Open Barbecue in the City of Accra

In broad daylight, last Friday, on the ceremonial street at animated Nima, Birdie and I saw a group of muscled men singeing a whole cow-carcass with a blow torch and scorching the pavement black.
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Vacuity!!!

2012! It bewilders me, and I cannot say which vexes me more – the superstitious teachers or the benighted varmint. The ones have zilch to teach because they need a lamp too. The others are a stupendously sorry sight: ignorant, petty, perishing, future-less. 

How I Stumbled Upon Blogging

In 2008, Accra was a jaded jamboree. I preferred to float in bed and fantasise about far-flung frolicsome places. I had happened on ‘personal websites’ without knowing their sexy name - blog. Then, my friend, Sandra, introduced me her blog.  I was besotted three times over. A poet in hibernation, I dusted off my skills and became a seeker of ‘second sight’: that hallowed ‘hang’ to see extraordinary sights in everyday scenes. To experience and describe Accra’s rich, deep and colourful layers of sights, sounds, smells and tastes in a unique way. Blogging has given me a novel, vibrant city that’s all my very own.

A Toyota, No Doubt!

He fixed it there, just so you're doubly sure it's a Toyota!

The Fluid Traffic Lights in the City of Accra

I've heard it said about prisons, mental-health institutions and toilets. Now I add traffic lights. You can tell how civilised a country is by how its drivers mind the traffic lights (and traffic circles).

Five or six years ago, a friend and I saw a Nigerian businessman do a jaw-drop when visiting Accra for the first time. "They actually obey the lights?" He asked. He said the lights were useless décor back in his country. We had a sneaky suspicion that he was self-deprecating too hard.

That kind Nigerian gentleman; he visited five years too soon. Every morning at the Regimanuel traffic lights on the Spintex Road, I barely hang on to dear life after three 'Hail Marys' and four near misses.

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Racing with Cyclists in the City of Accra

My heart turns cartwheels every time I see a cyclist’s thirty-second madness. Pumping pedals to race your car, they’re in the lead for twenty seconds. Then you’re level...edge past... whiz ahead. Ten seconds scrape by; they surrender; admission of no catch-up chance. It’s the human spirit in the race of life.

The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence is gone. We buy late-night Kelewele at 5pm, and do dawn-jogging at 7am. Twenty of us at a pub are no match for 4 gunmen. Saturday night-crawling is a far-off, silver-screen fantasy. Security is merely a word we teach four-year-olds.

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