Teshie-Nungua Township in the City of Accra

T-N is moored along, and hermetically hugs, the built-up coastal highway from La two-thirds of the way to Tema, in southern Accra – a community which sorely suffers from runaway population. The dual carriageway arrives from La, and aborts just before Teshie. Many times, I’m told, the T-N people have robustly resisted attempts by successive governments to broaden their stretch of the highway. The people are completely content with their all-purpose, sleep-and-work-in kiosks, which are almost anchored on the street, and only separated in places by iron railings. The street surfaces are, past Labadi Beach Hotel, old, dusty or potholed. There is a mercenary conspiracy between transport vehicles and chronic, chaotic, street criss-crossers to make a thick jam of the traffic. Still, T-N boasts of the Otu Military Barracks, Harbin, a bowling house, a decent police station, numerous nice hotels and cool, sandy beaches. It also has at least one nice residential area. Driving through after 9 pm, last night, I saw so many people peddling bread, soap powder and the usual in the traffic.

Peanut Butter, Jam & Other Random Questions

Is Pres Mills feeling the 100-degree heat at 100 days?
Does it matter the difference between peanut butter and jam?
Are pirate-fishermen still messing with the US Navy?
Is the Sri Lankan Army flirting with genocide?

First rule of relationships: Open Communication

Open Communication
I've thought about relationship rules, and I've come to realise clearly that talking openly about everything, right from the start, is the best way to nurture and keep a good relationship. Of course it doesn't work alone, but it ranks close to the golden rule.

Easter Day in the City of Accra

You’ll find no people in the neighbourhoods; they have all thronged the chubby churches. Even the irreverently rackety dogs seem to respect the moment of the occasion. By midday, when I’m rolling on a holiday ride, the streets are blanched with women, children, men, and more women who have quickly colonised the great outdoors with their over-obvious piety. I turn down the devilish dancehall playing on the car stereo, for I fear I will not relish the poison darts the onlookers will strafe this way.

Random Questions

Will Obama dare tighten immigration rules?
Is our president afraid of the ex ex?
How often does police surveillance go wrong?
Will Liverpool and Bayern now switch to cricket?

Sex, Size and Payment in the City of Accra

Venue: Soldier Bar, somewhere at Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra.
Time: 11 pm.
Day: Any day.

Man Pervert (MP): How much?

Underage Girl (UG): You have to drop your pants first.

MP: Why would I want to do that?

UG: I need to see whatchu got. Price is per hour, according to size!

HMMM!

M. K. Ghandi is someone I admire

M. K. Ghandi
Because he was the most human of us all

Steve Biko
Because he would have been the legitimate forerunner of the anti-apartheid movement

Yitzhak Rabin
Because he would have managed to bring peace to the Middle East

Barack Obama
Because you just came back from sequestration on Mars if you do not know why

Kaka
Because he combines supreme talent with the fear of God and modesty - a rare thing in the 2000s

Corazon Aquino
For such grace, dignity and bravery

Aung San Suu Kyi
Because she has more balls than the military in Burma

Tony Blair
Because he has the gift of gab

William Jefferson Clinton
One politician I could trust that he really believed in what he was saying (bar Lewinsky), plus he has no prejudice or bigotry in him

Nelson Mandela
For how he kept a volatile country together in the 90s

Living in the Osu Cemetery

Squatting serenely in the sparkling sunlight, somewhat betwixt the sprawling sports stadium and the skeletal State House, in Osu, is the Osu Cemetery. As darkness descends on the city of Accra, it becomes a horror-home to homeless hordes and residential rejects. They perch, repose, cha cha cha and steeplechase on the gravestone, as if they’re devil-daring the sleeping bones below to rise up and fight their effrontery. It’s scary to drive near this necropolis at night because, every now and then, a humanesque figure would clamber over the wall, streak through your headlight beam, and disintegrate into the nothingness – they never use the gates. If a manic necrophiliac is playing Rumpelstiltskin on the tombstones, and they’re still alive, it’s because they haven’t yet pissed on my blessed Grandpa’s grave.

The Ocean

When you put a calm mind to it
There are not many things
Before the timeless ocean
The blueness of intensity
The green eyes of jealousy
The white surf of purity
Rolling waves and lolling lave
Salty taste and lulling hum
Grades of sand as true as gold
The intimate bathe in tenderness
The gulls, the weeds, the sun and the shells
All seen and loved by generations gone
And it’s bigger that everything else
It owns the shoreline
And the sky
And the topsy-turvy brine
Even the far-off horizon line
The power to give unending pleasure
Choose the size of shore next year
Now pent-up rage bursts out at the moon
Holds the world in a low vile growl
And plays mirages of spirit lights
A slow recline in the afterglow
The ocean sleeps in silent sate.

