The Nsawam Breadline

A few kilometres outside Accra, on the horrid highway to Kumasi, a ‘livelihood’ line of bread sellers stretches as long as the eyes can see. This is the town of Nsawam. Its dying buildings tackle the streets tightly, threatening to tumble any moment. The main street is a narrow tar strip with edges gobbled jagged by time, rain and native neglect. The baker’s design suggests that all the bread is baked and browned in one bakery or two. So, how does one know whose bread to buy? I’ll start with the first rustic Pretty I see with an idyllic smile. When the new highway bypasses this town, no cars will come this way. The bread line and the famous Nsawam bread will simply go away.

African Cow

A Shaman Coven killed an African cow to make ‘Bafana’ swift and strong, and maybe even win The Cup. When ‘Bafana’ led Mexico by one, the European commentator frisked frivolous fun that the spell was holding fine. The African co-commentator, short on humour, high on pretence, solemnly stumped that “How can these things ever work?” Then Marquez brought “el tri” level. I wonder who was really the cow!

Human Furniture

As seen in a picture sent in by a friend. Just the thing so many have been looking for; and it's free!

Wet, Wading Wednesday

It poured ‘Pacifics’ on Wednesday from 6 pm till ... was it midnight? The traffic network at 11 pm was daylight-dense and rush-hour thick. A respectable car was stalled every fifty metres even in this ‘good’ side of town between Ridge and the Accra Mall. River islands swept across the streets and made Accra’s wild drivers timid. Crowds! Crowds of people milled everywhere, turning bus stops into midnight markets. People ‘legged’ it over ten kilometres, and got ‘there’ soaked but before the crippled cars. I did not tune in to the night news - I did not want to deal with the misery that would surely flood into the ‘bad’ parts of Accra.

Technical Knockout

A judge in a Kumasi High Court cannot resist the urge to interfere. He finishes off sentences for witnesses in the box, and adds, “Not so?” Often, the witness answers that the judge is wrong in his hasty conclusion, and he has to apologise with embarrassment. When we successfully raised a legal objection in our own case, he mocked the other lawyer by saying, “technical knockout!”

The Ghana Harm Forces

The two forces with legitimate stockpiles of arms in Ghana showed little patience in May. A soldier thought he could ride an unlicensed bike. Two cops would not ‘let him through’. He escaped and brought his whole hyperactive platoon. Cops in Kumasi fled here and there or were felled with hammer blows. If either or both of these armed forces turned on civilians, then, God help us!

Finding Nemo...or Nimo

As seen on TV early this morning. Do you want kids to embarrass themselves around their friends? As for Nimo, you won't find him underwater - try Kejetia in Kumasi.

Traffic Tax in Accra?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has always wanted to introduce a congestion tax. Cities everywhere share common problems and a common difficulty in solving them. If New York mulled (or mulls) an $8 congestion charge for motorists who would drive to the city centre, what would be appropriate for Accra, $5? It is not easy to say that a congestion tax will work and reduce the city traffic. Accraians are famous for their need to show off. Many Ghanaians appear to be fabulously rich. Impose a $10 traffic tax, and more people pour in to show they are rich. Would you support the congestion charge?

Will Your Partner Cheat?

How distastefully dubious does the telecom tussle for your custom become! It is egregious entrepreneurship, idiotic innovation and macabre marketing. I caught the following crawling text on a television channel: Will Your Partner Cheat on You? You pay peak premium by tart-texting your partner’s name to a given number, and the ‘Capitalist Conscience-less’ will tawdry-text you the ‘answer’. What would you do if it came back ‘Yes’?

Singles Bars in Accra

If there are any singles bars in the City of Accra, I do not know them. Do you? I have heard that there are haunts for more extraordinary ‘seekers’, so why not ordinary singles? Anyways, knowing the poly-inclinations of the young and old in this city, if there were singles bars, they would invaded by cheating ‘paireds’.