Omsk to Tomsk
On Rosh Hashanah Ivan took a great interest in our books: the Russian Revolution and Soviet Short Stories. “You know, we don’t like that way any more,” he told us, and we explained that we were interested in the historical perspective.
He was 17 and fresh-faced back from three months in Jersey with a compounded love of America. “Americans drink more than Russians,” he told us in stark disagreement with our own experiences.
In the midst of his hometown’s Soviet bloc apartments and fuming ladas, I could see America’s appeal despite the exotica that charmed us. What a thrill it was to ride in our first Lada taxi back to the train that night at only slightly more than the agreed price with a savvy driver who sat stone-faced while we debated tipping or bargaining and then wished us a safe journey in perfect English.
The 2:00 AM train to Omsk was dead on time and woke Miia from train station slumber. The provodnista took an instant liking to me and tucked me in after tossing a pile of linen on Miia’s half-slumbering body.
We awoke at crack AM to the sound of a recognizable military man with an unshakeable discipline even off duty. Miia worked him over with smiles until we hit Western Siberia’s rolling autumn hills and he almost smiled back when I started taking pictures. Soon enough his photo album was out and we were having one-word dictionary-mediated conversation about family, home, and nature.
Unfortunately for us he had long-since alighted by the time we hit Omsk the enxt day, and there was no one to ward off the taxi scammers. “Taxi?”
Miia answered too quickly and eagerly, asked the price. “Chkk, chkk, chkk,” he said, rolling his hand to indicate a metre system, which turned out to be his odometre rigged at about 5 km to 1, with a per km price inflated by a similar ratio. You can fool Miia but don’t expect her to pay 60 bucks for a 5 km cab ride. There were two bulky men in the front and us in the back; Miia haggled and argued and refused and accused the price down to 20 and we walked away in one piece.
Our large room was cold and stank of fresh paint, but it had Russian television – including a soap about boys in military school – and a Russian sauna, called a Banya. We spent an hour sweating and cooling in a clear pool, re-living summer paradise and fighting off our colds. Siberian fall had hit us like a Canadian winter: hat and mitts time!
We stayed in Omsk only one night but it was a pretty town, plenty of yellow and red leaves and pretty young people eye-mauling the dirty hippes. There was even a sushi joint run by Russians who may or may not have been trained in the Japanese art, which got us longing to see Big Brother in the Pacific. The Russians happily obliged our departure to Tomsk; a busful of babushkas escorted us to the train station lest we miss it.
We had second class seats on the train, which placed us in a room with a shishi couple who had fancy clothes hung in plastic for the duration of the trip. They spoke good English but had few words to exchange. Instead we shared coughs and cough-drops, Kleenex and candy; cold season had hit our car hard.
I slept poorly in the only bed long enough for me on any train to date, and awoke too close to the station to be allowed to pee, despite my moaning at the provodnista. The door was slammed shut on my full bladder, which I carried all the way to our 6th floor (no elevator) hostel. It was the best one we stayed in in Russia. After gaining the necessary relief we explored the town’s numerous colourful parks and wooden lace architecture. They had a café with reasonable facsimiles of western food. Tomsk is a university town with hip crowds and it’s a comfortable joint for a three-day layover.
The next day we decided to take a day trip to Kolorova, a very small Siberian village where little happens besides multiple weddings on weekends at the pretty church on the hill. Getting there was facilitated by an allied babushka who shoved us to the front of a queue to find out what time and from where our bus departed. She explained the results of her barking to us by resetting her watch to the time we wanted and walking us to the right stop while tourists and students scattered to make way, further convincing us that middle aged women rule the world.
Kolorova itself has two dirt roads, a corner store, church, and the highway running through the middle of it. We dragged our exploration out as long as possible and made our way to the church, where the organist and bell-ringer invited us into the bell tower to get an astounding view of autumn colours everywhere and the ladies selling cheese made from the milk of their cows across the highway. If only we had known then what that cheese would do to us. When we came down from the bell-tower waving goodbye to the latest in the parade of wedding parties donning their golden crowns, we made small-talk with the cheese ladies until the bus came, bought some of their wares, and took their picture, for which they refused to smile – too many missing teeth. Back in town were more weddings at the mother and soldier war memorial, from which there was a sprawling vista of taiga, taiga, a hang-glider, and more taiga.
In our room we discovered the joys of cheese-eating to Russian pop music awards, a great takeoff of the same on MTV, with well-mimed computerized melodies sung by beautifully sculpted mannequins with expressive faces. Our favourite was a song in English with memorable lines like “it’s like thunder without rain, it’s like book without last page, we’re running without sneakers.” The sound of the television was soon replaced with the sound of rumbles in our tummies.
Russian Pleasures
There is much to be done in Tomsk besides the usual tours of Dracula churches, and the food there was the best we had in Russia (which puts it almost on par with what they serve in a Finnish jail). One of the best offerings are street crepes, which may also have been a source of food poisoning, but a tasty one at least, and vegetarian to boot. The worst food I remember having in Russia, and that is really saying something, was a pre-made Smack-burger, which was essentially a pile of brown mush on wonder-bread under three layers of packaging. There is a fortune to be made for the entrepreneurial gourmet who introduces fine dining in Siberia.
Despite food poisoning of various sorts, and other pretty good dining at the western-style student joint called Foodmasters, I remember Tomsk mainly a place of leisurely walks through crisp autumn air and pretty sites abounding: pretty architecture, pretty parks, pretty monuments, pretty people. We had three fine days there and reluctantly hopped a train to Krasnoyarsk on the first night of October.
That train was a quick overnight, the first few hours of which were passed sharing beer with Aleksei, who with much effort we ascertained is a maker of TV satellite dishes, and roman, a student. In our efforts to communicate we received occasional support from a Mr. Universe contender and his girlfriend, who sat across the isle. We didn’t get very far with those abstract occupational questions, but we did make our way through a few beers and slept beautifully.
Our day in Krasnoyarsk, after taking a hit of Subway sandwich, was spent searching for a certain travel agent known for booking cultural tours of Tuva, made famous to me by the great movie Gengis Blues, about a blind old American bluesman who hears throat singing on his Ham radio and teaches himself the art before travelling to Tuva for an international competition – a true story. We finally found our agency after a few wrong turns just before they closed shop for the day. When the kind young agent started talking of booking us a shaman with her computer we became a bit queasy. Who books a shaman on her computer? Not us. Instead we booked a tour-guide to show us around Kyzyl, Tuva’s capital city, and a couple nights in a cheap hotel there. This agency even had a service where someone would meet you where the train ends in a town called Abakan and show you to the bus-stop. They didn’t mention that the bus-stop is about 200 metres from the train station. We passed on that one too.
On the train to Abakan we met a great trio: Galena and Viktor, who are stenographers at the same company, and Zhenia, a Christian missionary who saves lost souls at the penitentiary, which some might call easy pickins. Young Viktor spoke better than average English and we were able to share some basic details about ourselves – like us he had recently married and went camping on his honeymoon, not far from his hometown, like me. They had honeymooned in the national park near Krasnoyarsk, which I had wanted to visit myself but the train waits for no daydreamers. Anyway we really felt a good connection from Viktor, and he helped us explain to Zhenia why writing English letters to Russian prisoners is not really a good use of our time. We promised to post the addresses on our blog for her instead for our Russian-speaking readers, of which there are a couple, for whatever it’s worth, and we did that. Writing to prisoners is in fact a grand thing to do, but really what’s the point of doing it in a language they can’t read? It’s like poking their eyes out and then telling them there’s a naked lady dancing around the room.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
January
The Fabulous Cousins-in-Law
Tonight we had dinner with the Nigerian-Ghanaian cousins-in-law, my father’s sister’s husband’s elder brother’s son Alaibi Cookie, i.e. Sam, his wife Lara, and their three children: Menjabi, Bea, and Alaibi Jr. Menjabi picked us up at a nearby bus stop and welcomed us, asked us how we liked Ghana. It turns out she is an award winning Creative Writing student who has already been published up there in England.
At the high-ceilinged house they gave us a warm reception and Lara announced she had pictures of a younger me to show, and we were joined by their friends Kojo and Marjorie and their children, who attended school with the Cookies’ children. We sat in their spotless and beautiful air-conditioned home and briefed each other on the family connection. Out came photos of Lara’s 1995 trip to Nova Scotia, and there beamed a 19-year-old me on my couch surrounded by squirming smiling cousins. I vaguely remember posing for this photograph; I was probably less happy than I looked about it, but now it’s a grand site because I don’t remember another time when so many Benjamin cousins came into such close proximity. Of course there are annual events but there are always some missing, and we tend to sit far apart and make timid small talk for a while, rediscover the fact that we like each other bit by bit, then regret that the evening is so short – at least that’s usually my experience.
Lara had many pictures of the house I did most of my growing up in, the Beaver Bank home that still houses my two parents and my two young cats, with its sunsets on deep still water, red reflections of green trees. Lara, like many of her Benjamin in-laws, has the good eye, which serves her well as a designer of interiors and exteriors, mostly focusing on children’s play-sets and parks in beautiful colours, built to fit the local culture. Noticing a lack of toys that help African children learn, she created the miniature fufu pounding block, mort and pestle, and an African doll house. She showed us pictures of her work and they all have a natural beauty about them, taking full advantage of the colour of mahogany and throwing in a dash of pastels to brighten play-time.
“It took eight years to get this business going,” she said while Junior serenaded us with guitar, xylophone, and made-in-Africa instruments from the next room. Lara had to educate her clients about the importance of play as a means of education, that children can learn in ways other than memorization.
Sam is an architect and in Nigeria they worked together to create homes. The money in Lagos was good so he maintains a company there and flies back and forth, but they prefer the saner pace of Ghana to the megatropolis, where friends drop in at will, as demonstrated by their friend who works to finance the purchase of homes, and half-joked that empty-nesters like them should vacate their large homes and make way for multiple-flat complexes because of the housing shortage. Sam and Lara plan to do just that, but it’s hard to imagine them leaving their big beautiful new home that they took such care in creating. “Somewhere along the line people forgot how to design an African house for the heat,” Sam told us. “They adopted models from the north that are just too hot.” Their house has one ‘wall’ that is in fact almost entirely made of screen to keep the bugs out and let the breeze pass through, so that only one room in the house, the front sitting room, requires air conditioning.
When the banker left we were given a tour of the house with its artwork by the children hanging on the walls and its giant kitchen-living room complex, and then took cold drinks in the garden, under a huge tree the branches of which shade the whole yard in the day. They told us stories of the difference between policy and action in the Economic cooperation organization of West African States (ECOWAS), where duty-free translates to 7 month shipment delays to construction sites that are not prepared even when supplies finally arrive at great cost in bribes and officially banned duties. Sam is on the board and trying to change such things, but it’s a long row to hoe.
Back inside there was chocolate cake, a delicacy I’d not laid tongue on in a hamster’s age, and American fluff programming beamed through the satellite dish: top 65 most sexy fabulous red carpet superstars. We sat around trashing the trash TV and were served grilled barracuda and couscous: a garden of delights! What was this house of cool air, intelligent conversation, sarcastic humour, and delectable delights? Who knew such luxuries existed? They even drove us home, and wore seatbelts!
In the car we talked about cultural differences, living abroad (Sam lived in England for 10 years and Lara for 8, and that is where they met), and how back here in Africa they can do the work they love at a higher level that possible in the giant pond of the west, and at the same time influence politics and development. They feel that there is much Africa can learn from the west, but at the same time much about Africa that makes perfect sense, that should not change, and there are many things about the west that should not be mimicked or adopter, like top 65 super sexy eedjits on red carpets with plastic faces and genitalia on display.
Death of a Tooth
My bottom right second-from-rear molar managed to hang on until the third day of 2007, on which it was extracted at 11:50 AM, GMT. Tonight the tooth fairy will take it to tooth heaven. I doubt whatever she leaves me will equal what this tooth has now cost me. The decay was severe, the infection spreading, and the curvature of the tooth (and its state of decline) were too severe to allow for a root canal. I now have a gaping hole, fortunately out of site unless I really want to show you.
Miia accompanied me into the execution room to meet the dentist, who kindly and patiently answered her many questions. The procedure itself was quick and painless; afterward while chomping tissue I wrote down on a piece of paper for Miia, “Ghanaian culture is conducive to better bedside manner.” No Canadian dentist has ever taken so much time to explain things, to reassure, to minimize pain both physical and psychological.
Nikki
She moved with her mother from Ghana to Canada when she was six so, like Miia, she is a child of two nations, bi-cultural. She understands Ghanaian culture like an insider, yet is not familiar with the political scene or development issues even to the extent that I have become.
She is here for three months to shoot a documentary, about her return to Ghana, for MTV, which she is shooting and editing herself. To better familiarize herself with the political scene, she is working three days a week co-editing the Saturday paper with me. She is filled with ideas and enthusiasm, and refuses to accept the sexist jokes and inefficiency that are part of the Ghanaian workplace. The on-the-table-for-all-to-see office politics she expected. “I don’t even think there is a word for ‘subtle’ in Twi,” she told me as we met for wakye at a roadside stall I know and to discuss what we want to do with the Saturday paper, which so far has proven to be a circulation and advertising dead zone. It seems that in some ways, with Miia’s help, I am having an easier time integrating here than her: no health problems and decent familiarity with the trotro system, whereas she loves the food but it doesn’t love her and she so far has stuck to taxis.
