No Gold Going for a Song

Those 'well-watered' Westerners who strike cyber friendships and business partnerships with West Africans, let me etch this on your minds: there are no gold nuggets glittering, and there is no fairy gold dust winnowing, on the streets; there is no gold bullion in the dingy rooms of faux royal families. Ergo, before your greed eggs you on to wire reckless dollars to criminal cliques in order to earn sky-high returns, won’t you at least take the time to learn about the social and business culture, names and norms?

My Favourite Website

A super gizmo: here’s the libido button, the x-ray vision button, the love-match button, the fart-fixing button, whatever. Got your attention right? My daily life is so choked by tech, I can scarcely pee without something ‘test-tubing’ the levels of something else in me. But it’s not half terrible, is it? Now the point: with so many websites jostling for my 30 minutes, it’s really the BBC which wins my wandering love. What’s yours? (Facebook cannot run in these elections).

Contemptuous Beauty

I just read the phrase “contemptuous beauty” in an old book. I gather it is where the lucky recipient (and temporary borrower) of God’s or Nature’s bounty feels superior to humanity on that fortuitous account alone.

They demand more volumes of breathing air, colder cokes, sleeker cars for cheaper, exclusive rights to wear the sexiest clothes and the only remaining promotion or pay rise for the next 5 years. That’s contemptuous beauty.

I think I just wrote up a benighted beast and not a bedazzling beauty. I see a lot of Contemptuous Beauties in the City of Accra. Oh, until something devastating inevitably happens to burst their beauty bubble.

(Do you remember the drop-dead gorgeous criminal whose lawyer begged against her imprisonment because she was too beautiful to go to jail?)

A Guy with Soft, Curly Hair

I remember a glamorous girl that I laughed and flirted with a long time ago. She figured she fancied guys with soft and curly (Dada B) hair. Her defence was it was for the benefit of her children. So, it must be true that beyond the physical appetite, what strain of genes to pass on to the offspring is subconsciously at play, when a female selects her mate. My friend was mentally swift, and clearly conceived she had enough of the grey matter to pass on. She just desired a man with body muscle and luxuriant locks!

Closet Kung Fu*

Sin #1: Goes to the loo with his cell phone.

Sin #2: Doesn't switch it off or make it mute.

Sin #3: Fails to realise there's an office mate in there.

Sin #4: Begins to grunt and heave to announce the dislodging.

Sin #5: A call comes through while he's pushing and panting.

Sin #6: Dares to pick the call mid-push, as his voice floats out the cubicle.

Sin #7: Through mouth and nose he yells, “Heee-aaaaaaaah, heh-lloooo.”

Sin #8: Denies it was his voice; says it was the ring tone!


*Forgive me, it's Silly Friday.

Give Us More or We’ll Release the Prisoners!

You know we are damned, dead and doubly doomed when wailing warders abandon prison posts and ooze out onto the city streets like plagues and pus to hold the public hostage. It’s true that they may be paid like public peasant slaves, but to threaten to unleash hordes of prisoners on the equally pay-pinched public is to sink integrity beneath a cesspool.

The Arse of the Traffic in the City of Accra

I’ve had it with bailing out of home at Bat Hour and digging in at my desk (after work) until the Witching Hour, all because of the treacherous traffic streaking from the armpits to the arse of Accra. I resent Ghanaian government – the entire gamut of gormless Ghana governments that have made nothing, nada, of tackling the commuters’ conundrum intelligently. Next time a pitiful politician (of any colour) approaches me, I’d welcome them with my middle finger and vote likewise.

Wicked Wednesday – The Irrelevant List Coming

A catalogue of Ghana’s gay MPs will ‘out’ on Wednesday. Why? There was politics in the town of Cape Coast; a jostle for renown between the president and the leader of the opposition. Now, the shit has hit the fan; scurrilous broadsides. One man has been called gay by the other side. He says it’s not true. However, he has information on who’s gay in Ghana’s Parliament. He will expose them on Wednesday. 2010 in Ghana! Our leaders are dabbling ... Do we really want development in the next 300 years?

I Wish I Could Ask Napoleon for Advice

If I could ask any historical person for advice, hmmm, it could be any among hundreds. But, now, I'm thinking of Napoleon Bonaparte. And here's what I'd ask him:

marilyn_monroe_on_vent

You're small; you have riveting eyes; you are aggressive; you're a soldier; is there anything else in your skill bag for spectacular success (we'll talk about the equally spectacular failure later)?



A close second could be Marilyn Monroe, who I'd probably ask, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?"



Who would you pick, and what would you ask them?

Non-Lyrical Mouths, Excuses or Self-Respect?

