Ethel planned to cook supper for our host family one night. When we mentioned it to Alison she suggested that we walk to Sobey's to get any ingredients we needed that evening, since we were expecting a hurricane the next day and would likely have to walk through some pretty nasty rain and wind to get our chicken and veggies if we waited until the next day. So Ethel and I walked to Sobey's, picking up LJ, who was waiting outside for her host and counterpart to get home, on the way. I realized too late that I had forgotten to bring a cloth grocery bag, but all we had to get was some chicken, tomatoes and a green pepper... easy enough to carry home. The cashier had loaded our goods into a plastic bag before the little enviro-switch in my brain flicked on, so I started to take the food back out. The way Ethel reacted to my attempt to pass her a styrofoam flat of chicken, you would have thought I was handing her a lit stick of dynamite. "Oooh!" she squealed as she stepped back and waved her hands. I was flummoxed (honestly that is just the most accurate word I could think of to describe it)... she had picked the chicken out of the cooler earlier, so it wasn't that she was afraid to touch it. So what was the problem? I asked. "It's so transparent! It's so transparent!" What? What does that mean?? Well, let me tell you. Apparently, in Ghana, you look like a total psycho if you carry your groceries down the street without a bag or "a nice wrapper". The best reason why this is that I could get out of Ethel and LJ was, "It just seems strange."
"But why??" I asked in vain. I just had to laugh and laugh, more at Ethel and LJ's horror than the actual faux pas. After assurances that we would not be judged for it and that I would carry the groceries to save them the disgrace of carrying some produce and poultry down the street, we managed to leave without a plastic bag!
Note to self: bring a reusable shopping bag along in Ghana, or be labelled a freak by local townspeople.
flum·mox
[fluhm-uh
ks] verb (used with object) Informal .
to bewilder; confound; confuse, startle.
We watched that video in a couple of my courses last year, it is quite a good mockumentary. But its also kind of sad that we have much plastic junk lying around....
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