Electric Bills & 'Compound' Houses in the City of Accra

A compound clustered with twenty tiny cubicles - detached or semi - with twenty families 'tadpoled' into them. Human activity is measured by one power meter.

One government worker possesses the Tv, the hot plate, the iron, the fan and the fridge. Nineteen other families 'temp' his toys from him; cook their gruel on his hot plate, preserve their meat in his fridge and watch cheap South American Tv soaps into his sleeping time.

When the electric shock (sorry, bill) kicks in on the 29th, the landlord, without calculating, coldly carves a chubby chunk for 'white collar' to settle. The 19 families plead penury and unemployment and 'snitch' that it is the government man who hoards the Tv and other gainful gadgets. Nobody wishes to install a separate meter for their room alone.

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When Your Debtor Says You Owe Him

Mr. B. Borrower (B for ‘Barbarian’) cadged his friend, Mr. B. Birdbrain (B for ‘Boob’) for a loan of 200 Ghana Cedis. Birdbrain had only 150 that day, and loved his neighbour more than himself by handing it all over. Birdbrain felt his heart moved by the frowning face of wretched Borrower and pledged to provide the extra 50 Cedis on the morrow. The discourteous debtor accepted the 150 Cedis and said “Thanks. So you owe me 50 Cedis”!

What? Was it impudence or lazy language use?

(True story, made-up names. W’abodam papa!)

Social Media's Upheaval

Cynicism seized my mind and ceased my heart as I watched horrible fires and rioting in Clapham, Ealing Broadway, Croydon and Peckam. The kids are apparently not organised crime gangs. They're just angry teens with ski masks and no jobs or social centres. They're 'organising' with social media. The level of deprivation is more dire in Accra. Should we hope the poorest and street kids do not discover social media and its organisational advantages or find it affordable? God help the poor. God help the rich to help the poor. Or else, God help the rich!

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Caught on the Crotch-Watch

(Welcome to Silly Friday)

Women always cavil that men address their cleavage in conversation instead of their faces. Well, it’s true, and we aren’t ashamed to admit it. For many years, I’ve been catching women watching my crotch from the corner of their eyes (and other men’s crotches too). Of course, they pretend no such thing has happened. It happens particularly in offices when the woman is sitting down as you approach her. So we ‘cornered’ a colleague who admitted it to us and blamed it on our tight or body-fitting clothes. We did not bother to counter with a question on their low necklines – somehow we knew they’d say it wasn’t quite the same. She said she wondered if some guys kept a pot in their crotch.

As long as you remain on the crotch-watch, we’ll feel free with the cleavage eye-grope.

Living in a Bubble

A doctor friend asked me, "Who can survive on only one job today?"

A student friend asked me, "Whose mummy doesn't have a car?"

It's falsely looking like a monster middle class in Ghana. Who's doing hard work? Who's doing honest work? Who's doing only one? Whose mummy doesn't have a car?

When will the bubble burst? Would it be violent?

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Disappearing Drug

Village thug peacocks his way down an ill-lit path silently daring ghosts and sleeping villagers to come wrestle with him. He believes he wields the power to disappear into thin air. Two members of a rival gang un-fade from the darkness to menace him. Village Thug derides them and tries to evaporate, but the drug or divinity or hoodoo does not work. They wring his neck until he dies. I saw this last night in a Nigerian movie and laughed myself senseless. Disappearing drug, huh!

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The Lamppost

Out of habit, he haunts his house-front in the night. Oblivious of the now-glacial Accra night-time draft, he stands bare-chested and lonely like a naked lamppost.

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