Laban Carrick Hill

Ghana Journal: Knowing Each Other

Yesterday, the area was without electricity for most of the afternoon and evening. I kept waiting for it to come back on so I could go over to the nearby restaurant for supper. It never did, so I missed eating my main meal for the day. Generally, I eat one big meal and then smaller meals of fruits during the day. As evening approached today without electricity, I went over to the Sasakawa Restaurant and joined Evelyn who is the restaurant’s waitress and manager, along with the two cooks, by the back door. They were relaxing in lawn chairs in the shade under a baobab tree.

Evelyn is referred to by students and faculty on campus as the mean one. Several times, I have heard people describe her as not just mean but “the one with the big butt,” in order to distinguish her from the other waitress who can be moody and distant as well. I am always stunned by the callousness of the description because on the whole people are so polite. In fact, referring to parts of the body is taboo. When you are forced to refer to an unmentionable part, you first say “sebew” (pardon the expression) and then say the word. With respect to Evelyn, no one has prefaced their referencing of her rear end with “sebew” or the English translation. Instead, people simply say, “the one with the big butt.”

Evelyn can be extraordinarily callous. In the first month I was at the university I would come into the restaurant and sit. Sometimes I would have to wait 20 or 30 minutes before Evelyn would deign to notice me and come over. A number of times she would waddle over after the appropriate 30 minute wait and tell me that there was no food. Then she would turn and disappear into the kitchen without any apology or explanation. I would have to get up and leave, seething and feeling somewhat humiliated, as you can well imagine. I would then vow not to go there again. The difficulty of keeping to that promise was that the next nearest restaurant was a two mile walk so either I had to plan and shop in the market in town ahead of time or set out for an evening stroll for my meal. Typically, I would be so exhausted from my day that I would break down and make my way to the Sasakawa Restaurant again, only to be humiliated again.

At some point in the last month however my relationship with Evelyn changed. I don’t know if it was the fact that I’ve begun to converse with her in Fanti or that I have tried to greet her with a friendliness that belied my true feelings or perhaps she has simply changed. Whatever the reason, we are now such friends that she gave me a gift on her birthday last week.

In this context, I made my way over this evening to the restaurant in hopes of convincing Evelyn to give me rice and chicken drumstick (the standard meal here) in a to-go container. In the past, she would have looked at me and simply said they are closed because there is no electricity even though there was cooked food sitting in the kitchen. This time I was met with smiles and invited to join them. As I sat down in a lawn chair, I mentioned that I would love to have some chicken and rice. The cook jumped up without discussion and disappeared into the back. As I waited, Evelyn jutted her chin toward a pair of white women standing across the road. She asked, “Do you know them?”

I said, “No.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Not all white people know each other,” I replied.

She thought about this for a moment and then said, “Not all black people know each other either.”

We smiled at each other and nodded. A moment later the cook returned with my dinner. I paid Evelyn 5 cedis for the meal. Evelyn said she didn’t have change. I said she could give me my change tomorrow.