Out for a walk

Yesterday evening I went for a walk.

The village where I live is situated on a rocky red road. When I first arrived here, it was mostly sand and mud, but the government was planning to pave it, so there were crews out every day getting ready to do just that. The first step, apparently, was to cover the road with large quantities of stone about the size of my fist. After they did that, a new government came to power and canceled the road project. So now the road is extremely bumpy and uncomfortable, but at least it doesn’t flood nearly as much. Upgrade?

I left my house around the time people here switch from saying “good afternoon” to “good evening.” It was a little after four, but I could still see heat sizzling off the ground. Still, by far the most comfortable time of day for me to be out and active. As I left home and walked away from the community, three different people called after me.

“Where are you going? What will you bring me? Don’t forget to buy me bread!”

I still haven’t gotten used to this aspect of life here. The complete lack of anonymity, my inability to leave the house without it being a topic of commentary and notice—I still see them as little obstacles to overcome. Maybe that will change in the next nine months before I go home.

But once I’m walking, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. I’m not a talented enough writer to describe how beautiful it is where I live and how lucky it makes me feel to be there. If you want to know, you’ll just have to come visit me.

I go for walks to be alone and clear my head, but I’m never really alone. The first motorcycle rider pulls up to me when I’m barely a quarter mile from my home.

“Adzovi, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with your bicycle?” Even though I just want to go for a walk, I’ve brought my bike, as I always do. It’s good to have in case I come across someone I’d rather avoid, or if I walk farther than I mean to and need to hurry to get home before sunset.

“I just want to go for a walk,” I tell him in Ewe.

“Is your bicycle broken? Where are you going?”

“My bike is fine, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Can I give you a ride?”

I say no. There aren’t many cars on my road, and motorcycles are ubiquitous, but Peace Corps strictly forbids us from riding motorcycles. Anyway, this evening, the point isn’t that I’m trying to get anywhere: the point is going.

I have the same interaction with several other motorcycle riders as the evening wore on. Some of them stop; others slow to my walking pace. Everyone wants to help. I go for a walk most evenings, and so we have these conversations most evenings, and their questions and my answers are always the same. As they drive away the air fills with red dust and I cover my eyes and mouth.

I don’t hop on the bike at all until I’ve walked about a mile. I stop to drink water, and suddenly, a few feet from me is a woman in a purple dress, just staring at me. We exchange greetings, and I smile and nod, but she doesn’t seem to have anywhere to go. She stays motionless, just staring at me, mouth hanging open in astonishment. I walk a few feet, and so does she. I stop, and so does she. She doesn’t say anything, just keeps her eyes glued to my face. I feel like an animal in a cage. After a few feet of our stop-start walking routine, I tell her I need to get going, and I hop on my bike and ride away. Part of me feels bad for leaving; after all, I know she means no harm at all. But another part of me feels like a year of being watched is more than enough.

The acres around the road are farmland. Right now it’s corn season—or maize, as it’s known here. I’m nearing the next village when I hear a group of children chanting in a field and the sound of an engine. I can’t see any of them, but I hop on my bike and begin to pedal. Interactions with kids I don’t know rarely go well. A lot of them think it’s fun to grab whatever part of me they can reach, and others think it’s fun to chase after or run alongside my bicycle.

I’ve ridden my bike past the cornfield and am about a hundred feet away when I hear someone calling: “Adzoviiiiiii! Adzoooo! Is that you Adzo???”

I stop and turn around. The children have come out onto the road. There are six of them, sitting in a trailer pulled behind a motorcycle, driven by a man I assume is their father. He’s the one calling me, in increasingly frantic tones. I turn back to go and greet him.

“Are you the one they call Adzovi?”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s me.”

“I’ve seen you many times. And I want to help you. Would you take some of my maize?”

The trailer is full of maize, and the kids are all smiling and holding out ears of corn.

“I don’t have any money,” I say, just to be sure, though I’m not surprised at his response:

“Oh! I am not trying to sell you you. Just to give. This is Ghana. We all give to each other. We all help each other.”

By time time we part, my backpack is full of corn fresh picked from the fields, and I’m feeling less cynical about life, and once again wondering how I could ever be generous enough, kind enough, to deserve to be here.

My feet are a little tired from walking on the rough stone road by the time I get home. I meet two women from my community on the road, carrying tin basins with thirty liters of water on their heads. Their chores are not nearly finished for the day, though by now the sun is setting.

“Where did you go, Adzo?”

“Nowhere,” I say, as I do nearly every night.

“And what did you buy?”

“Nothing.”

One of them seems annoyed at my response. I know this woman. She’s let herself into my house before to see what food I have, assuming there was some sort of treasure hidden there. Nope: just tomatoes and onions. I’d love to have some exotic stash, but I can’t make foreign foodstuffs appear at the market.

Now, she rolls her eyes at my response. “Every night you leave,” she says. “You’re always going and coming, going and coming. You can’t stay still.”

I shrug, and she walks on.

She’s not wrong. It’s a rare day indeed that I don’t leave the community at least for a walk or a bike ride. I can’t sit still. And so maybe it’s true that I’m always going. But I always come back, and when I let myself into my house, what I feel is relief at being home.