Obruni Vortex

So, I believe I have found the weirdest place in all of Ghana: THE ACCRA MALL! Upon initial inspection to most westerners it may seem very normal; a big concrete conglomerate of stores in the middle of a city where one can find many of their shopping needs. However, once I walked into the main entrance, which was complete with brightly colored pillars, a sign overhead confirming I was in fact at the Accra Mall, I was transported to another world. I wasn't in Ghana anymore.

Usually when I go to the market in Cape Coast, I am the only Obruni (white person), the variety of products is limited, the cost is debatable and pretty much every stall sells the same thing as 5 of their neighbors and, there is a notable smell of rotting fish. After 3 months of this type of shopping experience I got a small taste of culture shock walking into something that should have felt completely "everyday" to me. But it has not been my everyday for the last 3 months and my reaction took me by surprise.

In short, I was weirded out!

The demographics of the mall felt more like New York. It is definitely the shopping destination of all of the Embassy employees that live in Accra, so the proportion of Obruni is significantly higher than in my Cape Coast market and there were a lot of Lebanese and Nigerian expats and wealthy Ghanaians. There was a store called Mr. Price which was the equivalent of a Steve and Barry's, a couple of cell phone stores, some high end "afro-centric" clothing boutiques, a store that had a peculiar collection of mid-priced American products but it only had one piece of every style...so it felt like being in someones closet, and the main attractions were the corner stores: Shop Rite, a giant grocery store packed with western foods and Game, the equivalent of a Target. Oh, and I can't forget the food court which smelled nothing like rotting fish and had a cafe with REAL FILTERED COFFEE!!! (you can really only get instant coffee in Ghana).

Basically it felt just like being in a mall back home and the fact that it made me uncomfortable made me realize that I have never been away from home long enough, in a foreign enough place, to experience culture shock. The fact that it was a Mall, that mecca of apparel products, that provided this discomfort seemed appropriate to accompany my story of escaping capitalist, mass-produced fashion.

Just to add to the silliness of it all, after the mall I went with a group of volunteers to a concert at the Alliance Francais and the place was filled with...you guessed it...OBRUNI. This all magnified an observation that one of the volunteers here made about people in industrial capitalist parts of the world...since our basic needs are generally fulfilled (think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) we can spend our time refining the experience of pleasure.....frankly, we are spoiled.