Assault

As many of you know, on Monday October 10^th I was assaulted while walking back to the office where I work after buying my lunch. 

On days when I’m in the office, I buy lunch every time from one of two take-away joints that are on this road, and I walk this road to get to a main road where I hail a shared taxi to take to Market Circle on my way home.  I’ve walked this stretch of Takoradi many times and have always considered it very safe.  And here’s the thing I want to make perfectly clear before I tell my story: it is, generally, very safe.  All of Ghana, but especially the cities, are safe for “obruni,” or foreigners/white people.  There is a very strong cultural taboo against attacking obruni because there is a fear that we will report our experience to our friends and family and it will paint Ghana as an unsafe place to travel.  As such, I refuse to let my experience serve to discourage anyone from going to Ghana, because to do so would be to let the man who assaulted me win, and that cannot happen.  We cannot let fear take over our reasoning.  During this last month (finally!) of the American Presidential Election, it has become cemented again and again that fear-mongering is a cancer to society.  I will not allow my story to mutate and poison the minds of my readers, as much as I have the capability to.  So if you think you can’t read about what happened to me without being turned off from going to Ghana: please kindly stop reading now and I hope you’ll return for my next blog post.  Everyone is entitled to their reactions to my assault, but I beg you to not let those reactions influence any potential travel you may have to this beautiful, vibrant country.  Thank you for that consideration and reading my preamble.   I thought long and hard about whether to post this story here because I do not want to contribute to any negative stereotypes one might have about traveling in Africa, especially as a woman and especially alone.  However, it is real and it happened to me, so in the blog it goes.  Onto the story:

As I said, every day that I’m in the office I go to one of two joints to get my lunch.  The place I went to on Monday October 10^th sells delicious groundnut soup, which I eat with fish and rice (the Ghanaians think the fact that I eat it with regular rice is odd, considering it’s traditionally eaten with a rice ball or banku, but this place doesn’t sell rice balls and I don’t like banku, and I love the soup with plain rice so there it is).   The only thing I bring with me on these ventures is my wallet, or sometimes just a 10 Cedi bill, which I never spend the entirety of on these lunches.  I leave my cell phone at the office because I don’t need it for 10 minutes and usually I have it charging or using the Wi-Fi there to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer and I don’t want to disrupt those things.  After purchasing my usual groundnut soup order at this joint, I walk back to the office.  I am deep in thought about a conversation I’d had with a friend online that had been weighing on me, and admittedly I am not paying full attention to my surroundings.   

Suddenly there is a hand on my neck from a man standing behind me.  He is choking me.  He spins me around and starts grabbing at my clothing.  He holds onto my right shirt and bra straps and I am thrashed about.  I scream “GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!” and I try to push him off.  Honestly, this part is a blur in my memory, all I can remember is thinking that he was trying to undress me to sexually assault me.  Looking back, this is likely do to the fact that I’ve been sexually assaulted multiple times, and that given Trump’s vile comments on how he sexually assaults women, sexual assault, including my own, have been in the forefront of my thoughts.  Suddenly the man is not attacking me and he is running away from me as fast as he can.  As I reach up to assess the damage to my clothing I realize he’s ripped my necklace off my neck, and it’s at that point that I realize that he’s not trying to rape me, he was trying to rob me.  He hadn’t meant to grab as much of my clothing as he did and I was a much more difficult victim than he thought I would be.  However, despite his mangling of the robbery and my instincts to struggle, he made off with the “goods.” 

Once I realize he has my necklace I shout “HEY YOU GIVE THAT BACK” as I chase after the direction he departed, into the community.  To set the scene: between my office of Hen Mpoano and the joints where I pick up lunch, there is a very poor looking community of shacks and ill-constructed houses.  It was next to this community that I was attacked, and into it that my assailant ran.  As I run in, a man sees me and points the direction my assailant went.  I go that way and another person points the way after the fleeing man.  After my third guide attempting to help me, I realize that the man who assaulted me, and my precious necklace, are long gone. 

The necklace itself looks gold but it isn’t real.  My mother purchased it for me as a gift to keep me safe in Ghana.  We aren’t a family for much superstition but we believe in it some.  The pendant on the necklace was a “Hamsa,” the hand of God.  It was supposed to keep me safe.  Every time I wore it, I would think of my mother and feel loved.  I wanted, and still want, that sentimental necklace back.  Below is a selfie I took for my mother to show her me wearing the necklace, a week or two before the assault.

