ANTI-RHYTHM

African Marriage Doesn’t Need the Church

2012-01-31T00:22:00.001Z

Imagine my holy hang-up when a parish prescribesprinciples for neo-nubian nuptials: dwindled dowries, laundered lists, ‘liposucked’linguists and alcohol alternatives. Church, stay out of African marriages. Youhave your own mysterious matrimony. We can pray without the Paternoster.

Songs That Seduce

2012-01-27T23:03:00.002Z

Scores of songs have seduced ussilly by stirring us from soothing slumber, and sucking sweetly at the heartstrings inthe ensuing twilight-zone spell.

The Papaya Fruit Girl

2012-01-27T00:57:00.003Z

In the sea of sellers of anything, sheflared her loveliness in my view. Too pretty, too dee-lee-cious, to stride the sourstreets. Too sweet in eyes and nose and oh her lips to schlep diced papaya;swaying on her head, swaying to the beat of her body-full of ‘S’ shapes in its strut-n-swirl. The flaskwoman behind her – bland, sun-blistered battleaxe – she didn’t stir a singlewhisker of my heart. Silly, sad me: pouring pity on the flower, sweeping scornatop the bug. But beauty is such a disabler! Oh that stimulating papaya fruit girl onthe sunny streets of Accra. Will I see her tomorrow too?

The Sentry and the Squatter in the City of Accra

2012-01-25T13:48:00.004Z

In the city of Accra, at genteel Ridge, at9 am, a man in hermetic jeans was looking to leak his liquid privy into adrain. I shuddered to see him crook his legs to enable him to sag the seat of the asphyxiating denim for release.

Not quite ten metres away, another man in awhite caftan was squatted over the same poor drain, doing similar business. I thoughtI caught him cast a disgusted glance the way of the standing man as if to askwhich lowlife would hang his dispenser out on broad-daylight display.

I was desperate to stop and correct thesquatter’s delusion that he was the better man, but I had to hurry to theoffice to go spend a penny.

All About the Head

2012-01-25T01:12:00.000Z

His head was save-me-Lord uncomely - hardly humanoid, neither miles near any familiar fine-formed fruit. So, in a football match Ghana was bossing, why did he have to diss a Tswana boy's head in public?

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Senegal – No Football Lions

2012-01-22T22:04:00.002Z

Twisted, rangy sinews, a sixty-minuteengine and sharp snipers will maul a second-rate skirmish, but not a six-matchcontest. Your problem is seeking to admit yourself into the Pride when you’veonly roared once.

If I Don’t Speak Up Because It Didn’t Happen to Me

2012-01-14T00:24:00.002Z

Any State that treats the fourth estatewith the third degree because it sees them as the fifth column is crude. It’sthat simple. In truly democratic countries, the ‘security’ job is carried out likeinfra-red light. Not in Ghana! We run it like fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

Because of our hairy history of railroadingour impotent institutions of democracy, any bloke in boots, a beret, a big beltand a badge – never mind whether they’re even private security – demands deity-deferencebecause they can slap-slap you to Paga, Pluto and then Purgatory.

Paradoxically, the most disciplined andbrightest security outfit by far in our democratic sparks has always been themilitary.

So when Ghana’s national security enforcersadvertise their brawn like a neon billboard right outside a court of law, you’dexpect their civilian masters to pull the leash and put them in the doghouse.

Why should our shadowy moles unleash theircloak-and-dagger 'yawa' on the streets and sow insecurity in the deepest heartsof the lamb they’re sworn (?) to protect. This week, they pummelled a girl journoand rent her clothes to dishonour her. If she was taking shots of an unfoldingpublic scene which they resented, why not simply arrest the offending camera. Andeven that...

Selective Memory

2012-01-09T23:09:00.001Z

"My educational colours didn't fly in Ghana because too much rotates round raw rote memory." Daily discourse I hear which dampens my day. I often roundhouse-kick the brainless regurgitation in our schools on this blog, but it is dishonesty when you vomit verses from King James Version to varnish every vowel.

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Shoes from the Loo

2012-01-06T22:37:00.001Z

The droplets on your shoe

Say you’re just from the loo

Hands unwashed, knowing you!

Even if you didn’t poo

Your hand’s a microbe zoo

And I won’t shake it too

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-05T18:36:00.000Z

New year; he launches out to sea

No last look at the fungous wreck

Which cast him here many monsoons ago

In no time, Big Wave sweeps him ashore

He’s read the flotsam books back-to-back

The seasons, the reasons, the nano and thebio

Conquest and empire – he knows it all

But he does not know where he is

The little legs pattering near his hut

The warm smiles where his food is fired

Even the blithely breathing body in his bed

He does not recognise them any

Next year he will try again

And push out to find his hidden Home

But Big Wave will fling him back

Won’t build a house or town or school

He won’t colonise this place

He’ll try to leave again and again.

A Despicable Thing At Opeibea House

2011-12-21T01:08:00.000Z

An urchin scampered from car to car at the Opeibea House intersection. That is where an ex-president's car turned cartwheels when it was crossed by a 'drunken' man. The boy would touch his nostrils to each car window and mist it up as if to disgust the driver to give him coinage quickly and make him evaporate. A driver of a tiny box-car swept him away by throwing the door open. Three times he did this. Each time, the lad pushed it back shut. If you insult him by treating him like dirt, don't be surprised at what he will grow into.

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Tomato Movie Awards

2011-12-13T23:34:00.004Z

The makers-happen in our ‘measled’ movie marketamaze me mindless. You roll and eddy over one another like confusedcrosscurrents with your myriad flimsy film awards. If you don’t close them to aclassy one or two, you’ll continue to clutch at celebrity straws.

Assad, Gingrich and Other Random Questions

2011-12-12T20:52:00.002Z

Has the EU ever needed Britain?
Should Iran give back the border-breaching drone?
Shouldn't we put an assassin on Assad?
Why did they allow Gingrich to rise again?

