the surprise

Things my African boyfriend wants to know: Why do white people need to take coffee or tea every morning? Why don’t you eat the head? It’s the best part. Can I have the bag? Let me carry that for you, let me help you with that.

He has left Africa for the first time, left Ghana. When I want to visit my friend, he wonders – why don’t I just drop round? When we are watching a movie together and I get tired, too tired to walk home – why don’t my friend and I just climb into bed together and fall asleep?

If you even have two or three friends watching, you may all climb in. Or perhaps the host sleeps on the floor. He is the host.

Everybody sleeps.

He says things to me like just relax, Cathoel; enjoy yourself. He asks, why are we rushing? And yet he is incredibly hard working. He scours the bath house then calls me to inspect it. He washes everything by hand. When I say, idly, late at night, oh there is a hole in that cushion, we have to stitch it up before we leave for Ghana, he fetches needle and thread and fixes it.

When I show him the laundromat he wants to know, does the machine also squeeze it? That is, will the washing machine wring the water out of our clean clothes?

Or do we do that ourselves, after carrying the heavier load home on our bicycles.

We found him a bicycle, second hand, and a heavy coat and scarf, second hand. Two pairs of second hand gloves, which he wears one on top of the other then complains his hands are cold. He has never been below twenty five degrees before in all his life. When I was visiting during the rainy season several of his friends rang to assure me I should bring a jumper or a jacket, “It’s cold here.”

He rides his bicycle like a Berliner, with both hands tucked smoothly under his armpits. My boyfriend doesn’t believe ladies should have to carry their own bicycles. Yet he thinks women make the best business owners, the best presidents. In Ghana women own the majority of businesses. He’s never watched porn and I can feel it in his touch. I can feel it in his gaze. At the store on the corner he says gravely, “Good morning.” He asks, “Why don’t you guys cherish each other?” When we reach the train station he carries both bicycles upstairs on his shoulders.