White Dress on Rainy Day

You chose to wear a weeny, white muslin dress out on a rainy day. The now-see-through top tells me the skies burst out on you. The muddy splash across the tail tells me you sauntered too near a puddle as a car whizzed by.

I Woke Up in Another Country

 
 

Screen clipping taken: 10/20/2010, 7:36 PM

 
 

Credit: myjoyonline.com

 
 

I keep asking myself: is this

happening in Ghana?

 
 

 
 

Screen clipping taken: 10/20/2010, 7:43 PM

 
 

Credit: ghanaweb.com

 
 

And this?

1000 Reasons not to Pay in the City of Accra

It will suck your brains out of your ears to know what efforts some Accraians make to avoid paying money for services they use. It could be as comical as eating food and refusing to pay because they saw a mite on the side plate. Or it could be car replacement part used for months and rejected as fake after 6. People have devised part payment as part laxative to the payment constipation. So, there might be a wedding whose cake is half-paid-for. From the honeymoon, the bride calls the baker to declare that she did not like hue of purple used, and the newlyweds will not pay the remainder. If you investigate, they’ve also not paid the wedding planner they could ill-afford. I’ve seen pretentious parents engage children’s party services, make the half-payment and pretend to find reasons of poor delivery not to pay the rest. I’ve seen it in legal services, real estate, car hire purchase. Does anybody have any experiences?

An Angel without a Face

A little thought before a media report winnows the wheat from the chaff. I woke up to the gladsome news that Miss Ama Nettey was Miss Malaika 2010. What was missing from the tale was the angel’s snapshot. How do you herald the winner of a beauty pageant without her photograph?

My 10 Little Sins

Plinky asked me to list 10 things that made me happy. It took so long (and was so hard) to go beyond 3. I must have a sad life. Can you get 10? Here are mine below.

Lil Girl
Because she's good for me and understands me more than anybody else.

Writing
Because it is my conduit to my soul.

Being a Lawyer
Because it's made me come to know how society really works (and I can even break some of the rules safely).

Marion
Because she gets me around easily and, let's face it, she is sooooo fine!

Blogging
Because it's practice for writing and has brought me so many friends.

Court Rooms
Because of the witty battles and the permitted aggression.

Cuerpo de Mujer
Well Pablo Neruda said it all:



Body of woman, white hills, white thighs,

you look yourself like a world in your attitude of surrender.

My rough peasant's body digs in you

and makes the son leap from the depths of the earth.

Poetry
Because when you understand it, you understand life.

Swimming
Well, swimming, dance and sex are 3 manifestations of the same passion! (And wherever there's a pool, there's always a flirt!)

Chocolate
It releases that thing with that big scientific name that makes us light in the head and feel good about ourselves.

Prostitutes Don’t Have Friends

At wooded Cantonments in the City of Accra, near the landmark post office, I coasted round her wide-curve hips and on my friendless homeward route. I could not stop to enjoy her because she sold her time and curves. Social rules lie that she cannot be my friend.

The Hausa Koko Seller

On a cold, wet, Adenta night, the Hausa Koko seller!

'Land Guards' in the City of Accra

They fight on the land. They fight for the land. They maim on the land. They maim for the land. They kill on the land. They fight encroachers. They fight claimants. They fight the police. They fight the law. They fight (or snub) the courts. They are the law. They have the guns. They have the support in high places. They have the invisibility. They have the alibi. They have the anonymity. They have the land. They have the drugs. They have the greed. They have the back of the person with the money.

Send Me a Text Message

I’m often locked up in meetings-for-miles or at solemn places where I can’t receive calls. My phone is rigged to reject calls with a message - I’m engaged and can’t pick your call. Can you send a text please? Four times out of five the message alert doesn’t beep. It’s not because they’re loath to disturb (for they can irritate you with redials forever if you ignore the maiden ring). Is it that the calls are usually bagatelle? Or is it that people are just text-timid?

Could We Have Built This Differently?

Could there have been another way? Could there have been another way to build (in) Accra? A way to keep out all the rain and yet keep the rooms cool while it shone? Could we have avoided all the glass and still kept out the flies and birds? Could we have explored mud-brick, wood or something not as dense as concrete? Could we have built around our trees, avoiding the easier choice of scything them down? Could we have kept our water bodies for beauty and ecology? Could we have continued with planning when we finished with Tema? Was Ghana not always meant to look as green and neat as Akosombo? Could we? Couldn’t we?