The Art of Public Peeing

2011-12-07T17:13:00.001Z

Yes, I understand that art must mimic real life. It matters nothing if ‘real life’ is a national dishonour for us. But the movies strike me dumb! Why must the movie-makers stream sick scenes of men dog-peeing in the open where civilised people live?

Faux-Fang Vampire

2011-11-29T22:08:00.001Z

Twelve or thirteen year-old spectre haunting the Mahogany avenue at 37 beneath where the bats hang upside down. He has his hand to his mouth. He stirs the cars to motion and makes me wonder why. Then he ghosts up to my window and drops his hand. Geez, he has two-inch fangs for canines, and he tries to shock you to give him money. I thought him unfortunate but a friend thinks they were faux fangs.

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Give the Bone a Dog

2011-11-21T22:57:00.001Z

Yes, I wrote and meant that. Give the bonea dog. Imagine my voluptuous stimulation on hearing that profligate, plunderingPortugal, who formerly came to explore, and then exploit, Angola is now imploringHer to save Him from imploding. Asking Her to buy fat stakes in His ex-economy.Oh, give the bone a dog!

Wanting

2011-11-20T20:21:00.001Z

I have not felt the want of anything sobadly in such a long time. I espied a loafing, adorable urchin on my streetthis morning, while everybody was at church. He was gazing over a dwarf fence intoa neighbour’s compound. Even from far, I could tell his naughty contemplation.As I got closer, I saw his bait: a chandelier of low-hanging green mangoes. He pannedfrom the fruit to my face, and then back. His honest hankering made me almoststop to aid the trespass. Such simple hunger! It is a feeling I have not had aboutanything in yonks. And the mangoes were not even ripe!

Pre-Mall Accra

2011-11-17T20:18:00.001Z

I only do blue-moon drop-ins at the AccraMall. The cars and crowds are too “clustered thick as seeds”. I nurse amiddling memory of pre-mall Accra. There was the government’s GNTC. It lay downand died when I was still an embryo. Chandirams went out like a candle.Kingsway kicked the bazaar bucket. Glamour walked the plank, and UTC bit thedust. Melcom survived (sometimes on a respirator, I think). A&C came and founda niche and reposed in it. There weren’t too many cars, then; Kingsway’spalm-size car park worked just fine. There was no colourful range of glitteringgoods to spike your Saturday surprise. Now, as then, some stay at home. Then,there was too little (to choose from). Now, there are too many (people to shoveout of the way).

The Unlawful Business of Serving Food in a Whites-Only Club in Accra

2011-11-02T15:11:00.000Z

An Italian uomo hissed at a black Afri-lady that she could not gain membership of his degustation restaurant in Accra because she was “not white”. He laughedwhile hissing. She was outraged, and waged war through social media. The unsavouryjibe jarred on the public psyche-palate. The government boys ‘came to town’ andclosed down the ‘club’.

I believe the Italian man. I believe that he was just joking.The Afri-lady was with a Spaniard and a Japanese national when the pelletssmacked the ceiling. I understand that the Japanese was a member of the club. Ihave doubts that the Italian uomo would have thought the Japanese white. Plus,if there was real racism going on, why would they not simply make it a private,members-only gig? Why would they allow non-whites to walk in and eat, and onlywithhold membership with its (usually) dubious benefits?

That said, I believe it was a very lame defence for theItalian man to say the fact that he was married to a black woman was proof thathe was not racist. Very lame!

So, I believe that it was a mere jackass joke, and not truejaundice.

But the joke exposed him. He was operating a legit,front-room, raw seafood shop and an unlawful, backroom, seafood eatery. He evadedcertain taxes by giving worthless scribbles on paper as receipts. He was cheatingthe nation.

So, a cruel, ill-thought, stupid, unnecessary joke exposedthe poor man to odium, opprobrium and ‘government matter’. Hopefully, he thinksbefore he speaks next time, but I don't think he is racist. Enough of this row now.

The Hair

2011-10-28T13:22:00.000Z

Exquisite, Elysian locks in angelic interlace crown herpretty head, and cascade in delightful, comely tresses to settle on hershoulders. The ribbed ‘rawness’ at the top and the subtle smoothness sailingsoftly below then frame her fine-featured face in fifty flawless fancies.

Water Everywhere in the City of Accra

2011-10-27T21:00:00.001Z

Monstrous incompetence sluiced through the City of Accra on Tuesdaynight. It turned God’s bounty into a Greek gift; destroying lives and houses, carsand mattresses. It is among us the depravity resides. The wealthy wise-ass who chiselledand cast his brick-and-mortar in a water way because there was space; becausehe could; because nobody stopped him; because be bought off whoever tried tostop him. His workmen bought food in plastic bags and created compost blocks in gutters.Between the government goon and the conniving contractor who constructed aten-millimetre gutter, if any at all, don’t you deserve to go Gaddafi!

Feckless Form Filling

2011-10-18T20:41:00.001Z

Excited employee is completing a 6-page loan form. I ask himwhy he won’t scribble with a pencil first. He can always etch in ink when hegets all the details right. His long look tells me I’m a bloody busybody. Heused a pencil already, he says. But I can’t see the lead strokes any. He gloats,“I deleted them all before restarting with a pen”. Three hours later, he’s still‘donkeying’ down the document.

Petrol Station Detectives

2011-10-17T23:21:00.001Z

The car coughs and splatters into the petrol station. The commission-earning attendant fights off two others, and the car quivers and creeps to a halt. As the nozzle nears, the driver slithers out to eye the dispenser meter with suspicion. If the system is rogue-rigged to pilfer a litre or two, how could you tell? What do you know? Hasten back into your car, and don't come back; not when I'm behind you in the evening queue.

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900

2011-10-15T00:00:00.000Z

My 900th blog post. Every 100 have been a pleasure, though the 800s have been difficult. I promise to rededicate myself to this blog and all you readers who give me feedback: encouragement, criticism, flattery. Keep them all coming (especially the flattery ;) oh yeah). Many thanks for being so great.

