Check Point Charades in the City of Accra

And then the road dives into a vale, together with the black woods flanking it on other side. There’s nothing to see on the opposite lane. No cars, no lights, no people. But my line only inches ahead by the treble minute.

I have not seen them yet, but I know they’re there. It is past 10 O’clock. A bold night suggests itself. A restless driver behind me swerves out of the queue onto the jagged, hard shoulder. He meets my eyes with a bright-eyed smile, and burns up the dirt sidetrack. Another car follows. And another.

My turn comes. It is a bold night for sure. There are three of them standing silhouetted in the headlights.

“How is the evening?”
“The evening’s over.”
“What did you bring from town?”
“I’m coming from work.”
“On Friday? What work…”
“…I’m a lawyer.”
“Ei! You look young-o. Small boy lawyer. You know we and you lawyers, we are brothers.”
“Charlie, your brother is sleepy-o.”
“And your brother is cold. Won’t you give me something small for tea?”
“Here, take this. Which tea woman will come by now, anyway?”
“Oh, they come-o. Carry on, my Lord.”

Like most of them, he does not know he just addressed me as a judge.

They are not searching the cars or looking in faces. As I coax Maxine (my car) forward, I scan three cars parked a ways off the road. There is a half dozen people standing around, lips chattering in sync. As Maxine cruises past, they stretch their arms with open hands towards their captors. A bold night all round.

Badly Deflated Bums on the Beaches of Accra

At the beach on a beautiful, sun-kissed day, the fine sands always appear brighter under other people’s feet. Blankets of it stretch for endless mega-miles, and take on a deeper silver-white on farther eye-sweeps.

When you and your friends are having a kaffee-klatsch kick-about in your borrowed Black Acre, a litter of dipso-wino, liver-labouring louts leave their own wider White Acre to sandcrash on your game.

Scarcely knowing who they are not, what sordid substance they so lovingly abuse, or what embittered hopelessness has hijacked their heathen dreams, I surrender beloved Black Acre to them, and go for a pacific promenade with my lucky limbs still lithe and lissom.

The Ringing Lemons in the City of Accra

Would you accept a spanking new car which only drove in blind reverse? What dark torture might you devise for the man who sold you a wonder drug that lay wicked waste to your enchanting flower garden only to immunise the weeds as they defile your grounds? And though you may not be American, what would you think if you heard that GWB had hurriedly dispatched the sons and daughters of good American families to some senseless killing fields with no radio contact with their commanders?

So, what’s in a name? Simple, ego! The reason why we do not reject names that are simply not working, or are no longer working: Great Britain, The American Dream, The Dream Team, African Unity. See my direction? So, what’s in a name? Arrogance, snob appeal!

The City of Accra (as safe as she still is) is no longer the haven that she used to be. Every Accraian has a cell phone, or will soon acquire one. It is for security. The emergency lines have not been taught what an emergency is. While les sinistres are chasing you at night or tearing down your door, it makes sense to call your best friend and say simply, “Robbers, help!” Then, while you’re bound up and counting possibly your last seconds on Earth, your friend can call around for the police or whoever will help.

But how can we get help when the lion of service providers takes down the service for eight disquieting hours on a weekend night? It happened on Saturday. And when I was going to bed at 3 am, so many Accraians were crippled ceramic ducks.

They turn our lovely phones into lowly lemons; curious cars that only drive backwards; skyscrapers without stairs or elevators. Because of the snob appeal, Accraians will continue to use this service provider. A new addition is coming to town. Three million breaths wait, bated, expectant! Nokia did not make my phone to be a monument to inefficiency, silence, impotence.

The Child

Is your heart of the whole
In what it is you’re doing?
Or do you sometimes wish
You were doing something else?

Do you do it with a free mind
Or is your hand forced to it?
And even when the end feels right
Do you think you could do more?

Do you think you’re in the right place
Or are you moving at the wrong pace?
And if life should end today
Would you regret your options made?

If life is one hard game
How are your pieces playing out?
Is there a burning need
Or hunger in your soul?

Do you meet the morn with hope
And go to bed with a light load?
Do you take the time to stop
And ask yourself: is it worth it?

Whatever you start to do
Do you finish what you start?
And are these questions really meant
To be answered? None at all!

Azumah Nelson, National Hero II

So, the Lion of Africa could not even scratch a hairline fracture on Ayers Rock (Uluru). Wait, that is mighty unfair! The rock is already an awesome, eerie red, so its bruises could hardly come to show, no?

Azumah stood in high water’s dreaded way for the love of the children. I heard he called up the Aussie Cat to donate some Aussie dollars to a Ghanaian cause. The sly feline, licking a double old wound inflicted by the Gladiator of Accra, would not let a cent pass without an avenging duel. He knew he was younger and kept in much the better shape.

And, yet, in the final rounds, the Tommy cat tail-between-legged all over the ring Down Under, fearful that the lion had one puissant paw stroke left in him. Azumah did it for the children, and came out unscathed. He is twice the man he was, when he woke up this morning in a Sydney Hotel Room.

Azumah Nelson, National Hero I

And when the bell chimes, he must lock his eagle eyes on feline Fenech’s claw-paws, not blinking or retreating; thinking, while not imposing.

Between ducking the birdshots on the fly, like quail, and skipping on his semi-geriatric legs, he must freeze his granite mind on his former glorious fights, and recall the one sucker punch which never failed him in a deadly duel.

Then, he must bide his ticking time, and (if he’s not already been pulverised by the vicious and younger man) he must wantonly unleash a deadly dumdum to break the atlas and axis bones in the vain vertebrae of the Aussie Cat.

Tuesday Twilight Traffic in the City of Accra

The clashing cultures of the farming forest and the fishing coast have left me in a tangled skein as to whether Terrible Tuesday is a labour or leisure day. It should be arch relief to blame the bustling market squares for the passage gridlock. Sadly, I do not note more muscle-bound yam pedlars or lane-hopping hawkers, at high noon Tuesday, in the City of Accra.

The giddy malaise infects every artery out of the pulsating heart of the city, as Tuesday rudely farts its motor fumes and perspiration in the weary and famished face of the homebound Accraian. And it all won’t evanesce until way past the boring evening news, or benign bedtime.

So, who (or wicked what) is gushing trebly into the City of Accra on Tuesday, that doesn’t sweep this way on any other day? There must be some overrun answer prostating somewhere. Or am I soaring above the city authorities? The traffic is terrible, and somebody’s thinking is blatantly bagatelle-blank.