Heel The World

Two young men still smouldering out of school. They snip and suture soft Italian leather from scratch (after they have gauged your feet with true callipers). They call the magnificent shoes 'Heel the World'. They give a percentage back through a charity. It's not confusing. It's inspiring and quite clever. They're making things happen in the city of Accra. It's pure art!

Oh Look at That Happy Face!!!

This is my friend (for five minutes) Yaw. I saw him in front of my parents' house at Achimota while visiting. I saw this amazing shine in Yaw's face and politely asked him if I could take his pic. He jumped at it.

He was eating cooked beans in a polythene bag...with so much ecstasy on his face. I asked him to show me how he ate it and he sucked it lovingly out of the bag.

When I thought I had taken the second (and final) picture, he demanded that I take another.This (above) is his own chosen pose.

He chose this one too. Oh 'mehhhhn' the happiness on his face! Sadly, when Yaw was gone, I was told that he had a 'mental condition' but was going/growing untreated.

I thought of how many of us 'ghost' around our worlds unhappy with all the blessings that we have. In five minutes, Yaw showed me how much he already had of the commodity so many chase without success.

The Vitriol of a Foreigner

Two kinds of people go to ‘foreign’ countries – visitors and bigots. For far too long, the creative aspects of the life of Africans (and Asians and Native Americans and Native Australians, etc) has only been studied as Anthropology, while the Euro-American way has been studied as Art.

I have always wanted to meet blogger Holli, but she’s frankly not worth a second of my time. To be very honest, I wish the people over at ‘Immigration’ would keep a strict eye on her status and see her off as soon as it is time.

Why am I saying this? There was a street festival last weekend at Jamestown (an old settlement of Accra). It is not the most densely populated part of Accra (contrary to Holli’s lies). I will leave it at that and ask you to make the time to compare different accounts of the festival for yourself.

First, puke on BIGOT Holli’s vitriol here.

Then, luxuriate in GHANAIAN Nana Kofi’s pictures here.

Finally, ruminate on 'EXPAT' Graham's riposte here. (I know him and he's a GENUINE 'visitor')

Do Holli, Nana Kofi and Graham describe the same event? Yes. But one’s description is sick, bigoted, hateful and dishonest. How I now value the saying about a picture being worth a thousand words (and also an attempt at 1000 fair and honest words - Graham)

The Services Make the City

The streets are choked; won't let the traffic flow freely. The pipes are parched; no water rushes through at all. The cables are confused; the current streaks one way and then the opposite. Is this only a city because it's crawling with millions of pacific people?

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

Silly, Self-Love Friday: The Hunk in the Mirror

Swaggering down the office corridor towards the dividing glass door, I saw this swanky-dandy, dressed-on-point, God-I-hate-that-dude kind of guy strutting towards me. In a panic of pride, I picked my phone to call my girl to make sure she was far from him. To my bright-eyed surprise, he picked up his phone too to call his girl to make sure she was far from me. Then it hit me in my slender body. The God-I’m-so-envious-of-him guy was my own reflection.

Hunger Strike, Dumber Strike

Ah! Some grieving group of teachers strafed their stomachs with a hunger strike in protest against the belly-full leaders of yet another teachers’ association. Such benighted belittling of that wonderful political tool! I have scarcely heard of a dumber strike. (Be sure to listen to the ridiculous audio here).

No sooner had their sham stomach shutdown started than they quelled it questionably by crouching behind a court order (obtained by the police) restraining them from the hunger strike. Confused? So am I. They’re simply saying in order to be law-abiding citizens, they’ll go back to eating. That’s male-cattle excrement.

Lake Bosumtwi

Refreshing, sun-blocked, some-earth-some-grass glade. Running round a terra cotta, waking lake. Far flung from where most of you (ad)venture. Swimmers tumble rough in the eddy, while dancers bop and bump around the plank-wood stage. The bush-meat pepper-soup bubbles in a cauldron under a mahogany tree, not five feet from the palm-wine ‘pulpit’. Huddled close are fish and rice and loads of fantasy foods. Holidaying here is far lovelier than Accra.