P.s. Happy birthday to my sister, Thelma. Enjoy Kenya and bring me a lion's tooth. Love loads.

Spitting Cobras on the Streets of Accra

2011-10-14T06:47:00.001Z

I quickly formed a mind that he was a sleaze of a scaly-skinreptile from the way he slithered sinister-ly into my driving path. I thoughtlittle more of all that surrounding slime until he squirted out the first shocking stream. He did itonce, he did it twice, four times; my revulsion lost count. The creepy-crawlycabbie was a senseless, spitting cobra.

Thirty-Second Chance

2011-10-13T23:50:00.001Z

Skidding around the 'red-lighted' cars, on his termite-toothed wood board; a legless lad in a reflective jacket, sliced from window to window, head at door-handle level, cadging for coins at 10 pm. He had thirty seconds, maybe.

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Belgian Chocolate

2011-10-12T20:02:00.000Z

Moist chocolate cake slices, made with real Belgian milk chocolate and topped with chocolate chunks.

Uh huh.

Stripping The Competition Naked

2011-10-01T14:16:00.001Z

It's raining plaits and locks with eager green starlets looking to hit the silver screen. It's also raining vats and hogs with 'exposed' pics of those giddy girls. Who's 'doing' them like that?

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Human Sauna Selling Face Towels

2011-09-29T21:36:00.000Z

Approaching midday on a dusty Dzorwulu dirt road, a sweaty, deep-fried dude in short sleeves was selling white face towels draped around his bare arms.

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Man in Black (and Yawning Yellow)

2011-09-28T23:50:00.001Z

Fifty-plus-old man; beating the motionless morning motorcade a pieds on the Kanda kerb. Oh, his shiny black shirt tucked into yawning yellow trousers; spotless black shoes (if you don't count a splodge of fade on 'pension' patent leather); sun-blocking black hat; reflective black sunglasses; oh, the meddling, messy sweat rivulet drifting down his right leg. He made the morning smile.

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Random Radio Experts

2011-09-26T20:51:00.001Z

Another caught my eloping ear this melancholy Monday morning.It was ‘crystal’ that he merely chanced to know some jockey ‘jackassing’ closeto the ‘effing’ FM console. Stepped off the stinky streets as Joe Shmoe, then sat in the studio as the Duke of Air-head-inburgh. What did we expect? Some more of theostrich analysis.

Was Kwame Nkrumah A Young Criminal?

2011-09-21T10:29:00.000Z

High-risk start, but it's out of the way. I've recently read a Malcom Gladwell book (again), and recently seen the murder-of-stowaways movie, Deadly Voyage. Both book and movie led me irresistibly to think about Kwame Nkrumah.

The book argues that high fliers owe their cachet to various elements: circumstances of birth; time and place of birth; a little ability; a little opportunity; a little luck; a lot social support.

The macabre movie re-enacts the true-life tale of Kingsley Ofosu, his brother and their more-than-a-handful colleagues who stowed away on a Russian or Ukrainian ship to France. Only Kingly made it (barely). His brother and fellow stowaways were bludgeoned, hacked and shot do death and fodder-flung to sharks or whatever lurks in the deep.

But I almost digress.

Nkrumah was born at a time when slavery had been abolished. Education in Gold-Coast-Ghana was possible to the level just before university. He had a reasonably rich uncle in Lagos, Nigeria. He obtained admission to an American university. He oozed oodles of ambition and whatever-it-takes.

Nkrumah saved some money; oh, just enough to buy him a few meals outside of home. He needed to get to America. What did he do? He stowed away on a boat. He was a risk-taker. But, he was not an non-calculated-risk junkie. He did not take the trans-Atlantic deadly voyage. The landlubber 'lotteried' his life only as far as Lagos. His uncle gave him loads of money. He returned to Gold-Coast-Ghana and paid for his passage to Britain, en route to America. He got his B.A., then M.A., the PhD.

Did Kwame Nkrumah commit peccadilloes (like travel without paying)? Yes. Was he jailed for any misdemeanour in America? Find out. Was his leadership of Ghana cruel at times? I think so.

But, in spite of everything, (or rather because of them, to think like Gladwell), Kwame Nkrumah was nothing short of an Outlier. A man with a lot of savoir faire and (to repeat) whatever-it-takes. Happy Birthday, Francis Nwia Kofi Nkrumah.

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Silent Feminists & Really Loud Dowries

2011-09-19T11:51:00.001Z

The myriad meanings of feminism floor my simple mind. And when you have one meaning locked down, it gives you different layers. I said "Hi Sexy" to a friend on social media, and she censured me for "objectifying" her. I switched off, unwilling to deal with her eggshell self (more trouble if she reads this).

Now, dowries. The dowry is no longer token or symbolic in urban Ghana. Those who demand it require 'market' value. If you're a 'bogga', then pay in US Dollars.

Feminists. I haven't heard any feminists in Ghana demand abolition or 'price controls'. So, are feminists getting married; real dowry marriages?

Layers. Let's take one layer. Is it easy to ignore this obvious 'commoditisation' (forget 'Hi Sexy') because it's the parents (and not their daughters) who are 'selling' (i.e. receiving the dowries)?

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The Risk of Recent Reveries

2011-09-09T20:14:00.000Z

Ghana. 1957.

How do you un-teach the colonial id? Teachers, teachers,teachers! Enter King Kwame Nkrumah.

Green graduates from lucent Legon are civically coaxed to desertcollective-clan desires; no present need for all those bankers and lawyers andaccountants. Go and teach! I will pay you better than them, anyway.

The rest is anti-heroic history. Nkrumah waned. Coming kingsre-colonised and paid serf-rates to our educators.

Ghana. Present day.

Beware, all those people whose heads are sailing slick inoil-and-gas dreams. You may be the new teachers.

