Sometime ago I saw a freak futuristic flick about a rabid criminal whose evil elasticity stretched beyond psychiatric study. There was an unbreakable security system protecting something I cannot remember. Only one man could go through this system. It took a scan of his eyeball to break the code which, in turn, opened the lock. What did the maniac do? He found this special man, popped out the entry-eyeball with a ball-point pen and gained ingress into the fortress. It was Demolition Man, I think.
I saw a TV commercial over the weekend telling of a coming cashless economy from April. For all payments, the system requires a card, a point-of-sale gizmo and the fingerprint of the card bearer. Demolition Man came to mind, and I was just hoping that Accraians would not start losing their precious thumbs in a new breed of crime. Of course, a sick and weak mind is not enough for a money-making scheme; one would still need to secure an unattended machine at the pay point.
Somebody should spare a thought on coupling the cashless system with a police fingerprint database. You use the system and the police automatically have your fingerprint. Can the end of cash also signal the thinning of crime?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Manslaughter on the Streets of the City of Accra
When I was a little child, you could have thrown the following words at me – murder, manslaughter, homicide and genocide. I would have missed by a generous mile which one of them was the most serious crime. Going by the sound of the words, murder seemed like a game you could play at home. Homicide and genocide sounded non-domestic, and yet they fell so pleasingly on the ears. But manslaughter called up the bloody image of a wretched man wielding a wide-blade battle axe, coldly cutting through thick swaths of human flesh, tossing limbs and heads and gore everywhere – a butcher of men, the cruellest criminal of all.
There is a novel way of driving in the city of Accra. It is not exactly new to the much-maligned commercial driver. It is the private (perhaps educated, or maybe not) and substantial-income-earning Accraian who drives their own car. The peeps we suspect by strange instinct of being more sensible :)
This Accraian drives dangerously close to you, tailgating and boorishly harassing you to speed up, when there is a traffic jam everywhere. A brilliant idea lights up in their coarse minds and they veer off onto the shoulder of the road. Never mind pedestrians or stray dogs or trees or children. There, they compete in crude driving and yet cruder insulting with the famous tro-tro driver. The slightly smarter ones among them swerve onto the dead centre of the road, between the lawful flow of traffic in both directions! These are mostly evil geniuses driving SUVs, and playing dodgem with the bikes, confident that they can bluff or bribe or browbeat their way through breaking the rules or even manslaughter.
On Good Friday, right in front of me, a four-wheel drive cut a runway in between the traffic, spread out its wings, taxied and sped off. But before it could take off (for I could swear that was the only intention) it swept a bike off its wheels and sent the two riders flying north and south. The tattered jeans and broken limbs; flowing blood and sickening screams sent a motherly woman crying. I do not know if the bikers died but the scene was close to my childhood image of manslaughter.
Now driving out is so scary in the city of Accra. Something is thirsty and wants to drink human blood.
There is a novel way of driving in the city of Accra. It is not exactly new to the much-maligned commercial driver. It is the private (perhaps educated, or maybe not) and substantial-income-earning Accraian who drives their own car. The peeps we suspect by strange instinct of being more sensible :)
This Accraian drives dangerously close to you, tailgating and boorishly harassing you to speed up, when there is a traffic jam everywhere. A brilliant idea lights up in their coarse minds and they veer off onto the shoulder of the road. Never mind pedestrians or stray dogs or trees or children. There, they compete in crude driving and yet cruder insulting with the famous tro-tro driver. The slightly smarter ones among them swerve onto the dead centre of the road, between the lawful flow of traffic in both directions! These are mostly evil geniuses driving SUVs, and playing dodgem with the bikes, confident that they can bluff or bribe or browbeat their way through breaking the rules or even manslaughter.
On Good Friday, right in front of me, a four-wheel drive cut a runway in between the traffic, spread out its wings, taxied and sped off. But before it could take off (for I could swear that was the only intention) it swept a bike off its wheels and sent the two riders flying north and south. The tattered jeans and broken limbs; flowing blood and sickening screams sent a motherly woman crying. I do not know if the bikers died but the scene was close to my childhood image of manslaughter.