For me, she is a great cultural interpreter and a co-worker who I can easily understand, and understands me. One idea I bounced off her first was to pick up the column of the great Dave Zirin, who wrote ‘What’s My Name Fool?’ and writes about the politics of sport. I wondered if he would compute for a Ghanaian audience, so filled as his writing is with American pop culture references. “As long as we put it next to an article about football, people will enjoy the Americana,” she told me.
So I emailed Mr. Zirin offering him nothing but a little bit of exposure in Africa. “My wife went to University of Ghana,” he replied, “so you could say I have a soft spot for Ghana.” Permission granted.
NE
The news editor (NE) is one of the few Ghanaians I’ve met who not only understands sarcasm but uses it liberally. When I asked him why Bossman wants us to start coming in at 7:00 AM he told me, “Because he is one of those people who can live on two hours of sleep each night and he expects the same from the rest of us. Me, I need at least six. I also need to spend time with my family. The other reason I prefer not to work so much is that I am not a robot.” Unfortunately, NE and all other editors were overruled, so as of next week my alarm clock will be set for 4:30 AM. You back in Canada will be brushing your teeth for bed at about the time I wake up.
Fatigue Friday
Nikki and I co-edited last Saturday’s paper, which on Friday we learned was to be a special edition with paid political advertising by the ruling party, which is choosing a new leader, all over it. That left us 4.5 pages to fill, meaning we cut most of the planned content, including my feature, then replaced some of it, then cut some other stuff, all to the great confusion of our graphics team and the consternation of Bossman, whose production fit came early and hard. When someone shouts at me I can’t really help but shout back; I hate being put into that position and it is really counterproductive. The issue got done with a 1,200 word piece I did on brain drain and remittance payments, which are one of the largest sources of revenue for Ghana.
I spent Saturday recovering, reading, and writing (in our room). We watched the latest movie about rich people living abroad with no interaction with the locals, then tried our own hand at such on Sunday with a visit to the foreign-goods superstore, where we dropped about 40 dollars (a very large sum here) on cheese, chips, chocolate, hummus and sensodyne toothpaste. It was the most white people we’d seen in months and the temptation to call out “oboruni!” was strong.
We also visited Buma camp to say goodbye to WO, who is headed to the Congo next week. Dacosta asked after my tooth and I shared the sad news. “White people have problems with teeth,” he told me. “For us here, it’s our eyes.” Which is strange because few Ghanaians wear glasses; I suspect that may have to do with the expense of eyewear. It’s scary to think of all the half-blind cab and trotro drivers in this town, like the one we had this morning who was so bad that another driver, a giant of a man, flagged him down and told him off.
Ghana is currently under attack by the Harmattan, annual winds that spread the fine sands of the Sahara everywhere: on your clothes, furniture, floors, walls, hair, lungs, eyes; and I think it’s putting a lot of people in particularly foul moods. Ghanaians are masters of self-advocacy, so it’s not unusual for someone to tell you exactly what they think of you at high volume, but today was something else. After the cab driver-other drive incident, we went to a trotro station where one trotro fired around a corner smack dab into a large pile of merchandise, flattening several cans of milk and other goods. The fight that erupted involved pretty much everyone who was waiting in line for the trotro, with the driver arguing that the goods were in the road and the owners of the goods arguing that they just set them down for a moment to await the trotro and that the driver was driving like a maniac, which in fact he was. We grabbed another taxi instead. Later on the way home two women started arguing with the trotro mate that he had short-changed them, and as usual everybody had an opinion. Finally a man whose little girl had burst into tears over all the yelling paid the women their change to get them to shut up. Plus Miia and I had a scuffle having to do with new release movies: she put me into a figure-four leg-lock that ended that debate promptly.
To cap off an uneventful weekend, we sat down with the family to feast on our home-made pizza as they flipped between the season finale of American Idle and the Ghanaian knock-off: Mentor. I must say that the Ghanaian version is infinitely superior; the singers sing better, the judges give articulate, specific, informed feedback that has to do with their performance and not their marketing potential. The performances were backed by real live musicians instead of synthesized soundtracks that probably make the original artists puke in their graves. On AI the two finalists did a duet of ‘Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong,’ which probably few people realize was written by an aboriginal Canadian woman, Buffy St. Marie, and has some great aboriginal imagery in the lyrics. Her version is so beautiful and makes perfect sense to me; it is backed by several other aboriginal women doing traditional song. And there before a nation of slack-jawed gawkers wailed these two southern whites with nary a clue about the origin of the keys they were missing. On Mentor, Kofi, a finalist, did a song lavishing praise on Africa, celebrating her people and tradition in all its glory; he did a wicked dance that filled the whole stage with his toned lanky body – it was perfect. If he had auditioned with that for AI Simon and Paula would have laughed him off the stage, the halfwits.
Anyway, tomorrow, Monday, we begin our 7 am working week, meaning I have to get up at 4:30 AM and go to bed about an hour ago. Goodnight, and Happy Birthday, Mom!
Tonight we had dinner with the Nigerian-Ghanaian cousins-in-law, my father’s sister’s husband’s elder brother’s son Alaibi Cookie, i.e. Sam, his wife Lara, and their three children: Menjabi, Bea, and Alaibi Jr. Menjabi picked us up at a nearby bus stop and welcomed us, asked us how we liked Ghana. It turns out she is an award winning Creative Writing student who has already been published up there in England.
At the high-ceilinged house they gave us a warm reception and Lara announced she had pictures of a younger me to show, and we were joined by their friends Kojo and Marjorie and their children, who attended school with the Cookies’ children. We sat in their spotless and beautiful air-conditioned home and briefed each other on the family connection. Out came photos of Lara’s 1995 trip to Nova Scotia, and there beamed a 19-year-old me on my couch surrounded by squirming smiling cousins. I vaguely remember posing for this photograph; I was probably less happy than I looked about it, but now it’s a grand site because I don’t remember another time when so many Benjamin cousins came into such close proximity. Of course there are annual events but there are always some missing, and we tend to sit far apart and make timid small talk for a while, rediscover the fact that we like each other bit by bit, then regret that the evening is so short – at least that’s usually my experience.
Lara had many pictures of the house I did most of my growing up in, the Beaver Bank home that still houses my two parents and my two young cats, with its sunsets on deep still water, red reflections of green trees. Lara, like many of her Benjamin in-laws, has the good eye, which serves her well as a designer of interiors and exteriors, mostly focusing on children’s play-sets and parks in beautiful colours, built to fit the local culture. Noticing a lack of toys that help African children learn, she created the miniature fufu pounding block, mort and pestle, and an African doll house. She showed us pictures of her work and they all have a natural beauty about them, taking full advantage of the colour of mahogany and throwing in a dash of pastels to brighten play-time.
“It took eight years to get this business going,” she said while Junior serenaded us with guitar, xylophone, and made-in-Africa instruments from the next room. Lara had to educate her clients about the importance of play as a means of education, that children can learn in ways other than memorization.
Sam is an architect and in Nigeria they worked together to create homes. The money in Lagos was good so he maintains a company there and flies back and forth, but they prefer the saner pace of Ghana to the megatropolis, where friends drop in at will, as demonstrated by their friend who works to finance the purchase of homes, and half-joked that empty-nesters like them should vacate their large homes and make way for multiple-flat complexes because of the housing shortage. Sam and Lara plan to do just that, but it’s hard to imagine them leaving their big beautiful new home that they took such care in creating. “Somewhere along the line people forgot how to design an African house for the heat,” Sam told us. “They adopted models from the north that are just too hot.” Their house has one ‘wall’ that is in fact almost entirely made of screen to keep the bugs out and let the breeze pass through, so that only one room in the house, the front sitting room, requires air conditioning.
When the banker left we were given a tour of the house with its artwork by the children hanging on the walls and its giant kitchen-living room complex, and then took cold drinks in the garden, under a huge tree the branches of which shade the whole yard in the day. They told us stories of the difference between policy and action in the Economic cooperation organization of West African States (ECOWAS), where duty-free translates to 7 month shipment delays to construction sites that are not prepared even when supplies finally arrive at great cost in bribes and officially banned duties. Sam is on the board and trying to change such things, but it’s a long row to hoe.
Back inside there was chocolate cake, a delicacy I’d not laid tongue on in a hamster’s age, and American fluff programming beamed through the satellite dish: top 65 most sexy fabulous red carpet superstars. We sat around trashing the trash TV and were served grilled barracuda and couscous: a garden of delights! What was this house of cool air, intelligent conversation, sarcastic humour, and delectable delights? Who knew such luxuries existed? They even drove us home, and wore seatbelts!
In the car we talked about cultural differences, living abroad (Sam lived in England for 10 years and Lara for 8, and that is where they met), and how back here in Africa they can do the work they love at a higher level that possible in the giant pond of the west, and at the same time influence politics and development. They feel that there is much Africa can learn from the west, but at the same time much about Africa that makes perfect sense, that should not change, and there are many things about the west that should not be mimicked or adopter, like top 65 super sexy eedjits on red carpets with plastic faces and genitalia on display.
Death of a Tooth
My bottom right second-from-rear molar managed to hang on until the third day of 2007, on which it was extracted at 11:50 AM, GMT. Tonight the tooth fairy will take it to tooth heaven. I doubt whatever she leaves me will equal what this tooth has now cost me. The decay was severe, the infection spreading, and the curvature of the tooth (and its state of decline) were too severe to allow for a root canal. I now have a gaping hole, fortunately out of site unless I really want to show you.
Miia accompanied me into the execution room to meet the dentist, who kindly and patiently answered her many questions. The procedure itself was quick and painless; afterward while chomping tissue I wrote down on a piece of paper for Miia, “Ghanaian culture is conducive to better bedside manner.” No Canadian dentist has ever taken so much time to explain things, to reassure, to minimize pain both physical and psychological.
Nikki
She moved with her mother from Ghana to Canada when she was six so, like Miia, she is a child of two nations, bi-cultural. She understands Ghanaian culture like an insider, yet is not familiar with the political scene or development issues even to the extent that I have become.
She is here for three months to shoot a documentary, about her return to Ghana, for MTV, which she is shooting and editing herself. To better familiarize herself with the political scene, she is working three days a week co-editing the Saturday paper with me. She is filled with ideas and enthusiasm, and refuses to accept the sexist jokes and inefficiency that are part of the Ghanaian workplace. The on-the-table-for-all-to-see office politics she expected. “I don’t even think there is a word for ‘subtle’ in Twi,” she told me as we met for wakye at a roadside stall I know and to discuss what we want to do with the Saturday paper, which so far has proven to be a circulation and advertising dead zone. It seems that in some ways, with Miia’s help, I am having an easier time integrating here than her: no health problems and decent familiarity with the trotro system, whereas she loves the food but it doesn’t love her and she so far has stuck to taxis.
For me, she is a great cultural interpreter and a co-worker who I can easily understand, and understands me. One idea I bounced off her first was to pick up the column of the great Dave Zirin, who wrote ‘What’s My Name Fool?’ and writes about the politics of sport. I wondered if he would compute for a Ghanaian audience, so filled as his writing is with American pop culture references. “As long as we put it next to an article about football, people will enjoy the Americana,” she told me.
So I emailed Mr. Zirin offering him nothing but a little bit of exposure in Africa. “My wife went to University of Ghana,” he replied, “so you could say I have a soft spot for Ghana.” Permission granted.
NE
The news editor (NE) is one of the few Ghanaians I’ve met who not only understands sarcasm but uses it liberally. When I asked him why Bossman wants us to start coming in at 7:00 AM he told me, “Because he is one of those people who can live on two hours of sleep each night and he expects the same from the rest of us. Me, I need at least six. I also need to spend time with my family. The other reason I prefer not to work so much is that I am not a robot.” Unfortunately, NE and all other editors were overruled, so as of next week my alarm clock will be set for 4:30 AM. You back in Canada will be brushing your teeth for bed at about the time I wake up.
Fatigue Friday
Nikki and I co-edited last Saturday’s paper, which on Friday we learned was to be a special edition with paid political advertising by the ruling party, which is choosing a new leader, all over it. That left us 4.5 pages to fill, meaning we cut most of the planned content, including my feature, then replaced some of it, then cut some other stuff, all to the great confusion of our graphics team and the consternation of Bossman, whose production fit came early and hard. When someone shouts at me I can’t really help but shout back; I hate being put into that position and it is really counterproductive. The issue got done with a 1,200 word piece I did on brain drain and remittance payments, which are one of the largest sources of revenue for Ghana.
I spent Saturday recovering, reading, and writing (in our room). We watched the latest movie about rich people living abroad with no interaction with the locals, then tried our own hand at such on Sunday with a visit to the foreign-goods superstore, where we dropped about 40 dollars (a very large sum here) on cheese, chips, chocolate, hummus and sensodyne toothpaste. It was the most white people we’d seen in months and the temptation to call out “oboruni!” was strong.
We also visited Buma camp to say goodbye to WO, who is headed to the Congo next week. Dacosta asked after my tooth and I shared the sad news. “White people have problems with teeth,” he told me. “For us here, it’s our eyes.” Which is strange because few Ghanaians wear glasses; I suspect that may have to do with the expense of eyewear. It’s scary to think of all the half-blind cab and trotro drivers in this town, like the one we had this morning who was so bad that another driver, a giant of a man, flagged him down and told him off.