Damsel Twice Distressed

2011-09-09T11:56:00.001Z

Last Tuesday at ten pm, a woman's Seat 'something' sedan struck a sudden flame which snarled to scorch the car to cinders. Other cars stopped to help; no less than twelve counted I. The guy who 'kerbed' his Land Rover first, and brought out a fire extinguisher (kind man, bless his heart) would not accept anything more than her thanks. Except for the price of his extinguisher- thirty Ghana Cedis! Who asked him to help?

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Wisdom Over A Fufu Bowl

2011-09-04T23:00:00.002Z

The women chow down massive mounds; the men just chirp and peck. Or so it strikes one at Lalas Local at 18 Junction.

My fulsome gob of Fufu & Goat-Light fast grows lighter; the women wolf down morsels; the men mouth up words.

The full facts flop in my face over a cleaned-out, soup-stained dish. The women go to eat; the men go to take the women there.

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Death by Lightning

2011-09-03T20:09:00.001Z

If it was a stroll in the park for all things evil to smite the blameless with a lightning bolt in the days before 'the light', why did anybody survive to be colonised?

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Yeah, PermEnent...

2011-09-01T11:25:00.000Z

As seen in the Spintex Road traffic. True to his promise, the gridlock was not permEnent. I reached the Mall only 15 minutes after I took this picture. The Mall was only 40 metres away.

Chaos In The Very Heart Of The City Of Accra

2011-08-30T22:57:00.000Z

...and the biggest news item on health over the week has been whether heart patients should stay home and pray for their lives because the foremost heart surgeon was revered but released the government.

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Bra Failure In The City of Accra

2011-08-25T09:26:00.001Z

The 'Cleavage Gallery' is an art exhibition I'm thrice-thrilled to attend everyday. Sans-bra is another dashing, delightful devilment at the other end. But when the cups runneth over as a result of 'syncopated' styrofoam, please do not call the wearer a 'Brartist'.

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Who Sells The Drugs In The City of Accra?

2011-08-25T00:01:00.001Z

In this nation of saints and sinners (and I do not belong permanently to either group) I was surprised to see the public perplexed about the alleged compromise of anti-narcotic agents by drug barons.

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“Thank God We Are Not A Nigerians”

2011-08-23T20:06:00.002Z

You’re playing football with your sibling in your backyard, when a miscued (but intended) hard kick floats over the wall onto your neighbour’s grounds and smacks your friend (who lives there) in the face, drawing blood from his nose. Yes, you were just playing, and the bleeding will stop, but should he just forgive you? Or should he scale the wall and thwack you right back on the chin?

So, there is a song by a very interesting pair of Ghanaian musicians – Wanlov and Mensa, also known as FOKN Bois – which has sailed over the wall and landed with a thud in the face of their neighbour.

I have not heard the song myself, but the title is (syntax stumble intended) “Thank God We Are Not A Nigerians”.

Marking Maltesers

2011-08-19T17:02:00.000Z

Sneaked out of the office freezer
Boldly branded against sticky fingers
Stapled to make doubly sure
Tantalising teasers

A Lovely, Educated Public

2011-08-15T19:52:00.002Z

I was lounging at the curiously-christened 'Luscious Temptations', at East Legon, last Saturday, with fellow bloggers Kobby Graham, Nii Ayertey and Edward Tagoe, discussing the extinct education in ‘gambling’ Ghana. Then, today, I stumble across a news item that Nana Akufo-Addo (a presidential candidate) promises a “lovely, educated public” within a decade, if he wins Elections 2012. Sadly, the news report (shameful for a digital medium like myjoyonline) skips his ‘blowhard’ building blocks for achieving such lettered loveliness.

Electric Bills & 'Compound' Houses in the City of Accra

2011-08-10T23:00:00.002Z

A compound clustered with twenty tiny cubicles - detached or semi - with twenty families 'tadpoled' into them. Human activity is measured by one power meter.

One government worker possesses the Tv, the hot plate, the iron, the fan and the fridge. Nineteen other families 'temp' his toys from him; cook their gruel on his hot plate, preserve their meat in his fridge and watch cheap South American Tv soaps into his sleeping time.

When the electric shock (sorry, bill) kicks in on the 29th, the landlord, without calculating, coldly carves a chubby chunk for 'white collar' to settle. The 19 families plead penury and unemployment and 'snitch' that it is the government man who hoards the Tv and other gainful gadgets. Nobody wishes to install a separate meter for their room alone.

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When Your Debtor Says You Owe Him

2011-08-09T20:08:00.001Z

Mr. B. Borrower (B for ‘Barbarian’) cadged his friend, Mr. B. Birdbrain (B for ‘Boob’) for a loan of 200 Ghana Cedis. Birdbrain had only 150 that day, and loved his neighbour more than himself by handing it all over. Birdbrain felt his heart moved by the frowning face of wretched Borrower and pledged to provide the extra 50 Cedis on the morrow. The discourteous debtor accepted the 150 Cedis and said “Thanks. So you owe me 50 Cedis”!

What? Was it impudence or lazy language use?

(True story, made-up names. W’abodam papa!)

Social Media's Upheaval

2011-08-08T22:31:00.001Z

Cynicism seized my mind and ceased my heart as I watched horrible fires and rioting in Clapham, Ealing Broadway, Croydon and Peckam. The kids are apparently not organised crime gangs. They're just angry teens with ski masks and no jobs or social centres. They're 'organising' with social media. The level of deprivation is more dire in Accra. Should we hope the poorest and street kids do not discover social media and its organisational advantages or find it affordable? God help the poor. God help the rich to help the poor. Or else, God help the rich!

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Caught on the Crotch-Watch

2011-08-05T06:25:00.006Z

(Welcome to Silly Friday)

Women always cavil that men address their cleavage in conversation instead of their faces. Well, it’s true, and we aren’t ashamed to admit it. For many years, I’ve been catching women watching my crotch from the corner of their eyes (and other men’s crotches too). Of course, they pretend no such thing has happened. It happens particularly in offices when the woman is sitting down as you approach her. So we ‘cornered’ a colleague who admitted it to us and blamed it on our tight or body-fitting clothes. We did not bother to counter with a question on their low necklines – somehow we knew they’d say it wasn’t quite the same. She said she wondered if some guys kept a pot in their crotch.

