Ridge, Accra’s Most Beautiful

Accra’s Most Beautiful is royal, romantic Ridge. It’s not the eerie equilibrium eddying between the quaint colonial-esque concrete cloisters and the modern, steel-and-glass split-levels and skywards, no! It is the towering, titan trees! Neems, Mahoganies, What’s-their-names. They stand sentry, elegantly, on the street-sides and dominate even brick-and-stone. That’s how Accra was meant to strike a pose.

I'm Taking a Phone With Me

When we die we leave behind all things material. But what if one object could go with us?

Virgin Mobile Lobster phone - Virgin Radio

If I had to go today, and I could take one object or thing with me, and still use it on the other side, it'd probably be my phone. I'd like to call everyone I love, except that I'm wondering who in Heaven (or elsewhere, lol) provides the service? What object would you take? Would you take a person? Lol.

Broken Promises

I’m evolving into the king of broken promises. On workdays, I proffer public pledges to friends and ‘friendlies’ to visit A or call B over the unhurried weekend. When Saturday stops around, I’m still too busy or deadbeat or traffic-tied at home to defend my honour. They really are my friends, who call themselves my friends. I thank them.

As the Weekend Comes

As the weekend comes
And this week dies,
Make the weekend really come
And let this week’s work really end
Find a soft spot
Somewhere, or in your mind
And float through it
With all the pleasures you can find.

Between Love and Friendship

The sun still throws a warm glow
And the stars, glint and glitter
The birds chirrup each dawn
And the days are lotused with laughter
A friendship buds like a Portland Rose
Will it blossom on this social side,
Or bloom across The Besotted Line?
There’s love in Friendship and friendship in Love
And then, there is Love, and there is Friendship.

Poetry - Between Love and Friendship

This morning, I felt an old hunger - poetry! I wrote the poem "Between Love and Friendship. I hope you like it.

Sweet Rainy Morning

In the showery, half-light morning, on the glistening arch arteries of asphyxiated Accra, the downtown drive is slippery, but smooth and swift. The breeze is brisk: barely beginning to bite. I would do anything for this dream downpour drive every morning.

Salt, Soap and Coca Cola

An unfinished domestic in a friend’s house cannot spout a word of everyday English, they say. She does not admit “salt” or “soap” or “television”. But she utters “TV”, “MTN”, “switched off” and “Coca Cola” on autopilot.

Captain Hook’s Spell

An urbane, cosy restaurant in the Labone/Cantoments neighbourhood in the City of Accra. Its specialty is sea food, and its menu shows both a wide-range fare and healthy high, advance-knowledge prices. It has, how shall we say, maritime decor with mammoth turtle shells, and ‘ship timber’ and ... is that whale bone I saw on the walls? But the one thing that does marvels for my hunger is the sexily short skirts the waitresses wear; and we know the ancient spell that the waitress casts.

Accra Crime Alert – The Case for DIY?

When a domestic doodad breaks down, and you allow in wandering workmen to repair, they may not only come calling; they may also come casing! The Police says the risk runs even with imposters invested in utility company coveralls. Since security-check results are a Haley’s Comet, maybe this is a case for DIY, in the City of Accra, no?

What if your Partner...

If you discovered that your devoted “Darby” or “Joan” of three years had been dribbling deliberately into your dinner or drink every time they were disconcerted by you, what would you do?

The Four-Wheel-Drive Complex

A Jurassic Jeep driver flies past me on the dirt-rocky Spintex Road at 6 a.m., at full, bitumen-surface speed, and cuts into my lane. A sand truck rockets a little rock which cracks the jinxed Jeep’s windscreen. The junk Jeep driver chases the truck...for what?

2 Things You do that I Hate

Red-lighted at the National Theatre, I was wondering why some Accraians keep the protective plastic sheets on the seats to flaunt their shiny, new cars. Just then, I swept over a tall, young woman stand-squatting with legs spread poles apart, lifted skirt, bag armpit-bound, tight-toned thighs, nice...but she was jetting piss in the perpendicular of her triangular legs. I looked hard to catch her face...and the lips she was flashing, but it was dragging dark, and the green lights galled me to go.

Hating and Spiting

When haters pull up in traffic
And put their noses into your car
You can feel how evil and tragic
Their spiting and loathing are

Everyone’s Saving Grace

Nobody’s utterly useless. We all possess at least one saving grace – one tall talent – that makes the whole world stop, and take nonplussed notice. And we all have the urgent urge to flaunt it foolishly. So, what’s yours?

Crazy Concert Costs

You would be cast crudely from the queue to a live entertainment event if you offered only GH¢10 ($7.15). You would need to bleed at least GH¢40 ($29) for local/African artistes, and GH¢100 ($72) for American artistes.

Lemonade & Lunch

Thankfully, GHc10 ($7.15) will lavish you a flagon of lemonade and lunch on a laze-about week day - a healthy hoarding of fine-grain gari foto and pan-fried chevon, or frugal fufu with gleeful goat-light, or yummy yam and garden-egg stew (kobi and all) or jolly jollof rice and chicken. OH, STOP IT! ....... How many earn GHc10 a day? ... and legitimately?

9 Litres of Petrol

GHC10 ($7.15) won’t get you 2 gallons of gasoline, goddammit! And still, Accra navigates a sea full of SUVs. Plus this equatorial fireplace demands the full nyanya.

*Nyanya = air conditioning.

No Cheap Movie Ticket

GH¢10 ($7.14) won’t admit you to Ghana’s only real cinema. It will take one-and-a-half times that. I’ve heard it said that most families, here, must live on less than $1 daily, judging from the wages.

10 Ghana Cedis

Dear Reader, this week, I will explore the theme posts again. I’m going to discover what GHC10 can do for a person. That’s about US$7.15. Maybe, I will rather discover what it cannot do. Maybe you want to share what you can(not) do with US$7.15, or its equivalent, wherever you are. First post coming up later today. Thank you.