It still happens, sometimes, that a group of callow Accraians glides into the streets, and sets the night to music. It is the same centuries-old spontaneous pulse which throbs on the softening city air, and spreads carnal tension through your rousing intimates :-). The fluttering, the cadence, ecstatic mood and fine, flirtatious rhythms carry a tuneful, mellow mood to the blessed listener. The music is Djama (I've not seen it spelt :-)
A sweet rhapsody it is, to hear them tell tales of love and war, bravery and treachery, beauty and folly in the off-beat pitch, held and dropped with careless aim in that mirth-provoking, amateur clef.
The strokes and beats are quick and strong, acoustically modulated to put the youthful tone in the muscle, and flatter the dancing body. They chant and yodel in absolute choruses and whispered descants; clapping their hands and twanging improvised instruments to create the sound of cymbals, drums, whistles, congas.
Even from afar, the rapturous accent makes it easy to imagine the deep-sea amusement. Going nearer, the music barrels around you on a surreal scale, and you’re sucked into the singing ... dancing ... perspiration ... giddiness. It plays on till early in the morning, and it does not cost you anything.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Cinema is coming to Accra
Countless cosy cinemas with fancy names like Rex, Roxy, Rivoli and Globe japanned the face of Accra some twenty years ago. They were all built like the saloons in the wild-west movies, only with wider doors and cement walls in cream or green or yellow.
The doors swung open to yield a yawning yard of hard, concrete floor inch-packed with collapsible metal chairs. The far-end wall, behind a seemingly purposeless dais, held a wide wooden white board – crude screen for the cine projector.
Outside, the brightly coloured posters of the stars of the day were Blu-tacked on the weather-beaten display boards. Mean machines like Stallone and Schwarzenegger muscled for meagre space with kung-fu magicians like Chang and Chang (aren’t they all Chang? :-) and Lee. Thin-air-clad video vixens appealed with sultry smile or supple skin that electrified the evening air, and seduced many a homecoming mind into a money-spilling voyeur.
The ancient cinema of Accra was big, big business. On non-video nights, the chairs were neatly stacked in the mouldy crannies of the room, and the open floor, lacquered in bright lights, became a steamy dance floor. The open-top design flung the reckless music into the resting night, attracting the teeming horde into the cinema.
Church flock, churchlike folds and associations held meetings in the cinemas with the more-equal animals haunting the dais (utility after all). It was a shamelessly sensual scene to see convention goer glide grim-faced past the scandal-selling seductress on the devil’s display board.
Suddenly, the cinemas disappeared. The bounty of the market was lost to home videos; churches and shops took over. But I’m told the Accra Mall will open a cinema shortly, and glossy posters of sinfully sexy houris will appear once again, and richly defile every bare wall in the city of Accra ;)
The doors swung open to yield a yawning yard of hard, concrete floor inch-packed with collapsible metal chairs. The far-end wall, behind a seemingly purposeless dais, held a wide wooden white board – crude screen for the cine projector.
Outside, the brightly coloured posters of the stars of the day were Blu-tacked on the weather-beaten display boards. Mean machines like Stallone and Schwarzenegger muscled for meagre space with kung-fu magicians like Chang and Chang (aren’t they all Chang? :-) and Lee. Thin-air-clad video vixens appealed with sultry smile or supple skin that electrified the evening air, and seduced many a homecoming mind into a money-spilling voyeur.
The ancient cinema of Accra was big, big business. On non-video nights, the chairs were neatly stacked in the mouldy crannies of the room, and the open floor, lacquered in bright lights, became a steamy dance floor. The open-top design flung the reckless music into the resting night, attracting the teeming horde into the cinema.
Church flock, churchlike folds and associations held meetings in the cinemas with the more-equal animals haunting the dais (utility after all). It was a shamelessly sensual scene to see convention goer glide grim-faced past the scandal-selling seductress on the devil’s display board.
