Dominoes and Doritos

I used to think that I was extroverted, socially suave, and uncharacteristically good at making friends. Living in Ghana has shattered my rosy lenses and made me question whether or not I’ve lost my friendship flare, or if I even had such flare before. I’m not implying that I’m an eremite; I do have my clan of fellows, with whom I spend nearly every waking moment, and often non-waking moments. Our clan can most accurately be described as a group of nomads travelling in pursuit of game. We’ve exhausted all strategies, scoured different lands, and have seemingly come up empty-friended.

Probably the closest we have come to increasing our clan size was a Thursday evening in early October. It was almost a full moon, the temperature was just right for friend-making. We were at a local Irish pub when lo and behold, at the adjacent table were a murder of obronis; time to prepare for the kill. After exchanging pleasantries, we determined that the fair-skinned strangers were Teaching Fellows based in Accra for a year; you don’t say. Thinking we had the rabbit by its tail, we extended a warm hand and offered to merge tables. All signs were a go until one of the girls in the group informed us that she would rather play Dominos with her Fellows. Shut down. We spent the rest of our evening hiding in our cloud of rejection. We lost to a set of tablets with dots.

So, frankly, I was excited when I was put in contact with another obroni, an American student studying in Accra for the semester, who seemed equally eager to make friends in this anteater-eat-ant world. We elected to meet up for a drink at a local spot to sow the seeds of what would hopefully develop into a lifelong, or rather month-long, (constrained by the end of her study abroad program) friendship. Everything was proceeding towards mutualism, until she excused herself to use the wash room.

Upon returning, she proceeded, I’ve been meaning to ask. So I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for the question. Wondering how long she’s been meaning to ask, since at this point, we’ve known one another for less than an hour. I’m thinking she used the time in the wash room to mentally prepare – we’re about to get deep. Can you smell ants? What? Do I smell ants? No, but I do see dead people. How was I supposed to respond to that? I should have known that this was only intended to get her foot in the door. Once the door was open, I found myself sponging up useless facts about ants, such as this one: ants taste spicy. I know this because one time, my “friend” left her open Doritos bag outside overnight, found it the next morning, stuck her hand in and proceeded to eat the ant-covered Doritos. I suggested maybe the bag was the Blazin’ Jalapeno variety, but (thankfully and perhaps excusably?) this incident took place years ago before the proliferation of Doritos flavors.

But I am an optimist at heart. I will not let my continual strike outs prevent me from swinging the bat. I have learned an important lesson though. Don’t swing at every pitch. And if you give an ant a cookie it might turn down the glass of milk and decide to play dominos instead.