Ghana is currently under attack by the Harmattan, annual winds that spread the fine sands of the Sahara everywhere: on your clothes, furniture, floors, walls, hair, lungs, eyes; and I think it’s putting a lot of people in particularly foul moods. Ghanaians are masters of self-advocacy, so it’s not unusual for someone to tell you exactly what they think of you at high volume, but today was something else. After the cab driver-other drive incident, we went to a trotro station where one trotro fired around a corner smack dab into a large pile of merchandise, flattening several cans of milk and other goods. The fight that erupted involved pretty much everyone who was waiting in line for the trotro, with the driver arguing that the goods were in the road and the owners of the goods arguing that they just set them down for a moment to await the trotro and that the driver was driving like a maniac, which in fact he was. We grabbed another taxi instead. Later on the way home two women started arguing with the trotro mate that he had short-changed them, and as usual everybody had an opinion. Finally a man whose little girl had burst into tears over all the yelling paid the women their change to get them to shut up. Plus Miia and I had a scuffle having to do with new release movies: she put me into a figure-four leg-lock that ended that debate promptly.
To cap off an uneventful weekend, we sat down with the family to feast on our home-made pizza as they flipped between the season finale of American Idle and the Ghanaian knock-off: Mentor. I must say that the Ghanaian version is infinitely superior; the singers sing better, the judges give articulate, specific, informed feedback that has to do with their performance and not their marketing potential. The performances were backed by real live musicians instead of synthesized soundtracks that probably make the original artists puke in their graves. On AI the two finalists did a duet of ‘Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong,’ which probably few people realize was written by an aboriginal Canadian woman, Buffy St. Marie, and has some great aboriginal imagery in the lyrics. Her version is so beautiful and makes perfect sense to me; it is backed by several other aboriginal women doing traditional song. And there before a nation of slack-jawed gawkers wailed these two southern whites with nary a clue about the origin of the keys they were missing. On Mentor, Kofi, a finalist, did a song lavishing praise on Africa, celebrating her people and tradition in all its glory; he did a wicked dance that filled the whole stage with his toned lanky body – it was perfect. If he had auditioned with that for AI Simon and Paula would have laughed him off the stage, the halfwits.
Anyway, tomorrow, Monday, we begin our 7 am working week, meaning I have to get up at 4:30 AM and go to bed about an hour ago. Goodnight, and Happy Birthday, Mom!
Monday, January 08, 2007
My Latest Publications
My latest editorial:
Toward a Hassle-Free Hajj
My latest feature:
Brain Drain and remittance revenue: cost-benefit analysis
-Chris
Toward a Hassle-Free Hajj
My latest feature:
Brain Drain and remittance revenue: cost-benefit analysis
-Chris
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.
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.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
How We Spent the Holydays
St. of Travelers
The true xmas bonuses were distributed on Saturday only six hours later than promised. During the time in between we fuelled up on Wakye [watch-yay] – rice and beans – got duped by a bus conductor (a mate) into going an hour in the wrong directin, visited Independence Square with its misplaced Soviet bleak gigantism, watched the waves, and bought dresses from a large laughing lade who loved Miia’s attempts and bargaining and Twi: “Your wife is like a Ghanaian!” she laughed. For lunch we rediscovered the disparity between legend and reality at an over-rated fast food joint called Papayes. As I finally collected my bonus and bathed in a stream of pure compliments paid to me via Miia from my co-workers, whose kindnesses made me feel like I belonged here in this Ghanaian journalism field.
The night soiled my sort of homecoming. Aiti blessed us with a call to Miia’s cell, which was passed to me then so deftly into the hands of a thief in the blink of an eye.
We stewed angrily home and consoled ourselves with generous gifts for the Family Captain, who himself was 200 ml of vodka toward oblivion. They thanked us calmly except for Little John, who practically burst when he saw that the soccer ball that followed the books had his own name inscribed in it. He quickly stashed them in his room. “I’m not allowed to play football,” he said most confidentially. “But I play everyday at school. I will hide this at my friend’s house and bring it to school every day.”
“Will it get stolen at school?” Miia asked.
“No, it has my name on it.”
Captain’s Daughter was grateful but admonished that the beauty kit given her mother would have suited her better. “We can discuss it when you return from camping,” she told us. “Camping, what a white thing to do.”
The white people were the only ones on the bus to get ecited by the monkeys running across the highway, which forewarned us of a hard bargaining taxi driver and a leary-eyed kenkey seller making kissy faces at a jealous man’s wife while they consume their finger food.
From the highway junction on the road to Ho (capital of Volta Region a few hours northeast of Accra) we talked the driver down by $2 and ended up buying him a Christmas Guinness because he so patiently drove us around a tiny town buying boxed red wine and fruit for Jesus Day. I sat in back with the driver’s son or brother while Miia learned his life story upfront, about his passion-fruit farm and his education in Accra. He came home to find little work to correspond with his training in science. We said our goodbye’s when we reached the eco-village, and Miia observed then how relationships can so quickly transform from commercial to human once an agreeable price is set.
Prince welcomed us to Xofa Ecovillage and Stanley escorted us to a thatch-roofed shade provider complete with lawn furniture. We shunned the basic hut shelters, pretty though they were, and pitched our tent for a better bargain, saving money for beer and supper, which was generally served three hours after being ordered. We took turns taking dips in the shallow eastern shore o the Volta with Stanley, Prince, Bongo – the volunteer staff – and their visiting friend the pretty young Juliana, whom we later entertained with Christmas carol duets.
After dinner in the dark they demonstrated the local drumbeats – borborbor – on a hand-carved rum, Stanley, a silent boy scout who loves to camp, on lead, Prince with a 2-hit backbeat, and Bongo the Rastafarian singing a raspy off-key Ewe melody and banging a cowbell with almost no resonance. Collectively it was beautiful. They taught us the 2-hit beat so we could play along, then the much more complicated borborbor, which had 10 hits in a certain rhythm, some with the drum raised between the knees to increase resonance. Miia caught on quickly despite Stanley’s lack of pedagogical proclivity. She in turn taught me and they encouraged us with gusto: “Your trying! Your trying!” by which I think they meant we were getting somewhere. Miia sang them a few songs then and I backed her up on a couple to rapturous applause. Bongo narrated the evening in a stoner drawl: “Thass ow we do eet ‘ere,” until we yawned them away after a long day, swam naked under African stars, slept with a strange sense of tropical xmas joy.
Xofa succeeded in providing its visitors with a slow easy joy, the kind that flees from overcrowded cities like Toronto and Accra and only decreases speed when it sees more trees than people. That joy’s mellow hangover languished over Christmas Day reading writing and relaxing until hunger got the best of us walking to the nearby village with Stanley. There we found the global village welcoming committee: two men drunk on palm wine who grabbed and shook us vigorously, begged prodded and pulled us to dance. We politely but firmly refused, sat on a bench and watched three or four drummers, six or eight singers, and a few dances doing some kind of chicken dance amongst the mud huts. It was a grand Christmas party the likes of which I’d never seen, but the more the welcoming committee shouted “It’s Christmas yeah mon! It’s Christmas dance dance!” the less we felt like dancing.
We were given fermented red palm juice, which tasted like stale wine, drank our fill and put some on the ground for our ancestors, and were led to the other end of the village, where we joined some elders in circular bench-sitting. They brought us a sprite bottle filled with spirits and poured us glasses. “You are welcome!” they said, and we drank a couple shots. Whatever it was sucked all the mucous from my brain and throat. Then came the beer, which we tried to refuse because it is expensive and their herding and farming income probably doesn’t even cover medical expenses. Our refusal was refused and we split a bottle, insisted they take the last drop, which they did. A very old man joined us supported by his cane, and was offered a drink of the hard stuff. “Oh!” he cried, holding it aloft. “Allelujah amen!” and he quaffed it in one go.
“It’s Christmas! This is how we celebrate, yeah mon!” cried half of our welcoming committee as the other half shushed him.
We hadn’t even realized we were going to a village: we had envisioned a town with meals; in Xofa there is one meal option (rice and tomato sauce) and it takes three hours to prepare. Now here we were stumbling along a trail through lush tropical forest and plots of cassava and plantain overlooking a gigantic lake under the setting sun from one village to another in search of cold water to drink.
The second village, Dodi, was maybe 10 times the size of the first with its thousand residents, half o them children chanting “white man give me money!” at us. We declined the requests and bought some oranges instead for us, Stanley, and Juliana. “Give me your orange,” said a hulking young many to me. I laughed and told him the orange was mine and he laughed too, repeating my words. I guess I passed his test somehow.
Stanly led us to a large circle of drummers and dancers and a large mass of children followed us. We turned on them and danced and yet again we were objects of great joy, the epicentre of a rolling mass of children literally jumping and squealing and laughing for joy. Of course a man had to grab us, shoo away the most pleasant and smallest of society, and drag us wherever he felt appropriate. Of course he did so with a huge grin on his face saying “You are doing a wonderful thing.” We waved the kids back along with us, and children joined adults, women and men, in a big bobbing colourful circle, singing and dancing as the sun touched the horizon.
“We should go, getting dark,” I cautioned, and we extricated ourselves with big smiles and the children followed us to the end of the village, still asking for money.
“You give me money!” Miia joked, but they pouted that they had non, and what could we say to that?
We returned to our tent under the thatched roof shade-provider, settled in to wait for our rice and tomatoes, and I felt overwhelmed, frustrated, sad, and too far from home.
Now and Later
Victus, the manager of Xofa, on learning of my association with the press, asked me if I could do something to promote the place. I offered to interview him, thinking it would make a good development story, and he indeed provided an interesting interview.
[Miia had spoken to Victus before we came to get a feel for the place and make sure it was open at Christmastime. When he tried to reach her again he fond himself in a confusing conversation with either the thief or buyer of her phone.]
While the ‘staff’ of Xofa, who receive room and board and the promise of a share of future profits should they ever come to fruition and should they hang around that long, but no salary, take tourists to gawk at villagers, some of those villagers are not pleased that their chief has lent the land for an ‘eco-village’ because they want to use it for cassava, corn, maize, and other traditional crops. Xofa grows mangoes for export -because they are a more sustainable longer term crop and they stabilize the shores of the lake and protect it from runoff. To appease the villagers the owners, who live in the US and fund the venture with their salaries, give them free medical supplies and mangoes. If Xofa ever turns a profit a chunk of it will go to the chief and his subjects forever.
Victus argues that he is thinking long-term while villagers think short-term, and even sabotage mango tres with arson, as they had done just two days before our arrival – we witnessed the smoldering remains of 40 trees. This is perhaps one of those cases where short term acute economic needs conflict with long term ecological goals; though I failed to attain the point of view of the arsonists, so that is only one perspective.
In the afternoon a black Adonis and his assistant Prosper, a francophone Ewe fro mTogo learning English in a Ghanaian school, picked us up in their canoe and took us to Dodi Island, where we visited a third village. Miia and I took turns paddling and bailing in the flat-bottomed multi-holed canoe from the middle while Stanley and Juliana held tight upfront – neither are strong swimmers and the thread of tippage in the big choppy waters was ever present.
It took just a few hundred metres of stroking the heavy paddle to realize why our lead men had bodies of gods. In an hour we reached the shore and walked over hard dark shores reminiscent of South Shore Nova Scotia. We made the obligatory stop for a shot of hard liquor and a sit with older villagers, silent topless women and eagerly verbose men repeating welcome again and again, shaking our hands and asking Miia’s hand in marriage. “That will make him number two,” she told them, showing our rings, the only gold we own, forged in Finland but quite possible mined from right here in Ghana. Juliana, though Ghanaian, was also not immune to such flirtations, she also being an outsider to the village and thus a big deal.
We made our way to a rocky beach and were shocked to see a massive iron dock, where we learned that a ferry full of tourists from Accra comes ever Saturday and Sunday, and everyday during the holidays. We jumped off its end a few times before the boat arrived full of 300 glitzy big-city cats in immaculate holiday outfits. A few drummers assembled near the shore and played their hearts out – borborbor – while the tourists gawked and took pictures of us instead, whiteys in the village! A few bought snacks or dropped tips in a bucket for the glass-eyed drummers and singers who exhibited little of the joy we’d seen at their own party the day before. “I think there are two Ghanas,” Miia said. “Rich city people and here.”
“There are two everywheres,” I added.
Stanley told us that Dodi Island once had government-built huts and a restaurant so tourists could stay, learn, and spend there, but that the current government removed all of these things. “Because they were the accomplishment of the last government.”
The Elusive Winwin
We spent the evening with a middle-aged new couple from the UK, Steve and Cassandra, talking politics development education child-rearing tradition herding hunting and other ways of living and being. Stenley, Prince, Juliana and a very stoned Bongo joined us again and gave Steve and Cass their beginner drumming lessons and Miia and me lesson II, which introduced a second complex borborbor beat that we failed to master. Bongo sang up everything from the alphabet to a repetitive “shake your bot-tles” refrain. He wants to cut an album and Miia wrote out the basic chord fingerings so he can learn them on his guitar, which he lent her. In its case stashed a one-pager on Rastafarianism and the importance of weed, a few joints, some pills, and several condoms. He is a philosopher and a ladies man.
