The White Cat
The Ottawa Citizen - Aug 08, 2006
Don Sawyer
I've worked in West Africa for more than 15 years. I have loved my time there, and have met some of my best friends and had many of the richest experiences of my life in Africa.
I have written extensively on the resilience, commitment and kindness of Africans I've encountered from Senegal to Zimbabwe. But today, the other side of the initiative, creativity and entrepreneurship that gives me such hope for Africa has gotten to me. I just got back to Accra from an aid mission to northern Ghana. It did not go well, and I'm feeling grumpy. Let me explain.
I'm tired of being treated like a source of revenue rather than a person. Here I am in Africa, and I want to hang a sign around my neck with the civil rights slogan, "I am a man." A privileged man, to be sure, but still, at least something more than a walking wallet.
There's a saying in Ghana that goes, "If you meet a white man while on your way to church, there is no longer any need to go." All your prayers are answered. Play your cards the right way and anything is possible: a meal, a business start, or -- who knows? -- a scholarship to a university in Canada or, better yet, the United States.
Idrissu, the manager of the guest house where I'm staying in northern Ghana, walks into the dining room while I'm on the phone. He stands quietly by the table. I look up.
"I'm going now," Idrissu informs me.
"Oh, OK. I'll see you later." There's a long silence.
"I'm taking my daughter to the hospital. She's not feeling well. It's probably malaria."
"Oh," I repeat. "I'm sorry to hear that."
More silence. I'm obviously slow on the uptake. "I will have to get injections for her."
Finally I get it. "Oh, so you need some money for her shots."
You can almost see him roll his eyes. What a dumbbell. "Yes."
"Well, I was going to give you something on Friday," I mutter to myself, "so I guess I can give it to you now. Just a minute." I go to my room to see if I have 50,000 cedis.
Or then there's our driver, Mahmud. One morning as he is taking me to the university he casually observes, "I have to take the truck in to be cleaned."
"Great. Super. Go for it," I respond absently.
He drives along in silence for a few minutes. "I would like to start a car wash business."
I'm staring out the windshield at a cluster of goats munching on a patch of dusty grass.
"Umm."
"Maybe you could help me."
I look around, astonished. "You want me to help you buy a car wash?"
"Oh no," he demurs. "Just the hoses and sprayers."
Oh, well. That's more like it.
Then in the market we get stalked by a boy on a bike who looks like he's about 12. He trails casually behind us for 15 minutes until pulling up beside us and stopping. "Where are you from?" he inquires. "What is your name?" We're torn between ignoring him and being Canadian. He has school books in his bike basket. We give in and strike up a conversation.
Twenty minutes later, after Hardi helps us cash some money, I offer him 5,000 cedis -- about a dollar -- for his assistance. He's deeply offended. However, he will take us on a tour of Tamale, including a visit to the largest tree in town. OK, we agreed. Why not? And off we go, trailing other kids on bikes and on foot, a regular convoy.
But Hardi has the situation clearly under his control. "We'll need kola nuts as an offering," he informs us, "That'll be 6,000 cedis." I produce the money and Hardi dispatches one of the boys to the market to score the nuts. "And 5,000 for the shaman who looks after the tree." I hand over the limp bill.
We traipse through backyards festooned with drying clothes, over stinking, stagnant pools, and around greasy wrecks of ancient taxis. Children fetch buckets of water from a well. The temperature is near 40 and sweat starts running down my face. Where the hell is this tree?
After a half an hour, we round the edge of weathered mud brick building -- and there it is: a giant baobab with a white cloth tied around its girth to, as Hardi explains, "keep the dwarves who live in the tree from getting away."
The shaman is out -- a house call? -- but his aged wife is happy to take the kola nuts and the 5,000-cedi note. We chat briefly -- very briefly since she understands no English and our Dagbani is a little rusty. We have a meeting in 20 minutes, so I ask Hardi to help us make our way through the maze of alleys and dirt streets to the centre of town. He leads the way. Slowly the sales pitch unfolds.