Suddenly, the cinemas disappeared. The bounty of the market was lost to home videos; churches and shops took over. But I’m told the Accra Mall will open a cinema shortly, and glossy posters of sinfully sexy houris will appear once again, and richly defile every bare wall in the city of Accra ;)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Island of Tired Truths
Last weekend, the solid ground moved unsportingly from under my firmly-fastened feet, when I was looking smug and feeling so tres bien. This left me twisting and turning all night long like the roiling ocean.
I saw twelve tortured months tee off backward and then forward, over and over again, like an infant's Viewmaster. But in the poignant chaos I found a fickle, floating island full tired truths and foggy philosophies.
Nothing is as it clearly seems at first. How can you be so ecclesiastically certain that you are right, when it might be Your Royal Highness who's hanging upside down with the whole world standing upright? Experience is a poor guide; emotion a cheap and deceptive compass. Patience requires no map, for she rarely loses her way.
I've beaten my way back in more happy ways than one. I really like it here, and I'm not going back!
I saw twelve tortured months tee off backward and then forward, over and over again, like an infant's Viewmaster. But in the poignant chaos I found a fickle, floating island full tired truths and foggy philosophies.
Nothing is as it clearly seems at first. How can you be so ecclesiastically certain that you are right, when it might be Your Royal Highness who's hanging upside down with the whole world standing upright? Experience is a poor guide; emotion a cheap and deceptive compass. Patience requires no map, for she rarely loses her way.
I've beaten my way back in more happy ways than one. I really like it here, and I'm not going back!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Tears from the Curse - Poetry
Sorry, guys, but normal service cannot resume today. So, I must still express my feelings with poetry.
TEARS FROM THE CURSE
These are the days of the curse
Love’s not better, never worse
These are the tears from my heart
And here are the pieces torn apart
These are the little things I feel
That show that I’m not made of steel
These are the eyes you saw right through
But then, your feelings were not true
These are the echoes of my life
And here is my blood on your knife
These are the streets to walk alone
A journey through the great unknown.
TEARS FROM THE CURSE
These are the days of the curse
Love’s not better, never worse
These are the tears from my heart
And here are the pieces torn apart
These are the little things I feel
That show that I’m not made of steel
These are the eyes you saw right through
But then, your feelings were not true
These are the echoes of my life
And here is my blood on your knife
These are the streets to walk alone
A journey through the great unknown.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Untitled - Poetry
This morning, I am posting poetry, my first love. I have expressed and understood this life on the wings of poetry. I don't really intend to post my poetry on this blog, but, at this moment, poetry is what best captures my confused mood. It is untitled (because the rawness defies a title) and it comes from the collection, SAMSARA. I wrote it 9 years ago,and, this morning, I feel the same way I did 9 years ago. :-(
UNTITLED
What is so golden
About falling in love?
When all it brings is heartache
And wakeful nights till dawn
Birdsongs are no longer sweet
Smiles are sharp things to avoid
Some girl’s loose laughter
Painful road to jealousy
A man is sick
In head and in heart
To think love so simple
To break his helpless heart
Just because my feelings don’t scream
Does not mean they are not hurt
Loving this deeply
Does not make me silly
Smiling so sweetly
Only hides my furious heart
Don’t nobody come to me
Go away, I’m Dead!
UNTITLED
What is so golden
About falling in love?
When all it brings is heartache
And wakeful nights till dawn
Birdsongs are no longer sweet
Smiles are sharp things to avoid
Some girl’s loose laughter
Painful road to jealousy
A man is sick
In head and in heart
To think love so simple
To break his helpless heart
Just because my feelings don’t scream
Does not mean they are not hurt
Loving this deeply
Does not make me silly
Smiling so sweetly
Only hides my furious heart
Don’t nobody come to me
Go away, I’m Dead!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Oh, for a Park in the City of Accra!
Driving through the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange, playing Habib Koité’s Ma Ya, I found the emotional space to look out and see the verdant grass and infant trees sprouting up in beautiful, even intervals. The thick greenness with shiny surface crystals of dew and sprinkler water reflected the golden rays of the rising sun, and gave the thrilling promise of a frisky Friday.
