Before xmas

Burma

After paying our respects to the roped monkey who guards WO’s compound in Burma Camp, we sat around in lawn chairs discussing Sim’s acclimatization to Accra. He is a city boy after all, so it makes sense that he would finally come to enjoy Ghana in the capital. “He is now saying he is liking Accra as much as Canada,” Dacosta informed us proudly. Sim’s rebel yell had made him popular with his big city barracks cousins, who find great hilarity in his disregard for custom.

Our already full bellies were no match for the wills of the wives to feed us, with Dacosta as their enforcer. We reluctantly gorged lightly on boiled yams fish and stew before excusing ourselves to see Dacosta in uniform before the start of his shift. All the young men at Burma Camp have sculpted and bulging physiques, and we posed for some quick photos with Dacosta’s ripped roommates, who come from all over Ghana and speak many languages amongst them.

“He must be your brotha,” said one, pointing at a slightly lighter skinned smiler. “He so fare.”

They were all smiles during the work of hand washing their clothes, fine tuning their bodies, polishing their shoes, pressing their uniforms, and official training. One claimed to have no free time, but we knew better having seen both the officers mess and the soldiers mess brimming with excited football fans enjoying various brews. But my own skinny sag reminds me of my relative life of leisure, physically speaking.

Daily News

I showed Boss my list of ideas drafted before the madness of the x-mas rush. [In this pious Christian society no one says Christmas, only x-mas.] He circled a few and said he was very impressed, told me to start up the letters to editor section. At this place, the idea-holder must become the implementer, or keep his mouth shut.

It was then I met Rita from Canada, originally Ghana but as Ghanaian as I am Ontarian. Okay, less so. She’s fresh from her undergrad here for three months doing a documentary for MTV, will be co-editing the Saturday paper with me in the new year.

Our editorial meeting became a debate about Canadian French [with Bossman claiming that all Canadians are supposed to speak French and Chief Seller claiming that no one actually comes from Canada] interrupted by a job interview with a reporter who had showed some skill in roving into the middle of the nerve centre.

“I have worked at one paper that folder, then at the Graphic, which I left because I was wasting my time.”

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with them being unhappy with your work, would it?”

“Oh no, Sir, nothing like that.”

“Okay good. Shall I give you some work then?”

“Well, Sir, I’m not sure.”

“Your editor asks if he should give you some work and you’re not sure?!”

“Oh yes, Sir, give me something.”

In a few hours he had been introduced around the building as the new reporter for the Volta Region in Southeastern Ghana, I had been offered a salary, and there were donkeys in the soccer fields on the way home, braying their welcome.

David or Dacosta paid my 36 cent bus fare; they happened to be on the same trotro as I and headed to the Captain’s house to see our accommodations and make known their gratitude for the Captain’s generosity in hosting us. The trotro’s last stop had moved temporarily and we were pointed in a snakelike direction toward the usual stop. We slithered right instead of left. A quick call home garnered a new set of directions that Dacosta did not trust me to implement. Fair enough. A passing mother with baby strapped sleeping across her back gave us a good point to the playpark, Tunga, the usual last stop, from which I led us home in my sleep as Dacosta double-checked with Miia’s written directions at every twist in the road.

Fortunately the power was on so the television could play in the background while David and Captain cracked each other up in Twi – with no signs of the animosity that had punctuated Captain’s earlier talk of David’s treason, though he would later confirm that he sees David as a liar. Meanwhile Dacosta slumped in the corner wordlessly, having just completed a 24-hour shift. He had forced his body there, having wanted so badly to make sure we were comfortably accommodated. With Little John’s help we whipped together a meal of leftovers and freshly boiled yams, to which David said “oh it’s too much!” which I believe in Ghana is a compliment, hence our inability to ever refuse a meal on the basis of an already full stomach. They ate every bite and with great effort we made them accept cab far for their return trip to the other end of 3 million Accra dwellers. The visit ended with us having said and understood very few words. David promised to deliver a copy of my Ayirebi article to the school children so they could see their pictures in the paper. “You’re a very good writer,” he said. “I loved the way you told this story; you captured it so well.” Unfortunately he forgot to make the delivery to the school.

Newsroom Controversy

The paper is sometimes seen as, and perception is reality, the mouthpiece of the ruling political party. Yet whomever I tell that I work there, be they a cab driver or a newspaper seller or a business person, invariably says, “That is a good paper. It is honest.”

Its honesty and its opposition to previous military parties is what got it shut down in the 80s, and got its editors and writers thrown in jail. It was not revived until Ghana’s new constitution was born in 1992.

Uncle was one of the Re-Founding Editors – the News Editor at that time. Now at the age of 70 he has slowed down considerably and been demoted to Sports Editor. He is cantankerous and curmudgeonly, and not a fan of hotshot young foreigners coming in and thinking they know better. Uncle is to be treated with the respect he has earned and I do respect him, mostly for standing up to Bossman on issues of the rights of employees while others cower under smiles, jokes and averted eyes.

But had I been around back in October I’d have found myself staring into his tired eyes from the opposite side of a glowing hot issue that was re-ignited so easily when some Ghanaians in Accra tried to host an international gay conference. The backlash shot up-ladder like lightning, and the President himself said ‘no way, we don’t go in for that kind of thing in Ghana,’ where homosexuality is not only a sin but also a crime, and all the papers and priests were quick to call for the violent deaths, street justice, of the boldly blasphemous organizers, who in turn disassociated themselves with the event.

Bossman wrote his own editorial saying ‘hey, I’m a little uncomfortable with the topic myself, but all these folks wanted to do was get together and talk – isn’t that supposed to be encouraged in a democracy?’ That’s his brand of conservatism, where fiscal control is necessary and social control is dangerous.

