Thoughts From Oxford Street

Last Friday, my parents arrived in Accra for a little visit to Ghana, and so began a very strange weekend in which two worlds collided.

I generally think of my two lives as being separate. There's my life back home, where everything is cold and comfortable and soft and people go to uni and town and watch tv and have power showers (and moan and complain about every little thing that does/does not happen...!). Then there's my life in Ghana, where I dress differently, talk differently and act differently. It's not that one is better or worse than the other, it's just...different (well, apart from the Ghana Gut, that's definitely NOT a welcome addition to my life...). So when the two came together, I was sort of confused about which me I was meant to be.

I guess it started with the journey to Accra. I had been staying with volunteer friends in Takoradi, so we were able to get a nice fancy coach from Taco to the capital. It was strange. As I sat in my big comfy leather seat, with air-conditioning blowing in my face and the curtains drawn, I forgot where I was. I would catch a glimpse out of the window and remember that this was the same coast road I travel along almost every weekend, and, weirdly, I found myself actually missing the wind and the squish and the sweat of a tro-tro.

It then continued as I showed my 'rents around Accra, an incredibly Westernised part of Ghana, and they were amazed at how African(!) it was.
"Look, there's a woman with a baby on her back!"  "Yes..."
"Those people are carrying things on their heads!"  "Uh huh..."
"This taxi doesn't have a speedometer/hand brake/door!"  "And your point is..."

We went to Oxford Street (nicknamed after its London counterpart) and suddenly there were white people everywhere and tonnes of private cars! NICE private cars! And I found myself thinking as I watched the obruni businessmen being driven around in their Audis that even though they may have been here two years, in two months I have become more African than them. They sit in their big houses in their compounds with their air-conditioning and wi-fi and swimming pools and drivers, and the fact that all of this is happening in Ghana is something of a slight inconvenience.

But not for me.

Because this isn't some place that my company happened to send me on business. This isn't just some country that I'm living in for five months.

This is my home. Cockroaches and all.