Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl 1st edition by Chernoff, John M. (2003) Paperback

by John M. Chernoff

While living in West Africa in the 1970s, John Chernoff recorded the stories of “Hawa,” a spirited and brilliant but uneducated woman whose insistence on being respected and treated fairly propelled her, ironically, into a life of marginality and luck as an “ashawo,” or bar girl. Rejecting traditional marriage options and cut off from family support, she is like many women in Africa who come to depend on the help they receive from one another, from boyfriends, and from the men they meet in bars and nightclubs. Refusing to see herself as a victim, Hawa embraces the freedom her lifestyle permits and seeks the broadest experience available to her.In Hustling Is Not Stealing and its follow-up, Exchange Is Not Robbery, a chronicle of exploitation is transformed by verbal art into an ebullient comedy. In Hustling Is Not Stealing, Hawa is a playful warrior struggling against circumstances in Ghana and Togo. In Exchange Is Not Robbery, Hawa returns to her native Burkina Faso, where she achieves greater control over her life but faces new difficulties. As a woman making sacrifices to live independently, Hawa sees her own situation become more complex as she confronts an atmosphere in Burkina Faso that is in some ways more challenging than the one she left behind, and the moral ambiguities of her life begin to intensify.Combining elements of folklore and memoir, Hawa’s stories portray the diverse social landscape of West Africa. Individually the anecdotes can be funny, shocking, or poignant; assembled together they offer a sweeping critical and satirical vision.

Genres: Africa, Anthropology, Nonfiction, Ethnography

Paperback

First published December 15, 2003

Reviews

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected this book to be full of comic, unabashedly sordid tales in some variety of the Western world’s unselfconsciously self-exploitative western blog fiction. I even wanted it to be that and saved the book for a time when I would find the account of sexual escapades and predatory western ignorance particularly diverting. (I also figured that the academic whiff of the book—an introduction that runs to 117 pages, ample footnotes and a glossary—would elevate my low brow motivation for picking it up in the first place.) I began, dutifully, with the introduction, growing suspicious when Chernoff revealed that his graduate studies were conducted at a seminary and becoming impatient with the unnecessary showiness he seems vulnerable to: “The problem with that method is that minutely precise terms can become so vaporous that they have no earthly distillate: they cannot be subsequently condensed and used except in specially fabricated ivory towers.”

I began to fear that it would turn into an epic translator’s introduction (shudder). Accordingly, I felt grateful to Chernoff when, on page eight, he offers, “those who are impatient to meet her (his protagonist) and those who think they know about modern Africa, may skip this introduction.” Before sprinting away with my hall pass, I glimpsed ahead, saw some sentences like “Africa: mother Africa, mother of depressing statistics and bad news” and “There is a territorial metaphysics of morals at work in the dichotomies of order and chaos” after which I felt totally excused from reading another word of it. However, it is a testament (of some sort) to Chernoff’s book that I actually returned to the introduction after finishing Hawa’s stories and read a hell of a lot more of it. On that, more later.

The other 350 pages of the book are a relatively unstructured transcription of reminiscences and self-justifications told to an ethnographer(ish), by an illiterate, Ghanaian woman who spent much of her life trading sex and companionship for comforts and security. Stories from Hawa’s young childhood are scattered throughout the collection and offer a truly outstanding depiction of a relatively poor African girl’s childhood. For their lack of artifice and the defiant mirth in them, I enjoyed them more than any of the several dozen depictions of African childhood that I have read by the continent’s most talented novelists (with the sole exception of Ben Okri in the The Famished Road). The stories are simple, based around a single behavior or rebellion and are memorable for their succinct reality and the confiding way in which they are narrated.

The fourth “part” of the book (and I am wholly unconvinced by Chernoff’s structure—though, to be fair, this is the first of two volumes and their *may* be some huge sweeping arch in the works) delivers dozens of truly funny stories about witchcraft and African juju. If you are losing patience with Chernoff and Hawa, skip ahead and start reading from here. If you are not recaptured by the banana juju in the nightclub, put the book down and cultivate a sense of humor.

The other species of story—and the most prominent—involves Hawa’s adult involvement with men and the women who shared her lifestyle. These are shot through with digressions on life strategies and power dynamics: “if you haven’t got money, maybe the man who has the money to marry you, you won’t like him. And you shouldn’t be married because of money. No, I think you must marry somebody you like, or somebody you love. Then maybe you can stay with him and be correct;” “Then maybe, in that first year when we marry, we have nothing. We are suffering together. And then we are trying to get small money to save for our children after. Then he goes and takes another woman, too. That one too will bring babies out. And then: who is the property for?” While revealing, these moments recur a bit too often from a narrative point of view and might frustrate impatient readers. When she is not offering her general apologetics, she is recounting the glorious moments of her self-defense, the maintenance of her dignity, her self-assertion, her manipulation and moments of revenge. All of this challenges a reader in several ways, principally, drawing out the tendency to psychoanalyze and to judge (two exercises of minimal worth, against which this book makes it exhausting to struggle). For what it is worth, on balance, Hawa’s stories offer enough humor and memorable characters to merit finishing.