Sales plummeted, the city was uproarious, calling for Bossman’s gay head. Counter-editorials were appalled; in-house counter-counter-editorial sighting numerous biblical passages about tolerance was axed, and the staff here were divided, with Uncle and other devout Christians refusing to speak to the more liberal editors.

With daily deadlines, hourly shifting priorities, and the perpetual need for reflexive reaction, tension is part of the job. Meetings are called, pulling staff away from their tasks, for the purpose of berating them about upcoming deadlines and lacklustre performance. And we all march slow, this being Ghana, to the beat of a polychronic clock.

The Bigger They Are

On my first two attempts to meet the Attorney General I was early and he was a no-show. I waited ina reception room with 10 other time-wasters watching Latino novellas on a big TV.

On the third attempt I waited no more than an hour before being escorted to the end of the top floor and ushered into a giant carpeted room with a framed President’s face and the red, gold and green of Ghana’s flag. A rotund man sat at a desk in one corner with his eyes buried in paper.

I strode to him with forced confidence and extended my hand and voice: “Hello Sir!”

“Please sit over there.”

“Sure, thanks.”

“No. Not that seat; the other one.” Pleather.

He joined me in his time and asked me from where I cam, and then if he could get an appointment with a Minister in Canada.

“I think so,” I said.

“Then why did you not do the same here?” he asked. When I explained that indeed I had, three times, a flurry of staff were hailed scrambling in and out seeking explanations. “This cannot happen,” he proclaimed. “People cannot just be brought in without my knowledge. Even as a lawyer I would never see people without appointments.”

I apologized for the surprise and he magnanimously waved his hand, making it all okay. “How can I help you?” he asked. The interview had begun; his answers were as vague as his earlier anger.

Little has been done to safeguard this country from future coups, which are still occasionally threatened by the same deluded demigods who orchestrated the last one. Little has been done to heal the nation from those past pains, other than an ongoing administrative process of pittance payments to survivors of torture, wrongful detainment, and other terrible things. Most of the recommendations of the national reconciliation commission have been ignored by the same government that brought the report to Parliament.

That is the impression the AG gave me, and it was only his underling who saved the interview. The underling, who was beckoned mid-interview to fill in some knowledge gap, took the time to explain the process, explain why some recommendations were not implemented, and explain why things moved so slowly, as the AG barked from behind his giant desk, “Stop asking him the same questions you just asked me, I don’t like that!”

It was only when the underling realized that I’m a journalist that he clammed up. “I don’t like reporters,” he said. “They always twist my words.”

Both men admonished me whenever I asked them to repeat something for clarification. “I already told you,” they’d say, as if I was the first foreigner with a strained ear and brain they’d ever encountered.

Sweet Early Morning

I waved goodbye to Captain as he stood on his porch gazing at the western morning. I stifled laughter as he turned toward me revealing his morning facial mask. It either rejuvenates, de-fattens, or whitens his face. There is a disturbingly large number of Ghanaians trying to be whiter through body-altering concoctions and exodus to live amongst the northern or visiting whites.

I closed the gates on the country music coming from the house: Travis Tritt or something like that reminding me of my uncles and their guitars and deep sweet voices of comfort, special holiday homes for a little boy surrounded by familiarity. Different times. It is in the tropics where I always appreciate the tragedy of country music best.

I stepped over geckos and chameleons, watched them run up trees and walls, some dull brown some black and spotted, some green orange and red, some standing our and some blending in.

I walked over the puddle swamp road and through the junkyard where the young men salvage remnants of cars, some of which have waited so long that the land has begun to claim them and they’ve become giant planting pots with green oozing from every orifice, an environmentalist’s sweetest dream realized.

Some of the fit mechanics wave muscled hands and smile. No cigarettes soil their lips – almost no one smokes here.

This is a big day but I take my time, try to fit in, like a chameleon, red gold and green.

Climatic Tensions

Those workplace tensions tend to escalate and explode from Bossman at production time, especially for a special edition. An easy excitement dawns fresh after the storm – almost there. Even the brilliant and serious young news editor does a smiley two-step. “Finally,” he sighs. Everybody’s proof-reading and the radio is telling us the projected results of the opposition leadership race. Our cell phones are calculating percentages and it’s a competition to be the first with an answer. Winners are teasing losers laughingly.

The front page has my name all over it. “Your first big lead,” smiles the news editor. “Some of us wait a long time for that.” It is a huge compliment from a stoic man and all I can do is smile.

Lost and Found

The day before Miia’s cell phone was stolen began with her discovery, in my shorts, of the cash I thought was pick-pocketed. It had been in a lower, more protected pocket; I was smarter than I thought, so the guy I caught with his hand in my pocket got nothing for his trouble but a dirty look.

It ended with an xmas party at the paper with free booze and a speech by Bossman outlining a plan for an earlier workday – 7-4 – and a news brief about office thieves who were taking hundreds of a copies a day. “We are a family and those who steal fro mthis family will be dealt with by the police,” he vowed to much approval, but he refused requests to reveal the thieves’ identities before further investigation.

Bossman concluded with a quick informal poll to pick and employee of the year. The Chief Seller won on the support of his quivering staff. Cash prizes were given randomly: Best Cartoonist, Hardest Working, Best Receptionist, and the amount varied depending on the size of Bossman’s smile. Most of us walked away with chocolate courtesy of the cocoa marketing board, the distribution rights for which were taken from me by the Receptionist of the Year, who has that domineering gale force of audible will by which the powerless get theirs. Her cash prize was 60 cents.