Message Manipulation

See how any message can be manipulated!

MTN’s Insufficient Credit

Lately, when you try to send a text message on MTN’s service, a stupid text message comes up to tell you that you have “insufficient credit” to send the text. Then, you check your credit balance and find out that you have more than GHC11.00 of credit. But when you try to resend your text, the offensive MTN text just keeps popping up.

Those idiots at MTN should know that they do not have SUFFICIENT CREDIT IN THE ESTIMATION OF CUSTOMERS IN GHANA to play around with people like that. If they read this and get angry, they can sue me. I will teach them that "TRUTH" IS THE ULTIMATE DEFENCE in defamation. Incompetent people! They have not even apologised for it.

Toiletiquette

As seen on the door to the toilets at a hangout at Aburi.

We All Do It To God

Two sisters aged 4 and 6 are skipping along a bushy path a few metres from home to buy toffees, when they lose their coins. They look everywhere on and around the path, but do not recover their money. Younger Sister has a brilliant idea, “Let’s pray to God to help us find our money.” Older Sister prays to God saying, “Dear God, if you help us find our money, we promise to give you half of it.”

After the prayer, Younger Sister nudges Older Sister in the ribs and asks, “What have you done? Don’t you know that if we give God half of our money, we won’t have enough left to buy the toffees?” Older Sister smiles a knowing smile, draws her kid sister closer to her and whispers, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I did not mean it. I only said it to trick God into helping us!”

Elias and the (Spelling) Bee

As seen among a friend's Face Book pictures.

On another note, this marks my 600th blog post, and I am celebrating it with a mention as has become a custom. I'm so glad I have not let go of it. You, readers, are the reason why I love this so much. Thank you for coming for the ride.

Boffin Blackout

Ghanaian scientists are whining in Bonn that the ‘benighted’ local media is treating them like an unwanted stepchild. The media counters that the baby-bawlers are media-maladroit, bungling boffins who do not bait with any tantalizing titbits. I side with the media. We have annual floods, electric sockets from China, Indonesian matchsticks and Ivorian body lotion swarming in to fill a vulgar vacuum. So, the Theory-Talkers should shut up, please!

Kwashay

Two boys in overalls scooter-cruise in broad daylight in ‘uncrowded’ streets of Accra. They turn a nook and creep upon an isolated walker. The bike halts; one comes down; he’s brandishing a machete pulled out from under his over-sized clothes; the bag is snatched, the laptop, the watch, the phone and the wallet. They’re gone in ten seconds, leaving only a foul wisp of fuel-adulterate behind. They will hack you down if you resist or delay. Kwashay – riding robbery (or motorbike mugging) in the City of Accra.

Road-building in Accra

Reputable road-builders from Europe and China carve, chisel and plane our African roads with some of their cutting-edge knowhow. In no time, the rains tumble and devour deep holes into the roads and into the reputations of these firms.

Funeral Party in Accra

Twenty cars whizzed through the court-road traffic at high noon towards the Korle quarter of Accra ferrying feisty, frolicking funeral-goers (not mourners) in white Adinkra fabric. They sped on-the-verge-of, and ignored the static cars in the lunch-hour queue, looking to ram through anybody who dared to enter from a side route. Some were beating deafening drums and playing loud-park music, while a camera van 'panoramaed' it on tape. Happy people decked in white (a 40-something-year-old woman winked at me). The deceased must have been very old.

The Lure of the Chieftain

Folds of fine, woven cotton in ivory and azure, sunflower and crimson. Gold bangles, bracelets, rings and ancient pendants. Cowries, beads, a hand-crafted, silken, horsehair whisk and fine-leather sandals. A dark crown-hat with bright reddish-gold and silver sequins, spangles and medallions. Such human pride and splendour. What are his interests: service or ‘serve his’?

The Nsawam Breadline

A few kilometres outside Accra, on the horrid highway to Kumasi, a ‘livelihood’ line of bread sellers stretches as long as the eyes can see. This is the town of Nsawam. Its dying buildings tackle the streets tightly, threatening to tumble any moment. The main street is a narrow tar strip with edges gobbled jagged by time, rain and native neglect. The baker’s design suggests that all the bread is baked and browned in one bakery or two. So, how does one know whose bread to buy? I’ll start with the first rustic Pretty I see with an idyllic smile. When the new highway bypasses this town, no cars will come this way. The bread line and the famous Nsawam bread will simply go away.

African Cow

A Shaman Coven killed an African cow to make ‘Bafana’ swift and strong, and maybe even win The Cup. When ‘Bafana’ led Mexico by one, the European commentator frisked frivolous fun that the spell was holding fine. The African co-commentator, short on humour, high on pretence, solemnly stumped that “How can these things ever work?” Then Marquez brought “el tri” level. I wonder who was really the cow!

Human Furniture

As seen in a picture sent in by a friend. Just the thing so many have been looking for; and it's free!

Wet, Wading Wednesday

It poured ‘Pacifics’ on Wednesday from 6 pm till ... was it midnight? The traffic network at 11 pm was daylight-dense and rush-hour thick. A respectable car was stalled every fifty metres even in this ‘good’ side of town between Ridge and the Accra Mall. River islands swept across the streets and made Accra’s wild drivers timid. Crowds! Crowds of people milled everywhere, turning bus stops into midnight markets. People ‘legged’ it over ten kilometres, and got ‘there’ soaked but before the crippled cars. I did not tune in to the night news - I did not want to deal with the misery that would surely flood into the ‘bad’ parts of Accra.

Technical Knockout

A judge in a Kumasi High Court cannot resist the urge to interfere. He finishes off sentences for witnesses in the box, and adds, “Not so?” Often, the witness answers that the judge is wrong in his hasty conclusion, and he has to apologise with embarrassment. When we successfully raised a legal objection in our own case, he mocked the other lawyer by saying, “technical knockout!”

The Ghana Harm Forces

The two forces with legitimate stockpiles of arms in Ghana showed little patience in May. A soldier thought he could ride an unlicensed bike. Two cops would not ‘let him through’. He escaped and brought his whole hyperactive platoon. Cops in Kumasi fled here and there or were felled with hammer blows. If either or both of these armed forces turned on civilians, then, God help us!

Finding Nemo...or Nimo

As seen on TV early this morning. Do you want kids to embarrass themselves around their friends? As for Nimo, you won't find him underwater - try Kejetia in Kumasi.

Traffic Tax in Accra?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has always wanted to introduce a congestion tax. Cities everywhere share common problems and a common difficulty in solving them. If New York mulled (or mulls) an $8 congestion charge for motorists who would drive to the city centre, what would be appropriate for Accra, $5? It is not easy to say that a congestion tax will work and reduce the city traffic. Accraians are famous for their need to show off. Many Ghanaians appear to be fabulously rich. Impose a $10 traffic tax, and more people pour in to show they are rich. Would you support the congestion charge?

Will Your Partner Cheat?

How distastefully dubious does the telecom tussle for your custom become! It is egregious entrepreneurship, idiotic innovation and macabre marketing. I caught the following crawling text on a television channel: Will Your Partner Cheat on You? You pay peak premium by tart-texting your partner’s name to a given number, and the ‘Capitalist Conscience-less’ will tawdry-text you the ‘answer’. What would you do if it came back ‘Yes’?

Singles Bars in Accra

If there are any singles bars in the City of Accra, I do not know them. Do you? I have heard that there are haunts for more extraordinary ‘seekers’, so why not ordinary singles? Anyways, knowing the poly-inclinations of the young and old in this city, if there were singles bars, they would invaded by cheating ‘paireds’.