After I tell my third guide “he’s long gone, isn’t he” to which the man nodded (surprisingly he spoke English, most of the poor communities are full of people who didn’t go to school, and as such are both illiterate and unable to speak English), I walk back to where I was assaulted.  A crowd has gathered, drawn by my screams.  They are shouting to each other in Fante.  It is very overwhelming.  I start to shake.  A man who speaks English starts talking to me about how this is a travesty that this happened to me, and that we are going to the nearest police station right away.  He hails a taxi, and I let myself be brought into it.  On the way to the police station I gather my wits and tell the man that we have to go back to Hen Mpoano.  The staff will be worried about my long absence, and in any event, I don’t have my cell phone and I need it to tell the police my Ghanaian phone number, as I don’t have it memorized.  Say what you will about my inability to remember numbers, but in this case it saved the day, because the fact that I don’t have it memorized was the only thing that broke through the fog of my panic.  

I give directions back to Hen Mpoano, and once we get there I dash inside.  I’m crying.  I put my lunch down on my desk (somehow I’d held onto it this entire time, whether by instinct or because of my immense love of groundnut soup I’ll never know), then I grab my cell phone and run into the conference room.  I tell the Program’s Coordinator (the person I directly report to, hereafter referred to as my supervisor), “I’ve been assaulted.  He tore my necklace off me.  I’m going to the police station.”  My supervisor jumps up, looking shocked, saying “WHAT?”  I break down into sobs.  The director of Hen Mpoano happened to be in the office that day (he lives and works in Accra, the capital) and he saw me dash past his office, so he follows me into the conference room and puts his hand on my shoulder.  The director helps me up, and together with the programs coordinator and the two security guards who are on staff at that time, we go over to the waiting witness and taxi.  The director holds my shaking hand.  My supervisor asks me to please stop crying so that I may make a calm statement to the police.  The staff from Hen Mpoano discuss with the witness what happened, and say that they will take me to the police.  They pay the waiting taxi for me and I am ushered into one of the Hen Mpoano cars. 

A driver, my supervisor and myself all drive to the spot where I was assaulted.  There, my supervisor consults with the crowd of witnesses about what happened.  The general feeling I get from the conversation (which is almost entirely in Fante) is that the community is shocked and ashamed that this has happened to me.  I show them how my bra is torn and there is a collective gasp, followed by silence, followed by a flurry of yelling and pointing.  A man touches my neck where I was choked and I step back, saying “Don’t touch me!!”  My supervisor tells me that he is the brother of the man who assaulted me.  In fact, everyone in the community knows who it was who assaulted me, because he lives right there and there were many witnesses.  The brother pleads with me to not make a police report, saying he will get my necklace back in 30 minutes and bring it to Hen Mpoano.  My supervisor sends the brother off to get the necklace, however is adamant that we make a police report.  A different man tells me in English I have two options: make the report or get my necklace back.  I think that’s a load of crap and I refused to be bullied into not making a report.  I believe in justice.  So we pile into the Hen Mpoano car again and drive to the nearest police station.

When we arrive at the station, I’m shocked at how mundane it looks.  It’s basically a series of small buildings with their doors open, looking no different than the houses or shops nearby.  We walk into one and are told to take a seat on a bench outside.  While waiting, a skinny mangy cat walks over and I pet its ear, the one that still has fur on it.  At this point I don’t even care that it’s dirty, I just want to pet a cat, and it makes me feel better.  The officers call me in.  My supervisor conveys in Fante what happened to the police men, and I give a description.  I’m asked if I want to report the event as a robbery or assault, and I say assault.  They ask me if I could identify him, and I say that I doubt it, because while we were face to face he was choking me and flinging my head about and I couldn’t focus on his face much.  I mostly saw the back of his head as he ran away.   A side note: I have a new, real life appreciation for victims of assault who are not able to identify their attacker.  I’ve always believed the stories of people unable to describe or identify their attacker, but now I’ve experience this for real and it’s true. If you are someone who thinks people who are raped or assaulted shouldn’t be believed because they cannot accurately describe their attacker or cannot pick them out of a line up: you are a terrible person and I don’t want to know you.  End rant. 

After the first building, my boss and I are lead to another building behind this one.  There, I am asked to write down my statement for a hijabi woman, who isn’t in police uniform (the men in the previous office were) but who obviously works for the police in an official capacity.  After writing down and signing my statement, we walk back to the car, this time with the woman and another man, who works for the police but also is not in uniform, in tow. 

We drive back, yet again, to the spot of my assault.  The police people speak with the witnesses.  We are then lead into the community to find the house where the man who assaulted me lives.  Earlier, I had been thinking that he must have been truly poor and desperate to rob me in broad daylight, going against a very strong cultural taboo.  Walking through the community only further cemented this idea in my mind.  To get to his house, we past multiple falling apart shacks, and had to cross over a stream of blue-green sewage.  There was fecal matter and trash littering the ground, as well as something green growing that was either mold or moss, I couldn’t be sure.  A group of children gathered to watch the proceedings.  “This is where they live?” I thought to myself.  Despite the pain and panic he caused me, part of my heart goes out to this man, who likely grew up in such disgusting conditions. 