The staff of Xofa were very good to us and it took us by surprise when they requested a tip as we left. We turned them down and I regret it because they are unpaid and worked hard. I think we were psychologically unprepared for the request and it seemed incongruous to the mellow and natural spirit of the place, and the fact that all the money we paid to stay there went into sustainable community development. But why shouldn’t these guys get a little bit for themselves? We made an on-the-spot decision that probably would have been different if we’d had time to consider it. As we made haste to catch our ride with Cassandra the request blended into all the other cries for money or publicity or NGOs or so-called friendships that are based on positions and power not love.
With the soft sting of regret we rode away with Cassandra, who had borrowed her friend’s 4WD. She and Steve are in Ghana for 11 days to get a feel for the place. She has taught extensively in East Africa, lived in Ethiopia through the Mengistu years and, since the famines and other atrocities were hidden from all residents, she loved it there. Steve has traveled and done community development work in The Gambia. Two years ago the two divorcees met and found themselves entangled in a mutually beneficial way, and growing bored of life in the UK together, considering other options. Lately they have been filling their time and bank accounts with landscape design, but she wants to teach in the south again.
I hope she teaches better than she drives over dirt pot-holed roads, which she does at full throttle with no regard for vulnerable axels or craniums. No Ghanaian would take a bad road so hard.
We made it okay to the good paved road and caught a ride with some fish merchants. We made one stop to sell some frozen fish and thee stops to pay roadside cops small bribes. The driver complained that one trip can cost him 50-100,000 cedis ($6-12) in bribes. We told him of the theft of our phone and he said that thieves should be killed or maimed at least, that Muslims were the worst, and that half of the people in Accra are thieves. He meant it, but he couldn’t explain what made him so suspicious of Muslims – fear of difference I guess, the universal human trait that unites us.
He dropped us at a long hot road to the Tofi Atome Monkey Sanctuary at mid-day, which we walked, stopping only to watch two boys weave bright kente cloth and make small talk with them. We took their pictures and bought a piece from them. Their loom is several yards long and narrow, with several pedals. Their hands and feet fly, switching colours with incredible alacrity; it’s an impressive sight and makes a gorgeous product.
We were welcomed at Tofi Atome by Martin, a straight-shooter who showed us around and where we could pitch our tent. We explored the village on our own and sat on a bench to drink American soft-drinks in the shade. This has been the easiest and most pleasant village to visit. Having paid an admission fee, and being just the latest in a long rolling wave of whites to pass through and monkey-watch, we are no big deal here. People are kind and friendly, and call out “Good afternoon; you are welcome here,” instead of “White man give me money.” Half the money we pay goes directly to the village and they have built themselves a health clinic already. Unlike other villages we’ve seen, this one is almost devoid of litter, the hard dirt ground is swept clean. The monkeys are protected by law and a valued source of income, so nobody hunts them anymore: ongoing cash flow beats a quick meal. The people here now have many streams of income: their animals, selling crafts, weaving, admission fees, preparing meals for tourists, telling stories and drumming (and teaching drumming) to tourists. This seems to be a good example of eco and cultural tourism – the elusive win-win scenario.
“Don’t Get Me Started on the Dutch.” –Our friend Brad
That evening we met four Dutch visitors: a Doctor here on a three-year contract, her husband the Engineer, who is trying to build a new, cleaner and cheaper kind of water supply that has worked well in other poor southern countries, and her parents who are visiting for xmas. The couple have learned some Twi and really taken to certain Ghanaian ways of being, like saying the long drawn out “a-haaaaaaaa” when in agreement or to express understanding. They told us at length of their great many frustrations about Ghana: corruption, over-attachment to tradition, love of gleaming money and blaring bling over true development, low standards of quality, workmanship, professionalism. These are all frustrations we too have had here, but we tried to point out that the same frustrations exist at home, especially over-emphasis on money and things and misaligned priorities. They acknowledged that Ghana’s problems are rooted in the West, our unwillingness to compromise our own great wealth or level the international playing field. Yet they remained steadfastly critical of so much of what is Ghana, what is being Ghanaian, right down to the food. “Why waste so much time preparing fufu? Surely there are better ways to spend your time.” But denying a Ghanaian fufu is like denying a Canadian hockey, or summer swimming, or birthday celebrations, all of the above, or even denying a Frenchman moldy cheese or aged wine, or a Scott fine scotch, on the basis of inefficiency. Are these pastimes and delicacies the most productive way to spend ones time? Maybe not productive, but they are part of what we are, they make us human, make us whole, make us distinct in our cultures, make us happy. Doctor’s criticism was so complete that she described all Ghanaian tradespeople as unintelligent.
There are many people, institutions and societies that can be held accountable for poverty, poor health, injustice, cultural genocide, and environmental destruction, not least of which are Ghanaians themselves. But in our magnanimous criticisms as outside observers given the privilege of visiting, let us not forget to turn our disquietudes to the mirror. And, as Miia pointed out, let’s not forget to acknowledge the strengths that we find here, the beautiful things and the great leadership and innovation shown by so many.
Christmas Monkeys Forever
At 6 AM we saw the Monkey King punish a minion’s tail for eating too close to the throne. In all there are about 60 monkeys in the group (350 in the sanctuary) and they had gathered for hand-fed bananas and photographs. The King is twice as big as your average Mona Monkey, and eats four times as much, three times as slowly, and with 10 times the dignity. He refuses to take bananas directly from human hands, but will gather what is left for him from an appropriate distance, dust the sand off, peel, and pensively munch. His role is not only to enforce rules but to watch for danger and fight off intruders. He has sharp teeth as attested by the cries of the little offender
In the afternoon our 5k bike-ride on dirt roads stretched triple length and took us al the way to Tafi Abuipe, a village of 1,200 farmers and 800 full-time weavers making kente cloth under the shade of thatch roofs, 3-10 per station on looms scattered across the village. We made small talk, snapped pictures, and made off with an armload of colourful patterns. The visit with souvenirs and a rice and eggs lunch cost us $60; the village is doing well since it formalized its ancient skill. Young weavers come from all over Ghana to apprentice there, and become Master Weavers in three years. What tourists don’t buy are shipped and sold in Accra for twice the price. Under the tutelage of the proprietors of Monkey Town, the weavers have centralized their sales to tourists so that they don’t have to hawk their wares themselves. The apprentices get paid a set amount for every 26 pieces they complete, and they quickly become nimbly efficient and flawless in their craft. Masters continue to weaver and also buy up and sell the work of their protégés. The village is thriving and the tourists are happy because there is no pressure to buy; for a small entrance fee they can roam at will, or have a guided tour, and snap photos.
To my dismay we took a shortcut back to Monkey Town through a narrow bumpy trail, from the end of which we watched a crying goat be manhandled, kicked, and loaded onto the roof of a trotro. It’s chicken and fufu for supper tonight, free range of course.
Old Stories
After supper an argument broke out between the Dutch Doctor and Foster, one of the operators of the monkey sanctuary. The Dutch had ordered up a real African storytelling session but Foster was informing them that it was not possible that particular evening. “Today was a harvest day and everyone is working all day. And there was a special meeting called. Now most people are in bed. The storyteller is old and disabled and he is asleep.”
The Doctor would not be deterred. “We told Patrick yesterday and he said it would be fine. And he told me just now it would happen tonight,” she said.
“Patrick was away all day so he didn’t realize. He didn’t tell me you had ordered storytelling or I would have arranged it.”
“That is just not good!” And she insisted and persisted until the blind old storyteller was awoken and led to the centre of town, where seats were arranged for six white tourists, two of them being Miia and I who embarrassedly shuffled along, having promised to take part back when it seemed no big deal.
Sitting in the middle of the dirt road we strained attentively to hear over the bleating of goats and the laughter of children as the teller, Albert, tuned his wooden flute using Christmas carols. He told three stories in all, interspersed with tunes and one shanty about how the first African railroads sent many a young person away to England on a ‘trip’ from which they nor their ancestors never returned. He had a sweet raspy voice that told not only stories of monkeys, turtles, rats, partridges and fish, but also the story of the stories, and of his own long life going back to boyhood when he learned the seeds of his stories from his grandfather. “The children are more interested in videos now,” he laughed, but tourists still have interest that they back up with fees and tips. The drummers were supposed to follow his act, but they refused because it was late and they had harvested all day, would do the same tomorrow. Inside I cheered for them because I was tired and could empathize and admired their ability to say no, to turn down a fee in lieu of their well-earned and much-needed rest. Mine was not so well-earned, but the Californian red wine shared by the Dutch at dinner gave it to me anyway.
Auld Lang Syne
After a month we had our first meal with this strange, distant yet generous, family: under-roasted turkey, fried plantain, salad, fried rice, red wine, a veritable new year’s feast. Captain said nary a word, and has in fact seemed mildly depressed since the holidays began. Mid-meal he abandoned us to go down in the ship of the sisters whispered Twi cackles as they observed our eating routine meticulously, as he himself routed through his old cassette collection and played some of his favourite gems, periodically explaining the origin and significance of the tune. “This is Ghana’s first guitar player, died 30 years ago.”
“Ashanti music,” said his First Mate somewhat dismissively. “Captain comes from Ashanti.” It was a beautiful almost Cuban melody. Little was said to us except in answer to Miia’s expectant questions, attempts to break the bubble.
When the guests, Captain’s dead sister’s daughter and her husband and three-year-old, arrived, there were squeals and half-hugs and we were introduced to the niece’s back as she greeted Captain, and to the little boy as “the white people living in our house” by Captain’s First Daughter.
We joined the men in the living room as the women hit the kitchen and the daughters dispersed and Little John took to cleaning. Soon two heated conversations were taking place, mostly in Twi, with Captain lecturing his nephew and the niece imploring First Mate to sympathize with some tragedy in which she would surely emerge victorious. Ghanaians are first rate bitchers and even better sympathizers; the listener invariably makes her interest known with a series of emphatic exclamations like “Eh! Eh-Heeeeeh! Oh! Baah!” etc. Unable to linguistically participate, we retired to our room with sated bellies but hungry eyes, having looked so longingly for some kind of human connection to this family.
New Year’s Day
On New Year’s Day we went to a Party party, New Patriotic to be specific. They are the ruling party, likely to repeat as political champions of Ghana in 2008. Patrick is a card-carrier and organized the whole shindig. There was good food (two hours late) and dancing. We were dragged to the floor by a young woman who took it upon herself to befriend us namelessly. There were beers, speeches (in Twi), arguments, and a shoving match. We left early to get some western-style ice cream to start the year right.
The true xmas bonuses were distributed on Saturday only six hours later than promised. During the time in between we fuelled up on Wakye [watch-yay] – rice and beans – got duped by a bus conductor (a mate) into going an hour in the wrong directin, visited Independence Square with its misplaced Soviet bleak gigantism, watched the waves, and bought dresses from a large laughing lade who loved Miia’s attempts and bargaining and Twi: “Your wife is like a Ghanaian!” she laughed. For lunch we rediscovered the disparity between legend and reality at an over-rated fast food joint called Papayes. As I finally collected my bonus and bathed in a stream of pure compliments paid to me via Miia from my co-workers, whose kindnesses made me feel like I belonged here in this Ghanaian journalism field.
The night soiled my sort of homecoming. Aiti blessed us with a call to Miia’s cell, which was passed to me then so deftly into the hands of a thief in the blink of an eye.
We stewed angrily home and consoled ourselves with generous gifts for the Family Captain, who himself was 200 ml of vodka toward oblivion. They thanked us calmly except for Little John, who practically burst when he saw that the soccer ball that followed the books had his own name inscribed in it. He quickly stashed them in his room. “I’m not allowed to play football,” he said most confidentially. “But I play everyday at school. I will hide this at my friend’s house and bring it to school every day.”
“Will it get stolen at school?” Miia asked.
“No, it has my name on it.”
Captain’s Daughter was grateful but admonished that the beauty kit given her mother would have suited her better. “We can discuss it when you return from camping,” she told us. “Camping, what a white thing to do.”
The white people were the only ones on the bus to get ecited by the monkeys running across the highway, which forewarned us of a hard bargaining taxi driver and a leary-eyed kenkey seller making kissy faces at a jealous man’s wife while they consume their finger food.
From the highway junction on the road to Ho (capital of Volta Region a few hours northeast of Accra) we talked the driver down by $2 and ended up buying him a Christmas Guinness because he so patiently drove us around a tiny town buying boxed red wine and fruit for Jesus Day. I sat in back with the driver’s son or brother while Miia learned his life story upfront, about his passion-fruit farm and his education in Accra. He came home to find little work to correspond with his training in science. We said our goodbye’s when we reached the eco-village, and Miia observed then how relationships can so quickly transform from commercial to human once an agreeable price is set.
Prince welcomed us to Xofa Ecovillage and Stanley escorted us to a thatch-roofed shade provider complete with lawn furniture. We shunned the basic hut shelters, pretty though they were, and pitched our tent for a better bargain, saving money for beer and supper, which was generally served three hours after being ordered. We took turns taking dips in the shallow eastern shore o the Volta with Stanley, Prince, Bongo – the volunteer staff – and their visiting friend the pretty young Juliana, whom we later entertained with Christmas carol duets.
