Hustling is not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl
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The prospects of a sixteen-year-old West African girl with no money, education, or experience might seem pretty depressing. But if she's got a hell of a lot of nerve and a knack for finding the funny side in even the worst situations, she just might triumph over her circumstances. Our heroine Hawa does, and she did. In the 1970s, John Chernoff recorded the story of her life as an "ashawo," or bar girl, making a living on gifts from men and her own quick wits, and here presents it in Hustling Is Not Stealing, one of the most remarkable "autobiographies" you will ever encounter.What might have been a sad tale of hardship and exploitation turns instead into a fascinating send-up of life in modern Africa, thanks to Hawa's smarts, savvy, and ear for telling just the right story to make her point. Through her wide-open and knowing eyes, we get an inside view of what life is really like for young people in West Africa. We spy on nightlife scenes of sex and deception; we see how modern-minded youth deal with life in the cities in villages; and we share the sweet and sometimes silly friendships formed in the streets and bars.But mostly we come to know Hawa and how she has navigated a life that few can even imagine. The first of two funny, poignant volumes, Hustling starts with an in-depth introduction by Chernoff to Hawa's Africa. From there the book traces her remarkable transformation from a playful warrior struggling against her circumstances to an insightful trickster enjoying and taking advantage of them as best she can.Part coming-of-age story, part ethnography, and all compulsively readable, Hustling Is Not Stealing is a rare book thateducates as thoroughly as it entertains."You can see some people outside, and you will think they are enjoying, but they are suffering. Every time in some nightclub, you will see a girl dressed nicely, and she's dancing, she's happy. You will say, 'Ah! This girl!' You don't know what problem she has got. Some people say that this life, it's unto us. It's unto us? Yeah, it's unto me, but sometimes it's not unto me. When I was growing up, I didn't feel like doing all these things. There is not any girl who will wake up as a young girl and say, 'As for me, when I grow up, I want to be ashawo, to go with everybody.' Not any girl will think of this."—from the bookWinner - 2004 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing The New Yorker While studying West African music in the early seventies, Chernoff befriended Hawa, a high-spirited, illiterate Ghanaian woman whose street-smarts and garrulousness inspired him to record a series of autobiographical interviews, which he has transcribed and edited. From the time she leaves an unhappy arranged marriage at the age of sixteen, her life unfolds as a picaresque series of exploits that illustrate her ability to live by her wits as an ashawo—a “semiprofessional” prostitute—supported by the men she meets in the bars and discos of Accra and Lomé. A resourceful heroine and loyal (if capricious) friend, Hawa is also a connoisseur of local mores, and tartly observes the daily collision of this world with that of the European men among her boyfriends. Casually weaving urban folklore into her engaging tale, Hawa displays an eye for detail and a narrative exuberance that mark her as a gifted storyteller.
AcknowledgmentsxiIntroduction1Excerpt from "Junior Wife"1Preamble: Stories and Their Critics5Africa: The End of the Earth Where the World Began8The Politico-economic Techno-philosophical Socio-historical Global-developmental Backdrop12The View from Ground Level31Cities as the Heavens of This Earth45Commodity Traders62Digression on the End of the World78Ethnography to the Second Power86The Brer Rabbit School of Feminism102Procedures to Protect Identities115A Note on the Text117Part 1Into The Life1Not Bad as Such121Like a Letter121The Village of Don't-Go-There129More Aunts133A Brief Adolescence145Junior Wife1502The Life156Paradise Hotel156Cheap Money159The Price of Tea161Janet's Baby165The Problem of Being Small169Married without a Ring170Reflections: After the First Year as Ashawo1763Problems of Self-Empowerment177Repaying Rough with Rough177The Lebanese Twins179Deviant Sex185Really Deviant Sex192Wounds198What No Girl Says202Butterfly Wings203The Man with Four Noses205Case Histories207Part 2With the British in a Provincial Capital4The Chief of Bagabaga221Nigel's Courtship221The Two Wives of the Chief of Bagabaga226Jack Toronto236Roads Not Taken2415Fucking English People248William and Abena248Reflections: Property and Family257Power Show for Cigarettes260Cool-Catch-Monkey266Nigel's Mouth272A Beating among Friends276Part 3Into The Life Again6Avoiding the Life281A Ghanaian Boyfriend281Reflections: An Independent Life2897With Jacqueline296To Go to Togo296At Podo's House298The Turkey-Tail Man3018A Bad Sickness305The Treatment305Love and the Banana309Part 4Juju9The Sheer Ubiquity of It315Issahaku's Medicine315Christmas for a Juju316The Keta Girls and the Seaman31810Witches320Witchfire320Babies as Strangers323The Witchcraft of the Senior Mother325Belief in Witches330Befriending a Witch331Interlude: A Special Child333Befriending a Witch (Conclusion)335Revenge of a Bedwetter33711Child of the God341A Wonderful Man341Pennies in the Hair344Interlude: Village Playtime350Return to the Village354From Frying Pan to Fire359Reckoning with the God36412Black Power371Calling the Lost People371The Master of the Dwarves376Showing the Power378Part 5The Life in Togo13A Fast Boy385The Rich Biafran385Frankie and Antonio387Frankie's Game39114A Nice Prison in Togo402Django and the Fucking Germans402Interlude: The Maidservant's Tale413Louky's Problem420Prisoners for the Lions426If All the Prisons Were like This433Fish from the Sea in Vaginas438Coda43915I Remember Mama441Drunkards441The Trouble with Three Friends447Quarreling in Secret454Killer Girls from Ghana464Epilogue469Glossary473