Now driving out is so scary in the city of Accra. Something is thirsty and wants to drink human blood.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
A Simple Bead Story
Today, at the Accra Mall, I saw a sight I report not because it was that remarkable. After all, I see a lot of that these days in the city of Accra. But it reminded me of a curious history lesson I was given, on a cold and rainy day, many years ago, when I was trapped at a leaky bus stop with a chatty old man.
The sight – a slender girl in a hipster and a top way too short; no feast of colours to excite the active mind later. But in that bare midriff, played a metallic, askew-hanging, curve-caressing, waist-gyrating chain. She was gliding freely in the aisles oblivious to all the bold comments (whispered undertone) :) by the older women, between stolen glances. Had I not heard the comments, I would have sworn I saw raw, enchanted admiration in their eyes. I smiled quietly to myself, my only regret being that I could not emerge in her direct line of vision, to give my silent ovation.
Now, I will tell you a one-minute version of the garrulous old-timer’s tale. It used to be a sin, big sin, merely to touch the waist beads of a woman. Funny, but in those distant days, it was a crime approaching capital if, somehow, the beads got tangled, broke and clattered to the ground. A sexual act or offence was complete, and strong medicine was cruelly handed down. What I do not recollect is if this relic-rule applied to both maidens and matrons.
The sight – a slender girl in a hipster and a top way too short; no feast of colours to excite the active mind later. But in that bare midriff, played a metallic, askew-hanging, curve-caressing, waist-gyrating chain. She was gliding freely in the aisles oblivious to all the bold comments (whispered undertone) :) by the older women, between stolen glances. Had I not heard the comments, I would have sworn I saw raw, enchanted admiration in their eyes. I smiled quietly to myself, my only regret being that I could not emerge in her direct line of vision, to give my silent ovation.
Now, I will tell you a one-minute version of the garrulous old-timer’s tale. It used to be a sin, big sin, merely to touch the waist beads of a woman. Funny, but in those distant days, it was a crime approaching capital if, somehow, the beads got tangled, broke and clattered to the ground. A sexual act or offence was complete, and strong medicine was cruelly handed down. What I do not recollect is if this relic-rule applied to both maidens and matrons.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Beautiful Bodies in Accra
Somewhere between its glorious Greek and illustrious Latin roots, the word gymnasium (a funny-sounding word, I think) has one appealing meaning – to exercise naked. :) Gyms (not to repeat an unappealing word) are sprouting everywhere in the city of Accra. Now, I have never been to one, so I cannot say for certain if it is vaguely true – the honeyed stories about the Personal Trainer and the rich, adventurous or neglected … :) I always found that job title lewdly loaded with measureless meaning – Personal Trainer, huh.
So, the modern Accraian cares about how they look, and if their body can be recognised from the basic human blueprint. Others say they merely want to lose the heavy sack of potatoes that they have quietly hidden inside their bulging bodies for a reckless half-decade. Some are calmly honest, and come slowly to admit that they are looking for friends, or more, in that tiny, sweaty room. Which brings me to the African at Salsa - all the rage (but a topic to be slain at a later date).
For peeps (i.e. people) who have flaunt-worthy flesh, the gym is quite an exhibition, really (admit it, admit it). I might join a gym next week, just to observe the human body in free, unguarded physical exertion. In between looking everywhere, a very stiff neck and a few contact details, I might get to build some bulk on my certainly easily recognisable blueprint.
Now, I, for one, would not mind if they practised the Greek-and-Roman notion, and stripped down to the barest minimum. Appropriately minimal clothes make as much sense as the mediaeval knight who went to the battlefield dressed in a coat of mail. So, Accraians, why not lose the track suits, the raincoats :) and the super-hero capes :), and mimic the Roman example. In no time, the fluid body you painfully conceal should be a physical joy to look at, no?
