Ama's place
Shadows of Accra
This post is the first in a series entitled 'Shadows of Accra', about interesting encounters with people that have changed my perspective in some way.She just kind of appeared out of the night. Her fragile frame wrapped in a cheap dress of unknown origin. She asked if she could sit, and I gestured to her ‘yes’.
I knew full well what she was looking for: a drink, a hand to hold, ears to listen, an arm around her shoulders, a place to lay her head for the night, some cool cash. Same things we are all looking for, but her hunting ground just happens to be the night streets of Accra. Far from her first choice. Her childhood dreams, growing up in Nigeria, surely didn’t include a single Ghanaian road.
She sat and we talked. We drank. We smoked. The night passed us by as we explored each other’s realities. Different as they are, also eerily similar in all the areas where it really matters. Searching for purpose and meaning in a world that so often seems to offer neither.
The night took its toll on us, and around 4am we were both nodding our heads a bit. I had already told her that we would not be spending the night together. She tried to change my mind about that a couple of times during the night, but in the end she accepted. However, when 4am came around, I did offer to make sure she got home safe. She smiled.
Got in the Uber and disappeared into early morning traffic. Emerged minutes later under a big neem tree and got out of the car. She immediately turned left down a narrow alleyway along the left bank of a large, open sewage canal. Concrete walls lined the narrow banks on each side. Fear decided to pay me a visit.
White man. With a stranger. Late night. Dark alleyway. Those are all the characteristics of every story I’ve ever heard about people like myself getting mugged in Africa. I told my new friend about my fear.
She couldn’t have known that I have made a habit of telling my African friends that I think the biggest issue on the continent is a lack of trust. I go on about how trust requires someone to take a leap of faith. How nothing can grow from nothing. When I told her about my fear, right there in the darkness, she simply looked me straight in the eyes and said: trust me!
We took our slippers off and continued along the sewage canal barefooted. Rocks lining the canal too uneven to safely walk on them wearing slippers. As I walked behind her along the canal, her wild and untamed nature was evident in her stride. She was no stranger to rough terrain.
We soon arrived opposite her home. A small, wooden hut with holes in the roof. We crossed the canal by balancing on a wooden plank. As we arrived on the other side, she pointed to a poster of a young woman on the wall outside her hut. Only weeks earlier, this young woman had fallen into the canal during heavy rainfall. Nobody ever saw her again. I looked back at the wooden plank as a shiver ran down my spine.
We went into her tiny home. No lights, so I used my phone to illuminate the place. A bright, lifeless glow filled the tiny room. She shed her street persona — dress, wig and pushup bra — pulled a nightgown over her head and transformed into a vulnerable little girl right in front of my eyes. The tone of her voice, the look in her eyes. Everything changed as if by magic. As she sat there and told me about her children, I started to fully understand the extent of her struggles.
We shared a cigarette and she fell asleep. Not wanting to fall asleep there, I lay down on my back (I could just barely fit inside the tiny room) and gazed at the ceiling waiting for dawn to break. As I lay there, I could hear soft, African beats from the hut next door. Birds started singing along outside and the milky morning light was spilling into the hut through little cracks under the roofline. It was magical. A little slice of heaven for me, right there in the middle of her hell.
I got up and bid her farewell. She offered to walk me to the main road but I declined. Told her to rest. I walked barefoot to the main road, put my slippers back on and kept walking.
Below an image of Ama’s front yard with the poster of young Queen who tragically lost her life, and a short video of the relentless torrent that claimed her life.
