Ambulances = Civilisation

Helicopter: an aircraft without wings that has large blades on top that go round. It can fly straight up from the ground and can also stay in one position in the air.

Ambulance: a vehicle with special equipment, used for taking sick or injured people to a hospital.

Ghana: a prehistoric country with few ambulances and no helicopter ambulances.

In This Life

You're here one moment and then you're gone. It's just like that. Be nice and friendly to all you meet.

Maintenance at Work?

As seen in the building I work in.

Why, China, Why?

No apologies for this generalisation. I’m informed that a particular group of people in Ghana are notorious for this. They jet to China and fly back with imitation goods with authentic labels. The established electronics companies outsource production to China for its cheap labour. Some Chinese companies secretly produce more than is ordered. The extra white goods, which are of low quality, are sold to ‘these people in Ghana’ (and perhaps elsewhere in Africa). The Chinese 'manu-fake-turers' remember to give you authentic labels. Back home, ‘these people’ sell the ersatz electronics at same high price as the real! Shame on ‘these people’ and shame on those who do this in China.

Circus of Cyclists

Something spectacular is bound to pass whenever I drive in the heat of the afternoon in the city of Accra. Or rather, I catch the extraordinary life in the everyday scenes. Today, I reflected on the Accraian impression that the rules are made for punishment and not convenience. Two cyclists would not remain in the traffic queue. Blazing down the dividing line in opposite directions, they saw each other too late. They almost battle-rammed each other as their shoulders knocked together and threw them off course. The bikes wove and wobbled between the cars into the bushy shoulders...with their riders astride.

Talented Kids on TV3

The last time I mentioned TV3, I ‘dissed’ them for not proof-reading. I have something else to say today.

TV3 has a kids talent/entertainment programme “Talented Kids”. I saw 20 minutes of it, and I’m taken.

Not like many a talent show in Ghana, the kids are not doing traditional dance and poetry recital alone and calling it talent. That was refreshing. The exaggerated drama of that kind of recital is particularly uncomfortable to watch.

TV3’s talented kids can sing, rap, really dance and even play musical instruments like drums and the atenteben (bamboo flute?).

Well done to them: TV3 and especially the kids.

Send the Bill

Blogger friend, F, has lost a white shirt. I know it’s hardly the news. He bought a coke. He now thinks it was not a coke. It was a fake. It had “something in it” which effervesced and spilled into his big-event shirt. He kept the rest of the poison. He asked me what he could sue for. I said he could claim the laundry costs. I did not say from whom.