Taking a walk

When you’re walking down the street, especially a street on which there are numerous stands peddling t-shirts or sandals or CDs, do not, and I repeat do not, even cast a passing glance at their wares. To do so is to tacitly ask – nay demand – to be beset by the eager vendors. And once you stop for one it is like a wounded gazelle has fallen, calling every hungry animal from the bush.

I thought he had asked me if I would take his picture. I’d felt photographically handcuffed by the Ghanaians’ sensitivity about having their picture taken, frustrating given their beauty and the sheer abundance of incredible picture opportunities. So I’d stopped. This was my undoing. Instead of picture I was treated to a team-delivered description of his entire t-shirt inventory. And I’m not kidding, every one.

This all attracted the attention of the guy selling leather sandals, which he deemed superior to the ones I was already wearing. Before long I was being shown sunglasses and soccer balls. One especially persistent salesman walked with me for a full block, the necessary time and distance to get the preliminaries of my nation of origin, length of stay in Ghana and name established. The latter he promised to embroider on one of the handsome bracelets he produced as if from thin air.

Just when I thought I had swum free of the current and was in open water again, a nicely dressed man, likely in his mid-50s, fell into step beside me. With all the rehearsed urgency of a telemarketer, he unfolded a story about being a Sierra Leone refugee with inheritance money back at home that he needed some help to liberate. I’m afraid he didn’t last a full block before realizing we were not destined to be partners. He may have been the 10 or 12 times I very generously wished him good luck.