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Hustling Is Not Stealing:  Stories of an African Bar Girl


Exchange Is Not Robbery:  More Stories of an African Bar Girl


Tables of Contents


Hustling in Not Stealing: 
Stories of an African Bargirl



Introduction
Excerpt from “Junior Wife”
Preamble:  Stories and Their Critics
Africa:  The End of the Earth Where the World Began
The Politico-economic Techno-philosophical
       Socio-historical Global-developmental Backdrop

The View from Ground Level
Cities as the Heavens of this Earth  <PDF / HTML>
Commodity Traders
Digression on the End of the World
Ethnography to the Second Power
The Brer Rabbit School of Feminism

Part One:  Into The Life

Chapter 1:  Not Bad as Such
Like a Letter
The Village of Don't-Go-There
More Aunts
A Brief Adolescence
Junior Wife

Chapter 2:  The Life
Paradise Hotel
Cheap Money
The Price of Tea
Janet's Baby
The Problem of Being Small
Married without a Ring
Reflections:  After the First Year as Ashawo

Chapter 3:  Problems of Self-Empowerment
Repaying Rough with Rough
The Lebanese Twins
Deviant Sex
Really Deviant Sex
Wounds
What No Girl Says
Butterfly Wings
The Man with Four Noses
Case Histories

Part Two:  With the British in a Provincial Capital

Chapter 4:  The Chief of Bagabaga
Nigel's Courtship
The Two Wives of the Chief of Bagabaga
Jack Toronto
Roads Not Taken

Chapter 5:  Fucking English People
William and Abena  < PDF / HTML>
Reflections:  Property and Family
Power Show for Cigarettes
Cool-Catch-Monkey
Nigel's Mouth
A Beating among Friends

Part Three:  Into the Life Again

Chapter 6:  Avoiding the Life
A Ghanaian Boyfriend
Reflections:  An Independent Life

Chapter 7:  With Jacqueline
To Go to Togo
At Podo's House
The Turkey-Tail Man

Chapter 8:  A Bad Sickness <PDF / HTML>
The Treatment
Love and the Banana

Part Four:  Juju

Chapter 9:  The Sheer Ubiquity of It
Issahaku's Medicine
Christmas for a Juju
The Keta Girls and the Seaman

Chapter 10:  Witches
Witchfire
Babies as Strangers
The Witchcraft of the Senior Mother
Belief in Witches
Befriending a Witch
Interlude:  A Special Child
Befriending a Witch (Conclusion)
Revenge of a Bedwetter

Chapter 11:  Child of the God
A Wonderful Man
Pennies in the Hair
Interlude:  Village Playtime
Return to the Village
From Frying Pan to Fire
Reckoning with the God

Chapter 12:  Black Power
Calling the Lost People
The Master of the Dwarves
Showing the Power

Part Five:  The Life in Togo

Chapter 13:  A Fast Boy
The Rich Biafran
Frankie and Antonio
Frankie's Game

Chapter 14:  A Nice Prison in Togo  <PDF>
Django and the Fucking Germans
Interlude:  The Maidservant's Tale
Louky's Problem
Prisoners for the Lions
If All the Prisons Were like This
Fish from the Sea in Vaginas
Coda

Chapter 15:  I Remember Mama
Drunkards
The Trouble with Three Friends
Quarreling in Secret
Killer Girls from Ghana

Epilogue
Glossary
Exchange Is Not Robbery: 
More Stories of an African Bar Girl



Prologue


Part One:  The Life in Ouaga

Chapter 1:  A Stranger at Home
Love That Makes One Sick
The Story of Woman
Getting an Identity Card
Virginity as a Fatal Disease

Chapter 2:  Working Girls
Working at La Tringle
Mama Gets a Boyfriend
The Village Nightclub
Mama Amma and Her Two Boyfriends
Limata and Her Old Man
The Short Big Man Who Liked to Dance

Part Two:  The Human Face of Neocolonialism

Chapter 3:  Fucking French People
The French Nightclub
The French Ashawos
The Godfather
Not Crazy, Just Stupid

Chapter 4:  Konkonsa Research
Mr. Heh-heh-heh
The Belgian Prisoner
Interrogations
Hope
Shetu and Philippe
The Trouble with Frogs

Part Three:  Hawa Contextualizes Her Life

Chapter 5:  Papa's Sickness
Transition: Money Matters
Country Roads at Night
The First Useless Child

Chapter 6:  The Big Fight in the Family
The Two Wives
The Big Fight
Interlude: Big Brother
The Big Fight (Conclusion)

Chapter 7:  Life with Father
Issahaku and the Fulani Thieves  <PDF / HTML>
Papa's Mouth
Children Who Steal
Tales of Groove  <PDF / HTML>
How Papa Managed

Chapter 8:  Village Comedies
The Sense of Villagers
Introduction to Western Civilization
A Strange Case at the Chief's Court
How Children Get Sense
Good and Bad Strangers
Special Tea
Pro-pro Ghana Babies
Papa and the Tigernut Lady
Special Agent

Chapter 9:  Young Love in the Village
The Sister Who Refused Marriage
Marrying Sisters
Escape to Bobo
Further Varieties of Village Seduction
A Village Courtship
Catching Chickens
The Sweetness of Villages

Part Four:  African Independence

Chapter 10:  Problems of Multiculturalism
Stuck in the Village
Ten and a Half Languages
Undercover Research
I Could Sell Her in Accra

Chapter 11:  Babes in the Woods
The Smell of a Place
Passage by Contract
Ghana Girls in Ouaga
Togo Girls in Ouaga
A Greenhorn

Chapter 12:  The Ashawo Alternative
Women for Themselves
The Patience of a Mossi Mistress
Who Wants to Live in an Institution?
The Issue of an Issue
Serial Monogamy
Private Ashawo

Chapter 13:  Sex Stories from The Life
Not a Captain of Sexing
The Dilemma of Big Pricks
Limata's Boyfriend
Ginger for Sex Workers
The Italian Man with a Prick Problem

Chapter 14:  The Game
Something like a Thief
The Poor Man Who Tore Limata's Dress
Customer Relations
Popularity Party
Revenge of the Men
The Price of Champagne

Glossary