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>
• 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>
• 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>

• 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>
• Papa's Mouth
• Children Who Steal
• Tales of Groove    <PDF>
• 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