It nudged me softly that I’d been poking about for a leisure park in the city of Accra. A quiescent acre of stone sculptures of great former residents, skittish fountains, inedible fish (not frogs) in ponds and restrooms (Please!) :). I should like to have good, strong benches to sit on (make it of wood or concrete, I don’t mind). And I imagine vast fields of velvety grass to spread a rug and lie on. The trees will be gigantic; leaves and branches verdure, breezy, saying come sleep here if you please. Now, that’s something of a park. One with good security would be great, so that the many Accraians who choose to be homeless (or are really without a home) will not pursue the primal pleasure of another mass sleeping experience :)
It would be nice to step out of the concrete jungle and the blazing furnace into the cool recesses of a park with a bottle of water and a big interesting book. A clever chance to forget the heartbreaking shortcomings of the city of Accra; to escape the daily puzzles and, for an hour, or more, spread out luxuriantly or curl up snugly in such idyllic extravagance.
There was Kinbu Gardens many years ago, when I was still a little boy. Driving with my father and siblings around its circular fringes, it seemed as much a park as not. But we never gained entry, and we got the quiet understanding that it was a very adult place :)
The Efua Sutherland Children’s Park is named for a very great playwright. However, it’s an empty, walled city space with pockets of sundry-hued, grass-like sprouts and a miniature rail network. It’s not open on ordinary days, and something is eating up the mighty mahogany trees.
The Accra Zoo was a beautiful place, depending on what you were looking for. It did not boast of the prettiest or sweetest-smelling birds or cats; reptiles or ruminants, but it soothingly smothered the city racket, put mellowing blinds on the sun’s bright eye and swept a holy hand of brilliant breeze under its sky-screening foliage. It gave no grass to sit on, but those hard benches yielded memory-erasing comfort, if the donkey was fast asleep (for I’ve found its startling bray pierces the still air more loudly that the restrained roar of the conceited lion). Now, there is no zoo in the city of Accra.
No parks, no zoos, no clean and quiet beaches, not many libraries, no pools, no city squares. Accra, are you trying to make us go insane?
It nudged me softly that I’d been poking about for a leisure park in the city of Accra. A quiescent acre of stone sculptures of great former residents, skittish fountains, inedible fish (not frogs) in ponds and restrooms (Please!) :). I should like to have good, strong benches to sit on (make it of wood or concrete, I don’t mind). And I imagine vast fields of velvety grass to spread a rug and lie on. The trees will be gigantic; leaves and branches verdure, breezy, saying come sleep here if you please. Now, that’s something of a park. One with good security would be great, so that the many Accraians who choose to be homeless (or are really without a home) will not pursue the primal pleasure of another mass sleeping experience :)
It would be nice to step out of the concrete jungle and the blazing furnace into the cool recesses of a park with a bottle of water and a big interesting book. A clever chance to forget the heartbreaking shortcomings of the city of Accra; to escape the daily puzzles and, for an hour, or more, spread out luxuriantly or curl up snugly in such idyllic extravagance.
There was Kinbu Gardens many years ago, when I was still a little boy. Driving with my father and siblings around its circular fringes, it seemed as much a park as not. But we never gained entry, and we got the quiet understanding that it was a very adult place :)
The Efua Sutherland Children’s Park is named for a very great playwright. However, it’s an empty, walled city space with pockets of sundry-hued, grass-like sprouts and a miniature rail network. It’s not open on ordinary days, and something is eating up the mighty mahogany trees.
The Accra Zoo was a beautiful place, depending on what you were looking for. It did not boast of the prettiest or sweetest-smelling birds or cats; reptiles or ruminants, but it soothingly smothered the city racket, put mellowing blinds on the sun’s bright eye and swept a holy hand of brilliant breeze under its sky-screening foliage. It gave no grass to sit on, but those hard benches yielded memory-erasing comfort, if the donkey was fast asleep (for I’ve found its startling bray pierces the still air more loudly that the restrained roar of the conceited lion). Now, there is no zoo in the city of Accra.
