300

If we’re facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking (ancient Buddhist expression).

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail (author unknown).

100, 200, now 300 posts (and counting). A truly amazing experience of awakening, friendship, addiction, understanding, fellowship and enlightenment.

Thank you,Co-bloggers, for walking with me, teaching me, and inspiring me with your ineffable blogs!

Thank you, Readers, for reading what I write, for what good would they be in a dark trunk?

Thanks to everybody who leaves comments. You know how I thrive on feedback :)

I wouldn’t exchange this journey in blogosphere for any other!

Genuine Land for Sale in the City of Accra

Wonderful Accra! The city where you have to purchase the same strip of land twice or thrice, even after you have employed a lawyer, a private eye and bribery to ensure that you obtain laager land and not a lame, leaky lawsuit.

I was driving with Office Female #2, when we espied a dingy display board with the words “Genuine Land for Sale”. It says a lot that that wasted plank did not simply say “Land for Sale”. Should I expect to see another carelessly confess “Fake Land for Sale”?

Face Transplants & Other Random Questions

Who's ever seen a fake cell phone?
Are we now transplanting human faces?
Is actress Morena Baccarin any good?
Isn't "brand" Oprah-KFC a greedy publicity monster?

Public Offence

Public nose-picking
Because you'll roll the bogey around on your finger, and then try to shake hands with me!

Using a tooth pick in public
There must be a reason why your lips were made to cover your gums (and teeth)!

Shouting on the phone
I may be far away, but your mouth is to my ear!

Breaking traffic rules!
Because my dog could drive better than you!

People who stare at you in the traffic jam
Get a life, don't compare or size me up!

Many more things...
Get a life, I have work to do!

My Childhood Arch Enemies

It is a big, furry fuzz in my mind right now, but, even in those early days, I had discovered the superiority of brain over brawn, mind over muscle. It must be that group of boys (and I am not a wuss): Koo Prince, Manfred, Kwaku Bawuah, etc, etc, who would form two kung-fu, kick-ass posses, and hector one another and everybody else at snack time. O how I hated them!

Obama in Japanese & Other Random Questions

What is this craze in the Japanese form of names?
What is this other craze with joonas.net?
Who’d have thought Chrysler would go bankrupt?
Should the UK have entered Iraq at all?

Multi-Tasking in the Toilet

My office mates and I were bartering wisdom on how to bank our first millions of dollars, when Office Female #2 traipsed in. Faulting our after-hours chatter as thick-too-staid to spark and sizzle in the bored brain, she introduced the simple question: Can you pee and poo at the same time?

The quaint question set us thinking, but no sure answer came. Recall to the early morning did not unravel the mundane mystery: whether Necessity Number 1 could take place simultaneously with Necessity Number 2. Mock muscular movement would not settle the matter either, so we made an all-round resolution to pay particular attention the next morning.

Swine Flu & Other Random Fears

And now, it's Swine Flu
Looking for me and you
And the undefeated Taliban
Looking to take Pakistan!

Sick Love

She only asks a question;
He slaps her for an answer;
She holds where it hurts;
She apologises! They hug each other!
She apologised? Huh?

How Miss Jackson Listens to the Radio

Miss Jackson lies hushed, facing the ceiling with her eyes tightly closed. Slowly stretching out her hand, she feels and fumbles for the little dial. The sonic stations sail by, as she furrows her eyebrows to focus. She flits past a sound-spurt, and inches back till it’s finely tuned in stereo. She folds her hands across her tranquil torso, slackens the tautness back to her soft face, allows herself a victory smile, and, then, she slides into repose mode again. Miss Jolly Jackson doesn’t care a jack plug what station she listens to. If she likes what she hears, the dial stays put.

Random Questions

Should Caroline Caz Pal even be famous?
How long before Zuma exposes himself?
Does Myrtle Beach boast of anything besides fires?
Hasn't Obama ever abused credit cards?

The Music Videos in the City of Accra

The music videos in the City of Accra are faithful to life; no flimflam that there are no plump and lusty women in our city, or in the world. These ample damsels romp, roister, dance, model, flirt, swing and do whatever else it is they do just like the slim sistas.

In other worlds, it is all right for male artistes to be pretty portly, but even they permit only slender video vixens. Whoever knows any real women knows that the quality of womanhood does not come with size.

Jumbo size; bouncing here; flouncing there; rolling along; taking heavy, sure steps; each dance move delivered deliberately, displaying a dash of delicious damsel delight. There’s no damage done to the video. So, why leave them out?

Bacon Bra, Earth Day & Other Random Questions

Is the Bacon Bra not taking things too far?
Wouldn't you rather talk about Earth Day?
Is South Africa's best hope Jacob Zuma?
Did you know about Hashima Island yesterday?

No-Funeral Saturday in the City of Accra

I heard an edict, on the radio, from the traditional establishment in the City of Accra. It is banning burials and funerals on this Saturday. They want to revere dead Ga (the people of old Accra) chieftains on that day. They have no legal power to do what they seek to. They can only enforce it by unleashing the riotous rabble on you and your grieving family.

I know that it means there will be no closed streets on that day, for the people block off the streets to use as funeral grounds. But that is cold, cold comfort.

You cannot have the benefits of the national (cosmopolitan) capital, and still cling to rudder-less, prehistoric practices – it’s our taxes!

Random Questions

So what, if Rawlings reviewed A Quarter Guard?
Haven't Wenger & Arsenal played a master card?
How do we really feel about Pirate Bay?
Would another python dare attack a man today?

Girl in White on Friday Morning

This morning, I saw a pretty, petite princess in a short, white fairy frock, gracefully gliding up the GIJ street. Her delirium-dress swayed sensuously this way and that, with every metered step. She ferried a fine pair of white sandals with several flirty straps on her delicately-drawn legs and feet. And, she graced the delightful skin on her neck and chest with a set of frosted-glass beads. Just when I’d looked for and found the sparkly white band in her hair, a taxi cab came up behind me, and rudely tooted to move me on.

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.