We’ve been at least a dozen times since we came to Ghana. They have this garlic type of sauce/gravy that they put on their chicken that I am at least moderately addicted to. Good eats. [Background info: out of the 12 or so times we’ve frequented Papaye, at least 6 of those times we’ve been waited on by this particular woman who shall remain nameless and not because I’m trying to be discrete, but because she never actually introduced herself to us. I guess they don’t do that here] This woman is always stank to us. Always shushing us. Always has an ice grill on her face. Just stank. All the time. We’ll call her… Stanky McNasty. So Stanky waited on us today :-/ and thought she was slick mentally taking the orders for all 6 of us without writing it down. I knew there would be a problem. I called it. I said, and I quote, “Now watch she mess up our order.” Needless to say, she messed up our order. After having to call her attention to no less than three mistakes she’d made, she made the ultimate mistake of getting into an argument with Faye. SMH. You probably don’t know Faye so you probably don’t understand the extent to which this was a very bad idea. Stanky never brings Faye’s food out and meanwhile all of us are done with our meals. So Faye asks for the food in a takeaway box and Stanky tries to charge her for the box! Naturally, Faye had to tell her about herself and got the food in a different container, not before Stanky and her stank Papaye co-workers grilled us all the way out of the restaurant. Clearly, we can never go back there again. I mean, the problem mostly was in principle. Stanky didn’t even TRY to look like she cared that our orders were incomplete or that Faye never got her food. We’re used to customer service and satisfaction in the US. Normally in restaurants, people care whether you’re having a good time or not. I speculated that this may have something to do with gratuity since that’s a foreign concept here. They may not feel that they have to put that little “extra” in extraordinary service
[ The movie Waiting? Anyone get it? ]
[ No? Ok ]
because they’re getting the same paycheck either way.
So we left Papaye and started walking down Oxford Street. If you’re not in the mood, Oxford Street is not always a good place to be. Vendors, hustlers, and eligible bachelors scope out Oxford Street and pounce on vulnerable looking prey. Some of the guys are cool and don’t really bother you. Others… not so much. We have acquired a kind of Osu survival formula that includes walking quickly, not making much eye contact, keeping outside conversations to a minimum and avoiding Black Africa. [Black Africa is another post entirely. Details will come later]
So some random guy comes up to me trying to sell paintings or something. As usual, I kindly just say, “No thank you.” And go on about my business. He insisted on trying to sell me these paintings and when I kept repeating “No thank you” he busts out with “Oooh! It is nice to be nice. Eh?” It’s nice to be nice. Hmm. If I had a shiny nickel for every time a Ghanaian shouted that at me. I proceeded to discuss this “nice to be nice” concept with him. I tried to get him to understand that you can’t measure niceness on a scale depending on someone’s willingness to buy things from you or entertain your nonsense. I’m almost certain they use that phrase to make foreigners feel guilty. It’s nice to be nice? It’s nice to be able to walk down the street and not be grabbed and shouted at. He understood where I was coming from, but still wanted me to buy his painting. Sigh. I told him that I know where he sells things. I know the things that he sells. If ever I wanted to buy one of those things I would find him and buy them. But this was not one of those times. You following me for 3 blocks is not going to suddenly make your product more desirable than it was 10 minutes ago. Also you hissing at me or making that GOD AWFUL sucking noise will also not earn you my patronage or my respect. It’s rude and annoying.
A few blocks down the street I go see Robert. Robert sells bootleg DVDs outside of Koala market. This sounds like he would be a creeper, but he’s not. Robert is a good guy and after a good amount of haggling usually lets me get DVDs for a fair price. I’ve returned a copy of Slumdog Millionare twice and am going back tomorrow for yet another copy because all of the previous ones don’t work properly. While this would usually be an issue, Robert is extremely cool about the whole thing. He just lets me exchange the DVDs no questions asked. Big ups to Robert.
So I leave Osu and return a few hours later to check out a hair salon a friend of mine tried and said was pretty good. Just walking into Lajen (I think that’s the name) I could tell it was going to be a good experience. People smiled and were friendly. I sat down and I was given magazines while I waited! The owner was there. Let me tell you about this lady. Picture… Oprah if she was Ghanaian.
She was such a boss. We’ll call her… Boss Lady. Boss Lady had this real nice wig on, a really cute, but kinda bougie outfit with her boobs hanging out JUST enough to still be classy. The whole time I was there she was busying herself around the shop looking at each chair and nail station checking on the progress and things like that. At one point she even threw on a smock and helped one girl sew in a few tracks. I love it. A black owned and operated establishment with an all black staff. It was such a nice place and it was so efficiently run. It could definitely compete with any American hair salon. They had drinks for sale for the clients and two televisions for people to watch. The woman who did my hair was great. The entire staff was very attentive. Boss Lady was really nice to me. I’m definitely going back.
Little experiences like Boss Lady’s hair shop and people like Robert keep me from wanting to make sweeping statements about Ghana. It’s nice when people are nice just for the sake of being nice.
yebehyia (yeh-beh-shia) = see you soon
creeper haha! It really is nice to be around niceness.
ReplyDelete- katie