The gyms will continue to grow until a new thing takes over. That has been the history of Accra. For now, seeing so many healthy, firm and firm bodies on the capital’s humanscape gives me a wisp of hope that the carbo-abdomen (the blighted flab, flesh and gas that some young women disrespectfully show off) and the beer belly (proudly pregnant men) are about to disappear.
Accra does love a beautiful body.
So, the modern Accraian cares about how they look, and if their body can be recognised from the basic human blueprint. Others say they merely want to lose the heavy sack of potatoes that they have quietly hidden inside their bulging bodies for a reckless half-decade. Some are calmly honest, and come slowly to admit that they are looking for friends, or more, in that tiny, sweaty room. Which brings me to the African at Salsa - all the rage (but a topic to be slain at a later date).
For peeps (i.e. people) who have flaunt-worthy flesh, the gym is quite an exhibition, really (admit it, admit it). I might join a gym next week, just to observe the human body in free, unguarded physical exertion. In between looking everywhere, a very stiff neck and a few contact details, I might get to build some bulk on my certainly easily recognisable blueprint.
Now, I, for one, would not mind if they practised the Greek-and-Roman notion, and stripped down to the barest minimum. Appropriately minimal clothes make as much sense as the mediaeval knight who went to the battlefield dressed in a coat of mail. So, Accraians, why not lose the track suits, the raincoats :) and the super-hero capes :), and mimic the Roman example. In no time, the fluid body you painfully conceal should be a physical joy to look at, no?
The gyms will continue to grow until a new thing takes over. That has been the history of Accra. For now, seeing so many healthy, firm and firm bodies on the capital’s humanscape gives me a wisp of hope that the carbo-abdomen (the blighted flab, flesh and gas that some young women disrespectfully show off) and the beer belly (proudly pregnant men) are about to disappear.
Accra does love a beautiful body.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Dark, Dark City, What are You Hiding?
I just love this wonderful city; her many friendly residents whose number is ... nobody really knows :) She sees very little violent crime. (She is one of the safest cities in the world, no?) Her busy and not-so-freshly-scented streets make an almighty morning din. But behind it all lies an easygoing, ever-smiling, all-embracing capital. That is the city of Accra in the fiery, fiery day.
As the thermal day puffs along, the young evening pokes her fine-breeze face round the fat and sweltering behind of the sticky afternoon :) Dark clouds steal across the Accraian sky, plunging the corners of her skirt in a thick and plastic darkness.
There are street lights everywhere! They dutifully line the quickly-emptying streets. The street lights are a bit like the pretty Accra girls. You come across one every ten metres. But this is where the rhyme and reason ends.
They should just be called street poles, for they do not give out any light. Even when the lovely Volta has grown big and mature, and is flaunting all her full and swollen parts, the streets and spaces in Accra will not be bold, light up, and come out and play :) Amazing, totally amazing,that creepy, unspeakable things do not come crawling out of the frightening night.
I feel repeatedly raped and helpless when, every month, we are levied on account of the street lights. Why, do they light up every stately room of the magnificent castles we happily build in the thickening air of the city of Accra? :)
As the thermal day puffs along, the young evening pokes her fine-breeze face round the fat and sweltering behind of the sticky afternoon :) Dark clouds steal across the Accraian sky, plunging the corners of her skirt in a thick and plastic darkness.
There are street lights everywhere! They dutifully line the quickly-emptying streets. The street lights are a bit like the pretty Accra girls. You come across one every ten metres. But this is where the rhyme and reason ends.
They should just be called street poles, for they do not give out any light. Even when the lovely Volta has grown big and mature, and is flaunting all her full and swollen parts, the streets and spaces in Accra will not be bold, light up, and come out and play :) Amazing, totally amazing,that creepy, unspeakable things do not come crawling out of the frightening night.
I feel repeatedly raped and helpless when, every month, we are levied on account of the street lights. Why, do they light up every stately room of the magnificent castles we happily build in the thickening air of the city of Accra? :)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
How Leopards Hunt Deer in the City of Accra
The Leopard, a self-respecting giant cat, faces each treacherous day with a simple prayer. “Dear God, I only ask to see the deer’s face; there’s no need to grab her for me. I will do the rest myself”.