After dinner in the dark they demonstrated the local drumbeats – borborbor – on a hand-carved rum, Stanley, a silent boy scout who loves to camp, on lead, Prince with a 2-hit backbeat, and Bongo the Rastafarian singing a raspy off-key Ewe melody and banging a cowbell with almost no resonance. Collectively it was beautiful. They taught us the 2-hit beat so we could play along, then the much more complicated borborbor, which had 10 hits in a certain rhythm, some with the drum raised between the knees to increase resonance. Miia caught on quickly despite Stanley’s lack of pedagogical proclivity. She in turn taught me and they encouraged us with gusto: “Your trying! Your trying!” by which I think they meant we were getting somewhere. Miia sang them a few songs then and I backed her up on a couple to rapturous applause. Bongo narrated the evening in a stoner drawl: “Thass ow we do eet ‘ere,” until we yawned them away after a long day, swam naked under African stars, slept with a strange sense of tropical xmas joy.
Xofa succeeded in providing its visitors with a slow easy joy, the kind that flees from overcrowded cities like Toronto and Accra and only decreases speed when it sees more trees than people. That joy’s mellow hangover languished over Christmas Day reading writing and relaxing until hunger got the best of us walking to the nearby village with Stanley. There we found the global village welcoming committee: two men drunk on palm wine who grabbed and shook us vigorously, begged prodded and pulled us to dance. We politely but firmly refused, sat on a bench and watched three or four drummers, six or eight singers, and a few dances doing some kind of chicken dance amongst the mud huts. It was a grand Christmas party the likes of which I’d never seen, but the more the welcoming committee shouted “It’s Christmas yeah mon! It’s Christmas dance dance!” the less we felt like dancing.
We were given fermented red palm juice, which tasted like stale wine, drank our fill and put some on the ground for our ancestors, and were led to the other end of the village, where we joined some elders in circular bench-sitting. They brought us a sprite bottle filled with spirits and poured us glasses. “You are welcome!” they said, and we drank a couple shots. Whatever it was sucked all the mucous from my brain and throat. Then came the beer, which we tried to refuse because it is expensive and their herding and farming income probably doesn’t even cover medical expenses. Our refusal was refused and we split a bottle, insisted they take the last drop, which they did. A very old man joined us supported by his cane, and was offered a drink of the hard stuff. “Oh!” he cried, holding it aloft. “Allelujah amen!” and he quaffed it in one go.
“It’s Christmas! This is how we celebrate, yeah mon!” cried half of our welcoming committee as the other half shushed him.
We hadn’t even realized we were going to a village: we had envisioned a town with meals; in Xofa there is one meal option (rice and tomato sauce) and it takes three hours to prepare. Now here we were stumbling along a trail through lush tropical forest and plots of cassava and plantain overlooking a gigantic lake under the setting sun from one village to another in search of cold water to drink.
The second village, Dodi, was maybe 10 times the size of the first with its thousand residents, half o them children chanting “white man give me money!” at us. We declined the requests and bought some oranges instead for us, Stanley, and Juliana. “Give me your orange,” said a hulking young many to me. I laughed and told him the orange was mine and he laughed too, repeating my words. I guess I passed his test somehow.
Stanly led us to a large circle of drummers and dancers and a large mass of children followed us. We turned on them and danced and yet again we were objects of great joy, the epicentre of a rolling mass of children literally jumping and squealing and laughing for joy. Of course a man had to grab us, shoo away the most pleasant and smallest of society, and drag us wherever he felt appropriate. Of course he did so with a huge grin on his face saying “You are doing a wonderful thing.” We waved the kids back along with us, and children joined adults, women and men, in a big bobbing colourful circle, singing and dancing as the sun touched the horizon.
“We should go, getting dark,” I cautioned, and we extricated ourselves with big smiles and the children followed us to the end of the village, still asking for money.
“You give me money!” Miia joked, but they pouted that they had non, and what could we say to that?
We returned to our tent under the thatched roof shade-provider, settled in to wait for our rice and tomatoes, and I felt overwhelmed, frustrated, sad, and too far from home.
Now and Later
Victus, the manager of Xofa, on learning of my association with the press, asked me if I could do something to promote the place. I offered to interview him, thinking it would make a good development story, and he indeed provided an interesting interview.
[Miia had spoken to Victus before we came to get a feel for the place and make sure it was open at Christmastime. When he tried to reach her again he fond himself in a confusing conversation with either the thief or buyer of her phone.]
While the ‘staff’ of Xofa, who receive room and board and the promise of a share of future profits should they ever come to fruition and should they hang around that long, but no salary, take tourists to gawk at villagers, some of those villagers are not pleased that their chief has lent the land for an ‘eco-village’ because they want to use it for cassava, corn, maize, and other traditional crops. Xofa grows mangoes for export -because they are a more sustainable longer term crop and they stabilize the shores of the lake and protect it from runoff. To appease the villagers the owners, who live in the US and fund the venture with their salaries, give them free medical supplies and mangoes. If Xofa ever turns a profit a chunk of it will go to the chief and his subjects forever.
Victus argues that he is thinking long-term while villagers think short-term, and even sabotage mango tres with arson, as they had done just two days before our arrival – we witnessed the smoldering remains of 40 trees. This is perhaps one of those cases where short term acute economic needs conflict with long term ecological goals; though I failed to attain the point of view of the arsonists, so that is only one perspective.
In the afternoon a black Adonis and his assistant Prosper, a francophone Ewe fro mTogo learning English in a Ghanaian school, picked us up in their canoe and took us to Dodi Island, where we visited a third village. Miia and I took turns paddling and bailing in the flat-bottomed multi-holed canoe from the middle while Stanley and Juliana held tight upfront – neither are strong swimmers and the thread of tippage in the big choppy waters was ever present.
It took just a few hundred metres of stroking the heavy paddle to realize why our lead men had bodies of gods. In an hour we reached the shore and walked over hard dark shores reminiscent of South Shore Nova Scotia. We made the obligatory stop for a shot of hard liquor and a sit with older villagers, silent topless women and eagerly verbose men repeating welcome again and again, shaking our hands and asking Miia’s hand in marriage. “That will make him number two,” she told them, showing our rings, the only gold we own, forged in Finland but quite possible mined from right here in Ghana. Juliana, though Ghanaian, was also not immune to such flirtations, she also being an outsider to the village and thus a big deal.
We made our way to a rocky beach and were shocked to see a massive iron dock, where we learned that a ferry full of tourists from Accra comes ever Saturday and Sunday, and everyday during the holidays. We jumped off its end a few times before the boat arrived full of 300 glitzy big-city cats in immaculate holiday outfits. A few drummers assembled near the shore and played their hearts out – borborbor – while the tourists gawked and took pictures of us instead, whiteys in the village! A few bought snacks or dropped tips in a bucket for the glass-eyed drummers and singers who exhibited little of the joy we’d seen at their own party the day before. “I think there are two Ghanas,” Miia said. “Rich city people and here.”
“There are two everywheres,” I added.
Stanley told us that Dodi Island once had government-built huts and a restaurant so tourists could stay, learn, and spend there, but that the current government removed all of these things. “Because they were the accomplishment of the last government.”
The Elusive Winwin
We spent the evening with a middle-aged new couple from the UK, Steve and Cassandra, talking politics development education child-rearing tradition herding hunting and other ways of living and being. Stenley, Prince, Juliana and a very stoned Bongo joined us again and gave Steve and Cass their beginner drumming lessons and Miia and me lesson II, which introduced a second complex borborbor beat that we failed to master. Bongo sang up everything from the alphabet to a repetitive “shake your bot-tles” refrain. He wants to cut an album and Miia wrote out the basic chord fingerings so he can learn them on his guitar, which he lent her. In its case stashed a one-pager on Rastafarianism and the importance of weed, a few joints, some pills, and several condoms. He is a philosopher and a ladies man.
The staff of Xofa were very good to us and it took us by surprise when they requested a tip as we left. We turned them down and I regret it because they are unpaid and worked hard. I think we were psychologically unprepared for the request and it seemed incongruous to the mellow and natural spirit of the place, and the fact that all the money we paid to stay there went into sustainable community development. But why shouldn’t these guys get a little bit for themselves? We made an on-the-spot decision that probably would have been different if we’d had time to consider it. As we made haste to catch our ride with Cassandra the request blended into all the other cries for money or publicity or NGOs or so-called friendships that are based on positions and power not love.
With the soft sting of regret we rode away with Cassandra, who had borrowed her friend’s 4WD. She and Steve are in Ghana for 11 days to get a feel for the place. She has taught extensively in East Africa, lived in Ethiopia through the Mengistu years and, since the famines and other atrocities were hidden from all residents, she loved it there. Steve has traveled and done community development work in The Gambia. Two years ago the two divorcees met and found themselves entangled in a mutually beneficial way, and growing bored of life in the UK together, considering other options. Lately they have been filling their time and bank accounts with landscape design, but she wants to teach in the south again.
I hope she teaches better than she drives over dirt pot-holed roads, which she does at full throttle with no regard for vulnerable axels or craniums. No Ghanaian would take a bad road so hard.
We made it okay to the good paved road and caught a ride with some fish merchants. We made one stop to sell some frozen fish and thee stops to pay roadside cops small bribes. The driver complained that one trip can cost him 50-100,000 cedis ($6-12) in bribes. We told him of the theft of our phone and he said that thieves should be killed or maimed at least, that Muslims were the worst, and that half of the people in Accra are thieves. He meant it, but he couldn’t explain what made him so suspicious of Muslims – fear of difference I guess, the universal human trait that unites us.
He dropped us at a long hot road to the Tofi Atome Monkey Sanctuary at mid-day, which we walked, stopping only to watch two boys weave bright kente cloth and make small talk with them. We took their pictures and bought a piece from them. Their loom is several yards long and narrow, with several pedals. Their hands and feet fly, switching colours with incredible alacrity; it’s an impressive sight and makes a gorgeous product.
We were welcomed at Tofi Atome by Martin, a straight-shooter who showed us around and where we could pitch our tent. We explored the village on our own and sat on a bench to drink American soft-drinks in the shade. This has been the easiest and most pleasant village to visit. Having paid an admission fee, and being just the latest in a long rolling wave of whites to pass through and monkey-watch, we are no big deal here. People are kind and friendly, and call out “Good afternoon; you are welcome here,” instead of “White man give me money.” Half the money we pay goes directly to the village and they have built themselves a health clinic already. Unlike other villages we’ve seen, this one is almost devoid of litter, the hard dirt ground is swept clean. The monkeys are protected by law and a valued source of income, so nobody hunts them anymore: ongoing cash flow beats a quick meal. The people here now have many streams of income: their animals, selling crafts, weaving, admission fees, preparing meals for tourists, telling stories and drumming (and teaching drumming) to tourists. This seems to be a good example of eco and cultural tourism – the elusive win-win scenario.
“Don’t Get Me Started on the Dutch.” –Our friend Brad
That evening we met four Dutch visitors: a Doctor here on a three-year contract, her husband the Engineer, who is trying to build a new, cleaner and cheaper kind of water supply that has worked well in other poor southern countries, and her parents who are visiting for xmas. The couple have learned some Twi and really taken to certain Ghanaian ways of being, like saying the long drawn out “a-haaaaaaaa” when in agreement or to express understanding. They told us at length of their great many frustrations about Ghana: corruption, over-attachment to tradition, love of gleaming money and blaring bling over true development, low standards of quality, workmanship, professionalism. These are all frustrations we too have had here, but we tried to point out that the same frustrations exist at home, especially over-emphasis on money and things and misaligned priorities. They acknowledged that Ghana’s problems are rooted in the West, our unwillingness to compromise our own great wealth or level the international playing field. Yet they remained steadfastly critical of so much of what is Ghana, what is being Ghanaian, right down to the food. “Why waste so much time preparing fufu? Surely there are better ways to spend your time.” But denying a Ghanaian fufu is like denying a Canadian hockey, or summer swimming, or birthday celebrations, all of the above, or even denying a Frenchman moldy cheese or aged wine, or a Scott fine scotch, on the basis of inefficiency. Are these pastimes and delicacies the most productive way to spend ones time? Maybe not productive, but they are part of what we are, they make us human, make us whole, make us distinct in our cultures, make us happy. Doctor’s criticism was so complete that she described all Ghanaian tradespeople as unintelligent.
There are many people, institutions and societies that can be held accountable for poverty, poor health, injustice, cultural genocide, and environmental destruction, not least of which are Ghanaians themselves. But in our magnanimous criticisms as outside observers given the privilege of visiting, let us not forget to turn our disquietudes to the mirror. And, as Miia pointed out, let’s not forget to acknowledge the strengths that we find here, the beautiful things and the great leadership and innovation shown by so many.
