What's So Funny?

There are some moments and experiences that defy differences in language and culture.  I have been here in Dodowa for over five weeks now, and it has become clear to me that those moments can be rare.  As I have already alluded to, people here often find us really funny, when we think we are doing something completely mundane.  A couple weeks ago, for example, we bought a coconut at the market, had the man selling it break it open for us, and passed it around to taste the juice inside.  For some reason, this had about ten ladies at nearby stands absolutely shrieking with laughter.  We wondered what was so funny, and when inquiring to our friends later about the experience, they weren’t really able to provide an explanation that we understood.  All we got was that they were laughing WITH us, not AT us.  Ok... 

Besides that, there are many other times that something is absolutely hilarious to us and not to anyone here.  When buying clothes at Big Milly’s in Kokrobite, we found pants made of wheat flour sacks, and thought it was so funny that Hannah wanted to buy them, because she can’t eat gluten.  “It’s funny because it says wheat and she can’t eat that!” we tried to explain to the woman selling the pants.  She didn’t see the humor in it at all, and just gave us a look that told us she thought we were crazy (this look is directed at us a lot).  Another thing that is a constant source of entertainment to us is the store names in and around Dodowa-the best one by far has been the “He’s Alive Meat Shop”-how’s that for irony?  We also are seriously considering checking out a place in town that offers “perdicures”, as well as a place that advertises as “Club 32 so nice”. 

Last night, however, coming home from dinner in Legon in a tro-tro, two rare instances of common understanding occurred.  As we arrived at the tro-tro station, we saw that there was a line waiting to fill up tro-tros going to Dodowa, so we hurried over to get a spot in line and wait our turn.  However, a mate in charge of filling the vehicles up immediately came over to us and said “come, come you three can get into that car over there” as about twenty people in front of us stood waiting patiently.  I knew right away that this was not right, and as he spoke to us many people in line became angry at him for trying to do that.  It was getting late, everyone was tired at the end of the day, and everyone was waiting patiently for their turn to come to get in a tro-tro and go.  As people yelled at the mate in different local languages, we added to the chorus of voices, insisting that we would stand in line like everyone else and weren’t asking for any special treatment.  This only lasted for about ten minutes before he gave up trying to convince us, but it was funny how even though we still stand out and look very different and often act very different from others, in the moment, common human courtesy was a universal language to all.  We knew it was not right to get in a tro-tro in front of everyone else in line, and they knew that we were insisting that we didn’t want to be treated differently.  Everyone ended up packed into a tro-tro about five minutes later anyway, and as we drove home, another instance of “universal language” occurred.  We were some of the last ones to get on our tro-tro, so the three of us were sitting in separate rows-Hannah towards the front, myself in a middle row, and Erin towards the back.  As we bumped along, the man sitting next to Hannah began falling asleep, and kept rolling his head on to her shoulder as he drifted off.  Hannah politely didn’t say anything, and allowed this man to basically fall asleep on her.  As I noticed this and looked around to Erin, I noticed that everyone in the back also noticed what was going on.  Laughter started to ring out as we all saw Hannah being slowly inched out of her seat bit by bit by this very sleepy gentleman.  One of the girls sitting in the back reached up and tapped Hannah, motioning for her to punch him in the face to get him off of her shoulder, and even more peals of laughter sounded at that advice.  Hannah, Erin, myself, and about eight other tro-tro riders all thought this situation was quite funny, and when he finally jolted awake after a large bump, a friend informed him that he had been our source of entertainment for the last ten minutes.  It was cool to all be laughing at the same thing-like I said, I often feel like either we “get” or “don’t get” some things here, so to “get” what everyone else understands too makes me feel like the world isn’t so big if we can all laugh together.