Too Many Hair Stylists in the City of Accra

East Legon, Accra. But also Madina. And Kaneshie. And Dansoman. Every quarter of Accra is festooned in yellow, blue, green, white, etc of MVP, Revlon, UB and Dark & Lovely. The ads are draped on wooden shacks and wooden kiosks, sandcrete stalls and disused steel sea-freight containers. These are all hair stylists. There are puny hair-styling schools every forty paces and hair stylists every thirty. There cannot be half-enough heads to go all round for business. So what are they training the girls for?

The Creative Parts of Accra

It’s so easy to perch pretty in your tight spot in Accra and ‘enclose’ the economy in Ridge and Osu; Kaneshie and Makola. I’ve recently ‘touristed’ the dustier parts and scanned technology shacks with computers, musical instruments, cameras and boom mics couched behind mechanic yards or ‘chop bars’. Young men mixing audio and video and creating the modern music sounds of Ghana. I totally dig that.

The Empire Which Died in its Sleep

And so the greatest empire formed over the land now called Ghana was brought to a humiliating end without a single rifle shot. I don’t know what to make of it all; of the novel pacifism of its formerly warlike rulers; of the treachery of the ‘enemy’. I mean, Troy had its horse, Rome its hellish decadence, and Germany its ambitious war. But why did this empire not fight? Its name means “because of war”!

The Radio of a Night Watchman

The night watchman's job must be as lonely as death. How often do I see him striding in his give-away clothes with a transistor radio locked down on his shoulder in the oblivion of some overloud treble talk?

The Swinger

Swinging showily down the spruced-up sidewalk of the Ring Road East, just past the Ako-Adjei interchange, in her blue denims, a flimsy, frilly cobalt top and a coffee ‘overtop’, I eyed her as her wonderfully moulded body perked up the streets where the cuckoo crowd clusters not, whether morning, sun or five.

Population Circus in Accra

The homeless hustlers of Accra loathe being counted by the government. They’ve been reckoned once or twice before, but they were not lavished with the loot or nice living. Why should they let you number their foreheads in their open-sky bed-and-bath-rooms? Do you care? They heckle and harangue the head-counters from ‘their’ streets until they ‘heel’ it to the hotels. There, some managers would not let them count the guests. Maybe they aren’t supposed to be there. There’s a census going on. Or did I hear wrong; is it a circus?

Female ‘Bonk’ Workers

A bank is NOT a safe place to keep your valuables chaste. Maybe not in Ghana today, where there’re no jobs for fresh graduates, and those who grab a position (or is it the position which ‘grabs’ them) suffer slavish terms. We’ve always inferred that some banks shanghai their female employees to do ‘a little extra’ banging banking to suck in the moneyed clients. So, while Clients can keep on keeping their gold and diamonds in a bank, young female employees may well lose their Rubies and Pink Sapphires after working hours.

Brains or Beauty?

Would I rather be super intelligent or extremely good looking? It's past 10 p.m. on Sunday, I am tired and sleepy, hating that Monday comes immediately after Sunday and probably not thinking right. It seems to me that it does not matter which one you are, you'd get by and ahead anyway.

Curse of a Chinese Coffin

Colossal China is creeping across the continents, I know. But, for God’s sake, why should Greener Ghana, which vainly values funerals first on the social calendar, import timber caskets from Clayey China?

Go Shoot Togo, Not My House!

To crush and annihilate Togo! I grew up thinking that was what we had the army for. You see, when I was growing up, there was a military junta in charge, and it was not that friendly with Togo. Soldiers strutted on the streets and eyeballed, menaced or slapped fear into the hearts of civilians. Ok, so I also thought the men in green kept civilian discipline.

So I was wrong in some respects. We are now democratic, and our soldiers are stationed straight to ‘blitzkrieg’ deter Togo and other neighbouring countries, or to help in natural and human disasters within the country. Soldiers have sometimes done more than keep the peace within. They have sometimes flexed their muscle in disagreements with us poor civilians.

So, imagine my discomfort when, in these days when the military has cleaned up its image and gained more respect than many state institutions, I read that the military had shot down a pastor’s house because they claimed he’d built it on their land! See the story here.