Christmas Monkeys Forever
At 6 AM we saw the Monkey King punish a minion’s tail for eating too close to the throne. In all there are about 60 monkeys in the group (350 in the sanctuary) and they had gathered for hand-fed bananas and photographs. The King is twice as big as your average Mona Monkey, and eats four times as much, three times as slowly, and with 10 times the dignity. He refuses to take bananas directly from human hands, but will gather what is left for him from an appropriate distance, dust the sand off, peel, and pensively munch. His role is not only to enforce rules but to watch for danger and fight off intruders. He has sharp teeth as attested by the cries of the little offender
In the afternoon our 5k bike-ride on dirt roads stretched triple length and took us al the way to Tafi Abuipe, a village of 1,200 farmers and 800 full-time weavers making kente cloth under the shade of thatch roofs, 3-10 per station on looms scattered across the village. We made small talk, snapped pictures, and made off with an armload of colourful patterns. The visit with souvenirs and a rice and eggs lunch cost us $60; the village is doing well since it formalized its ancient skill. Young weavers come from all over Ghana to apprentice there, and become Master Weavers in three years. What tourists don’t buy are shipped and sold in Accra for twice the price. Under the tutelage of the proprietors of Monkey Town, the weavers have centralized their sales to tourists so that they don’t have to hawk their wares themselves. The apprentices get paid a set amount for every 26 pieces they complete, and they quickly become nimbly efficient and flawless in their craft. Masters continue to weaver and also buy up and sell the work of their protégés. The village is thriving and the tourists are happy because there is no pressure to buy; for a small entrance fee they can roam at will, or have a guided tour, and snap photos.
To my dismay we took a shortcut back to Monkey Town through a narrow bumpy trail, from the end of which we watched a crying goat be manhandled, kicked, and loaded onto the roof of a trotro. It’s chicken and fufu for supper tonight, free range of course.
Old Stories
After supper an argument broke out between the Dutch Doctor and Foster, one of the operators of the monkey sanctuary. The Dutch had ordered up a real African storytelling session but Foster was informing them that it was not possible that particular evening. “Today was a harvest day and everyone is working all day. And there was a special meeting called. Now most people are in bed. The storyteller is old and disabled and he is asleep.”
The Doctor would not be deterred. “We told Patrick yesterday and he said it would be fine. And he told me just now it would happen tonight,” she said.
“Patrick was away all day so he didn’t realize. He didn’t tell me you had ordered storytelling or I would have arranged it.”
“That is just not good!” And she insisted and persisted until the blind old storyteller was awoken and led to the centre of town, where seats were arranged for six white tourists, two of them being Miia and I who embarrassedly shuffled along, having promised to take part back when it seemed no big deal.
Sitting in the middle of the dirt road we strained attentively to hear over the bleating of goats and the laughter of children as the teller, Albert, tuned his wooden flute using Christmas carols. He told three stories in all, interspersed with tunes and one shanty about how the first African railroads sent many a young person away to England on a ‘trip’ from which they nor their ancestors never returned. He had a sweet raspy voice that told not only stories of monkeys, turtles, rats, partridges and fish, but also the story of the stories, and of his own long life going back to boyhood when he learned the seeds of his stories from his grandfather. “The children are more interested in videos now,” he laughed, but tourists still have interest that they back up with fees and tips. The drummers were supposed to follow his act, but they refused because it was late and they had harvested all day, would do the same tomorrow. Inside I cheered for them because I was tired and could empathize and admired their ability to say no, to turn down a fee in lieu of their well-earned and much-needed rest. Mine was not so well-earned, but the Californian red wine shared by the Dutch at dinner gave it to me anyway.
Auld Lang Syne
After a month we had our first meal with this strange, distant yet generous, family: under-roasted turkey, fried plantain, salad, fried rice, red wine, a veritable new year’s feast. Captain said nary a word, and has in fact seemed mildly depressed since the holidays began. Mid-meal he abandoned us to go down in the ship of the sisters whispered Twi cackles as they observed our eating routine meticulously, as he himself routed through his old cassette collection and played some of his favourite gems, periodically explaining the origin and significance of the tune. “This is Ghana’s first guitar player, died 30 years ago.”
“Ashanti music,” said his First Mate somewhat dismissively. “Captain comes from Ashanti.” It was a beautiful almost Cuban melody. Little was said to us except in answer to Miia’s expectant questions, attempts to break the bubble.
When the guests, Captain’s dead sister’s daughter and her husband and three-year-old, arrived, there were squeals and half-hugs and we were introduced to the niece’s back as she greeted Captain, and to the little boy as “the white people living in our house” by Captain’s First Daughter.
We joined the men in the living room as the women hit the kitchen and the daughters dispersed and Little John took to cleaning. Soon two heated conversations were taking place, mostly in Twi, with Captain lecturing his nephew and the niece imploring First Mate to sympathize with some tragedy in which she would surely emerge victorious. Ghanaians are first rate bitchers and even better sympathizers; the listener invariably makes her interest known with a series of emphatic exclamations like “Eh! Eh-Heeeeeh! Oh! Baah!” etc. Unable to linguistically participate, we retired to our room with sated bellies but hungry eyes, having looked so longingly for some kind of human connection to this family.
New Year’s Day
On New Year’s Day we went to a Party party, New Patriotic to be specific. They are the ruling party, likely to repeat as political champions of Ghana in 2008. Patrick is a card-carrier and organized the whole shindig. There was good food (two hours late) and dancing. We were dragged to the floor by a young woman who took it upon herself to befriend us namelessly. There were beers, speeches (in Twi), arguments, and a shoving match. We left early to get some western-style ice cream to start the year right.
Best Books I Read Last Year
Best 21 Books I Read in 2006
This year I ploughed my way through 51 books, fiction and non. Here are the 21 that really stood out for me.
1. The Leaving, by Budge Wilson – simple, moving stories of female adolescence in Nova Scotia
2. Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie – at least as good on the second reading, lives up to the billing as a book to make novelists and sociologists jealous
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Housseini – beautiful tragedy of boyhood in Afghanistan
4. Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie – the genius of Rushdie scores again
5. The Fugitive, by Pram Toer – beautiful prose copies the structure of a shadow puppet play
6. Child of All Nations, by Pram Toer – the second of the Buru Quartet of novels, told orally in prison and later written down, details of the political maturation of Indonesia’s first great newspaper editor
7. When Your Voice Tastes Like Home: Immigrant Women Write, by various authors – many heartrending stories in the this collection, most of them non-fiction
8. A Short History of Indians in Canada, by Thomas King – biting satire that haunts your psyche and speaks volumes of truth
9. Flying in Silence, by Gerry Turcotte – moving coming of age story set in a household where the mother speaks only English and the father only French, came out in late 90s and sold about seven copies
10. Disability, by Cris Mazza – experimental novel about life and work in a home for the disabled, very moving and also mind-bending
11. Race Against Time, by Stephen Lewis – sure, he’s a rich white guy, but he’s got lots of experience and many interesting things to say about Africa, and he has used his privilege to do good things
12. Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighbourhood Centres, 1886-1986, by Judith Ann Trolander – sounds exciting no? Not even a great piece of analysis but just so interesting to learn about the changes in attitudes and approaches to anti-poverty work
13. Conscience for Change, by Martin Luther King Jr. – very inspiring, very truthful words that seem to have been ahead of their time; the kind of words that got him murdered
14. Great Soviet Short Stories, various authors – I love Russian writers, they are so bleak and so abstract, great stories of struggle and disillusionment, and of trying to make ideology a lived reality
15. Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia – I read the whole guide and learned so much about a place I knew nothing about, while at the same time learning about it by travelling around it
16. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village, by William Hinton – this book is a tomb that fascinates in its pure detail, a step by step review of what happened to one small village in northeast China from 1945 into the 50s
17. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, by Mark Abley – had its weaknesses but gave some very solid insights into how English is taking over the world, and what is being lost in that process
18. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World, by Hugh Brody – probably the book that influenced me most this year, a brilliant look at life among some of the remaining hunter-gatherers on the planet, and what the loss off their way of life could mean for humanity
19. A Study of Child Domestic Work and Fosterage in Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana, by Nana Araba Apt – this actually wasn’t the best academic study you could find, but it was my first exposure to on-the-ground social issues here in Ghana, by Ghanaians, and I learned so much from it
20. The Girl Who Can and Other Stories, by Ama Ata Aidoo – incredible writing by a great Ghanaian talent, moving and poetic
21. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, by Ayi Kwei Armah – depressing, bleak, honest and beautiful, all about filth and corruption and its resultant disillusion, set in 1960s Ghana
This year I ploughed my way through 51 books, fiction and non. Here are the 21 that really stood out for me.
1. The Leaving, by Budge Wilson – simple, moving stories of female adolescence in Nova Scotia
2. Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie – at least as good on the second reading, lives up to the billing as a book to make novelists and sociologists jealous
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Housseini – beautiful tragedy of boyhood in Afghanistan
4. Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie – the genius of Rushdie scores again
5. The Fugitive, by Pram Toer – beautiful prose copies the structure of a shadow puppet play
6. Child of All Nations, by Pram Toer – the second of the Buru Quartet of novels, told orally in prison and later written down, details of the political maturation of Indonesia’s first great newspaper editor
7. When Your Voice Tastes Like Home: Immigrant Women Write, by various authors – many heartrending stories in the this collection, most of them non-fiction
8. A Short History of Indians in Canada, by Thomas King – biting satire that haunts your psyche and speaks volumes of truth
9. Flying in Silence, by Gerry Turcotte – moving coming of age story set in a household where the mother speaks only English and the father only French, came out in late 90s and sold about seven copies
10. Disability, by Cris Mazza – experimental novel about life and work in a home for the disabled, very moving and also mind-bending
11. Race Against Time, by Stephen Lewis – sure, he’s a rich white guy, but he’s got lots of experience and many interesting things to say about Africa, and he has used his privilege to do good things
12. Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House Movement to Neighbourhood Centres, 1886-1986, by Judith Ann Trolander – sounds exciting no? Not even a great piece of analysis but just so interesting to learn about the changes in attitudes and approaches to anti-poverty work
13. Conscience for Change, by Martin Luther King Jr. – very inspiring, very truthful words that seem to have been ahead of their time; the kind of words that got him murdered
14. Great Soviet Short Stories, various authors – I love Russian writers, they are so bleak and so abstract, great stories of struggle and disillusionment, and of trying to make ideology a lived reality
15. Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia – I read the whole guide and learned so much about a place I knew nothing about, while at the same time learning about it by travelling around it
16. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village, by William Hinton – this book is a tomb that fascinates in its pure detail, a step by step review of what happened to one small village in northeast China from 1945 into the 50s
17. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, by Mark Abley – had its weaknesses but gave some very solid insights into how English is taking over the world, and what is being lost in that process
18. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World, by Hugh Brody – probably the book that influenced me most this year, a brilliant look at life among some of the remaining hunter-gatherers on the planet, and what the loss off their way of life could mean for humanity
19. A Study of Child Domestic Work and Fosterage in Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana, by Nana Araba Apt – this actually wasn’t the best academic study you could find, but it was my first exposure to on-the-ground social issues here in Ghana, by Ghanaians, and I learned so much from it
20. The Girl Who Can and Other Stories, by Ama Ata Aidoo – incredible writing by a great Ghanaian talent, moving and poetic
21. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, by Ayi Kwei Armah – depressing, bleak, honest and beautiful, all about filth and corruption and its resultant disillusion, set in 1960s Ghana
Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Last Hours of 2006
OK, just seven minutes left before I get logged off at the internet cafe but...
A HUGE Happy New Year to everyone! What a great year it's been indeed and thanks to everyone for your friendship, encouragement, support, thoughts, prayers, gifts, and all, all the rest. We are so blessed to have such wonderful families and such a great extended group of friends. Thanks to everyone who played a role in making 2006 one of the best years ever. Just a quick thank you list then:
To our parents and grandparents for all your support, for the logistical legwork you always have to do for us, the care packages, the emails... for being great parents.
To our brothers for your friendship, welcome, and kindness. We are blessed to have brothers who are also friends. (Congrats to Mika and Sian for getting engaged this Christmas! Hooray! And welcome Sian to our family.)
To David Firang for everything he did to make our trip to Ghana possible, for all the contacts he arranged, a place to live, and all the rest.
To my uncles Lauri and Reijo and their better halves Mirja and Liisa for welcoming us to Finland and making sure we were taken care of, housed, fed, had transportation... They were absolutely terrific all through the summer. Thanks too to the rest of the Suokonautio and Kosonen families for all your friendship and warmth, generosity and kindness.
To Catherine and her family in Estonia for putting us up. We were friends of friends and still you welcomed us.
To Tim, Martin, Leah, Gemma, Craig and family for helping us in our move from our house in Toronto. To my mom's neighbour Gwen for storing our stuff while we're away. To all of our friends who made sure we were sent off in style.
Oh! I'm out of time. More later then. But thanks again to everyone and again, Happy New Year! We love you.
A HUGE Happy New Year to everyone! What a great year it's been indeed and thanks to everyone for your friendship, encouragement, support, thoughts, prayers, gifts, and all, all the rest. We are so blessed to have such wonderful families and such a great extended group of friends. Thanks to everyone who played a role in making 2006 one of the best years ever. Just a quick thank you list then:
To our parents and grandparents for all your support, for the logistical legwork you always have to do for us, the care packages, the emails... for being great parents.
To our brothers for your friendship, welcome, and kindness. We are blessed to have brothers who are also friends. (Congrats to Mika and Sian for getting engaged this Christmas! Hooray! And welcome Sian to our family.)
To David Firang for everything he did to make our trip to Ghana possible, for all the contacts he arranged, a place to live, and all the rest.