The police look in the man’s house and he isn’t there.  The house is empty, both of people and personal affects.  We hear reports from his neighbors that he lives with a few other men, essentially ne’er-do-wells, criminals, “weed smokers” the police man says with scorn in his voice.  Partaking in marijuana is obviously a much more grievous offence in Ghana than it is in Seattle where weed is legal.  I resist the urge to comment on that.  I’m clutching my wallet and cell phone tightly in sweaty hands, not wanting to put either in my pockets.  It’s very lucky that earlier the man didn’t see my wallet in my back pocket: my long shirt had covered it.  Had he grabbed that instead of my necklace, I likely would have been less physically attacked but more logistically stymied.  The wallet contains my debit card and a photocopy of my passport.  So thank G-d that that wasn’t taken!!

After this we walk out of the community, and I’m glad to be back in open air and not under the stifling shade of the plantain trees and crowded shacks.  We walk around some more and search out the uncle of my assailant.  We meet a local community member who is the leader of the community in an official capacity.  He assures me that they will do everything they can to make sure this man is brought to justice and my necklace returned.  While over here, a man approaches my boss and tells him in Fante that he saw the entire assault go down, and that the man who attacked me had shouted to get my attention before the attack and I hadn’t responded.  I told my boss that if that had happened, I hadn’t heard him.   Besides, I don’t really respond to strange men who call out to me – I respond to children who call out “obruni!” and to people who wish me “good morning/afternoon/evening.”  Maybe had I been paying more attention I would have heard him… but then what?  He likely still would have robbed me. 

Finally the investigation is complete and I am dropped off at the office while my supervisor goes with the police back to their station to finish the paperwork.  I go into the director’s office and he’s there with a few of the Hen Mpoano staff.  They stop their conversation as soon as they see me and begin to inquire after my psychical and mental well-being.  One of my coworkers, my “guide” from my “traditional wedding” post, tells me that had this happened in Accra, the man would have been killed by the community had they found him.  He would have been beaten and whipped to death in a display of street justice for violating the taboo of attacking an obruni.  I am shocked by this, and tell them “I don’t want him dead!! Just arrested!”  They all nod in agreement. 

After this I go to wash my hands.  I feel like they will never be clean.  Then I return to my office and call my boyfriend.  I break down in sobs.  My supervisor has been asking me to contain myself and to stop crying the entire time, so that I am able to give a calm and accurate police report.  I recognize the soundness of this advice, however holding back the tears for over an hour was excruciating.  So I sob on the phone and tell my coworker who comes in “please just let me cry!”  And he does. 

Then I eat my lunch, spilling the soup onto my desk as I try to get it into a bowl because my hands are still shaking violently.  I scarf up my food and am told that I will be driven home by one of the staff, either by a driver or by my supervisor.  I spend about an hour in the office printing and stapling surveys for the next two days of field work.  Then I tell the driver I am ready to go, and he tells me that my supervisor is driving me, as the driver needs to drive the director to the airport in half an hour and that there won’t be time for both.  So my supervisor drives me home. 

Going forward, the police may still catch him, and he is adamantly not welcome back in his community, so either way he’s lost either his freedom or his home.  I don’t wish him any ill will beyond the scope of what is Right and Just.  I do want my necklace back, though I’ve come to terms with the fact that that will likely never happen.  Like my tattoo says: Che Sara Sara, whatever will be will be. 

Many times during this ordeal it is reiterated to me that this is shocking that this happened to me.  I didn’t include this in the blow-by-blow because it would have been tedious.  I am asked many times if the man is crazy, to which I reply that I don’t think so, just a criminal.  I will not slander the mentally ill by grouping people in with them who are not mentally ill as an “excuse” to justify their behavior.  Besides, he didn’t seem ill.  Just poor, desperate, and strong.  So I will end this post in the same vein in which I started it:  I refuse to let this man win.  I refuse to be swooped out of the country (although the University of Washington has offered to orchestrate an emergency evacuation for me upon hearing about my ordeal).  I will not leave until I have gathered my data.  I will not cut my trip short.  And I will do nothing that would make anyone hesitate to come to Ghana, this beautiful country that has welcomed me with basically open arms for the past one and a half months.  I still love it here.  I still want to come back when I’m older, with children in tow.  I cannot be defeated by this.  I will likely never get the beloved necklace back, and that’s alright.  What the man almost took from me was my nerve, my dignity, and my resolve.  And I’ve discovered that that is something that cannot be ripped away from me.  I won’t let him win.  I’ve had many kind words of support from my friends and family after I posted about my ordeal to my Facebook.  That’s how we don’t let him win: we can support each other, love each other in times of crisis, and resolve to never lose our nerve or ability to go to strange foreign places alone.   

We stand together and fight against the fear.  

We win, he loses.