Hardi has had to drop out of school because his parents, who are poor farmers, cannot pay his school fees. He is a very good student and is sad about this. He cannot imagine where he will get the money.
I sigh. "How much is it?"
Sixty-thousand cedis, Hardi informs me. I do some quick calculating. About 12 bucks. Oh, well, if it can really get him back into school. God knows he seems sharp enough. We near the restaurant where we are meeting, and I get out my wallet and give Hardi the 60,000 cedis.
I've already told him where I am staying. "Thank you, sir," Hardi says solemnly. "I will bring you a receipt from the school."
I wave my hand. "That's OK. I believe you."
"No, no," Hardi insists. "I will come by next week."
I didn't know whether to expect Hardi or not. But I certainly wasn't prepared for his arrival backed by a small biker gang. He handed me a sheet of paper with a printed message on it. I read it, trying to make sense of what it said. It mentioned 600,0000 cedis -- but I had only given Hardi 60,000. It didn't look like a receipt. Wait a minute, it was a request for a semester's room and board. I examined the signature. It looked suspiciously childish. And principal was misspelled.
"What's this, Hardi?"
"Well, you see," Hardi began, "the school didn't have a receipt book so I couldn't get you a receipt. But this is a letter accepting me into the Dalon Agricultural School. I've had it at home for a few weeks. All I need is 600,000 cedis. That will cover a whole semester of room and board. I thought you could help me out."
I ran my hand through my hair. It was time to get stern. "Hardi, I gave you 60,000 cedis to get you back into school, and then instead of bringing me a receipt you bring me a letter asking for 10 times that. I can't afford to hand out this kind of money. And even if I could I would need to speak with the school and get an official tuition invoice."
Hardi's dark eyes filled with sorrow. He looked dejectedly down at the cement floor.
This guy was good. I even felt a twinge of guilt.
But it's not just the underpaid and struggling. At the institution I'm working with, we're practically held up at gun-point by the director. "We want $20,000 for a management library," he informs me from the head of a long wooden table in the board room.
"And $3,000 in extra responsibility allowance for me. Why should I work on this project for nothing when I can get $300 a day as a consultant?" He glared at me through his glasses, his small mouth pursed and grim. "And that's American."
I wondered idly if I should suggest that his contribution to the project might have something to do with his job, but I thought better of it. "Well," I rejoined, smiling and calm, "these are not items in the budget. We don't have the money."
"And who agreed to this budget?" he exploded.
I sighed. "As you know, professor, the previous director signed the agreement before you arrived."
The director was almost apoplectic. "I will not be bound by the blunderings of my predecessors!"
I looked helplessly at the budget in front of me. "Well, professor, all I can do is contact CIDA. To see if they can supplement the current project."
The director was pouting and said nothing. The assistant director stepped in. "We are not prepared to continue with this program unless there are substantial additions to the budget for us."
Oh, jeez. Now I was being blackmailed. I leaned forward, still smiling. "We're all on the same side here," I suggested hopefully. "I'll certainly see what I can do."
And now I'm sitting at the Labone Coffee Shop trying to eat some chips and a tiny chunk of fried fish in peace, but the white cat that cruises the place has staked out my table. He weaves between my legs, meows loudly and looks upward expectantly. What's the deal? The place is filled with Ghanaians drinking Star beer and chowing down, but the cat has definitely picked me out as the most likely donor. I thought cats were colour blind. Can he somehow sense that I'm melanin challenged?
I sigh and cut off a small piece. I pitch it onto the ground and the cat hurries over. He crunches the fish and looks up at me. He seems to be smiling.
Don Sawyer is a writer and educator living in Salmon Arm, B.C. He is the former director of the Okanagan College International Development Centre, and since 1991 has managed six CIDA-funded development projects in West Africa.
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