In the crowded streets of the city of Accra, the conceited feline would face certain starvation. It would creep and stalk and chase, but never have a single deer.
The pace of life has rudely moved upstairs in the recent past. Every Accraian (A-KRA-YAN) (thanks, Victoria, for this one) has seen their personal time shrink faster than their naked personals on a chilly morning. The evil formula is simple and easy to memorise:
traffic + work + traffic + sleep = male cattle excrement
Sadly, the end product of the equation is what you get a lot of, these days.
Brisk and bustling Accra is deluged with clashing weddings everyday. It means that people are meeting people. People are liking each other. People are cutting out other people. People are getting hitched. These are busy people. What time do they make, and where do they go, to meet others?
These busy people do not join the daily (or nightly) hunt, I think. And, even today, many females in the city of Accra are not so feisty as to choose to be the leopardess (aaargh, ugly word!) and chase male deer. Some people go out and (believing them) they are having all the fun. Looking hard at them, I fail to see what’s tickling them so hard. So, I conclude that they are putting on a show. An old effective trick in the hunt. :) It makes you want to be with them.
If the beautiful people we painfully encounter at the expensive social events, enact rehearsed charades for us, then, that leaves us with only the workplace and the church, and the hope that stress, in one place, and the fear of God, in the other, would prevent the people there from putting on a road show. :)
So, are people marrying colleagues at work or fellow seekers at church? I cannot answer the question. You should find it somewhere in you. But I know that if the average male leopard in the city of Accra gets round to praying, it would go something like this: Dear God, I want a deer. Grab her, seize her, tie her, snare her, blindfold her, gag her, anything! Just please deliver her, yielding, at my door. :)
In the crowded streets of the city of Accra, the conceited feline would face certain starvation. It would creep and stalk and chase, but never have a single deer.
The pace of life has rudely moved upstairs in the recent past. Every Accraian (A-KRA-YAN) (thanks, Victoria, for this one) has seen their personal time shrink faster than their naked personals on a chilly morning. The evil formula is simple and easy to memorise:
traffic + work + traffic + sleep = male cattle excrement
Sadly, the end product of the equation is what you get a lot of, these days.
Brisk and bustling Accra is deluged with clashing weddings everyday. It means that people are meeting people. People are liking each other. People are cutting out other people. People are getting hitched. These are busy people. What time do they make, and where do they go, to meet others?
These busy people do not join the daily (or nightly) hunt, I think. And, even today, many females in the city of Accra are not so feisty as to choose to be the leopardess (aaargh, ugly word!) and chase male deer. Some people go out and (believing them) they are having all the fun. Looking hard at them, I fail to see what’s tickling them so hard. So, I conclude that they are putting on a show. An old effective trick in the hunt. :) It makes you want to be with them.
If the beautiful people we painfully encounter at the expensive social events, enact rehearsed charades for us, then, that leaves us with only the workplace and the church, and the hope that stress, in one place, and the fear of God, in the other, would prevent the people there from putting on a road show. :)
So, are people marrying colleagues at work or fellow seekers at church? I cannot answer the question. You should find it somewhere in you. But I know that if the average male leopard in the city of Accra gets round to praying, it would go something like this: Dear God, I want a deer. Grab her, seize her, tie her, snare her, blindfold her, gag her, anything! Just please deliver her, yielding, at my door. :)
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Manners, VAT and H2O in the City of Accra
At an eatery, yesterday, in the city of Accra, this waiter crept out of his hole to take my simple order.
Waiter: Sir, what do you want?
Me: I would like a sinfully-cold Coca Cola, please.
(Waiter lurches off and returns in ten minutes).
Waiter: Your Coke, Sir.
Me: I'm sure Pepsi is just as nice, but that's not what I asked for.
Waiter: But it's the same thing...
(I felt my chest begin to swell with anger, but a more evilly-satisfying plan came to mind).
Me: In that case, I've changed my mind. May I have some H2O?
Waiter: We have run out of stock, Sir.