Silence

It is the music of the trees
In the drone of the balmy breeze
It is the stretching of the hills
And the tears the sky sadly spills

Thunderclap in breaking hearts
The unseen tail of poison darts
It is the picture of the sea
The still before the storm we see

It is the depth of the deep black hole
The massive ice caps in each Pole
It is the cosmic dance of stars
And the sounds of life on Mars

The great allure of muted minds
The need to see behind the blinds
The presence of stark loneliness
The blank before each ‘I confess’.

Poetry Ends It All

It has been a goodish blogging month for me. This is good because other parts of my life sucked. I'll end that streak (and hopefully begin another) with poetry about "Silence" and "The Sea". Thanks for reading along. Enjoy!

Playgirl Pedicurist

The other day, Miss Jackson beheld my pachyderm’s soles, and hurried into hysteria. She asked if I had played wild sport barefoot as a child. I confirmed. Then, I confided in her about this young, pretty pedicurist at my mother’s hairdresser’s. I started a wanton weekly visit after seeing and ogling her the first time. As she masterfully massages here, and sensuously caresses that spot, she flashes a wily wink every time she unearths a neuro-ticklish neighbourhood. After each winsome session, she’d cajole me for my number, again, and ask when I had some free evening time! If a pedicure is such a carnal contact sport, I wonder why any love interest would push me to play.

Fairy Tales

I'm thinking of the amazing Hans Christian Andersen and

the old wonderful feeling that everything was possible in life, and that good magic happened one moment in time, and we all lived happily ever after.

Weekend at Akosombo Bay

This weekend away
At Akosombo Bay
So hard will I play
And malinger on Monday

...And That's Good Advice!

Champi Dog Veterinarian Advice by Champi NL

Never take advice from a person who's never worn your glasses (i.e. been in your situation.)

I Demand ...

Punctuality
So that barbers, tailors, mechanics and clerks would arrive at the agreed time and do some darn work!

Openness
So my partner cannot cheat on me simply because they can.

36 hours a day
So that I can spend the extra 8 sleeping (it's the only sleep I will get).

Creativity Opportunities
So that I can finally live the life I want, doing what really makes me happy!

Clear Signs
So that I know you put me above the competition, and do not offer the competition what you offer me.

An Extra Day
So that we can have a 3-day weekend.

A Pay Rise
So that I can justify waking up from bed, to myself!

No-Dogs-Allowed Signs Everywhere
In all the places I go. I just thought you should all know that I loathe canines.

Clearer (not necessarily stricter) Immigration Rules
So that we know who's legally here!

Flexitime
How is a person supposed to live on only one job in Ghana?

Many More Things Than I have Stated Here
Because we should never stop at trying to get better!

If I Could Tame a Wild Animal

It would have to be my uncivilised hair. Too many girls have asked me why my hair is not "Dada B" (= soft and beautiful). These days, it's easy for me to tell them that my unsightly grown hair is caused by a life so far of bad food. The wild animal I'd like to tame is my hair.

But, then again, a panther is not unthinkable too!

Ponko Huri Ta in the City of Accra

I am not a big fan of picturesque proverbs. I like daily “direktspeak”. This scatological saying in Akan, however, fascinates me to fits; a pithy line which translates lengthily into English as “The Ass should not even think of jumping over an obstacle, when the sheer effort makes the Horse fart”. Last night, sliding along the N2 to Aburi, which goes through tranquil, lambent Legon, cars were ambling over the rugged reach from Okponglo almost up to the dark-tile monument at the entrance to the university. I was pacing myself in Marion, behind this pristine, leonine Landcruiser. Suddenly I saw high headlamps rise up behind me as an SUV appeared like a tidal wave from nowhere. It scrimmaged over the rocky, torn-away terra, past me, past the Toyota Landcruiser, narrowly avoided kissing a compact bank of red earth on the shoulder, hobbled through potholes, and was out of sight, all in a chauvinist trice. It was a Toyota Rav 4. I lol’ed, as, false to customary character, the Akan proverb leapt to mind: Ponko koraa huri ta, na wo ofui!

Finagling Grandpa

Boom-goes-the-dynamite by Aaron & Alli

As an insensitive pre-teen brat, I concealed my Casio digital watch under my grandpa's bed, and set the alarm to go off in ten minutes. I knew he would go up for his afternoon sleep in five minutes. As he lay down, I "chanced" into his room, and narrated to him in calm undertones about how we'd learned about explosive chemicals in Chemistry class that day. Then, I let it slip, by accident, that we - the boys - had gone ahead to devise crude time bombs. Then, in passing, I mentioned that I'd stowed my bomb away under his bed for safekeeping. Eighty-three years of human experience doubted me until I started flying from the room three seconds before the alarm went off. Bless his soul, (and may he continue to rest in heavenly peace) my grandpa shot past me, and bounded down the stairs! It was the quickest I ever saw him move! He was not angry or anything at all. He called me naughty, and patted me on the back. Gee, I loved that prank!

Obama, Geithner & Other Random Questions

Will the UN forcibly release Suu Kyi?
Remove the Death Penalty and let them pay a fee?
Will America leave Obama & Geithner alone?
Why punish one who's confessed on their own?