No parks, no zoos, no clean and quiet beaches, not many libraries, no pools, no city squares. Accra, are you trying to make us go insane?
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Kwame Nkrumah Circle
Very early in the morning, Circle (as its name has been crudely sawn-off to) is a calm and tranquil plaza with a silent, sleeping fountain, fenced lawns (I think) of thinning brown grass, metal railings around pedestrian walkways and wide-open, potholed car parks where scores of big and mini buses are tightly ranged like sleeping seals.
Circle has many wooden-box-and-cardboard shacks – cramped homes at night and vibrant stores in the day, deviously deriding the tall office buildings standing sentry all around them. Parts of the pavement are rudely reserved by their homeless owners as sleeping bunks or see-through bathrooms :)
The hustled horde comes hurrying through at hell’s hour. Cars, buses, big trucks and unrecognisable vehicles grope blindly and harum-scarum like a flock of senseless sheep following whatever looks like them and moves in front of them. Office workers in transit, louts and loafers scouting for a half-chance to commit a daylight crime and screaming vendors wrestle one another for the narrow strip of pavement that remains passable.
When the sun shunts directly overhead, this is the most sultry, sticky and stupefying place to be in this wicked world :) At this tedious time, beauty and politeness are beaten back and all that remains is what is in, and what emits from, the ugly belly of the city of Accra.
Creatures of the night are the fiendish features of a dark Circle, ghosting and floating about in the form of muggers and thieves, drunken or 'high' semi-humans, vile, nauseating, self-denying she-devils pretending to have something attractive to sell :) and perspiring hustlers with nifty gadgets, without boxes, going for a song.
Cars drive by with windows rolled up, and pedestrians assume a bullfrog puff to appear more menacing than they really are. Commuters stand in endless miles of fetid frustration wishing for a bus or car or bike or horse to come and take them home, away from Circle.
In its splendour and squalor, Circle hosts big-company headquarters, banks, nightclubs, restaurants and chopbars, churches, petrol stations and a multi-purpose garden paradoxically christened ‘Holy’. Maybe it is a terribly great idea that it’s lost the name of Kwame Nkrumah :)
Circle has many wooden-box-and-cardboard shacks – cramped homes at night and vibrant stores in the day, deviously deriding the tall office buildings standing sentry all around them. Parts of the pavement are rudely reserved by their homeless owners as sleeping bunks or see-through bathrooms :)
The hustled horde comes hurrying through at hell’s hour. Cars, buses, big trucks and unrecognisable vehicles grope blindly and harum-scarum like a flock of senseless sheep following whatever looks like them and moves in front of them. Office workers in transit, louts and loafers scouting for a half-chance to commit a daylight crime and screaming vendors wrestle one another for the narrow strip of pavement that remains passable.
When the sun shunts directly overhead, this is the most sultry, sticky and stupefying place to be in this wicked world :) At this tedious time, beauty and politeness are beaten back and all that remains is what is in, and what emits from, the ugly belly of the city of Accra.
Creatures of the night are the fiendish features of a dark Circle, ghosting and floating about in the form of muggers and thieves, drunken or 'high' semi-humans, vile, nauseating, self-denying she-devils pretending to have something attractive to sell :) and perspiring hustlers with nifty gadgets, without boxes, going for a song.
Cars drive by with windows rolled up, and pedestrians assume a bullfrog puff to appear more menacing than they really are. Commuters stand in endless miles of fetid frustration wishing for a bus or car or bike or horse to come and take them home, away from Circle.
In its splendour and squalor, Circle hosts big-company headquarters, banks, nightclubs, restaurants and chopbars, churches, petrol stations and a multi-purpose garden paradoxically christened ‘Holy’. Maybe it is a terribly great idea that it’s lost the name of Kwame Nkrumah :)
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