Obruni Obruni

Note: I struggled a lot when writing this. It’s something I’ve been thinking about and I think might interest some people, but I really hope the tone doesn’t come across as complaining or self-pitying - my intention here is not at all to be “poor little white girl.” But I think its important to share the entirety of my experience here.

Since I’ve been in Ghana, I am more aware of my skin color, my whiteness, than I ever have been before. This may be surprising considering my time in South Africa, where race is an extremely charged topic, where whiteness carries an enormous and frankly negative legacy. But while there were definitely situations in South Africa where I felt very very aware of my skin color, especially outside of Cape Town, for the most part I did not feel like it was something that greatly impacted my life, and days, even a whole week, could go by without ever thinking about what race I was.

This is not true in Ghana. When I step out of my door, I am not seen primarily as a girl, or a twentysomething, or anything like that. I am immediately labeled, often out loud, as an obruni, a white person. The difference, I think, is that in South Africa “white” is not equated in the same way with “foreigner.” When I walked down a street in South Africa, the assumption would be that I was a white South African (although certain South Africans I know would claim they could always spot the Americans). While this assumption can have problematic implications itself, I was just not as much of a novelty there.

That’s not to say that white people are at all novelties in Accra – there are a lot of expats here and I can only imagine what this would be like in a place that saw a lot fewer foreigners. But that doesn’t mean that white people don’t get a lot of attention. A lot of this is of the male variety. I honestly can’t walk the 10 minutes from my house to the main street without having at least a few men come up to me and tell me something ranging from “I want to be your friend” to “I want to have your children” and requesting my phone number or facebook name. And this is due solely to the fact that I am a young white woman. (Side note: you can totally tell how long someone has been in Ghana by how they react to these men. My first few weeks I would talk to them and laugh and say “Oh, no, I’m sorry” while my roommate who has been here over a year just yells “No thank you” and ignores them.) But it’s not only that. Women in the street yell “Obruni buy my_____” and kids will openly point at you and giggle. People will spend whole tro-tro rides just staring at me. The struggle with the “obruni” label is so widespread that I found a guy this weekend selling t-shirts that say “My name is not Obruni." (Yes I bought one. Couldn't resist).

Now all of this is ultimately harmless and just part of expat life here. Let me emphasize this again for my various female relatives: I never feel unsafe or vulnerable here because of this attention. The biggest real consequence is the “obruni price” phenomenon where anyone from cab drivers to fruit sellers will quote you a higher price. But that doesn’t bother me too much – they’re just business people taking advantage of an opportunity and if you tell them you know what the “fair price” is they’ll usually accept that without argument.

But honestly, there is something about this whole thing that is just kind of draining. I’ve talked to some other expat friends about this, and I think what it really comes down to is that I have never particularly liked being the center of attention. I’ve always honestly felt much more comfortable when I’m able to blend in, and that’s rarely possible here. So I always have this slight prickling discomfort that comes from the fact that I’m attracting attention. This sounds strange but there are just times when I wish I could just slip on a mask and be black so I could go out and run errands in peace with no one giving me a second glance (and I always rolled my eyes when celebrities said that!). There is a lot of tension here among expats about finding a balance between living a “Ghanaian life” and living in the “expat bubble” (a topic for another blog post), but I think part of why the expat bubble can be so attractive is it’s the one time in Ghana where you really and truly can blend in.

Ok, so here is where all the backtracking begins. As people here get to know you the “obruni” label really disappears. I’m only really talking about random people I encounter. My colleagues and the Ghanaian friends I’ve made all make me feel like much more than just an obruni. And also, its often actually a really great thing that people are immediately interested in you and want to talk to you, since you get to meet some fascinating people and get some great stories (seriously, friends, ask me about this hysterical but also completely inappropriate-for-this-blog conversation I had with a random guy on the street the other day)

Part of me knows that as I’m here longer I will get more and more used to the way people react to me until I barely notice, and this has happened to some extent. But in some ways it’s started to affect me more. In the beginning, I felt like a foreigner and thus it didn’t feel as strange that I was treated as such. But as I’ve lost (to some extent) my “newness” it’s more bothersome I’m still treated so obviously as an outsider – and would be even if I stayed in this country for 20 years. I think this is why I didn’t really mind similar reactions when traveling in Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia – when you’re a visitor it feels normal to be treated as such, but when you’re somewhere that is starting to feel like “home,” it's harder to accept.

I think what I’m really saying here is that for the first time in my life I am experiencing what its like to be clearly singled out based on the way I look. Given my discomfort with this phenomenon, I really can only imagine what it’s like to be a minority who is treated terribly, as opposed to one who only “suffers” marriage proposals and appeals to buy things. I know I have nothing to complain about and the situations barely even compare, which in its own way has given me a new appreciation for the day to day hardships that many minorities in cultures throughout the world live with, even before you add in discrimination and oppression.

On the whole though, I should stress that this doesn’t really have a negative impact on my experience here or my impressions of Ghana. More than anything, its something that gives me a lot to think about (and has given me very very good practice rejecting men).