Fire Burn Your Arse

One night, a group of boisterous youth blows up a blazing bonfire in a grassy glade. They gym-jump over it to prove brazen bravado. Opana is one of them. He’s forgotten that he’s plugged his infirm derriere with a thick tuft of cotton wool. He leaps over the flame, and a flint catches his pants. A flare eats the wool up Opana's sorry arse.

He who lives in a glass house... 

Roughneck Radio in the City of Accra

Ghana radio’s raw and raucous; strident of speech; toxic of tone; boorish of music and moribund of news. I float on Atlantis or ride with BBC.

No Painkillers in the City of Accra

We’re scared. We’re very afraid. All manner of things are no-go areas now. No local Bitters or Gins. They increase the libido for 2 months and then give you a mere mushroom for life. Now, some boffin says here that painkillers cause ED. In other words, if you want to be well and firmly hung, don’t take Ibuprofen, though your head splits into two.

The Devil Tried to Sell Me Bread Last Night

I was stuck in the Accraian vehicular mud on the way home when he accosted me near the dark Airport Traffic lights. He materialised upon me, wielding a loaf of bread in his right hand. His left hand was out of my view, so I could not see the miniature pitchfork certain to be clutched in it. His eyes were hard and bloody, his ears, hairy and elfin. He gave one severe look, and I zigzagged through the queue. He may have been a human vendor, but I didn’t stick around to discover. I fled with the thought that since the time of Jesus, You-Know-Who has been tempting Earth with bread.

On Eating Rice with a Spoon

I am freedom’s fiancé; pied, assorted, motley, sundry kinds of freedom. I believe people are free to march on their heads instead of feet; fart fifteen frivolous times every fine day; banquet on a bowl full of Fufu and Fanta and drink up the soup chilled from a bottle; wear a gruff goat rope for a belt. I believe in fulsome, fetterless and fanciful servings of the flavours of freedom. But please, philistine friend, don’t eat rice with a spoon! At home, at work, eating out, Villein, please don’t do it!

Picture credit - dreamstime.com

No Love At All in the City of Accra

Really, apart from hanging out, it’s been a very long time since I saw anybody in Accra do anything because they simply love it – and I’m not talking about work. So, what are people doing in which the payout is ... well, a smile.

The Son Who Wanted a Car

A son badly wanted a car

On his coming birthday

He found sly ways to hint his Pa

Whose wealth was off display

The birthday came; it surely did

The Son, he got a bible

And a hearty dinner of squid

He felt like Cain, not Abel

A year after the Son’s letdown

He went to see his Pa

And accosted him with a frown

His harsh words left a scar

The old man fell down, and he died

He couldn’t bear the words

And after all the tears had dried

It all then turned absurd

Found stuck inside the Holy Book

Were keys to a new car

If only the Son did look

He'd have both car and Pa

Looking Hard at Maids – Are They Slaves?

This story is harrowing but not out of this world. Domestic servants (or maids, in Ghana) have been with us since time immemorial. African children have always been taken to live and work with their aunts and uncles and parents’ friends. After independence and the rise of the African elite, maids in rural Ghana would go and live with stranger-families in the cities without pay with the expectation that she would grow up into an Awuraba (or Gentlewoman). It is now difficult to find a girl who would travel to the city to live with and work for a family without pay, work from dawn until midnight or not insist on days off. I once got into an impassioned argument with a Ghanaian boy whose girlfriend was a temporary student girl from America. I barracked him because I thought he was selling out for calling it modern-day slavery. Now, I am ready to change my position.

Date Rape in Ghana

I’ve read somewhere that most rape is committed by a familiar and very few by total strangers. I’ve never heard a real date-rape account told by anybody I know, but I have heard some female friends over the years tell me about near-rape traps they tripped into. Now, I’m wondering how overwhelming or underwhelming the incidence of date rape is.

