Small girl. I love it when people call me that here. Much better than ‘Obruni’ (white man) , or ´Mama´, or worse ´White´. ´Hey White, you can´t park here´ (random men on the street who decide they have a say in where I can park). Imagine saying that the other way around. Or ´Mama, please, something small for your friend´ , (those poor boys that take you by surprise splashing water on your window at the traffic light and wash the car).
But lately, I have been a bit confused. Whenever someone calls me small girl they add ´you don´t know the ting´, look me up and down and smile . What is that supposed to mean I kept wondering for a while. What Ting, or Thing? And I would just smile politely. Innocence is bliss.
But then I read this report on teenage pregnancies. The last page included recommendations from district education officers on how to prevent teenage pregnancies which is a huge problem here, causing girls to drop out of school. At first it made me furious as one of the suggestions was that girls should be wearing more proper clothes, so teachers (!) and boys were less tempted. Sure. I´m not even going to comment on that one as this argumentation upsets me too much.
Another recommendation was that the song ´ Small girl, you don´t know the thing´ should be banned from the radio as it causes bad behaviour. That, of course, triggered me and I did a little google search. And now I hear this song everywhere on the radio. And even though the video is provocative and as an educationalist that tries to improve gender sensitive schools I shouldn´t approve it, it gives a fairly good impression why they give me dirty smiles these days when calling me small girl. And it´s a master class in some lovely dirty Ghanaian dancing. Enjoy.
