Sacrifice

The highest point of Love is ...


...SACRIFICE!


Now I have discovered what this means to me!

Accra’s Angst in One Instance

Gravid Grandam, why do you furiously fling me the evil corner eye before the soonest sunrays have made the scene? I was just bundling into my car for work when I espied your tired trundle towards me. You seemed to be arranging to eject spittle in my general surroundings. Is it my fault that I scurried into the car? Why did you swivel and survey me from shocked head to shivering shoes like that?

The Song Life Plays

Silence...
Violence...
Silence...
Violence...

The Poison Hunters in Accra

They flip the top of each soda they buy, hankering hungrily, but not after the fizz and flavour. They fish for harlequin hints of paddling particles, damning drops of detergent or some alien allergy in the bottle. First, they’ll blackmail and menace the manufacturer. If that ship sinks, they curse and sue for devious damages. They can rent false injury at twenty Cedis per devil-dealing doctor.

Elementary Eye Care

My friend’s eyes were always crimson-sore – they looked like a dying fire. So, the obligatory oculist opportunistically ordered optical lenses. The ersatz eyes arrived, but the raw discomfort mulishly remained. Rather than return to the pricy eye doctor and risk racking retinal surgery, we ’wimped’ back to the ABCs. We discovered that if my friend laved his still-sleepy phiz at first light, then he didn’t drive his hands to his eyes. The soreness soothed, the burning breezed away, and into the bin flew the gainless glasses.

Groundhog Day

If your every day
Looks like the one before
Then too cautious you play
Your life must be a bore

What’s the Luxury in a Car?

Some time ago, I pilloried a retailer for audacious advertising on a bumptious billboard. Now, they’re running an electronic encore. Streaming a sales promo on TV, they swear their heart is set on giving away two luxury cars. Now, the two cars are those minuscule, atomic Asian cars that you could even send by text message. So, what’s a luxury car?

Musical Chairs

In no telegraph time, I come to link my cell phone ring tone with the ten or so Undesirables that I would rather not hear from. Every one of those cringe-calls really rattles me. So, I shuffle my ring tone every month or two or three, according to when my Don’t-Pick list touches ten.

Predator and Prey

What did you permit
To bother you today?
Would you also admit
Being both Predator and Prey?

‘Exotic’ Videos in the City of Accra

Ghanaian artistes cut their music videos with animated windmills, the Alps, Manhattan or flying Arabian carpets in the busy background. They’re casually crooning about common affection or double-entendre coupling. So, the welkin wonder is the ’rhymeless’ spectacle.

A Time to Heal

Tell me, should a battered, broken heart
Not hide away till time heals the pain?
Or should it stay wide open and apart
And try to trust and love again?

Free-Riding in the City of Accra

In the creeping cord of traffic on the gritty main artery of Adenta Quarter, two draggled, frowzy men hopped off the rear bumper of the trotro (mini bus) in front of me. They’d been freeloading from Madina Town for about three turbulent kilometres. The driver didn’t seem to mind – I wonder why I did.

Coin-Counting Carousal in the City of Accra

Equator Bar, Accra, 9p.m.

He let slip to case a new place to hang out with an advance party of his mates before whisking a woman there. Now, he and three of his mates are having happy drinks with a woman – a tall, dark, leggy vixen in a short, small, black dress. She’s full of electro-magnetic elegance. They put on a cheesecake aided by the combo band. Then, it’s time to go. It’s time to pay.

The waiter drops the bill. The men shoot back in shock. They debate in decibels above the music exactly how many of what they have had. One appeals to see the drink menu – Jackass, isn’t this two hours too late?

Thirty minutes later, when it’s time for my group to hit the door, Miss Legs and her guy are still stuck in their booth. Their mates have long left them. My guess is they are going to bring some money to pay. Miserable toads!

Letting Go

Why should you let them go
When it's true, and you know
Their chance of a happy life
Is all in being your wife?

Quasimodo dies in the City of Accra

Ghanaian old wives’ tales will tickle me to tantrums on any given day. Whooping and living it up with Kiz, his Barbs and Lil Girl on a muggy, grey Saturday, the gloomy, gravid clouds gave way, and, then, they gave us rain. I had just been observing to Kiz that the Adenta sun seemed the most fiery in Accra; almost vile and volcanic. Outside, it was splashing and slopping cats and dogs, but the sun still shone through. Kiz chirruped that a hunchback had just died! I was rallying to be horrified, when Barbs confirmed that Kiz was only flipping folklore on its head. A traditional belief, wow! The rain let up for a while. Guess what was said next, in jest, when, presently, the Sun-Rain came down again: Wow, they bury them fast these days! He’s funny, my friend.

Girl on her Knees in a Mechanic’s Yard

It is the customary cavernous space three-sides surrounded by high-walled properties. It is cramped squalid with junk, scrap-cars and a few good cars. The master mechanic and his bearded boys are not in sight. There’s just a gamine girl of 12 or 13, who is ‘dregged’ down on her knees in the middle of the yahoo yard. It is a searing, sunny day. I wonder who left her there, and why.

Handwashing

There's something character-forming
In washing clothes by hand
I do this every morning
Or evening, on demand.


Alternative Rhyme...

There's something character-forming
In washing clothes by hand
Upon this understanding
Does one of my principles stand.

Karma

All this recent drama
Is certainly my karma
I've been reckless with many hearts
Now I'm smelling it as Life farts!

Overbearing Upbringing

The way to train a child
Is not to create your clone
Let them grow their passions wild
It's their life! You have lived your own!

Love is Cool

A week which started slow
Has ended in a glow
I had my doubts on love
But, now, I'm soaring above

300

If we’re facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking (ancient Buddhist expression).

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail (author unknown).

100, 200, now 300 posts (and counting). A truly amazing experience of awakening, friendship, addiction, understanding, fellowship and enlightenment.

Thank you,Co-bloggers, for walking with me, teaching me, and inspiring me with your ineffable blogs!

Thank you, Readers, for reading what I write, for what good would they be in a dark trunk?

Thanks to everybody who leaves comments. You know how I thrive on feedback :)

I wouldn’t exchange this journey in blogosphere for any other!

Genuine Land for Sale in the City of Accra

Wonderful Accra! The city where you have to purchase the same strip of land twice or thrice, even after you have employed a lawyer, a private eye and bribery to ensure that you obtain laager land and not a lame, leaky lawsuit.

I was driving with Office Female #2, when we espied a dingy display board with the words “Genuine Land for Sale”. It says a lot that that wasted plank did not simply say “Land for Sale”. Should I expect to see another carelessly confess “Fake Land for Sale”?

Face Transplants & Other Random Questions

Who's ever seen a fake cell phone?
Are we now transplanting human faces?
Is actress Morena Baccarin any good?
Isn't "brand" Oprah-KFC a greedy publicity monster?

Public Offence

Public nose-picking
Because you'll roll the bogey around on your finger, and then try to shake hands with me!

Using a tooth pick in public
There must be a reason why your lips were made to cover your gums (and teeth)!

Shouting on the phone
I may be far away, but your mouth is to my ear!

Breaking traffic rules!
Because my dog could drive better than you!

People who stare at you in the traffic jam
Get a life, don't compare or size me up!

Many more things...
Get a life, I have work to do!

My Childhood Arch Enemies

It is a big, furry fuzz in my mind right now, but, even in those early days, I had discovered the superiority of brain over brawn, mind over muscle. It must be that group of boys (and I am not a wuss): Koo Prince, Manfred, Kwaku Bawuah, etc, etc, who would form two kung-fu, kick-ass posses, and hector one another and everybody else at snack time. O how I hated them!