West African Days

Nobody seems to have voicemail, and it is generally impossible to leave messages. Cell phones are often turned off, because people frequently seem to run out of units and battery power.

Ghanaians "flash" a lot, which means calling a number, letting it ring once or twice and then hanging up. We used to do this as prank calling in seventh grade, but it's serious communication here.

Rahim, my cameraman, tells me that Ghanaians flash to get around the cost of calls. They set up codes, so that one flash means 'hi, I'm thinking of you', two flashes means 'I'm leaving work now', or whatever meanings they assign among themselves. People might flash to let me know they're thinking of me. That doesn't require a return call. But they might flash me because they're running out of units and need me to call them (only the outgoing caller is charged for time). That requires a return call. I still don't know how I'm supposed to discern the meaning of each flash.

For foreigners like me, flashing can lead to some cryptic conversations. I dial a wrong number, realize it's wrong as it starts ringing, and I hang up. Later, the owner of the wrong number calls me back to ask why I called. Because they can't really understand my English and I can't really understand their English, the conversation goes something like this:

"Hello?" I answer.
"Hello?" he says.
"Hello?" I ask.
"Hello? Hello?" he says.
"Yes? Who is this?" I ask.
"You flash me?" he shouts above the loud music in the background. I think he's in a rock concert.
"I don't know," I admit. "Who is this?"
"HELLO?" he yells into the phone. He seems to be getting closer to the music.
"YES! HELLO! I AM CATHRYN!"
"HELLO?!" he demands. "WHO ARE YOU?"
"HELLO!" I'm back to the beginning.
Loud pulsating music now. No voice.
"HELLO?" I say again.
"HELLO? YOU FLASH ME?" It sounds like he's crawled inside the music speaker now.
"NO! WHO ARE YOU?" I answer.
"HELLO? WHY YOU CALL ME?" he asks.
"I DON'T KNOW," I yell with resignation. "WHO ARE YOU?"

...and so it goes. Needless to say, I dial very very carefully now.

But I often have that sort of conversation, dotted with lots of "hellos" and confusion, with people I actually know.

This past weekend we were headed to Buduburam for a shoot with a Liberian dance troupe. I called Mr. Koffi, one of the troupe leaders, to let him know we were on our way. The ensuing conversation was like the one above, but on steroids. By the end of the call, I thought they were heading off on a pilgrimage for some sort of holiday. When we arrived, it turned out George Weia, a major Liberian soccer star, was coming to the camp, and that's what Mr. Koffi had been telling me on the phone. ?!

I've belatedly learned to use text messaging a lot, to conserve on units and to have clearer communications across the language barrier of two groups of native English speakers who can't understand each other's English.

Before I came to Ghana, Professor Ben Fred-Mensah, a Ghanaian who is a professor at Howard University and lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS, provided me guidance and advice about my impending trip here. When Ben informed me that he would be loaning me a cell phone during my stay in Ghana, I thought it was a very generous luxury. (He also informed me that the cell phone had been confiscated from his 16-year-old daughter here, because she'd been talking on it too much -- teenagers are the same the world over, eh?).

When Ben's nephew, Henry Mensah, met me in Accra to give me the cell phone, I felt a bit indulgent. But ever since that day, my cell phone has been my lifeline and as crucial to me in my work here as it is in the U.S.

In fact, I now face the maddening task of getting my phone book off my cell phone here before I hand the phone back to Henry...