Tomato, Tomatoe. Obruni, Obibini.

“Can I ask you a question?” Abby asked. “Of course you can,” I replied. Abby gulped down some courage and cleared her throat. In a hushed voice she asked, “Are you an Angel?”

Courtney and I were sitting on a white bench outside of the Ghana-Canada Medical Center, waiting for her lab results, when I noticed a young girl being led around by a nurse in the courtyard not 20 feet away. She had a pretty floral skirt on and a white sweatshirt and took her time, walking slowly and taking frequent stops to catch her breath. I diverted my attention away from my laptop screening The Blind Side, Courtney and my feel good movie, to wave & smile at her and the nurse. She stopped walking and feebly waved back. She was happy we disrupted her walk, I think, because she changed directions to slowly come our way. The nurse led her to sit next to us and left to attend to paperwork at the front desk. The girl talked a lot, but slowly and softly, of which I could understand very little. I found out from another nurse she was recovering from an open heart surgery and that talking was good for her because she was depressed.

Surprised, confused, flattered, and all that’s in-between after she asked me if we were Angels, I laughed a little and responded, “No, I’m a person just like you.” She asked if she could touch me and upon doing so her eyes fixed to mine in confusion. It was as if she pet velvet for the first time. I put my wrist next to hers and explained all our similar physical features, the the only difference being my skin was lighter than hers. We compared hands and wrists, mine of course were quite larger, and I emphasized that we both have five fingers and five fingernails and a wrist connecting our hands to our forearms. I don’t know if she understood the anatomical references, but she could see that we weren’t so different after all.

Lets be real: I stand out like a pimple with glitter among the Ghanaians; all of us do. And the locals do an excellent job in making sure I remember by hollering “OBRUNI!” wherever I go. But I’ve learned that when someone calls me an Obruni to respond by calling them an Obibini to engage in a healthy chuckle. To Ghanaians, calling out a foreigners ethnicity is a way to strike communication. They’re happy I understand what Obruni means and know to respond by calling them “OBIBINI!” It’s not meant to be offensive, in fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. People embrace their ethnicity; after all, that is something we can’t change. Surely, hollering out a foreigners ethnicity wouldn’t fly in the United States for “political correctness” purposes, but in Ghana, it’s acceptable to call people as they are. People I pass on the street, as well as my co-workers, always find enjoyment when I call myself an Obruni. I use it to my advantage when I’m bargaining too. I tell the vendor, “I don’t want Obruni price! Give me Obibini price!” and they always laugh and lower the price for me.

At first, when Abby asked me if I was an Angel I was humbled and flattered; who wouldn’t be? But when I really thought about her considering me Angelic solely because the color of my skin, I became frustrated. Abby and Ghana as a whole have opened my eyes to different ways in viewing complex issues like religion, politics, or social construction, and simpler topics like food, advertising, and money. Finding my way through the city alone and working at an NGO, where the primary focus is advocating human rights, have highlighted the differences between America and Ghana with a big red sharpie. And while these differences are easy to retell to family and friends, Ghana has done something very special for me that has taken some digging on my end. While always illuminating that I’m the foreigner, I’m the outsider, and I’m the blatantly obvious minority, this country has simultaneously shown me that people are people and judgement caps off, we all have a thing or two to learn from each other.

Tomato, Tomatoe. Obibini, Obruni. We’re really all the same.

(As I wrote this, one of my co-workers, Leslie, walked past me and rubbed my neck and said “Obruni!” Good gravy.)