(The Sun itself rose in my naughty face!)
Me: Well, then, just bring me some water, please.
Waiter: O.K. Sir, what else do you want?
Ignore his unfinished manners for a while. He brought back the H20, maybe from some underground stock. The frigid frown on his rodent face betrayed his lack of grasp, that the joke as all on him. (As for the Pepsi, it certainly appeared to have enough pecadilloes in the arctic department :) The waiter's spoken English told of some education. So, for not knowing what H20 was, he was the more a fool for all that he did not learn when he had a golden chance.
I spent lunch hour and enough time to fill a pregnancy trimester waiting for the food to come. So, I amused myself with the sights and sounds of glutton Accra. A man with a well-appointed face sat with a woman I got to looking at. It took no time for me to realise that something was awfully wrong with the picture in front of me. Then it hit me in the face. The MAN was at least six months pregnant! Yes, the man. And with such a slender, sexy woman, I failed to find answers why he was eating food enough to feed ten hungry hogs. Thankfully, my own food came to rescue me from this porcine parade, for looking around me, there were enough pregnant young men to populate a little nation, with no help from women. So have our men found the secret to the art (or is it the science) of self-fertilisation? ;)
The waiter crept back down his hole and would not come to present the bill. I announced to the head waiter, that the mole could either chase me to my car, or find me in my office. If he had asked me where my office was, I would have been no more surprised than to hear a George W. Bush lecture on Arabic literature.
He finally caught up with my already cruising car. The chicken ink scratches on the bill told me why it had taken so long. He could not calculate the VAT. Now, whose fault was that? It struck me that patrons did not usually ask for the bill. They just asked how much they owed, and then paid minus the VAT. Just my baseless suspicion, but is somebody listening, in the city of Accra?
I Can!!!
Waiter: Sir, what do you want?
Me: I would like a sinfully-cold Coca Cola, please.
(Waiter lurches off and returns in ten minutes).
Waiter: Your Coke, Sir.
Me: I'm sure Pepsi is just as nice, but that's not what I asked for.
Waiter: But it's the same thing...
(I felt my chest begin to swell with anger, but a more evilly-satisfying plan came to mind).
Me: In that case, I've changed my mind. May I have some H2O?
Waiter: We have run out of stock, Sir.
(The Sun itself rose in my naughty face!)
Me: Well, then, just bring me some water, please.
Waiter: O.K. Sir, what else do you want?
Ignore his unfinished manners for a while. He brought back the H20, maybe from some underground stock. The frigid frown on his rodent face betrayed his lack of grasp, that the joke as all on him. (As for the Pepsi, it certainly appeared to have enough pecadilloes in the arctic department :) The waiter's spoken English told of some education. So, for not knowing what H20 was, he was the more a fool for all that he did not learn when he had a golden chance.
I spent lunch hour and enough time to fill a pregnancy trimester waiting for the food to come. So, I amused myself with the sights and sounds of glutton Accra. A man with a well-appointed face sat with a woman I got to looking at. It took no time for me to realise that something was awfully wrong with the picture in front of me. Then it hit me in the face. The MAN was at least six months pregnant! Yes, the man. And with such a slender, sexy woman, I failed to find answers why he was eating food enough to feed ten hungry hogs. Thankfully, my own food came to rescue me from this porcine parade, for looking around me, there were enough pregnant young men to populate a little nation, with no help from women. So have our men found the secret to the art (or is it the science) of self-fertilisation? ;)
The waiter crept back down his hole and would not come to present the bill. I announced to the head waiter, that the mole could either chase me to my car, or find me in my office. If he had asked me where my office was, I would have been no more surprised than to hear a George W. Bush lecture on Arabic literature.
He finally caught up with my already cruising car. The chicken ink scratches on the bill told me why it had taken so long. He could not calculate the VAT. Now, whose fault was that? It struck me that patrons did not usually ask for the bill. They just asked how much they owed, and then paid minus the VAT. Just my baseless suspicion, but is somebody listening, in the city of Accra?
I Can!!!
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