something,” he continued. “For example, if your daughter is sick with malaria, or if your mother’s feet have swollen up, then you can ask the fetish to cure them. Unless it is their time to die. If it is their time the fetish can do nothing. You too may ask for something. But first you must purchase a fowl.”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll do the fowl,” I said.
“You must sacrifice!” His eyes widened in surprise.
“We just want to look,” I explained. “We aren’t going to ask it for anything.”
“We don’t want to watch a fowl being killed,” Katie chimed in, with a note of distaste.
“You don’t want to watch?” The young man looked perplexed.
“We’ll give some money instead,” I said.
“Really,” said Katie, holding out another 200-cedi note, “won’t money be enough?”
We set off on the steep trail. The air was filled with fine dust, which clung to our hair and clothes, got in our eyes, and made us cough. After a half-hour or so, we came to a clearing that looked out on an enormous valley. Scrub, rock, and a few scattered villages stretched out beneath us as far as the eye could see. In the sudden quiet that arose in the wake of our crunching feet, I heard doves shurring deep in their throats and another bird repeating a three-note hiccuping tune.
Panting and red-faced, Katie and I collapsed on the rocks, while the old men chuckled.
“Here you remove shirt and shoes,” said the chief’s nephew.
“What?” we squeaked in unison.
The men began unbuttoning their frayed cotton shirts, hanging them delicately over the rocks.
“It is the custom,” he said, smiling at our amazement. “To respect the spirit and show that we are humble. All tourists do this,” he reassured us. “Many white ladies. No problem.”
“Excuse us a moment,” I said.
We turned our backs to confer.
“Breasts are desexualized here,” I whispered to Katie. “You’ve seen the women in the villages. Besides, what’s gonna happen?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the old men. “True.”
I raised my eyebrows. She shrugged.
“Carpe diem,” I said, pulling my T-shirt over my head.
“How California,” she said dryly.
I stood for a moment in my newly unclothed state while a light breeze raised the hair on my arms.
“What about this?” asked the nephew, indicating our bras.
Katie stared at me.
“No,” I said.
This hung in the air a minute.
“As you wish,” he said coldly.
“What happened to ‘carpe diem’?” Katie whispered as we scrambled upward, avoiding thistles and scree. Our toes clung to the bare rocks. Soon it was so steep we were forced to use our hands. I imagined the spirits looking down with amused tolerance on our ba
nd of pilgrims: two skinny white girls in sensible brassieres, a clean-cut African youth, and a gaggle of ancient men.
“Is it much farther?” I gasped, pausing to stanch some blood that was dripping from my knee.
“Shhh,” said the nephew. “You must crouch here.” He indicated an overhanging rock that led into a deep cavern, gaping like the mouth of some petrified beast. “He is there.”
On hands and knees, we crawled below the lip of the rock. We blinked in the sudden shadow, trying to make out the shapes.
Then I saw him. An emaciated man, wearing only a loincloth, crouched deep in the crevice like a bird jealously guarding its egg. Next to him were piles of bones and feathers higher than his head. His bloodshot eyes locked with mine. I looked around for a statue.
“Where’s the fetish?” I whispered to the chief’s nephew.
“The fetish is underneath the offerings.” He indicated the pile of debris. “This man is the fetish priest, the spirit’s human contact.”
“He’s so thin!” I said.
“The spirit takes all his energy,” he replied. “Anything he eats, it takes most.”
I gaped at the man. I’d expected artifice, ceremony—a symbolic connection to the spirits, not a literal one. Not a tiny, fragile human being, staring at me with the ravaged gaze of a prisoner of war.
“Would you like to snap?” the nephew asked.
I asked, taken aback, “He won’t mind?”
“Please. You are our guests.”
I hesitated. The man’s eyes held mine, and their expression seemed to change every moment: now accusatory, now curious, now sad. Yet as intense as his gaze was, I wasn’t sure he really saw me. At times he seemed to look through me, as though connecting with someone who stood just behind. Was I witnessing madness, or was he genuinely channeling an otherworldly force? Goose bumps rose slowly and acutely all over my flesh.
“Please,” the nephew said impatiently, gesturing toward my camera. Slowly, I raised it.
The little man winced at the blitz. Afterward he looked stunned, shaken. His eyes found mine again, and this time his expression was clear and personal. Betrayal. A powerful sense of shame flooded through me, as though I’d been caught hiding in someone’s closet, watching him make love. I’d intruded on an intimacy and cheapened it with my gaze.
“Please, some small money for the fetish priest,” the nephew said. He glanced at his watch, a gesture I’d rarely seen in Africa.
Katie handed the nephew a bill. He handed it to the man in the cave, who snatched it hungrily, his lips still moving.
“We go now?” said the nephew.
“Are you all right?” Katie asked me, as we made our way down.
“Sure,” I said. But I wasn’t. Sure, that is.
After a few minutes back in the hard sunlight, it was easy to persuade myself I had imagined the look of betrayal. I told myself it had all been part of the show.
When we reached the clearing, the men retrieved their shirts, threadbare but neatly hung, while we picked the thorns out of ours, which lay in a careless heap.
“Please, some small money for the elders,” said the nephew sweetly.
“Oh, come on,” said Katie.
“They climbed all this way to assist you. They must have money to buy kola nuts, and—”
“Kola nuts?” I said, jolted out of my reverie. “Why, it just so happens that we have some kola nuts!”
“And tobacco. They must also buy tobacco.”
But I was busy pulling the bundle from my daypack. A few nuts had fallen out, and they rattled loosely in the bottom of the pack. “Kola nuts,” I crowed, handing him the banana leaf. I fished around in my pocket. “And 200 cedis.”