As long as you remain on the crotch-watch, we’ll feel free with the cleavage eye-grope.

Living in a Bubble

2011-08-03T23:30:00.001Z

A doctor friend asked me, "Who can survive on only one job today?"

A student friend asked me, "Whose mummy doesn't have a car?"

It's falsely looking like a monster middle class in Ghana. Who's doing hard work? Who's doing honest work? Who's doing only one? Whose mummy doesn't have a car?

When will the bubble burst? Would it be violent?

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Disappearing Drug

2011-07-31T19:47:00.001Z

Village thug peacocks his way down an ill-lit path silently daring ghosts and sleeping villagers to come wrestle with him. He believes he wields the power to disappear into thin air. Two members of a rival gang un-fade from the darkness to menace him. Village Thug derides them and tries to evaporate, but the drug or divinity or hoodoo does not work. They wring his neck until he dies. I saw this last night in a Nigerian movie and laughed myself senseless. Disappearing drug, huh!

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The Lamppost

2011-07-29T23:44:00.000Z

Out of habit, he haunts his house-front in the night. Oblivious of the now-glacial Accra night-time draft, he stands bare-chested and lonely like a naked lamppost.

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We All Know What You're Not!

2011-07-28T15:23:00.001Z

As seen on the High Street, Accra.

Not Quite Almighty

2011-07-25T20:07:00.001Z

Just when I was getting close (at last) with God, somebody went and gave him a new name.

Teacher-Stripping

2011-07-23T12:06:00.003Z

Some punk pupils in a school couldn't wrap their sappy minds around the basic syllabus because (they claimed) three female teachers distressingly did up in mind-numbing miniskirts and devastating dresses. The ‘roused’ ‘pubescents’ posted a letter to the principal dictating that the ‘cheesecake’ cease or they'd strip the teachers naked! Then, the cops came in. Do (don’t) the teachers need a talking?

Heel The World

2011-07-21T23:20:00.005Z

Two young men still smouldering out of school. They snip and suture soft Italian leather from scratch (after they have gauged your feet with true callipers). They call the magnificent shoes 'Heel the World'. They give a percentage back through a charity. It's not confusing. It's inspiring and quite clever. They're making things happen in the city of Accra. It's pure art!

Oh Look at That Happy Face!!!

2011-07-20T18:29:00.016Z

This is my friend (for five minutes) Yaw. I saw him in front of my parents' house at Achimota while visiting. I saw this amazing shine in Yaw's face and politely asked him if I could take his pic. He jumped at it.

He was eating cooked beans in a polythene bag...with so much ecstasy on his face. I asked him to show me how he ate it and he sucked it lovingly out of the bag.

When I thought I had taken the second (and final) picture, he demanded that I take another.This (above) is his own chosen pose.

He chose this one too. Oh 'mehhhhn' the happiness on his face! Sadly, when Yaw was gone, I was told that he had a 'mental condition' but was going/growing untreated.

I thought of how many of us 'ghost' around our worlds unhappy with all the blessings that we have. In five minutes, Yaw showed me how much he already had of the commodity so many chase without success.

The Vitriol of a Foreigner

2011-07-19T11:59:00.005Z

Two kinds of people go to ‘foreign’ countries – visitors and bigots. For far too long, the creative aspects of the life of Africans (and Asians and Native Americans and Native Australians, etc) has only been studied as Anthropology, while the Euro-American way has been studied as Art.

I have always wanted to meet blogger Holli, but she’s frankly not worth a second of my time. To be very honest, I wish the people over at ‘Immigration’ would keep a strict eye on her status and see her off as soon as it is time.

Why am I saying this? There was a street festival last weekend at Jamestown (an old settlement of Accra). It is not the most densely populated part of Accra (contrary to Holli’s lies). I will leave it at that and ask you to make the time to compare different accounts of the festival for yourself.

First, puke on BIGOT Holli’s vitriol here.

Then, luxuriate in GHANAIAN Nana Kofi’s pictures here.

Finally, ruminate on 'EXPAT' Graham's riposte here. (I know him and he's a GENUINE 'visitor')

Do Holli, Nana Kofi and Graham describe the same event? Yes. But one’s description is sick, bigoted, hateful and dishonest. How I now value the saying about a picture being worth a thousand words (and also an attempt at 1000 fair and honest words - Graham)

The Services Make the City

2011-07-17T18:58:00.001Z

The streets are choked; won't let the traffic flow freely. The pipes are parched; no water rushes through at all. The cables are confused; the current streaks one way and then the opposite. Is this only a city because it's crawling with millions of pacific people?

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Silly, Self-Love Friday: The Hunk in the Mirror

2011-07-15T11:28:00.002Z

Swaggering down the office corridor towards the dividing glass door, I saw this swanky-dandy, dressed-on-point, God-I-hate-that-dude kind of guy strutting towards me. In a panic of pride, I picked my phone to call my girl to make sure she was far from him. To my bright-eyed surprise, he picked up his phone too to call his girl to make sure she was far from me. Then it hit me in my slender body. The God-I’m-so-envious-of-him guy was my own reflection.

Hunger Strike, Dumber Strike

2011-07-14T17:33:00.001Z

Ah! Some grieving group of teachers strafed their stomachs with a hunger strike in protest against the belly-full leaders of yet another teachers’ association. Such benighted belittling of that wonderful political tool! I have scarcely heard of a dumber strike. (Be sure to listen to the ridiculous audio here).

No sooner had their sham stomach shutdown started than they quelled it questionably by crouching behind a court order (obtained by the police) restraining them from the hunger strike. Confused? So am I. They’re simply saying in order to be law-abiding citizens, they’ll go back to eating. That’s male-cattle excrement.

