In Jest of MUSIGA

Just one pageant probably plays per night – pick whenever – in the city of Accra. Performers pitch bruising background battles to snatch a slot in the spectacle. Fiercer flashpoints erupt everywhere when fatuous awards are arriving. Every flippant, flippety-flop figures that ‘four or five figurines will be fine for me.’ Why, then, do performers pretend to pool together with one positive purpose?

Black Woman with Natural Hair

She explodes through the pixilated party-crowd with effervescing energy in her honeycomb. Kinky, coily, fluffy, black stuff, sparkling and fizzing towards the bar...where I stand. In her milky white dress, she radiates her foamy halo in my face. The hair whispers to me, and takes me. The cameo’s over, the music floods back. She glides away with me.

Old Warriors and Pretty Young Wives – Pt 5 (The End)

He shadowed her around the house

Suspicious if she fed a mouse

She'd stopped him from keeping his spear

Not at home or anywhere near

She stayed young, he grew older

And the gap between them bolder

And she started to miss her husband

The one that they had cruelly canned

As she cooked he’d sit behind her

While she fanned the fire in a blur

His memories would come a-floodin’

And he’d sing his fears a-sudden

Adwoa, I’m frightened by your fanning

Eno Adwoa, what are you planning?

Is there a spear out there tonight?

Eno, will I live to see the light?

Old Warriors and Pretty Young Wives - Pt 4

Déjà Vu

An old warrior lost his life
And his killer found a wife
Their little secret - it was kept
Though out the baby crept

The years flashed by rapidly
The warrior aged inevitably
But Adwoa, the warriors' woman
Her genes stayed young - unkind omen

First went her pleasant responses
Then came her repeat absences
He blamed it on that the child died
Other reasons, he feared, denied

He'd won a thousand battles
Acquired great wealth and chattels
But his power was on the wane
And the blood cooled in his vein

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Old Warriors and Pretty Young Wives - Pt 3

Murder

At night, with stealth, he crossed town bounds
Unseen by sentries, late lovers or hounds
When he reached the marked homestead
The time was still and eerie-dead

He could not see into the court
Nor could he starboard or port
But a fire was blazing high
Adwoa must be cooking nigh

Movement crossed his vision near
And he drew his trusted spear
And Adwoa took her big, broad fan
Thus unfolded love's cruel plan

Her fanning had a meaning 

That her husband was serening

In his corner lazy chair 

The spear struck, his head split like a pear

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Old Warriors and Pretty Young Wives - Pt 2

The Plot

She’d go to her old man at night

But he’d lost his warrior’s might

And would he take the father’s blame

When he could not light a flame?

The time, it was a-going

Her bump, it was a-showing

Women whispered under the trees

As she passed, through cough and sneeze

Oh, her name was Adwoa

Her old man called her Eno

But her response became sour

As he aged into a minnow

The young lovers turned to fear

Shame and execution nestled near

They had now to run away

Or the old cuckold to slay

Old Warriors and Pretty Young Wives - Pt 1

Just A Little Bit of Fun

An old warrior and his pretty young wife

Lived a quiet and peaceful life

With the spoils of war, and not a care

But a fire was raging in her

A great conqueror he'd once been

But his spirit was no longer keen

And her blood was hot and boiling

And her old man just a-toiling

So she made friends with a young man

A fierce warrior from a nearby clan

And they’d sneak away many nights

While the vet dreamt of his ancient fights

In no time, she had a fever

Her young champ had loved with fervour

And the oldie would soon come round

To her little growing mound

Can We Ever Like Our Cops?

Tell me - is there anything rarer in this land than a courteous traffic cop? (Not counting dollar transactions or the frequency of my blog posts). Recently, a cop 'arrested' my sister for jumping the "amber lights" at 10 pm. After apologies and a promise to be of good behaviour only made him angry, she resigned to going to the police station with him. Don't you think that should have pleased him? Well it didn't.

One hour later, he had failed to bully her to offer him a bribe of 400 Cedis. And he could no longer take her to the station because he couldn't explain why a 5-minute drive had taken an hour at traffic-less 10 pm. When passersby inched closer to smell what he was cooking up at the roadside at that time, he quickly crawled into a getaway hole.

The men in black

Are difficult to back.

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The Twelve Deaths of Chivalry

The door flies agape, and the boor slimes in. He flings it the other way, and nearly plasters the face of the woman in his wake. He plods to the queue, and snakes along to the head where a little kid stands. On the next turn, he swats the infant aside with his left hand. While making his order, his ‘megaphone’ bangs out of his pocket. In three minutes, he broadcasts his side affair to the whole world. Then, he makes his order. He foot-sweeps the tiles on his way out. He flops into the car before he remembers the woman he came with. She’s barely sat down, when he shoots the car forward, cutting across a moving car beside him. His music blares out in doltish decibels. His smirk shows he’s proved how important he is.

The Small Claims Man

That afternoon, he was uneasily installed behind a tiny, dark-wood desk. That morning, he’d chosen a chimera of a lime green shirt matched with a black necktie with dirty white stripes...or a white necktie with faded black stripes. If planned as a weapon to disorient me, then first blood to him. While he negotiated a small insurance claim with me, my eyes tried to negotiate a huge, yellow splotch out of his tie. Both negotiations failed. We agreed to come back another day. I then escaped from this semi-piebald-semi-skewbald circus.

