Folly in Accra

 

Turquoise – Three Years in Ghana: A Peace Corps Memoir by Lawrence Grobel, HMH Press, 2022.

This is a candid memoir. I was offput by revelations of sex and drugs in initial chapters but reading on found that the totality of the chapters – not really chapters but sequential anecdotes or observations – began to build a comprehensive picture of the Ghana that Grobel experienced.  It was indeed a place that operated by its own set of confusing cultural constraints. Some were legacies of traditional village life, but others were mechanisms that modern Ghanaians developed to cope with each other within a corrupt system where getting ahead was the principal objective.  Sex, graft, nepotism, fatalism, humor, relationships, obligations, misunderstandings, all got mixed up in the quests of Grobel’s subjects: first to survive and then to thrive.

Author Grobel was a full participant in the scene around him and acute observer of it. His sketches of life and people in his life in Accra are trenchant. Some chapters are connected in a desultory manner, others stand alone.  Grobel was acutely aware of his foreignness and how that figured into how people saw and dealt with him and how he dealt with them.  He was generally sympathetic to Ghanaians but scathing regarding diplomats and outside do-gooders.  During his years in Ghana Grobel developed lasting friendships; one with a young man named Atar and another with girlfriend Akua. The saga of their interactions tracks throughout the book.

The overall impact of the memoir is to paint Ghana and Ghanaians in unvarnished terms. Despite Grobel’s cynicism, a genuine affection for Ghana and its people shines through.