Too many young girls I have spoken to are easily star-struck and appear to lose their head and heart around famous people. I can think of precious few A-List stars in Ghana: a few musicians (Kojo, Lumba, Amakye Dede), a few sportsmen (Pele, Essien, Appiah maybe), a few diplomats with obvious names, more than a few business persons, etc etc. So why do you bloody let a nothing small-time straggler (dabbling as an actor or musician) get into your head and date-rape you? But it’s not the girl's fault.

People are free to feel giddy about other people, mice, sports, depraved North African presidents or English football. THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO RAPE A GIRL, EVEN IF SHE THREW HERSELF AT YOU!

Does anybody know about any date rape in Ghana?

p.s.: Anti-Rhythm achieved its 40,000th visit yesterday. Thank you everybody for coming around.

Job Fairs in the City of Accra

God, I loved this weekend. I attended two job fairs – one for undergrads and the other for post-grads. It warmed the cockles of my heart to speak to young people who wanted to think and choose carefully on the job market. Their lecturers are learning that it is best to let the industry tell the student what skills they need to demonstrate to be employable. I did not mind being sun-beaten when our nation’s future shone as brightly.

Accra is not Ghana

So my friend, Yaa, asked me what to do in the City of Accra if one was not into churches, eateries or nightclubs. I couldn’t say the National Theatre because it has no year-round programme. I couldn’t say the Accra mall because I consider it one big inconvenience. I couldn’t say the beach because they get cleaner as you drive away from Accra. All I could tell her was “Accra is not Ghana”.

Radio School

Radio trumps competing media on following in Ghana and has not been assailed any by the internet revolution. So, could there be a radio station fixating on youth-education? Would they be able cover their overheads and bank some extra takings? Just thinking aloud and continuing to doubt formal education more every day.

Summer School Dreams

I’m dreaming of a summer school for 13 y.o.’s to 21 y.o.’s. It won’t teach Math & English & Geography & Econ. It will leave that for the failed system to do. It will offer the chance to unlock the problem-solving knack that’s latent in everyone. The syllabus is problems – real-life problems. The task is to make them go away by practice, practice, practice...best-known practices. Hopefully the attendees go away with nation-changing nous.

Wrong Education in Schools in Ghana

If we require the World Bank to tell us that we are administering purposeless education to our youth, then maybe I should stop my crying crusade for an educational revolution and mind my own business.

Osmosis, concatenation, algorithm, logarithm, subrogation, amortization, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, intra fauces terra! We know what they all mean. We don’t know how they work. We are mis-educated.

When A Man Bites A Dog

I’ve seen firsthand how we disrespect teachers as a nation. My parents are former teachers. But when striking teachers splash students with bags of water to disrupt a planned programme, I next expect to see a man bite a dog.

The Shame on the Streets of Accra & Other Cities

Wondering how anybody who has hogged any vague vestige of political power in paralytic Ghana at any time over the past 20 yawning years can dandy-drive through the city streets and fail to feel like a spectacular success at nothing.

Hello, Call Me in 5 Hours, I’m Driving Home from Work

Road Accidents. There are too many of them on our streets. Mostly inter-city and in semi-urban Ghana, but too many nonetheless. Enter a new law. Don’t talk and drive. All-round brilliance in Ghana once again. But it is not quite a new law. It is only now being enforced now.

There are only minor brushes we call accidents in the cities. The idea behind the law is good, but it is rubbish economically speaking. We spend 3 or more hours simply commuting from home 10 kilometres away from work. Let me not tell you how much is lost in money terms.

AND YOU WANT ME TO PULL OUT OF THE TRAFFIC QUEUE TO PICK A CALL AND THEN FIGHT BACK TO GET IN, RISKING AN ACCIDENT ANYWAY, SO I TAKE 5 HOURS TO GET TO WORK AND BACK HOME?

GENIUS, won’t you rather solve the road traffic problem first? Are we happy that we all work at maybe 20% productivity?

African Girl in African Dress on a Ridge Sidewalk

Stout African girl sashaying down a rainy Ridge sidewalk in her African dress exploding with colours. Guavas, lemons, melons, sunflowers and lilies sprout about on the glamorous print. An off-matching canary belt clasps her medium girth and promotes her parabolic posterior more than she pretends to know.