Sunday Afternoon Delight at Sakumono

A and B, my married friends, invited me over last Sunday. We had a swell time watching English football and baking a chocolate cake. B gathered the groceries while A and I flirted with cardiac seizure as banal Boro held the greatest team in the world to a gloomy draw. It was an awful start to the afternoon, but well in line with the bilious clouds that hang dark and low outside, pregnant with perverse intent. When the game was over, it rained heavily in the kitchen.

It all came down in thick-coming fancies! Dozens of wonderfully-weighted white eggs, spices to snuff you silly, nutmeg, eclectic essences, vanilla, strawberry, bars of chocolate. It snowed the purest castor sugar and milk; mealy, soft flour and lip-smacking, finger-licking butter. But it remained dry outdoors. The cool afternoon dragged along slowly, and there was no need to hurry up. Packing the sterile mixer back into its box, we beat and mixed and creamed slowly and gently by human hand, splashing the walls, floor and ceiling while seeking the candid consistency.

We were all awash with streaks of the luscious mixture in the face, on the corners of the lips, on the arms, necks; everywhere the sneaky paste had gone :). The apron effect, that magical moment when, with the strings tied behind you, you feel you could cook heavenly delights out of anything or straw, glowed in the kitchen as teasing and horseplay grew a little wild. We caught the chocolate just in time. Sitting in a ceramic bowl in boiling water on the gas, it had melted and was creeping and curdling to a swarthy shade.

When the chocolate was saved, and the mix baking in the preheated oven, we sat back to a low logic movie about satanic cults, prosperity and the power of the Catholic God. As evil gained the upper hand, we amused ourselves with all the sweetness wafting out of the oven, trying to make out all the individual flavours, and putting words to them. In the end, good prevailed in the movie, and we shared a big bottle of coke with the most toothsome chocolate cake ever baked on a Sunday afternoon in Sakumono.

When B announced her plan to bake a pie, I thought it best to go, for it was approaching ten p.m. If you’re still wondering, the greatest team in the world is Manchester United! :)

Another World in the City of Accra

Today, I wish I were married. There is no curious story behind this wish; nothing to reveal. I just think that the company would be good.

On my early morning drive to work, I saw an art vendor bring out his basic illustrations to display just a whisker from the road. He was in the middle of a grating conversation with the next vendor, who was arranging sallow apples in black plastic crates with his stone-and-charcoal fingers. I’d already taken a rueful eyeful, and was looking to turn away in quest for softer aspects of the Accra half-light. Maybe I’d catch giddying glimpses of the scrupulously-scrubbed, meticulously made-up working woman in Accra :) But I found a weirdly arresting sight.

As violence scurried out of the missing-toothed mouth of the art vendor, his arms moved in gentle circles as he wiped each crude artwork tenderly as if they were his children. In a quick move I still can’t interpret (it was crude, but it showed care) he sprayed a wide stream of spittle on a steel shield with cuneiform etchings, and briskly wiped it dry to a brilliant shine. Who smells a lovely-looking shield before buying it? :)

As for the apple seller, he picked some apples and forced four or five each into two clear bags and advanced with menace onto the street. He was as muscular as an ox and, as I frantically rolled up my windows, I got to wondering if he also picked the apples from the trees himself :)

I realised how after their sun-baked day spent setting up grocery shops, furniture showrooms, pet shops, car washes and deodorising permanently in dried perspiration on the streets of Accra, these cellar citizens must have a normal life. A life picking apples, bathing children with water and, maybe, a little spittle to shine behind their ears, watching TV, even if just for the pictures, or simply eating with their mouths closed so particles do not spurt into the evening air. They do not live where they stand to sell. A whole wild world out there, totally worth exploring.

Nana Abu

This was my grandfather’s birthday ... until fifteen years ago. In 1993, he stood still at a cliff of the highest peak of his life, spread out his wizened wings and, without a chance to look back, he flapped and flapped and flapped, and flopped! Gone forever! His birthday became a morbid memento of (when I think of it) my first true best friend. Nuhu Bin Abubekr died aged eighty-four. He called me “Senior Brother”, and I miss him very much. He had wanted to live a few more years to enjoy the adult me.

