So, two weeks ago I guess, on my second full day in the village, I was taken to a wedding in Kumasi. My host father had mentioned he was going to his eldest sons wedding, but didn't make it clear that I would be going with him - ohhh, communication. So Saturday morning, 5:30am I was trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to wear to a wedding - considering I had packed for life on the farm. I also hadn't realized that my pink blouse - my "nice" top, was considered too red for a wedding (red is for funerals in Ghana). So out I trotted, no make up, my hair in a school marm bun, wearing a wrinkly green button up, a brown tie dye skirt and those fanciest of shoes - birkenstocks. I looked ridiculous. Especially compared to everyone else, who were dressed to the nines in gorgeous fabrics and super high heels. It made me think about a lot of things - which I had time for given the 2.5 hour drive there, the ceremony which was in Twi and I didn't understand, and then the 2.5 hour ride back. On one hand, I was humiliated just to be there, some stranger and this couple's wedding, who had met the groom's father two days before. Then there was my outfit, which I wouldn't have been caught dead in at a Canadian bar, never mind a wedding. On top of that was my realization that I had thought the clothes I brought were good enough for life with a Ghanaian family in a village. Even my church clothes were not that fancy, because I though; well, it's not important, they're poor right? (I mean, not so brashly...but that was the underlying assumption). Here I am, this liberal thinking, International Development student, and I felt like a jerk for not realizing that even African peasants have nice clothes and take pride in their appearance. I did appreciate the irony of realizing that, among the wedding attendees, if I had to pick the poorest person based solely on appearance I would have picked me. Good lesson in humility, if nothing else.
So, that's hard. It's hard to realize you've assumed certain things about people and places. It's hard too to feel so little control over your appearance when you're so noticeable - which white people are in Ghana, just because there are not that many. I guess I should preface this section by saying....I know that whatever racism or racialism I experience in Ghana, it is nothing compared to what so, so many other people have experienced here, and all over the world. I'm acutely aware that a lot of my issues with race are frustrations which, when I return to Canada, will all but disappear. So I don't claim to know what it's like to live day in and day out your whole life with the colour of your skin being the first thing people see - I don't. But I do want to share a little bit about what it's been like for me, and how I have become a lot more aware of my racial identity since coming to a place where I am not longer a part of the racial "majority". I don't think it's something you can really understand until you've experienced it - I know I didn't. For all I've studied about race theory, and for all the research I've done on representations of race and racial performativity I never really knew what it was to truly identify with a racial identity. Yes, I knew I was white, obviously, and I knew what that meant - mostly it meant a guilty feeling; also closely linked to my identity as an ID student - one of the great inheritors of colonialism. But it's easy in Canada to forget that you're white. It's not easy to forget that in Ghana. As we walk down the street, children's and even adults will shout "Obruni!" (white man) sometimes followed by requests for money, a nonsense song, or declarations of love and friendship. I've been pet - literally pet by children, who tend to follow me around like I'm the pied piper. It's amazing how a word like that - a word that doesn't have malevolent connotations, and is for the most part called playfully rather than maliciously - can still really start to get to you. I'm already so tired of being addressed as "Obruni" rather than "Jacqueline"; feeling as though my entire identity here is based upon my being white. It's amazing too the surge of connection I feel when I see another white person on the street or at an internet cafe - sometimes we'll call Obruni, or they will and we'll smile...or I'll look away awkwardly and ignore them, feeling an immediate sense of guilt that I want to speak to these people, to know them just because they're white. It's ridiculous. But there it is.
Getting back to the wedding...there I was, pretty much mortified by my presence and my appearance...and then my host father tells me I'm going to have my picture taken with the happy couple. So I'm in some of their wedding pictures - again, even though going up to get them taken was the first time I was introduced to them. At a certain point I was also called up to be part of the wedding table for the brief reception and passing around of cake. I tried to ignore it for a bit while they were calling, pretending I didn't realize "Sister Jacqueline" was me...until an usher came and escorted me up to my seat. Again, there was just so much discomfort around being there and standing out, and being treated like some kind of honoured guest. I was also embarrassed because I felt like a big deal was being made of me being there by other people...and I didn't want anyone else - anyone who saw white people differently perhaps, to think that I thought I deserved to be made such a fuss of. And again, it's a constant debate in my head - is this because everyone was trying to make me feel like a welcome part of the family? Then why were none of the groom's real siblings given the same treatment? Is this really just because I'm white, or from the west?
So those are some of my thoughts on race so far - and I realize they may seem offensive, or weird, or overly sensitive and I feel odd just posting this. But it's a big part of my experience so far so I feel like it's important to share. It's a struggle to make sense of it all, so I hope you all realize that. A lot of frustration comes simply from being identified as "obruni", and also not being able to communicate with a lot of the people in the village who call me that. This adds to the feelings of identity loss and isolation which also simply come from being in a new community - where I can't communicate very well and therefore have very little control over how I'm seen. It's tough too to sit somewhere and hear others talking....only understanding one world..."obruni"...and knowing it's about you...but not knowing what's being said. Despite being put on a pedestal, I often also feel like a running joke; someone who gets talked about, and laughed at when I try to speak. It's time's like these I wish I had a perception filter, so I could just escape notice, the way I usually do. It's also times like this I realize no matter how big my celebrity crushes, I never want to marry Daniel Radcliffe - the attention would just be too much.
With all these thoughts running through my head, I've also been thinking a lot about "the gaze"; how those who look have power over those who are looked at. I have never felt so looked at, and yet also such a lack of control over how those people looking at me are seeing me. It's another way in which this experience is helping me understand academic work I've done in the past. I've also been thinking about gender a lot - gender roles, yes; but also about my own gender. I'm constantly referred to as a "white man" and to be honest, the first couple of times I was confused as to who people were referring to (you know, because I'm a woman). Add to this my scruffy clothes, my lack of make up....and yes, even the fact that my period has been irregular. I feel like Maureen Smalls; struggling with how to reconcile my whiteness and my femininity and figure out just how I'm supposed to perform both when I've been dropped into a foreign culture. On one hand, it's very freeing - not to worry so much about being beautiful, being attractive. Even after the wedding, I told myself and others told me "it doesn't matter, you're white, they'll like you anyway". How awful is that? But a lot of the time it's true. I've never had so many marriage proposals, and I also feel I've never looked frumpier. So. Yeah. I don't know how to wrap this up. Basically, gender and race are confusing. And maybe, no matter how much we think we know about it, until our circumstances change we don't realize to what extent how we perceive race and gender are based on our own cultural and social contexts. It's a struggle too because these are things that - whether we like to admit it or not - form a large part of our identities. I'm saying our a lot, and I should say my. I think in the long run this awareness is important and will do me good. These feelings and struggles are part of the reason this trip is so important to me.
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