How I Stumbled Upon Blogging

In 2008, Accra was a jaded jamboree. I preferred to float in bed and fantasise about far-flung frolicsome places. I had happened on ‘personal websites’ without knowing their sexy name - blog. Then, my friend, Sandra, introduced me her blog.  I was besotted three times over. A poet in hibernation, I dusted off my skills and became a seeker of ‘second sight’: that hallowed ‘hang’ to see extraordinary sights in everyday scenes. To experience and describe Accra’s rich, deep and colourful layers of sights, sounds, smells and tastes in a unique way. Blogging has given me a novel, vibrant city that’s all my very own.

A Toyota, No Doubt!

He fixed it there, just so you're doubly sure it's a Toyota!

The Fluid Traffic Lights in the City of Accra

I've heard it said about prisons, mental-health institutions and toilets. Now I add traffic lights. You can tell how civilised a country is by how its drivers mind the traffic lights (and traffic circles).

Five or six years ago, a friend and I saw a Nigerian businessman do a jaw-drop when visiting Accra for the first time. "They actually obey the lights?" He asked. He said the lights were useless décor back in his country. We had a sneaky suspicion that he was self-deprecating too hard.

That kind Nigerian gentleman; he visited five years too soon. Every morning at the Regimanuel traffic lights on the Spintex Road, I barely hang on to dear life after three 'Hail Marys' and four near misses.

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Racing with Cyclists in the City of Accra

My heart turns cartwheels every time I see a cyclist’s thirty-second madness. Pumping pedals to race your car, they’re in the lead for twenty seconds. Then you’re level...edge past... whiz ahead. Ten seconds scrape by; they surrender; admission of no catch-up chance. It’s the human spirit in the race of life.

The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence is gone. We buy late-night Kelewele at 5pm, and do dawn-jogging at 7am. Twenty of us at a pub are no match for 4 gunmen. Saturday night-crawling is a far-off, silver-screen fantasy. Security is merely a word we teach four-year-olds.

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2016

Four years from today, you'll leave home on Monday and get to Accra City Centre on Wednesday. If you don't take too long about your business, you may make it back home by Saturday. But we'll still vote for leaders.

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A Robbery Victim's View of Mob Justice

Days after my rebuke of the Nigerian mob murder, a robber's pistol poked my chest. And a friend's question probed my beliefs: do you still condemn mob justice? I thought about the shiny, black, cold metal and the nine years' worth of data lost. Then, my answer run out boldly: Yes. Mob justice is wrong and the lynching murder.

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