“You must give 1,000 cedis. You see we are many. You didn’t even bring a fowl.” He looked genuinely annoyed.
“I need to save something for the tro-tro to Bolga,” I said. This may have been true—without going through my pockets, I couldn’t be sure.
Disgruntled, they conferred briefly, in low tones. We waited uneasily for the verdict.
“We go now.” The nephew’s face was blank.
“They keep springing it on you,” I said to Katie as we descended. “It’s not so much the amount. Because if you convert it . . .”
“If you go converting things, your holiday will last weeks instead of months,” she said firmly.
Just then I stumbled over a rock, pitching forward.
One of the old men spun around with amazing agility, catching me in his ropy arms.
“Sorry!” he exclaimed.
“Thanks,” I mumbled gruffly.
Back at the compound, we woke our guide. The sun was dropping fast, and we didn’t want to miss the last transport.
“Safe journey,” the nephew called after us as we left.
When we reached the public square in Tongo, I handed our guide the 1,000 cedis we’d agreed upon. His face lit up as though he’d witnessed a miracle. Had he thought we wouldn’t pay him?
“God bless you. God bless you,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “We had a good time.”
The sun hovered on the horizon as we watched our guide disappear nimbly up the trail. In the square, a man sat at a table displaying three packs of cigarettes and a few pieces of chewing gum and hard candy. A woman fried triangular chunks of yam over a small fire. When we asked about transport back to Bolgatanga, they shook their heads.
“Gone,” they said.
“Well,” I said to Katie, “what should we do?”
“We could try to spend the night here,” she suggested doubtfully.
We looked around at the cluster of mud huts. I’d enjoyed Ghanaians’ extraordinary hospitality countless times over the six months I’d been here. So many people had opened their homes to me unquestioningly, asking nothing in return. But tourism had changed the Tongo Hills area. Too many foreigners had walked through with their cameras, snapping up pieces of the villagers’ lives. Now they wanted something in exchange for what they gave.
The image of the tiny man flashed through my head. Somewhere above our heads he crouched, gazing through stone with those raw, tormented eyes. Whatever was going on around him, his was no performance.
“We could walk to Bolga,” I said quickly.
Katie protested, “It’s nineteen kilometers.”
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?”
“Unless it maims us,” Katie said. “Carpe diem, cliché queen.”
We started down the dirt road. The view looked just like Africa in the movies: low, flat-topped trees silhouetted against an enormous red disc. But this wasn’t a movie. Happy endings were not guaranteed.
“Katie,” I said, “did we do something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said, putting a hand on my arm.
A tiny lump at the bottom of my pack bounced against my spine. I took the pack off and removed the shining globe. It glowed orange, reflecting the dying light. I pulled out my Swiss army knife and split the nut, revealing pinkish innards. I handed Katie half and took a small nibble myself. It was dry and bitter.
“Delicious,” I said.
“Yuck,” said Katie. “I see why the chief prefers cash.”
9
Appetite
On the bus to Kumasi, we meet a university student. I ask him what he thinks about Ghana’s future—whether things will get better or worse. He tells me it depends on whether or not the college graduates stick around and develop new industry. The vast majority of educated people want to leave, he says, because they can get a better job and make more money elsewhere, but there will only be more and better jobs in Ghana in the future if they stay and create them. They need to have a vision for the country that goes beyond themselves and their families. They have to be patriotic, to sacrifice.
“What about you?” asks Katie. “Would you leave the country if you had the chance?”
“Myself, yes,” he says, without hesitation.
“Even thoug
h you think the only hope for the country is if educated people such as yourself stay?” I ask in surprise.
He nods, slightly sheepish.
I ask him if he’d look back from his life in the U.S. or Holland or England. Would he lobby for better policies toward Africa? Work for fair trade?
“Yes,” he says quickly, happy for the chance to redeem himself. “Yes, I would be an activist.” He pauses. “Do you like that?”
Peter J. Obeng, nicknamed Bengo, was the hungriest man I’d ever met. Bony and brilliant, fingers drumming, knee bouncing, he pulsated like a scrappy star, sucking in every shred of light from those around him and muscling it out again, blinding hot. Circling in his orbit was a slight, smooth-faced young man named Kojo, handsome to the point of beauty, who matched Bengo’s rapacious incandescence with a slow-burning charisma of his own.
Katie and I were spending a few days in Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti region and the second city of Ghana, on our way back to Accra. Once the seat of power for a vast Ashanti kingdom, Kumasi is now a modern city with a population of 1.5 million people. Surrounded by lush wooded hills, it is a center of culture and learning. One bright yellow morning, while Katie headed for the museums and the kente weavers, I dropped by the University of Science and Technology to visit Gorbachev’s cousin Stephen, whom I had met, briefly, at his family’s home in Accra. I had been in Stephen’s dorm room less than five minutes when two faces appeared in the open doorway.
“Ko ko,” said Kojo politely, voicing the Ghanaian equivalent of “knock knock.”
“How do you know her name?” Stephen asked.
“Pardon?” said Kojo.
“This is Sistah Korkor,” said Stephen, indicating me. “So you must say, ‘ko ko, Korkor.’ ” He giggled at his own joke.
“Is she Ghana born?” Bengo broke in, incredulous.
“She is not Ghana born, but she has received a Ghana name,” said Stephen, smiling. “Is there some problem?”
Now it was Bengo’s turn to laugh. “Surely there is no problem, brothah. Only you surprised me. We have heard that you have a visitor from the United States of America.”
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