Before I happened on the scene, Nana Abu had proudly boasted a strapping political life. Not quite swashbuckling, but still a great strike for the home team (whatever it was). He went to the great Mfantsipim School, and graduated on a certificate named for Cambridge. A life that had struck a sparkling light and shone was flogged by fickle factors. From then on, every rich strand of history he knew, and every brilliant strategy skirmished on his political précis was learned and earned by single, silent assimilation. He was a “wicked” registrar of the Adansi Traditional Council, which had some powers of a court.

He was already sixty-eight when I came along; robbed and roughly ravaged by the cruel and coldblooded timekeeper. But he was still very tall and elegant; ramrod straight with a very handsome face. He taught me how wrong and insular the Ghanaian saying “I’m sure” was, for the benighted Ghanaian was really saying “I think”, “I believe” :)

Nana Abu died sitting upright on a rainy June morning in a Kumasi hospital :). I did not break down and cry when I heard the terrible news, for the great man had gone out smiling, fighting and refusing to lie down.

Happy birthday, Nana Abu. Writing this suddenly makes me feel so very lonely.

The Rain, Art and Figures in the Clouds

In the city of Accra, the cold and wet weather slows the people down! In the city of Accra, the hot and humid weather slows the people down! What kind of weather is Accra city looking for?

When we were little children, and Accra was greener and smaller and cooler, my siblings and I loved the rainy season.

It was not just for the reckless chance to play in the cold darts falling aplenty and, in no time, pricking our tightening skin with tiny sharp needles. The lovely rich rainbows were free and frequent. And the rain clouds flaunted a tapestry of bright, luxuriant colours. The fibrous white threads of lightning were at once frightening and exciting; the booming thunderclap was only terrifying.

The pitter-patter of the raindrops on the asbestos roofing sheets, eddying between rhythmic sharp and lulling hum, was, and still is, an eerie experience. The first few drops, on splattering against the ground, raised the distinct sweet smell of white clay and wet dust, and made you want to cup the cold, muddy soil in the cone of your little hands and give it delightful, long licks (why can't somebody invent ice cream in that fragrant flavour?) Frankie's, are you reading? :)

But the greatest gift of the season was changing the ordinary ice blue sky into a master artist’s canvas. We would stand outdoors for very long hours allowing our imagination to run with the wind. We saw shapes, figures, effigies straight out of our fairy tales and everyday life.

Jesus Christ’s profile was everybody’s favourite – the picture of him in children’s books, long hair, angular chin and aquiline nose. Then, there was Jerry Rawlings, president at the time. We also saw the animals, lots of them – eagles, ponies, great lizards, elephants and humble rodents. A mythical creature would sail along every now and then – unicorns, Pegasus, dragons. But my favourite little moment, tucked away in my memory, was when my very little sister swore that she'd espied a mean and massive dinosaur. It is a tearful moment for me to think back to that time.

Now, I only look for the clouds to tell me if the rain will come, the thickness of the homeward traffic and if the “weather will bring herself” when I arrive home or at a friends house (a complete topic in itself, to be explored at a later date).

Beach Road on Wednesday Morning

It’s neck-and-neck in awe-inspiration with Spintex Road's delightful melee of fancy shops and devastating-girls-at-the-roadside. It was a glorious sunny drive from Teshie to Tema (not exactly Accra). The sea was brilliant and royal blue-er than the sky :)

The sea side of the road is lined with thin woods of trees, which soon give way to the bare and endless strip of red earth. The unforgettable essence of this particular stretch of sea carries with the drive from here on: a wet-mop, wet-dog kind of whiff.

The road soon begins to buckle and bump as if the sea were crawling under it. Wooden and concrete benches appear in the striking terracotta. And fish girls! Selling fat and curvy fish on askew tabletops. I’m ogling one from the corner of my driving eye. She’s frantically slaughtering the fish with a heavy butcher’s knife, as a gust of wind mistakes her dress and apron for a kite; makes me notice her satellite-dish hips and helium backside :)

The marvel ends with the man-made bank of black and grey granite (?)boulders. Here, the sea sings and lilts, and splashes against them in cheerful celebration.Of what? Fish? Women?