Lake Bosumtwi

2011-07-11T21:13:00.002Z

Refreshing, sun-blocked, some-earth-some-grass glade. Running round a terra cotta, waking lake. Far flung from where most of you (ad)venture. Swimmers tumble rough in the eddy, while dancers bop and bump around the plank-wood stage. The bush-meat pepper-soup bubbles in a cauldron under a mahogany tree, not five feet from the palm-wine ‘pulpit’. Huddled close are fish and rice and loads of fantasy foods. Holidaying here is far lovelier than Accra.

Dark Dens in the City of Accra

2011-07-10T21:57:00.001Z

To my nought surprise, there are holes and hideouts for the hoi polloi in the city of Accra where the herds and humans bleat and feed, mate and litter, and even die together among scrap-made shacks without electricity.

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Working Out in the City of Accra

2011-07-09T23:45:00.002Z

On every rough-hewn (rasta) park, I see a rag-tag team a-play. My slightly richer, 'trendier' peeps say the gyms are hot agog too. It seems Accra has finally caught on that a little pay or pain ahead is cheaper than later bills from 18th-Century med centres.

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The Streets of the Two Accras

2011-07-07T21:55:00.001Z

In clustered Central Accra, they pave the streets in praise-pursuit; china-smooth like heaven's highway. But the suburban straits are genocide (or is there a more sombre word?); raw, rugged, lumpy-bumpy thoroughfares cruelly calculated to cripple your chassis.

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Drivers & Angels in the City of Accra

2011-07-06T07:42:00.002Z

You again! Or are you her sultry sister? Or her sister's sister? You're all divinely descended from one prepossessing Mitochondrial Eve. Was it the blue-black jeans sculpting your sensual, s-shaped sinews or the tantalising-in-tone torso? Or perhaps the devastating dimple (I saw just one)? Your eyes 'diamanted' towards me, my right foot zombied onto the brake, my left hand zigzagged towards the kerb. Danger-dealing demoiselle, please don't beam bright beside the road. You're too stunning to behold.

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Corrective Rape

2011-07-05T19:45:00.001Z

Corrective rapes
Collective rapes
Sour grapes
Stone-age apes

Rough Riders In The City Of Accra

2011-07-04T23:32:00.002Z

No bulging bags after six pm. Really wretched riders will ooze out of the lessening light with scimitars and lurch for your wrist or jugular. Delayed submission leads to loathsome laceration. Best give up the sac and ask if they don't require the padded wallet and matching shoes as well.

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When The Power Gets Cut (As Usual)

2011-07-03T20:39:00.000Z

It's amazing how everything (but my bodily functions) ceased when the electricity company cut the power during a poco-powerful storm. It's been off for 7 hours now.

I was lucky that my handheld held all day (after the laptop had died in a fight scene of a psycho-thriller) even though I Whatsapped, BBM'd, Gtalked and tweeted all day.

In a blast from the past, I scoured every column and feature in the Graphic and Mirror by torchlight. Nostalgia - I don't read the papers anymore. I get all my news from the digital media.

So, the electricity company goons may outdo even their own assinine record. I'll turn the vacuum into a positive experience.

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Holiday Hangouts in the City of Accra

2011-07-02T23:14:00.002Z

Not surprising. The traffic circle near the Accra Mall was jammed. Packed thick with cars. 4 lanes of cars in a two-lane way. All were going into the Mall. Most did not make it. The Mall was already full of herds. On a public holiday, there is nowhere to go. They all throng the beaches or the Mall. Oh, the Mall was a pen or sty.

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Hitting on the Home-Route Girl

2011-06-29T22:28:00.002Z

Silly, old man. Leaning over the till in the convenience shop at a service station. He miscalculated he could use the sales girl for his convenience. When I walked in, he was in the middle of crooning the history of bank notes to her. He stopped when my shadow darkened the note. He said she could pocket the 'clinky' change of two coins. She said a rapid half-thanks and dumped them noisily in the cash register. He could not have missed her sublime slight.

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The Case for the Demolition of Drums

2011-06-28T19:52:00.002Z

Must State and corporate official events always be laced with trombo-trumpet tooting and brain-busting drumming even during office hours? Is it cultural to fritter away your waking hours with frivolous fun and to dim-wit distract others who want to do something else?

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When A Car ‘Bumps You’ in the City of Accra

2011-06-28T17:46:00.003Z

You have cleverly got around the insane traffic by pushing out at a thin hour. You are steering through a dark, ‘un-peopled’ spot when a car ghosts into your rear view. It catches up with you, and you slow down, but it does not overhaul. A small jolt and a jangling sound tell you the car behind has eaten your ‘ass’. You screech to a halt to inspect the damage and maybe replicate it on the other driver’s face. He also slips out (with his previously hidden mates) and holds a piece to your gonads. They zoom off with your valuables (and maybe your car). If you are still wrapping your mind around what is happening, you have just been robbed!

Weekday Hour # 1

2011-06-27T19:48:00.002Z

The hour after work (6 to 7 pm, as the day kisses the night) is definitely my most enjoyable weekday hour.

The air con is off; team mates have faded away; work files banked in paper and mind folders; and still too early to tussle with the traffic.

I hook up with my friends online, catch up on news of this sinful world, tweet and blog: a little spot of heaven.

What's yours? The most enjoyable hour of your typical weekday?

Tangled Toes in The City of Accra

2011-06-26T15:58:00.003Z

I shoe ten tangled toes (as do most of the 'kids' I grew up with) from playing barmy, barefoot football. Thus (these days) I shirk slippers outside home.

In those indigent, illiquid economic days in Ghana, we would have suffered parental thrashing if we had dared parade our shoes on the dump (football) field.

We had no sports shoes. Our (not so) patent leather shoes were hardly appropriate, anyway, and were bought on a strict one-child-one-pair policy. Wo de k)b) ball na )kyena w'ahye deEn ak) school?

