Kids say (and do) the darndest things

A group of primary school kids in Cape Coast who followed me down the street, chanting “Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!” I snapped this as I was running away.

As previously blogged (e.g., serial hugger, “psssst”ing kids asking for money, etc.), some of my experiences with Ghanaian kids have been slightly sucky. However, a few incidents do make me smile, and I thought I’d share them with you here.

Good manners
This happened recently as I was walking on the streets of Asylum Down, with Yinka providing quick translation.

Kid: White woman! White woman! [Ed. Note: Yeah, that’s me…remember, "not black"="white"]
Kid’s Mother: (in Twi) It is not polite to say that. If you want to greet someone, you say “hello.”
Kid: White woman…hello!

Tee hee, you can’t say that the kid doesn’t listen to his mom.

Mad English Skillz
An example of why street kids who want to chat up/hustle obruni should really go to school and improve their English.

Street Kid: How are you?
Me: Fine. How are you?
SK: HOW ARE YOU?
Me: Um, fine. How are YOU?
SK: (pause) HOW ARE YOU?!?

Well, at least “Give me ____!” isn’t the one phrase she knew.

That Sweet Obruni Touch
A lot of the kids I have met really find it exciting to touch and to be touched by obruni. This means that they will run up to you and grab your hand, stroke your arm, touch your hair, etc. I understand this fascination to some extent, but, as I was being swarmed by a group of primary school kids in a Cape Coast schoolyard, I got the weirdest request yet:

School Kid: White lady, slap me!
Me: Excuse me?
SK: Slap me! Please!
Me: Slap you? Uh, no thanks, kid.

Although (and I will really burn in holy heck for this) it is quite tempting to slap a lot of people, both in Ghana and elsewhere in the world!

The Cutest Litterbug in Ghana
On my way to Larabanga, my 12-inches-per-ass tro-tro made a quick stop in a village, whereupon several people disembarked and a few more got on the bus. A cute little kid, maybe about 6-7 years old, sat down in the empty seat next to me (due to the fact that his ass was significantly smaller than the allotted 12 inches, this was quite a nice change of seating partner). During the stop, I had purchased a sachet of pure water and finished sucking it dry. I’m not really fond of Ghanaian-style trash disposal (i.e., throw it out the bus window), so I folded up the empty plastic sachet and held it in my hand until I could find a trash bin somewhere.

As the bus starts to move, the little kid next to me didn’t really say anything or stare at me (I’m accustomed to kids staring quite a lot, so this seemed weird). Instead, he just munched on his snack and stared ahead. Suddenly, he looked down at my hand and saw that I was still holding my empty plastic water sachet. He looked up at me, smiled, grabbed the sachet out of my hand, threw it out the bus window for me, and smiled at me again before staring ahead – all without saying a word. Despite the fact that I had just, indirectly, littered, it was so disarmingly adorable that all I could manage to say was, “Thanks!” to the little litterbug. He just smiled back and continued munching on his snack.

For the remaining hour or so that I was on the tro-tro, I saw the little kid take glimpses at my (considerably paler) arm, examine his own arm carefully, get a little flustered look on his face, then repeat the whole process again, as if to marvel at the color difference. The whole time he didn’t say a word. Seriously, it was so cute it broke my cute meter. Smashed it to pieces, actually.

Kids say and do the darndest things. Really.