To my uncles Lauri and Reijo and their better halves Mirja and Liisa for welcoming us to Finland and making sure we were taken care of, housed, fed, had transportation... They were absolutely terrific all through the summer. Thanks too to the rest of the Suokonautio and Kosonen families for all your friendship and warmth, generosity and kindness.
To Catherine and her family in Estonia for putting us up. We were friends of friends and still you welcomed us.
To Tim, Martin, Leah, Gemma, Craig and family for helping us in our move from our house in Toronto. To my mom's neighbour Gwen for storing our stuff while we're away. To all of our friends who made sure we were sent off in style.
Oh! I'm out of time. More later then. But thanks again to everyone and again, Happy New Year! We love you.
Friday, December 29, 2006
World-Walkers
Here is a rant/rap I wrote about the lessons of this journey back in London. Read fast for best results:
Walkin through the world with my white man’s eyes
Seeing pimps on vacation and priests telling lies
(on phony plantations under clear blue skies)
About crippled buffaloes on the brink of extinction
Chasing literate kids from dangerous depictions
Of million dollar bills and the myth of their freedom
Freedom ain’t free we told it takes bleedin
The White House literazis make blood literal
And they makin a crime outta bein a liberal
And the liberty from which kleptocracy was born
Is elusive as a high-horned unicorn
Amidst the ever present uniforms
Marching cross manufactured destiny
Trampling bleeding hearts like you and me
Hurling our bodies and pictures at the masses
With futures so dim they need coke-bottle glasses
Shouting our names the scariest of labels:
Jihad-lovin terrorists the other side of Abel
White House knows how to trample good ideas
Use the word terror and promise they’ll be freer
If we sacrifice now some kinda paradise awaits
So sacrifice liberty free speech and sell hate
The capitalist free-hand on the law’s long arm
Will slap every slave who tries to leave the farm
Or search for some meaning or true sense of home
Living in community instead of toiling alone
To feed the machine and climb the social ladder
On the heads of the helpless the rebels and the chatter
Of those who refuse the great compromise
Comfortably numb until a natural demise
These things I see from Helsinki to Osaka
Under leaders in suits from Thatcher to Mustafa
Nothin much changes in landscapes or time
Life is easy for the criminal mind
In the 3-piece suit at a microphoned table
With a Gucci watch and an Armoni label
While the beer-soaked escapists on the run
Ride third-class with a bottle and a shotgun
Mother Theresa hid in bubble-headed bliss
With her big good heart and a mailing list
But the war wages on with assaults on her poor
And anyone with money won’t fight anymore
Just push the button and your enemy is wiped
Send in the soldiers with chemicals and crackpipes
Hoping they survive civilian life
When state education spares their ass the knife
Or the gas or the gun or the garbage can
And slip them into slow death as a company man
But wait my white eyes see more than this
Like Mongolian herders following bliss
Falling all over in a fit of hard laughter
Eyes lit up with the knowledge of master
And the holder of more knowledge
Than is taught or learned in Ivey College
It’s the knowledge of the land and the secret of free
Knowing how to live beyond vicariously
Concretely over the land of generations
Sleeping under felt roofs until reincarnation
That bliss is so strong it beat the Soviets
Next to go down are the capitalists
Without trying to conquer but just to survive
And I also see other cultures being revived
Women in court speaking their own ancient language
With the gift of oration unpacking centuries of baggage
Before tin-eared judges too educated to understand
The ancient crimes of colonial man
And a sympathetic public that’s beginning to learn
About survival and revival and other ways to be
About the brain-washing propaganda machine
But I’ve also known way too much apathy
From the ones who should be down with what I seen
Thinking that by doing nothing they do no harm
While the fire eats paradise they turn up the charm
And waltz right through it untouched and unharmed
Sayin “please don’t hurt me look I’m unarmed”
How will all these sights in the world I behold
Look when untangled and when they unfold?
I know no better than so-called experts no TV
The real answer lies with you and with me
Walkin through the world with my white man’s eyes
Seeing pimps on vacation and priests telling lies
(on phony plantations under clear blue skies)
About crippled buffaloes on the brink of extinction
Chasing literate kids from dangerous depictions
Of million dollar bills and the myth of their freedom
Freedom ain’t free we told it takes bleedin
The White House literazis make blood literal
And they makin a crime outta bein a liberal
And the liberty from which kleptocracy was born
Is elusive as a high-horned unicorn
Amidst the ever present uniforms
Marching cross manufactured destiny
Trampling bleeding hearts like you and me
Hurling our bodies and pictures at the masses
With futures so dim they need coke-bottle glasses
Shouting our names the scariest of labels:
Jihad-lovin terrorists the other side of Abel
White House knows how to trample good ideas
Use the word terror and promise they’ll be freer
If we sacrifice now some kinda paradise awaits
So sacrifice liberty free speech and sell hate
The capitalist free-hand on the law’s long arm
Will slap every slave who tries to leave the farm
Or search for some meaning or true sense of home
Living in community instead of toiling alone
To feed the machine and climb the social ladder
On the heads of the helpless the rebels and the chatter
Of those who refuse the great compromise
Comfortably numb until a natural demise
These things I see from Helsinki to Osaka
Under leaders in suits from Thatcher to Mustafa
Nothin much changes in landscapes or time
Life is easy for the criminal mind
In the 3-piece suit at a microphoned table
With a Gucci watch and an Armoni label
While the beer-soaked escapists on the run
Ride third-class with a bottle and a shotgun
Mother Theresa hid in bubble-headed bliss
With her big good heart and a mailing list
But the war wages on with assaults on her poor
And anyone with money won’t fight anymore
Just push the button and your enemy is wiped
Send in the soldiers with chemicals and crackpipes
Hoping they survive civilian life
When state education spares their ass the knife
Or the gas or the gun or the garbage can
And slip them into slow death as a company man
But wait my white eyes see more than this
Like Mongolian herders following bliss
Falling all over in a fit of hard laughter
Eyes lit up with the knowledge of master
And the holder of more knowledge
Than is taught or learned in Ivey College
It’s the knowledge of the land and the secret of free
Knowing how to live beyond vicariously
Concretely over the land of generations
Sleeping under felt roofs until reincarnation
That bliss is so strong it beat the Soviets
Next to go down are the capitalists
Without trying to conquer but just to survive
And I also see other cultures being revived
Women in court speaking their own ancient language
With the gift of oration unpacking centuries of baggage
Before tin-eared judges too educated to understand
The ancient crimes of colonial man
And a sympathetic public that’s beginning to learn
About survival and revival and other ways to be
About the brain-washing propaganda machine
But I’ve also known way too much apathy
From the ones who should be down with what I seen
Thinking that by doing nothing they do no harm
While the fire eats paradise they turn up the charm
And waltz right through it untouched and unharmed
Sayin “please don’t hurt me look I’m unarmed”
How will all these sights in the world I behold
Look when untangled and when they unfold?
I know no better than so-called experts no TV
The real answer lies with you and with me
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays, Seasons Greatings, Happy 2007, Peace Love and Hope to our friends, family, colleagues, and other readers of the Suokojamin World Tour!
We are headed to an Eco Village near the mighty Volta, near the Togo border in southern Ghana, for a relaxing (we hope) Christmas Day.
I leave you with a flashback to December 13, a Wednesday:
Mostly Wednesday was spent with Rich, an appropriately named 'Marketing Executive' who showed me where the government buildings are so that we could meet with a PR Man who was too busy and red-eyed hungry to see us. I had plenty of time to get to know this young man from Kumasi who hopes his job will get better. Selling advertising is a tough gig and I was given ample evidence last week. Frankie Boy replaced Rich on Thursday and he was a bit more talkative, wanting to know my likes and dislikes about Ghana - he really sympathized when I told him I love the friendliness and warmth and openness of people but hate how overwhelming those same great traits can be when they kick into oburoni (white person) induced overdrive. "They just are excited to meet a white person," he said. "But they need to respect your privacy and space." Frankie Boy is a smart guy, but that got us no where with the big men to whom we went begging, offering fluff pieces for a price and I realized I was wasting my time. But that day the paper ran the best piece I've done here, about village life and development, and I got a nice call of kudos from Rich that night. Frankie Boy promises to take us to a soccer game so all was not lost. Even Bossman himself was impressed by my early works. "I don't normally read the paper," he admitted. "But yours was very impressive." On my third and last day as an uninvited corporate guest I met Eddie, the only woman of the Mark Execs - she gave me a hard time until I confessed having had a poor sleep. The four of us were crammed into the company hatchback with our driver, who had just re-emerged from a week of AWOL. The conversation was fast and Twi and my head was filled with English-language worries abut the upcoming special edition, for which I'd met none of my assignments and would fail to do so if I didn't escape the clutches of a certain Marketing Manager with psychotic tendancies.
Fortunately it was Friday by then and nothing takes away the pain of a working week like sushi, ice cream, brownies, and real cappacino! You see it wasn't an ordinary Friday, it was the 3.5th anniversary of mine and Miia's fateful first date at the legendary El Mocambo, where Mick seduced Maggie back in the 60s or 70s or some other decade I don't remember. Emboldened and exhausted we embarked on another Accra weekend. Alas it was brownout night, and sleep was taunting in its evasions.
We are headed to an Eco Village near the mighty Volta, near the Togo border in southern Ghana, for a relaxing (we hope) Christmas Day.
I leave you with a flashback to December 13, a Wednesday:
Mostly Wednesday was spent with Rich, an appropriately named 'Marketing Executive' who showed me where the government buildings are so that we could meet with a PR Man who was too busy and red-eyed hungry to see us. I had plenty of time to get to know this young man from Kumasi who hopes his job will get better. Selling advertising is a tough gig and I was given ample evidence last week. Frankie Boy replaced Rich on Thursday and he was a bit more talkative, wanting to know my likes and dislikes about Ghana - he really sympathized when I told him I love the friendliness and warmth and openness of people but hate how overwhelming those same great traits can be when they kick into oburoni (white person) induced overdrive. "They just are excited to meet a white person," he said. "But they need to respect your privacy and space." Frankie Boy is a smart guy, but that got us no where with the big men to whom we went begging, offering fluff pieces for a price and I realized I was wasting my time. But that day the paper ran the best piece I've done here, about village life and development, and I got a nice call of kudos from Rich that night. Frankie Boy promises to take us to a soccer game so all was not lost. Even Bossman himself was impressed by my early works. "I don't normally read the paper," he admitted. "But yours was very impressive." On my third and last day as an uninvited corporate guest I met Eddie, the only woman of the Mark Execs - she gave me a hard time until I confessed having had a poor sleep. The four of us were crammed into the company hatchback with our driver, who had just re-emerged from a week of AWOL. The conversation was fast and Twi and my head was filled with English-language worries abut the upcoming special edition, for which I'd met none of my assignments and would fail to do so if I didn't escape the clutches of a certain Marketing Manager with psychotic tendancies.
Fortunately it was Friday by then and nothing takes away the pain of a working week like sushi, ice cream, brownies, and real cappacino! You see it wasn't an ordinary Friday, it was the 3.5th anniversary of mine and Miia's fateful first date at the legendary El Mocambo, where Mick seduced Maggie back in the 60s or 70s or some other decade I don't remember. Emboldened and exhausted we embarked on another Accra weekend. Alas it was brownout night, and sleep was taunting in its evasions.
More of other people's pictures
Here is Makola market, the main and most central market in Accra. Before Christmas it is really the closest thing to utter chaos I've ever witnessed in my life. And yet somehow completely ordered.
A pictures of Ghanaian dancers similar to the ones I saw the other night.
And these are some traditional Ghanaian fabrics. Colourful and fun. The geometric designs and the weaving is a tradition from the North (I believe) and is called Kente cloth.
Just some pics to give you an idea of life here.
Attorney General pukes all over victims of tyrrany
Well, my interview with the Attorney General became the cover story for our special Christmas edition, which seems a pretty big deal. He was one shifty man with a serious attitude problem, but thanks to his aide I managed to get a decent scoop:
http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=1827§ion=1
Chris
http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=1827§ion=1
Chris
Friday, December 22, 2006
Other People's Pictures
Here is a woman walking down a dirt road in Ghana. Much like the road to our house. Note how red the soil is.
A Ghanaian taxi. They vary greatly in terms of state of disrepair and you always negotiate your price before going. Many interesting cab drivers we've had.
The insanity is Kaneshie Market, a shotr bus ride from our house (depending on traffic). It's a market and trotro (bus) station rolled into one. You need all your faculties to navigate nevermind shop.
And the last is a blue trotro. People do not ride on top but cargo is loaded on top and in the back. Generally you get 18 passengers or so, depending on the size and how it's been retrofitted. From our house to the main trotro station we go to, the fare is 3,000 cedis or 36 cents. From Accra to the town of Ho, a 2.5-3 hour trip to the capital of the Volta region, the fare is 30,000 cedis = $3.60.
Yes, these are other people's pictures but thought they might help you get a picture of what things are like here.
Looking the Other Way
Chris says, "Let's resolve to have a good day today, OK?"
"OK."
And it was.
21/12/2006 - one month in Ghana
Share taxi with Chris. I get off at Circle station (Circle is short for Kwame Nkrumah Traffic Circle - one of the major traffic hubs in Accra). Traffic is killer before Christmas. Lots of standing still.
Photocopy a little shop all the paperwork for the university, incl. transcripts, resume, forms. The power connection comes and goes and the guy working at the store presses copy when the lights stop flickering.
