Wild Country

You aviate for 35 minutes, or dirt-drive for 4 hours. You arrive in another country - wild, untamed, raw, confusing. Cool customer service in Accra is on vacation, but this Gehenna of Graces does not even have it. You see some bum breakfast when the sun goes down, your a/c is fixed after the heat season, the internet crawls like it’s been caught in a net, and ‘civil’ civil servants treat you like some fetid felon. It’s really wild, even in Kumasi. So scary to leave Accra.

Paid Protectors? ‘Fraid they’re Gangsters!

No! We don't want to frighten visitors away, and almost everybody will go with hair unharmed while pacing through dark, dark, Accra. But half a dozen policemen were just jailed for rogue-robbing a businessman in his hapless hotel room. So, last night, at 9 p.m., I slackened speed to give two cops a ride up the Spintex Road. But, wanting to arrive safe and sound, I changed my mind and simply sped off.

The Perils of a Pretty Car

This time it hit cosily close to home. My main man was teeing down the Tema Motorway and minding his own beeswax, as he always does, when a hail of heavy objects hurtled into his windscreen. There, in the shadowy shrubs, he was meant to halt, be hustled, robbed and maybe hurt, but he hissed on with a smashed facade. And it was not even late. It’s sensible not to stop in Accra no matter what has struck your car.

Nightdress Parade

In the suburban streets of the City of Accra, when the daylight is already broader than their sofa hips, many women sail about in their sheer nightclothes. At a 6 O’clock convenience kiosk, this mammoth matron scratched her Grand Canyon through the rear of her see-through frock, right in front of paralysed passersby. A keen-eyed mate suffered this, and thought it bloggable material for me.

Babies’ Night Out

So, my colleague is dining out at eleven ‘midnight’, when a tight, comely cluster of barely-stopped-suckling cubs ‘swashbuckle’ in. The oldest of them cannot be more than twelve. We used to be timid in our time. These kids are cool and confident; making business calls, ordering ‘haute cuisine’ and acting cosy and lovey-dovey. They grow up so fast, now!

Parental (Un)Control

When some parents settle it that even parental-uncontrolled DSTV is not engaging enough to enthral their adventurous adolescents, they line their pockets with lucre, and chauffeur them to the prepossessing positive influence of the Accra Mall; leaving them there on their own, obligingly. These kidults then haunt the ‘complicated’ corridors with purpose until after dark.

Children and Pastimes

This week, let's explore children and leisure in the City of Accra (knowing that many kids from poor homes already work, and have no time to put up their infant feet). Pointedly, what pastimes are parents obliging their children to pursue.