For a taste of the more rewarding, light-hearted moments: “Sometimes I could go alone to dance or I could go together with Nigel. Yeah. Nigel used to dance, too, with his conceive (fat belly)! Yeah. Hey! He liked Highlife. Eh? When he danced, he had a big ass—ha!—and when he danced, shaking his stomach in Highlife, people liked his dance. Hey! What are you talking?! Nigel?! Ha! He danced nicely;” “I used to sleep at the right side of my grandmother, and that boy used to sleep at the left side. So night time, when I was feeling like pissing, I woke up. But to call this old lady to take me outside to go and piss, I didn’t feel it. So I just got up and passed beside the feet, and then I passed behind and went to that small boy’s place and pissed, and then I came back to my right-hand side to sleep. Ha-ha!” Yes, the crudity, the vulgarity or whatever, is representative—as far as I am concerned, in the best and least shameful of possible ways.

I’m not sure if I need to read the second volume. But, the book distinguished itself so completely from everything else I have ever read that I soldiered back into the introduction to understand its creators more clearly. The brief description of Hawa on page 11 is totally worth reading and the narrator’s depiction of himself (that begins on page 45) is tremendously revealing. The fondness he has for the version of himself that was a young “believer” in the vibrant Ghana of the early 1970s completely changed my conception of him and made me more patient with his academic bombast. I also softened up considerably when I read my favorite sentence of the introduction, “Somehow or other, I picked up the nickname ‘psychedelic,’ and within a few weeks after my arrival, there was almost no place in central Accra where I could go and not hear a friendly voice calling me, ‘Hey! Johnny!’ or ‘Hey! Psychedelic!’” Right. Somehow or other.

Finally, my objection to the introduction boils down to issues with Chernoff’s tone and personal writing style; but I must confess that his observations on Africa seemed, to me, basically valid and he seems, for the most part, to avoid excessive generalization, which means that if you really need the background, I don’t think he will mislead you. And that is a judgment I rarely make of people who write about West Africa.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprisingly original idea: Letting a West African woman speak. Where/when in Western literature does this happen? Probably no other person has been as silent. Finally, a West African woman tells her story, in the form of a "bar girl" named Hawa.

It's too bad a premise of such promise is continually undermined by an "author" named John Chernoff. The problems begin with the tedious introduction by Mr. Chernoff. He adopts a pose of knowing cynicism about Western development, which would be fair if his predictions rang true. But a claim that HIV drug treatments will only be available to rich Western countries while "people in the Third World will be dying" is belied by the hundreds of millions of dollars devoted to HIV drug treatments in the past decade that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Swing and a miss.

Even if one skips the tedious introduction, the text of Hawa's stories is shot through with eye-rollingly unnecessary footnotes. Does the author think so low of his audience's intelligence that he needs explain that Hawa's desire to "dance rock" means she wants to "dance to rock music"? Or that hair in the style of Bob Marley is dreadlocks?

Other times Hawa herself does an adequate job of explaining certain Ghanaian-English terms, like "bossing", yet Mr. Chernoff still apparently feels the need to chime in with his own professorial explanation.

Even more maddening is the games the author has played with place names. For the names of bars, the author admits he makes up some names, switches others, and in certain cases makes "substitutions within a country on the basis of comparable factors, so that although the name of place or enterprise may exist and may seem likely as a venue, that particular name probably does not represent the actual name of the place or enterprise depicted in the book". Same with cities. Huh? Really, Mr. Chernoff, your book isn't full of national security secrets. You've only made more work for yourself, diminished the authenticity of your book, and turned off readers familiar with the cities depicted.

But perhaps my biggest issue with the book is the "author" himself. Simply put, this is Hawa's story. Why is the man with the tape recorder given all of the credit (and presumably, royalties)?

