Read Online Somebody's Heart Is Burning by Tanya Shaffer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tanya Shaffer
Tags: nonfiction
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the message. “I said, ‘The small girl is pounding fufu.’ ”
“I said to him ‘fund me,’ ” said Gorbachev, the penultimate player. “I thought Ayatollah asks us to pay his fees at university.”
Everyone laughed at that.
“Let us trace this,” said Virgin Billy, the baby-faced home secretary. Though not officially on staff, Billy was in charge when the camp leader was otherwise occupied, and he took his position seriously.
“This can be scientific,” he said enthusiastically, “to find how the words underwent mutation, from ‘the small girl is pounding
fufu
’ to ‘fund me.’ Ballistic, what is it that you passed to Gorbachev?”
“I also heard ‘fund me.’ ”
“And Okoto, what have you passed to Ballistic?”
Okoto, a lumbering Australian, worked as a marine biologist back home and had therefore been named after the Twi word for crab. He was about to respond, when a large Ghanaian woman seated in the middle of the chain could no longer contain her mirth.
“I said, ‘Fuck me!’ ” she crowed. “I did not request you to pay my school fees.”
The crowd erupted. All the Ghanaian men shouted at once.
“Santana, you have ruined the whole game!”
“You make us ashamed with this language!”
“How is it that you, one person, should spoil it for all the rest?”
Grace Appialeh Odoom, a.k.a. Santana, radiant in a maroon satin dress, surveyed the uproar with delight. Tipping back in her chair, she shouted with laughter.
“Sistah Korkor, this is no good,” Virgin Billy told me at the end of the evening. We were cleaning up the dining room, scooting the chairs and tables into place. “Santana should be expelled from the camp.”
“Expel her for having a little fun?” I asked. The camp consisted of thirty Ghanaians and fifteen foreigners. Of the thirty Ghanaians on the project, only two were women.
“She has shamed us. It is not natural to talk this way. To be this way.”
“Oh Billy, come on.”
“The Europeans will get the wrong impression of Ghana women!”
“I think the Europeans are used to women acting all kinds of ways,” I said.
He pursed his lips primly. “In Ghana we are not.”
Santana took up space. She talked out of order at meetings, served herself more food than was allotted, and mocked the male volunteers mercilessly on the construction site. She called them weak and challenged them to competitions of strength. They declined to participate, declaring it beneath them to compete with a woman. Santana’s body was round and firm, her voice deep and gravelly. Her clothes, too, were constantly surprising. She worked all day in a shapeless nightgown or housedress, her hair a frizzy cloud, but in the evening she pulled out the stops. Her wardrobe contained a seemingly limitless parade of dresses that looked like they belonged at a high school prom—puffy-sleeved, ruffly satins in purples and reds and emerald greens. She had African clothes as well, and occasionally showed up at dinner wrapped head to toe in illustrious cotton batiks and prints, her hair oiled and pressed to her head or wrapped in a tower of cloth. The more flamboyant her outfit, the more delight she seemed to take in wearing it.
A week and a half into the camp, I came down with dysentery. For several days, while the other volunteers toiled at the construction site, I lay prostrate on top of my sleeping bag on the cement floor of a classroom in the village school—out of session for the summer—that provided our housing. By the third day, I felt well enough to read and write and was beginning to enjoy the quiet hours. I was perched on the front steps with my notebook when Santana returned from the site for an early lunch.
“
Eh!
Sistah Korkor!” she shouted.
“Sistah Santana.” I smiled; I didn’t think she knew my name.
“Three days now, you don’t work. They say you are sick, but to me you don’t look so sick.” She put her hand on my cheek. “You are not hot.”
“I don’t
“I said to him ‘fund me,’ ” said Gorbachev, the penultimate player. “I thought Ayatollah asks us to pay his fees at university.”
Everyone laughed at that.
“Let us trace this,” said Virgin Billy, the baby-faced home secretary. Though not officially on staff, Billy was in charge when the camp leader was otherwise occupied, and he took his position seriously.
“This can be scientific,” he said enthusiastically, “to find how the words underwent mutation, from ‘the small girl is pounding
fufu
’ to ‘fund me.’ Ballistic, what is it that you passed to Gorbachev?”
“I also heard ‘fund me.’ ”
“And Okoto, what have you passed to Ballistic?”
Okoto, a lumbering Australian, worked as a marine biologist back home and had therefore been named after the Twi word for crab. He was about to respond, when a large Ghanaian woman seated in the middle of the chain could no longer contain her mirth.
“I said, ‘Fuck me!’ ” she crowed. “I did not request you to pay my school fees.”
The crowd erupted. All the Ghanaian men shouted at once.
“Santana, you have ruined the whole game!”
“You make us ashamed with this language!”
“How is it that you, one person, should spoil it for all the rest?”
Grace Appialeh Odoom, a.k.a. Santana, radiant in a maroon satin dress, surveyed the uproar with delight. Tipping back in her chair, she shouted with laughter.
“Sistah Korkor, this is no good,” Virgin Billy told me at the end of the evening. We were cleaning up the dining room, scooting the chairs and tables into place. “Santana should be expelled from the camp.”
“Expel her for having a little fun?” I asked. The camp consisted of thirty Ghanaians and fifteen foreigners. Of the thirty Ghanaians on the project, only two were women.
“She has shamed us. It is not natural to talk this way. To be this way.”
“Oh Billy, come on.”
“The Europeans will get the wrong impression of Ghana women!”
“I think the Europeans are used to women acting all kinds of ways,” I said.
He pursed his lips primly. “In Ghana we are not.”
Santana took up space. She talked out of order at meetings, served herself more food than was allotted, and mocked the male volunteers mercilessly on the construction site. She called them weak and challenged them to competitions of strength. They declined to participate, declaring it beneath them to compete with a woman. Santana’s body was round and firm, her voice deep and gravelly. Her clothes, too, were constantly surprising. She worked all day in a shapeless nightgown or housedress, her hair a frizzy cloud, but in the evening she pulled out the stops. Her wardrobe contained a seemingly limitless parade of dresses that looked like they belonged at a high school prom—puffy-sleeved, ruffly satins in purples and reds and emerald greens. She had African clothes as well, and occasionally showed up at dinner wrapped head to toe in illustrious cotton batiks and prints, her hair oiled and pressed to her head or wrapped in a tower of cloth. The more flamboyant her outfit, the more delight she seemed to take in wearing it.
A week and a half into the camp, I came down with dysentery. For several days, while the other volunteers toiled at the construction site, I lay prostrate on top of my sleeping bag on the cement floor of a classroom in the village school—out of session for the summer—that provided our housing. By the third day, I felt well enough to read and write and was beginning to enjoy the quiet hours. I was perched on the front steps with my notebook when Santana returned from the site for an early lunch.
“
Eh!
Sistah Korkor!” she shouted.
“Sistah Santana.” I smiled; I didn’t think she knew my name.
“Three days now, you don’t work. They say you are sick, but to me you don’t look so sick.” She put her hand on my cheek. “You are not hot.”
“I don’t
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