You know that it's either your game is dead from non-practice, or you settled down a long while ago, when your little nephew (who idolises you in every way) dares you to chat up a pretty girl on a train, and all you think about is your pride and reputation (in a strange country) instead of focusing on the little job at hand.

Menages a Trois - Age is Just a Number

I caught two old black dames on a red bus shamelessly checking out me in a grey 'skin' suit, light blue shirt and a super-sexy tie. They both smiled at me, and one gave the thumbs up they couldn't honestly deny me (tongue in cheek). For 30 minutes, I def walked taller.

Skunks on the Loose

You’re in a crowded place, like on a bus, and the hygiene’s dysfunctional for some of the people around you. Did they not realise at home? Skunks are not repulsed by their own scandalous scent. Maybe humans are the same. They should leave the skunk at home.

Claiming Accra

So, what's in all these names?
The national arena of games
Was first named after Accra
Then renamed for a sports Czar

It was claimed he was not from Accra
So the name-change was a scar
The mayor penned a daring decree
Reverse the name did he!

It happened in the capital
A city no longer ‘local’
Can the group which came here first
Make us bend to its will, coerced?

Vendors with Bells in the City of Accra

Today, I drove past a frowning fat man in a yellow MTN vendor’s vest. He was pitching strips of rubber-sealed phone top-up cards in front of the Palace Hypermarket (what’s that?) on the Spintex Road. Nobody was buying his cards (which must explain his fat fart face). But what really stood him out in the pedlars’ queue was the little black metal bell in his right hand – a now-not-so-common selling aid. With tiny twitches of his wrist, his three-clang cadence compelled attention to his common cards.

Fighting Crime by Sacking the Police

Mexico’s police are in a wanton war against thugs, drug traffickers, kidnappers, escaped prisoners, robbers, criminals. It’s ‘the trenches’ – nobody’s winning. The Mexican police are corrupt; they play both felon and catcher (but I wonder if this isn’t true in most countries). The government has sacked 3,200 of them (that’s 10 percent); another 1,000 may follow soon. That country must feel on sure ground, unthreatened and unmolested. Ghana probably needs to axe more than 50 percent of her own force, no? But, in the time it took to train replacements, the recidivist ruthless robbers would wipe us all out.

What I'd Say to My 16-Year-Old Self

What's with the rough, pineapple face? And quit being such a wuss. Walk over and say hi to that girl! She won't bite!

One Law I'd Abolish

Dangerous Risk Adrenaline Suicide by Fear of Falling

The crime of 'Attempted Suicide'. If I could reverse one law, this would be it! What business of the State is it, if I remove me from this world?

The Mistake

Even in your silence,
I feel the vital sense –
the telling thrashing about
of your throbbing heart.
That is true love, no doubt.

Even behind the pretty eyes
that turn soulful and soft
each time you look at me;
and through your wordless signs
I feel your love, for sure.

*Poem written in my past for the wrong person.

I Wish I Could Take This Back

There's no bigger critic than a guilty conscience.

About 5 years ago, I knew a girl called Josephine. Pretty, quiet, good - and she was my friend. But she changed her phone number. She gave the new one to me, but I did not save it. I went to her house, but they'd moved. We were really good friends. I think I must have hurt her. If I could take back something I've done to someone, I'd take back the silly way in which I lost contact with Josephine.



Is there anything you've also done to someone that you wish you could take back?

Barbie Dolls and Peacocks at the Accra Mall

I was just speaking with Old John. I asked him to tell me about markets long ago in this land. He said before colonisation, there were no fixed marketplaces where you could go and buy stuff daily.

There was a ‘watering hole’ where people and peoples from North and South met on scheduled days to barter salt for fish, cotton for iron, kontomire for cane rat, kola for white clay. When the goods were finished, they’d barter news. A man took a fifth wife; a woman had her Badu Dwan (a celebration of her tenth child); a boy and girl were banished from their town for festive fornication.

When the news is digested, messages would then change hands (or ears). A man sends his love to a maiden – he sends it with a guinea hen. A woman sends a half-piece of calico cloth to her daughter who lives with her sister at a far-off place.

Then, I told Old John about the Accra Mall; about the overdressed Barbie dolls and Peacocks that flock its corridors and spaces from morning till midnight. Old Man John said he was little surprised. Pre-colonial market day was also a time to show off wealth, magic, beauty, wives, horses, cattle, sons and daughters.

Old John thought the fixed market was introduced by European merchants to enable them offload their little-needed goods of European cloth, alcohol, guns and gunpowder, tobacco, mirrors and hats(!) to Africans!

So a mall may be American, but Accraians remain African!