So, the rugged rocks and rough roots, stone chippings and shards of glass, gnarled nails and snail shells sliced, stabbed, lacerated and etched their gory graffiti into our tarsals and metatarsals.

It is a ten-toe 'mazement that behind those gruesome-gladsome years, we could yet count two full feet of ten (tangled, traumatised) toes.

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The Runaway Music Scene in the City of Accra

2011-06-25T20:02:00.002Z

Amazing - the way new acts drop (not so) tight tracks and (quasi) vibrant videos every week. The beats are not fresh or the lyrics crisp. The style is neo-Naija (commercially cranked up) and the themes are horse carcasses being flogged flagrantly over and over again. It is like chasing smoke trying to keep up, and you cannot help but think those who popped up 5 to 10 years ago got the cheese.

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Doctors Against Washing Hands in The City of Accra

2011-06-25T08:38:00.001Z

Philistine physicians! They were in 'our building' all week. It is really their building as we are tenants. In these terrible days when the public-health people are advertising pathological handwashing to prevent Cholera (and other conditions) every single doctor we saw at the loo simply zipped up after and left the men's room. We hope the sterilising standards were higher in the ladies' room. We must also hope that surgical gloves usage is widespread, but (even then) they have to touch the gloves first. Ewwwwww!

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Archery, Shaggery & Other Olympic Sports

2011-06-24T20:41:00.003Z

My mates and I are having demented delight at Honeysuckle Pub. I offer that Chaskele is the greatest sport in the world and should make the olympics list. Kelvin and Kiz counter it should be shaggery. Males of country A versus females of country B. We all join the imaginary Ghana Males team and quickly choose Venezuela as our first opponent and line up Costa Rica, Colombia and Uganda on the way to the final (a pity Ghana Males cannot meet Ghana Females) Lovely Friday evening.

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Spitting Season in The City of Accra

2011-06-23T12:02:00.004Z

Get no place fast past an open car window without clamouring your coming. Give no rat's-arse respect to what car it is or you would be soused with stupido-senseless spittle. And then they would say 'sorry'! I see a spitting scene everyday.

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Two-Inch Imagination in The City of Accra

2011-06-22T23:17:00.002Z

In the loathesome-lazy, get-rich-quick-no-sweat city of Accra, I could not convince a big girl that some people depart for work at 5 am and only leave their desks work for home at 10 pm. It is the civil-service mentality.

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Ban Public Smoking in the City of Accra

2011-06-21T19:05:00.002Z

Monstrous Malaria is not enough; nor TB nor AIDS; not even the doggone health insurance system. Our governments have waited a long time for Lung Cancer or its carcinogenic cousins to cut our numbers low before curbing public smoking.

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Judging a Man By His Car in The City of Accra

2011-06-20T22:19:00.002Z

Those commission-quaffing attendants would not compete for the tank of the crickety Corolla. The driver did not look like he could buy half the fuel to power a tiny rodent. But I know him. He also owns one of those shiny Chrysler almost-jet para-cars. The next time he taxies that in here, they will break one another's noses to air-traffic-control him to their pump just to sell him a gallon.

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Death by Hanging in the City of Accra

2011-06-20T19:55:00.004Z

Prisoners spend long, lazy, luxuriant hours in the plentiful sun of Nsawam Prisons. I have heard it said that killing is barbaric in all cases. Thus, Ghana must be barbaric for keeping the death penalty. In truth, nobody has been executed in almost 20 years. So murderers and other insanely-wicked criminals know they will be sentenced to death, but bask in the tropical soleil until old age strangles them. In 2 cases, convicted murderers have even been released on a presidential pardon.

The Chinese City of Accra

2011-06-16T20:25:00.002Z

A quarter-century ago in the city of Accra, if it was pretty and made by human hands, it was made in Japan, Taiwan or Korea. Now every ‘desirable’ is ~~imitated~~ made in China – hair, toys, laptops, clothes, cameras and a few cars. Added to this, you can see a Chinese man on every other street of Accra. How this place has changed!

Cheating Nature in the City of Accra

2011-06-13T19:51:00.008Z

A woman-beggar haunts the 37 intersection, especially at night. She does not cadge the Cedis directly - she uses children for emotional blackmail. She must have a foolish frau somewhere ‘lending’ her the little darlings (I have seen different ones) to bore a hole through your heart and your wallet. What she did last Friday, however, won the pitiful prize. She was hip-hoisting a 10-12 year old while wincing 'neath the wily weight. Mehhhhnnnn!

Hearse-Racing in the City of Accra

2011-06-10T19:03:00.000Z

What irreconcilable irony! I was creeping down the Independence Avenue at high noon, when a packed trotro whiz-zigzagged through the traffic and shot past adrift of me. A jet-black Mercedes hearse ‘deathed’ past at full-hell speed in the other lane. Its casket chamber was empty and hungry for a body or two. A trotro kamikaze-racing a hearse in thick traffic – how do you think this curtains will drop on this scene? I suggest a full hearse.

Grooming with Horse Powder in the City of Accra

2011-06-08T20:53:00.002Z

Office mate and I went to the barber’s. On his countertop was a big powder container. It had the picture of a horse on it and was labelled in Turkish. Were we wrong to allege that he was using horse powder for humans? After all, powder usually has the picture of a human baby or woman on it, no? And the container was so big, it had to be for 'stable' use.

The Fairest of Them All

2011-06-06T18:19:00.003Z

I loved Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales when I was growing up. I still do. There are millions of lessons in there; and they all lived happily ever after.

The thing is when it came to girls I loved the fairest of them all. We may all pretend that fair means beautiful, but it also meant light-skinned. Try calling Naomi Campbell the fairest woman in a room full of white English gentlemen and ladies.

The point is it was not until not long ago that women of other races were allowed “beautiful” at the same level as Caucasian women. I am not exploring racialism here; just the effect of words on the subconscious mind.