Maybe the West African woman is still silent after all.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a difficult task to start a book advertised as full of colorful prose and stories told by Hawa, an "ashawo" woman from Ghana, only to be hindered first by the task of getting through a 100+ page introduction by anthropologist/author. You'll be tempted to put this book down before getting to the payoff of the actual stories, told in Ghanaian English and full of interjections such as "Tweah!" My second hurdle, after the length of the intro, was being offended by Chernoff who seemd to imply that prostitutes choose their profession and they aren't just victims of poverty and circumstance and lack of opportunity. I suppose he was preparing a potentially critical audience who would judge a woman with an "alternative" lifestyle. Perhaps that kind of explanation (or the whole introduction!) would be better at the end of the work; I'm not sure. Because I understood what he meant after reading the book, and I was no longer standing on my feminist pedestal rolling my eyes at the male author who doesn't understand the plight of women. Hawa's "career" is completely unique to Ghana/West Africa, as Chernoff points out and as the book will show. It could not exist apart from a normal system of patronage and exchange that occurs between friends, family members, and spouses. Hawa's relationships with her men are not terribly different from a "normal" boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife relationship. Completely different from the transaction nature of prostitution in America, the gift/patronage system is one that is not exactly tit-for-tat (based on the material in the book). Hawa even describes a relationship where she never sleeps with this Nigerian man and yet he pays for her to live in a fancy hotel. I could see that outsiders would be baffled by these arragements. And this all makes the introduction worthwhile in the end, but I also think that Hawa does a good job of painting these relationships. It's very useful for Westerners to see what a completely different system it is. That being said, I cannot help but see that Hawa is still playing into a male chauvinistic attitude, one where a kept woman is a status symbol and places her in a servile position to a man. As an American woman who has lived in W. Africa including Ghana, this was a characteristic of male-female relationships that I could never comply with. But I have to remind myself that as an outsider, I have different ideals and expectations, and do not understand the normalcy of such a relationship. As Americans we are quick to break of ties with family or friends on whom we depend worried that we are dependent and weak. This would never occur to someone in W. Africa. All in all, Hawa will show you a great deal about "normal" urban life in W. Africa, and I think the method of auto-ethnography is extremely valuable and one that should be used more often.

One last note: this is only half of Hawa's story! The division between this book and the second, "Exchange is not Robbery," is merely for the purpose of not having one extremely long volume, which seems to necessitate reading both if you want the whole story. But Hawa's storytelling is divided in episodes, so you don't feel left hanging too much at the end of this book.

[Cbx · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read. Although initially daunted by the lengthy introduction, I found it provided interesting context. As a reader unfamiliar with West Africa, I found it helpful to have the background. Then too, it was nice to have a bit of insight into the narrator and the man interviewing her.

As for Hawa's stories, I have certainly not read anything like them before. They go all kinds of interesting places, from nightclubs to hotels, from gated communities where only Europeans live to villages with resident juju. The language is conversational, repetitive, full of interjections and remembered dialogue. I found myself wanting to read more, know more about the people in the stories. The organization of the stories did not make all that much sense to me, although they were loosely grouped by topic or location, stories in later sections would often circle back to link with previous ones and sometimes took place before them. That was fine by me though, as a reader I was along for the ride.

This is an ethnographic work, and as such, carries extra theoretical and conceptual weight. I did not read it for any of that, and although I am sure it would reward closer study, I found it enjoyable to just pick up and read.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mansplaining.
I tried. Too much through a western male academic perspective. Way, way too much. Patronizing. I made myself read the whole intro...so many Western-oriented footnotes (European, of course). When finally I started reading Hawa's stories, so many footnotes to 'help' us understand the obvious. Do you really think, Mr. Chernoff, that she needs every term 'translated'? Who do you insult more by doing this, the reader - or Hawa? This is a book and style of writing I would expect from a 1950s-or-earlier writer.

So disappointing, as I did have some respect for your book on African Rhythm and African Sensibility....published in 1979...even that, enough people now writing are now criticizing (thankfully) the dated tendency to associate the varied and diverse music from that enormous continent, with rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. Rhythm. Rhythm. In that way, I am glad to have read Hustling. It is easier to recognize you in the other book.

Time to move on.

[Jonele · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few stories that I got sucked into, but for the most part I found the language and stories monotonous and/or repetitive.

[Neil Gilbert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Literary Trip Though Africa - book 6: If you are looking for a scholarly penned, unfiltered autobiographical account of modern West Africa through the lens of a cultural anthropologist, this is the book for you! It was a long drawn-out study of mini half stories told in a ramshackle, multilingual mosaic of thought and ideas. Useful for insight into a fledgling, third-world society not often written about but very difficult to enjoy for the average reader. There's a sequel too, if you are interested.

[Katharine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is based on ethnographic research done in the late 70s. It is a story about Hawa, a Ghanaian prostitute. I bought it because of the protagonist's name-- I am also called Hawa when in Ghana. Footnotes add historical and linguistic insights. AND the language is a great example of 'Ghana-English'.

[Jamie Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book for my economic anthropolgy course

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for one of my college courses and genuinely enjoyed it. I found myself laughing at many of the stories. it was really interesting to learn about Hawa's experiences.