The non-proposal

February 1, 2010
A standard farewell in Ghana is to say “I will come visit you there” so when a cab brought me home last week I wasn’t surprised to hear the driver say that. We had talked briefly about how it was for me in Ghana, and he had said he wants to visit America, and etc. Everybody wants to visit America, and almost every time I am on a tro someone says the same thing. Earlier that same day a man traveling with his young son, but who might have been drinking, said he thought I could get him there somehow. After much discussion about how expensive it is to fly, hard to get a visa, etc., I told him that frankly there aren’t any free tickets to the US, and he was on his own as far as I was concerned. I reached home and forgot about both conversations. That’s just standard stuff you get all the time from Ghanaian men, who frequently also say they want to marry you. I usually tell them I have too many husbands already, and it’s kind of a game, but sometimes you just get sick of it. My latest response is that I have two husbands at home, but if this guy has a good enough job to support all of us I will consider it.

So imagine my surprise when the cab driver showed up yesterday, with a female classmate. She didn’t speak the entire time they were here, so I don’t know what that’s about. He couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize him right away, and had to keep reminding me of our conversation. As in, you are the grandmother, so you are too old for it to work, but I know you have many young white women in the Peace Corps and I thought you were going to introduce me to them. I ask, “Are you saying that you want to meet one of the white women so you can get to America?” “Yes,” and he was so relieved that I finally got it. Again, however, he had to emphasize “..but you are too old for it to work so you must introduce me to a younger woman.” I asked about his studies, he is probably around 22 or 23 and goes to high school, which is not uncommon here. He is studying agriculture, but wants to study engineering. I showed him on the map how far away from my site the younger white women are (just the ones really far). But he insisted he has seen them around Kukurantumi, so I was probably holding out on him. I explained there had been several week-long training sessions last month, but they are all back at their sites now, as I am. He realized it was probably a lost cause, but he is really disappointed. By that time I was cranky, and I advised him that maybe he could get to the US on his own. He should study hard, learn to read and speak English well, and try for a scholarship to study engineering at a university in the US. He thought that would be much too hard, but I think there’s a better chance of that than there is that some white chick with an extra ticket would stop him on the street and take him home with her. They left, and I would love to know what his companion understood or thought of all this. And I sort of wondered what he has that won’t work because I’m too old. But I’m not curious enough to want to have another conversation with him.