So, when I was growing up, all my legendary crushes were light-skinned girls. It took my twenties to realise the big, open truth that very dark girls could be fair beautiful too.

At this point, this post could go in any of many directions, but I’ll end it here and leave it to the comments.

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 6 - Final)

2011-06-01T17:10:00.000Z

She turned this way, she turned that way
But, help, it did not come
She was too scared to stop and pray
Her heart beat like a drum

She worked her way to a corner
Half-willed it all to end
She wondered how they would mourn her
As she saw a paw descend

It picked her up like a pillow
And squeezed her with its claws
Bones snapped and cracked like a willow
And open came its jaws

Before Ciga-Rette could kill her
A mouse crawled 'cross its feet
It dumped her and fled like a spur
So Dora death did cheat

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 5)

2011-05-31T09:28:00.003Z

Mother, please open the door
Mother, please, I'm filled with dread
Mother, what (a) hideous jaw'
Ma, I'm stalked by Ciga-Rette

Let him take you, Dora
Should have stayed in like Nora
I can't open the door, ah!
For I am filled with horror

Nora, my twin, please open it
God, he reeks so dreadful
Nor' you said we'd never be split
I Swear that I'm remorseful

Let him take you, Dora
Dora, rules ignorer
I can't open the door, ah!
For I am filled with horror

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 4)

2011-05-30T23:38:00.000Z

Two steps and crouch, three crawls and dart
She snailed the long way home
The clouds wouldn't come slight apart
No light - not cream or chrome

She felt a presence behind her
Each time she turned to look
Not leaf nor breeze nor pall did stir
Although the ground, it shook

It was all more than she could bear
Her little heart did flee
Her legs carried her in a blur
Behind her charged a scree

She was sudd'ly among each street
And alley way she knew
Above the roofs, she saw huge feet
A giant came vaulting through

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 3)

2011-05-29T12:05:00.002Z

The ball was fun, the ball was fair
It should have made her merry
But being not supposed to be there
Her joy was not very

The brand new dance moves all were stepped
And new intros were made
A few hearts off their feet were swept
And Dora found a mate

But Dora, she did grow tired
She found a place to rest
Sweet sleep was now what she desired
She made a couch her nest

The loud music had stopped to play
When Dora stirred again
A vacant hall, to her dismay
Was all that did remain

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 2)

2011-05-28T08:12:00.001Z

Now, there was a young people's gig
At a neighbouring town hall
Once in a year and always big
It got going at nightfall

Every girl wanted to go
And every boy did too
The threat of wild Ciga-Rette though
Did leave most home and blue

Our Dora did not want to miss
The pleasures of the ball
Dance with a boy; maybe a kiss
She wanted; that was all

She hid some clothes and went to bed
Even before Nora
And when the night was still and dead
She turned a night crawler

Ciga-Rette The Ogre (Part 1)

2011-05-27T19:48:00.007Z

She lived with her mother and sister
Her name, they called her Dora
In their house, there was no Mister
Just mom and twin sister Nora

Nora was quiet and timid
Never too far from home
Dora, she was intrepid
Precocious, loved to roam

Near their village lived an ogre
And its name was Ciga-Rette
Hideous, hairy in a toga
It was village people it ate

Long, long before nightfall
Young and Old rushed indoors
Windows, doors, they locked them all
As Ciga came stalking outdoors

No, He is Cain!

2011-05-27T16:12:00.002Z

As seen on a trotro earlier today.

(The Owner, Driver, Driver's Mate and Sprayer all couldn't spell!)

Mladic, Oprah & Other Random Questions.

2011-05-26T17:57:00.000Z

Did Ratko Mladic think he'd go scot-free?
Will Africa see another war in Sudan?
Isn't Obama one of the best presidents already?
Will the world really miss Oprah?

Playing for Africa Peace in the City of Accra

2011-05-26T09:09:00.004Z

On a rain-drenched Accra afternoon, when Michael Essien partly 'bribed' Ghanaians to accept him in their hearts on his return to the Black Stars, and partly put on a spectacle to appeal for peace on the continent, it was so wonderful to see Drogba and Kalusha, Ljunberg and de Jong, Ashley Cole and StepApp all play on the ridiculously sloshed field in a charity match. Somebody wondered why they did not apply to play it in Tripoli or Mogadishu or Abyei.

Unlicensed Firearms in the City of Accra

2011-05-22T23:33:00.001Z

Just wondering how many unlicensed (and thus untraceable) firearms are floating ‘beneath the radar’ in the city of Accra? They are imported through the ports, right? And the ports have x-ray detectors, right? And the arms go through undetected, right?

One-Door Cars in the City of Accra

2011-05-21T22:32:00.002Z

You only need to run your mental fingers over your own body parts to fathom fine specimens of things that come in twos. So I am as bewildered as an oily ‘bofrot’ as to how so many Ghanaians can conspire to call a car with only 1 door on each side a ‘one-door’. Fyi, the ‘culprits’ are not only taxi drivers but also people who ought to know better. Or is it that Accraians think in terms of pairs.

(Bofrot = a sugary, deep-fried flour ball)

Brand Spanking New in the City of Accra

2011-05-20T13:25:00.004Z

For a long time, during the dark days of mean military machismo, everybody was too scared of unspeakable ‘horribles’ to own a car as fresh as a daisy. In any case, very few possessed the moolah to buy a brand new auto. These days are different – it’s sunny. Many people can, and do, buy ‘wheels’ wrapped in a box. Then, they cruise the city in it for at least 365 days with the seats still rubber-wrapped to prove it is new. Ridiculous!

Give Me A Break

2011-05-19T21:03:00.002Z

Office mate picks up the phone vexed. It is his “little” cousin, he says. But his “little” cousin is 22, and she wants him to “sponsor” her birthday party. He does not know what put it in her coconut that he had “silly” money to splurge. He tells her to “give me a break” but confesses to me that he knows she would phone-molest him one thousand more times, anyway.