On the Transience of Public Office

I want to live my life
Above political strife
The level I'm at today
Shouldn't overnight sneak away

Honey, I Changed My Face

I guess padded bras and bums fall in this category – duty of disclosure. My office mates cannot agree on whether she should have told him. I’m talking about the ‘ugly’ Chinese woman who went under the knife, erased her past, loathsome life, and then became a wife. If there’s a duty, is it legal or moral? Office Female Miss Little Naughty says she didn’t owe him zilch. But she says he’d have owed her a duty of disclosure if he was a transsexual. How about hair implants? Or breast enlargement? Or replaced teeth? Liposuction? It can get absurd. Oh, bleached / toned / lightened / de-melanin-ed skin? Duty, anyone?

Washington Monument to be Renamed for Obama!

This heading doesn't deserve 'funny'. But, then again, ha ha ha ha ha. Ha! Funny and disturbing at once. It is a joke. In more ways that one, it is. It would not happen in the United States. But it is threatening to happen ... in Ghana (where else, but God's own country of doltish pantomime?). Citizens stirred one morning to hear about a change. A monument named after the designer of our flag (God bless her flowery creativity) was about to be ... deflowered. The national hockey stadium was named after the hallowed matron and was well-received. Somebody ejected prematurely from their bed and decided to change that. It was going to be renamed after a much-loved ex president who died on the job. Never mind that the former 'High Street' and a few other monuments are already his in name (directly or indirectly). When the public rightly cried out, an anaemic explanation was offered: "We won't rename the entire stadium; only the brick and mortar; we will keep her name on the grass". Okay, so it is not really grass they play on, but you get my indignation. Rubbish, poppycock, claptrap! AND WHILE SHE IS STILL ALIVE! When people get hare-brain ideas (in a land of little light) and zoom off to announce it on the nearest working microphone, this is what happens.The president appears indigné aussi. There's said to be a summons to the presidency. How do you start to explain away such a cerebral non-event?

(Picture credit - www.edelgrass.com)

Neither is Spelling!

Life is not eaZy?

As seen near the presidential palace.

Judgment Debts & Other Random Questions

Will Martin Amidu now go far back in history?

Will the fires stop if the petitioners win their case?

Will RLG next build houses for members of the opposition?

Will something, anything, please keep Kevin-Prince from Ghana?

The Man Who Wanted Minerals

He's a cool-looking dude. I can almost see the silver spoon in his mouth. I can see the 'uppity' in his face and all, except he needs the 7-minute workout. He plonks on the seat next to me in business class and kicks off his shoes. Strike one. When the stewardess shuffles over to us, she sounds genuinely like she's from Southern Africa. She asks if I'd like some tea, hot chocolate, coffee or juice. I say juice. She says she has pineapple, apple and 'mengo'. I choose 'mengo'. Seat-mate has already snoozed off. She wakes him up and repeats the 'mengo' speech. Then he asks, 'Don't you have minerals?' Strike two. She's lost; I'm shocked. Were we in 1985? He goes on, 'Like Coke, Mirinda...' That's strike three. She shakes her head. He whines, 'I don't like those hot things.' So he picks pineapple.

Poor Mother of Poor Twins

The sex was unlawful - sixteen year olds can't have legal sex in Ghana - and poorly executed (unprotected). I guess she didn't feel like a child then. The twins are lovely bundles of joy as children should be, except they're just one bundle! Suddenly their mother is a child; not mature enough to accept other children (her children) as they are. Then, again, I wonder if I'd be different.

Early Early Birds in the City of Accra

Is there still such a thing as stirring early at 7 am in Accra? The traffic has wrought wise owls of us all. We've had to push forward leave-nest time by 15 minutes every 6 months for the past 10 years. Now I wake up at silly-goose hour. The city flies the coop when a subway is suggested, and we're all chicken-livered at the idea of bicycles. But why should we ride and be a sitting duck for the trotro-bus to peck our limbs off? They swoop around the city as the crow flies. By the time the city authorities get their ducks in one row, the early-bird worm will wriggle out at 2 am.

How the Military Assaulted, Non-Assaulted, then Un-Assaulted a Journo

When you blow a cloud of dust on my face, or spill a cup of water down my back, tickle my pits, dribble your forefinger down my cheek, or trickle melted chocolate on my chest while I’m asleep, without my consent, you have assaulted me in law. So when videos went viral of Ghanaian G.I.s (hyperbole alert!) choke-holding, hammer-locking, strong-shoving and face-tossing a pussycat journo on Independence Day, I joined to shout the ‘shame’ refrain. And when the military opened Ostrich investigations, called as many as zero witnesses and played possum with the raw, stripped, naked truth, I dog-pissed on their decency. What did they go and do? They went to say sorry. I accept; I hope the victim does too.

Kantamanto - A Reason for a Fire

I recently favourited a tweet by @Be_Wisdom: “Surburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them ~ Bill Vaughan”. Some developer or interloper whooshed a flame through a tin-and-wood Central-Accra market that's crowded thick as fleas. The police won’t find the arsonist. I suspect strongly that the cinders are intended to make way for the construction of a capitalist, concrete-architectural crime-scene (how else to describe the explosive sprout of sterile office and apartment blocks in the least-green city that I know?). These traders are squatters in most of these settlements – we all know that; but usually squatters on governmental no-man’s land; permitted to settle for a decade or two or three. After the cinders, the riots, the cracked skulls, the lies, the justifications and the public loss of interest, a hideous and humongous habitat will hulk over the land that was known as Kantamanto.