The left-hand side also begins with the same flimsy woods on either side of a revamped rail line (I have never seen a train whizz past). Then you drive by a vast and grassy marshland, part solid-enough-to-tread, part nearly-clear lagoon. In the far-off distance stands alone a two-storey shed. It’s built with both bamboo and strong wood – favourite haunt for a thousand white birds, and I’ve explored it by the inch.

If you brave a little muck, itchy grass and a bonnet of bothersome bugs, you will find upstairs, carved gracefully on a beam, “Sweet Kelly”. At that secluded spot, my flighty mind is not alone in wondering what Kelly was so kind to do as to make her a syrupy immortal. My own merely mortal mind is seduced with unbelief at the Robinson Kwame Crusoe who built this use-less monument, in the middle of nowhere, to lure Sweet Kelly.

The marsh makes way for the sprawling flats, Tema-side. For such a jewel of a road, why does it want a proper name? Or does anybody know it?

Four Reasons Why Accra is Different!

In Accra, the roads come first. Then we dig deep trenches right across. First, for the fine design, and also to lay cables and pipes. When, finally, we pack up and leave, we have a test track for steeplechase :)

In Accra, we sink gutters and will not cover them. Where would we hide the filth of three million people with all these gutters sealed? Rubbish!

In Accra, we spring ten floors and leave only enough space to park a bird and two tricycles. But just as we divine four lanes out of two, so can we create our own car parks too.

In Accra, we build our glittering homes in the dirty, muddy marsh. Our 212-fahrenheit faith in God (which others so clearly covet) will hold it up when the devil's deluge comes crashing down in jealous June.

You're Telling Your Secrets to Everybody

Every first-time beholder has asked me if Volta Hall in the University of Ghana was a chapel. Hardly, isn’t it :) When I was a little student in Legon (and more fearless than now), I witnessed the most curious thing at Volta Hall. I would be greatly surprised if it does not remain a daunting feeling that one suffers as they walk up the two flights of stairs to the Porter’s Lodge. That’s when the hottest and hippest young women in Accra come gathering in the coolest clothes in earth. All made-up. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Sweet-smelling. Saccharine-smiling. Daunting, didn’t I say?

K.A.T., my roommate, and I were standing with the girls when a forty-something year-old man (who obviously thought he was a cool-looking dude) with blue shoes, gold pendants and a golf-course girth, made the long walk up the twin stairs. He was speaking loudly on the phone (something about Dollars, if memory serves). The tensest zone takes eight odd steps to cross over. He was halfway through and getting louder on the phone when the very phone began to ring. Now I can swear to you that I have seen nice, clean and dry skin suddenly and violently break into streams of sweat. He took the longest four steps in his life to the sound of a dozen sniggering beauties - and two boys :) We waited there for a very long time, but we did not see him come back.

I read a Newsweek (or Economist) article about two years ago about mobile phone usage in public. In Japan (or South Korea) commuters have silently laid down their own rules. At either rush hour, they do not speak much on the phone – it’s all text messaging. I imagined the author’s description of eyes intently glued to wide screens and frantically-moving fingers, and it looked a disturbing but beautiful scene of orderly robots. The slightest hint of a voice convo brings one hundred evil-eye stares and hostile whispers to hush.

Not in the city of Accra. Public-place phone calls are made on megaphones or worse. I hear everything you’re saying. And I was curious, but frankly unimpressed, to hear that your aunt is sleeping with the boy next door. I was also pained at the announcement of what you want to have for dinner at home tonight. And I am sorry that I laughed, when, looking at you, you! You just had the most-important business meeting ever held in the world. But did you look around you? I was not the only one laughing. We were all compelled to even stare at your shoes; we saw fraying leather when you sent us looking for gold. I have said enough. With almost every Accraian you walk past, you can hear one part of the conversation and deduce the other part. Imagine all the secrets you’re giving away, after working so hard to keep them hidden from ... your wife ... boss ... neighbours ... the press ... God ...everybody.