Who is the Anthropologist?

Two summers ago during a prelim research trip I found myself donning the tourist hat at a hippo sanctuary located about 15 miles from my field site.  My fellow tourists-in-arms were a German family.  As we were getting ready to load the canoes that would provide our river safari, there was a moment that the anthropologist in me loved so much.  As we stood on the river bank waiting, some women disembarked from a canoe with the wares they were taking to sell at a local market.  Upon solid ground and close proximity, we became the objects of intense observation.  Or rather the Germans became the objects of intense observation. For the Germans were decked out in ridiculous river safari ensembles.  They were in head to toe synthetic fabric and looked as foreign as they possibly could. I can only imagine how those women were internally postulating about why the Germans were wearing the clothes that they were.  And a game I’ve named Who is the Anthropologist? was born.  

Because I’m so eager to see and learn here, it’s easy to forget that Ghanaians are just as curious about me.  One of the hazards of living in the community where you do research is that it’s incredibly difficult to refuse visitors to your house when you’ve spent all day inviting yourself into their homes to ask them questions about their lives and observe their activities.  So I find myself hosting a daily entourage of children who walk into my room to see all the bizarre possessions I’ve brought with me and what I do with them.  Thus far, my decrepid Dell laptop is the item that draws the most excitement.  Kids who haven’t even been in my house will see me around town and shout out “laptop!” and mimic typing and make computer noises.  Nevermind that my next door neighbor has a TV and DVD player. 

And here in the land of way too many plastic bags, my box of aluminum foil is also quite intriguing.   

My behaviors, too, are inciting local theory building.  In visiting with the local assemblyman last night I learned that many people are concerned that I don’t have intestines.  This concern emerges from the fact that I don’t consume the standard amount of local foods, the amount locally perceived to be substantial and sufficient to filling the belly.  Fufu (yam that has had the holy hell pounded out of it to become highly starchy and gelatinous) is served in portions the size of an American football.  I find it physically impossible to consume that.  When I only eat half of the football it seems that people are assuming that my body can’t process food properly.   I wonder what they think I’m doing in the latrine everyday.  They see my daily walk there.  

And then there’s the interpretation of how foreigners look.  Whenever I’m with another white woman it’s not unusual to be asked if that woman is my twin.  It matters not that hair colors are different or facial features incongruous. I brought a Memory game with me to play with kids.  Interestingly, they are able to match items that they’ve probably never encountered (like a rotary telephone or a dog house) but are unable to correctly match the white people (and it’s only white people in the game) represented. 

The absolute best, however, is how Ghanaians perceive the sound of foreigners. There is a tendency for Ghanaians to initiate conversation with a foreigner by talking in a high pitched, Mickey Mouse voice.  Though highly annoying, I use such opportunities to entertain myself.  I respond to such cartoonish conversation initiations with my best Leonard Cohen meets Tom Waits impersonation. 

It’s always nice to be reminded that I, too, am under the cultural interpretation microscope.