Bus to University. Really nice woman beside me and we chat about this and that.
Drop off the paperwork. The opposition party was having it's leadership conference and the campus was full of people in colourful outfits, small parades, dancing, music. Alive.
Bus back to Circle. Buy fish pies from street vendor, a woman who doesn't speak English i.e. has not gone to school. She is warm and seems happy to communicate with me anyway, however we can.
Bus to Laterbiorkoshie and walk to the office of People's Dialogue. Hang out with Mabel the receptionist/accountant and chat. She is liking me more all the time. Me too her. Chat with Farouk and Lukman about plans for 2007 - I'd like to be doing more hands on stuff. Yes, we'll talk about it. I laugh that they should hire me and Lukman says, with great earnestness, yes! We'd love to hire you because then we could use you even more, have you here more. I'm flattered. When I leave, Mabel gives me a huge hug. Feels so good to be hugged. We've been strangers to everyone for a long time and never really feel close enough to anyone, it seems, to be hugged. I like it and feel... humbled. A friend.
I grab a cab back to Dansoman and it's a cabbie I've had before. We start to talk about politics and about the NDC candidate race. He says he's not about parties and votes for whoever makes the best promises. He starts to complain about the current party, that they haven't done enough, that crime has become a big problem. His cell phone was stolen. "Before," he says, "when the previous party was in power, if you were caught stealing, you would be killed. Now you get a lawyer!" "What we need," he says, "is more people's justice. Like, just recently a 22-yr-old guy was caught trying to steal the contents of a car in Dansoman. The people killed him. They beat him to death." "Were you there?" I ask. "Yes!" he replies, "I was there. And I think it's good he was killed. Too bad he was so young but now others know." Mm-hmmm. "Well," I say, "I think stealing is wrong. It also affects a whole community because you start to be afraid in your own home. BUT, I think is killing is even more wrong." Really, what more could I say?
I do an hour of internet and buy some canned mackerel and walk home. On my way, I stop by at a small shop stall that has beautiful batiks and fabrics. The seamstress takes my measurements and will have a dress ready for me in a week or so. Made to measure dress from hand dyed fabric: CDN$10. Can't be beat. I'm excited for my new dress.
As I am walking, I hear the familiar sound of drums in the park at the top of our street. It's a nightly thing. But somehow, I've never really HEARD it before. It's a warm early evening, already dark outside, and here I am in Africa and I can hear drums and singing. I approach two friendly looking youth on the street and ask, "What is that drumming?" "It's a group." "At the school." "No, at the culture centre." "Culture centre?" "Yes," says the young man, "I'd like to show you. Would you like to come?" "Yes, please. Let's go." He leads me down a path to a small centre at the back where there are not only drummer but eight dancers. They are dancing unbelievably fast. Indescribably fast. And still in sync. I stand mouth agape and watch. Amazing. Truly amazing. The dancers seem a little shy that I'm watching but they are so talented, so fit, so strong. They speak Ga between them, a smaller of the tribes of Ghana (the Ashante being the biggest). What fun indeed. And everyone was so nice.
Eventually I go home, make spaghetti with tomato sauce and fish. I shower and read in bed. Chris is working late for the special edition of the newspaper coming out the next day and his is the cover story. Eventually he comes home, we spend time together as he has his dinner, and tell our tales about the day.
Yes, we both had a good day. Let them all be so!
"OK."
And it was.
21/12/2006 - one month in Ghana
Share taxi with Chris. I get off at Circle station (Circle is short for Kwame Nkrumah Traffic Circle - one of the major traffic hubs in Accra). Traffic is killer before Christmas. Lots of standing still.
Photocopy a little shop all the paperwork for the university, incl. transcripts, resume, forms. The power connection comes and goes and the guy working at the store presses copy when the lights stop flickering.
Bus to University. Really nice woman beside me and we chat about this and that.
Drop off the paperwork. The opposition party was having it's leadership conference and the campus was full of people in colourful outfits, small parades, dancing, music. Alive.
Bus back to Circle. Buy fish pies from street vendor, a woman who doesn't speak English i.e. has not gone to school. She is warm and seems happy to communicate with me anyway, however we can.
Bus to Laterbiorkoshie and walk to the office of People's Dialogue. Hang out with Mabel the receptionist/accountant and chat. She is liking me more all the time. Me too her. Chat with Farouk and Lukman about plans for 2007 - I'd like to be doing more hands on stuff. Yes, we'll talk about it. I laugh that they should hire me and Lukman says, with great earnestness, yes! We'd love to hire you because then we could use you even more, have you here more. I'm flattered. When I leave, Mabel gives me a huge hug. Feels so good to be hugged. We've been strangers to everyone for a long time and never really feel close enough to anyone, it seems, to be hugged. I like it and feel... humbled. A friend.
I grab a cab back to Dansoman and it's a cabbie I've had before. We start to talk about politics and about the NDC candidate race. He says he's not about parties and votes for whoever makes the best promises. He starts to complain about the current party, that they haven't done enough, that crime has become a big problem. His cell phone was stolen. "Before," he says, "when the previous party was in power, if you were caught stealing, you would be killed. Now you get a lawyer!" "What we need," he says, "is more people's justice. Like, just recently a 22-yr-old guy was caught trying to steal the contents of a car in Dansoman. The people killed him. They beat him to death." "Were you there?" I ask. "Yes!" he replies, "I was there. And I think it's good he was killed. Too bad he was so young but now others know." Mm-hmmm. "Well," I say, "I think stealing is wrong. It also affects a whole community because you start to be afraid in your own home. BUT, I think is killing is even more wrong." Really, what more could I say?
I do an hour of internet and buy some canned mackerel and walk home. On my way, I stop by at a small shop stall that has beautiful batiks and fabrics. The seamstress takes my measurements and will have a dress ready for me in a week or so. Made to measure dress from hand dyed fabric: CDN$10. Can't be beat. I'm excited for my new dress.
As I am walking, I hear the familiar sound of drums in the park at the top of our street. It's a nightly thing. But somehow, I've never really HEARD it before. It's a warm early evening, already dark outside, and here I am in Africa and I can hear drums and singing. I approach two friendly looking youth on the street and ask, "What is that drumming?" "It's a group." "At the school." "No, at the culture centre." "Culture centre?" "Yes," says the young man, "I'd like to show you. Would you like to come?" "Yes, please. Let's go." He leads me down a path to a small centre at the back where there are not only drummer but eight dancers. They are dancing unbelievably fast. Indescribably fast. And still in sync. I stand mouth agape and watch. Amazing. Truly amazing. The dancers seem a little shy that I'm watching but they are so talented, so fit, so strong. They speak Ga between them, a smaller of the tribes of Ghana (the Ashante being the biggest). What fun indeed. And everyone was so nice.
Eventually I go home, make spaghetti with tomato sauce and fish. I shower and read in bed. Chris is working late for the special edition of the newspaper coming out the next day and his is the cover story. Eventually he comes home, we spend time together as he has his dinner, and tell our tales about the day.
Yes, we both had a good day. Let them all be so!
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
An International Human Rights Day at the Beach
On International Day for Human Rights, a Sunday, we met Henry at La Beach. The entrance fee is 20,000 cedis ($2.50) and we didn’t realize that Henry would need his fee covered by us. He also mentioned that someone had tried to take something from him illegally but it was one of those conversations where meaning is lost in translation and further questioning takes you nowhere. When I got up to meet Henry at the front gate a Nigerian boy named Douglas took his chance to sit down with Miia. When I returned he invited us both to his house and asked for my phone number, which people do a lot here, and in some cases (including this one) they end up calling you daily and nightly. Douglas left us for a while before returning with his elder brother, Wisdom, who had a serious case of bigmanitis, which was further agitated by inebriation. He took great delight in haggling with a mask vendor in front of us and insisting he had no more money to pay, before pulling out a giant wad of cash with his rolex hand to make his purchase. He warned us to be careful who we are friendly with and strutted off looking for lesser peacocks to recruit or subdue. Before the day was out we saw Wisdom involved in a near fistfight with Foolishness.
In Douglas’s case the phone calls came during free call hours, after 11 pm and before 7 am, and they started the same day I gave him the number. Eventually Miia put a stop to it without even offering any excuses; I was humbled by her assertiveness. It’s a shame that the first Nigerians we met here turned out to be slimy scammers because that is the stereotype many Ghanaians have of them. Fortunately we will have ample opportunity to meet other Nigerians who deflate the stereotypes.
Firsts
Have you ever wondered who buys all those weight-loss gimmicks you see on television? Wonder no more: it is the Captain. He even has the vibrating belt, over which his money gut sweats all morning while he watches the news, before doing walking laps of the house with Sarah, and several minutes on the Nordic track. After observing this spectacle over instant coffee we hopped in a cab with a philosophical hopeless romantic driver who listened to nothing but Brian Adams and was thrilled to learn of the superstar’s Canadian roots. “I have all his cassettes, except the ones that haven’t come here yet – they always take so long to reach Ghana.” He was egalitarian on the issue of race. “Most people see you white they’ll double or triple the price for you,” he said. “But me, I charge the same for white, black, yellow, whatever.” For his equal rate he drove us all the way to the dentist, where my tooth was granted a temporary stay of execution and given daily saltwater swimming privileges.
I wish pickpockets were as egalitarian as that driver, but I’m pretty sure I was targeted for easy pickins. We were rushed into a trotro by an overenthusiastic mate (the guy who takes the money and helps the driver). I sat in back and Miia went up front. The guy in front of me handed back the change to the guy beside me, and somehow it got dropped. I helped to pick it up and he dropped it again; I helped again and he dropped it again. “Maybe you can get it yourself,” I said. It was then that I realized my cell phone was halfway out from my Velcro pocket. I jammed it back in and shoved myself away from him, but I was so scared to make a false accusation I let it drop and when he moved up to the seat in front of me I figured the phone must have just slid part-way out, as can happen with shallow pockets in a crowded vehicle.
When I got out of the vehicle, the same guy, who wore a full-length turquoise African print, let me go by him, which is in itself unusual. His accomplice, the original change dropper, had also moved up a row and when he got out he dropped the aisle chair (which can swing up to let people out) down in front of me so I had to stop and pick it up again. It was then I felt Mr. Turquoise’s hands all over me like an overeager teenage on a first date. I slapped his hand away and shouted “get your hands off me!” He climbed down from the bus after me and I glared but said nothing. I realized, only after he’d left the scene, that he had succeeded in nabbing about 30,000 (maybe $4) from me. It’s not a big loss, but I hate being targeted like that, double-teamed, mildly invaded.
Miia took it even harder than I did and went hunting for the guy. We found a turquoise-clad man nearby and I think it was him, but he denied having been on the bus with me and told Miia she was beautiful. I decided it better to just leave it be than confront possibly the wrong guy over 4 bucks. We walked through the market (where several men have tried and failed to pocket my possessions) and grabbed another trotro homeward and thanked the gods for the survival of my tooth against all odds.
That night I tried banku (fermented corn and cassava beat into a gooey paste, like fufu but fermented) for the first time, and was surprised to find it more palatable than fufu despite the fermentation.
In Douglas’s case the phone calls came during free call hours, after 11 pm and before 7 am, and they started the same day I gave him the number. Eventually Miia put a stop to it without even offering any excuses; I was humbled by her assertiveness. It’s a shame that the first Nigerians we met here turned out to be slimy scammers because that is the stereotype many Ghanaians have of them. Fortunately we will have ample opportunity to meet other Nigerians who deflate the stereotypes.
Firsts
Have you ever wondered who buys all those weight-loss gimmicks you see on television? Wonder no more: it is the Captain. He even has the vibrating belt, over which his money gut sweats all morning while he watches the news, before doing walking laps of the house with Sarah, and several minutes on the Nordic track. After observing this spectacle over instant coffee we hopped in a cab with a philosophical hopeless romantic driver who listened to nothing but Brian Adams and was thrilled to learn of the superstar’s Canadian roots. “I have all his cassettes, except the ones that haven’t come here yet – they always take so long to reach Ghana.” He was egalitarian on the issue of race. “Most people see you white they’ll double or triple the price for you,” he said. “But me, I charge the same for white, black, yellow, whatever.” For his equal rate he drove us all the way to the dentist, where my tooth was granted a temporary stay of execution and given daily saltwater swimming privileges.
I wish pickpockets were as egalitarian as that driver, but I’m pretty sure I was targeted for easy pickins. We were rushed into a trotro by an overenthusiastic mate (the guy who takes the money and helps the driver). I sat in back and Miia went up front. The guy in front of me handed back the change to the guy beside me, and somehow it got dropped. I helped to pick it up and he dropped it again; I helped again and he dropped it again. “Maybe you can get it yourself,” I said. It was then that I realized my cell phone was halfway out from my Velcro pocket. I jammed it back in and shoved myself away from him, but I was so scared to make a false accusation I let it drop and when he moved up to the seat in front of me I figured the phone must have just slid part-way out, as can happen with shallow pockets in a crowded vehicle.
When I got out of the vehicle, the same guy, who wore a full-length turquoise African print, let me go by him, which is in itself unusual. His accomplice, the original change dropper, had also moved up a row and when he got out he dropped the aisle chair (which can swing up to let people out) down in front of me so I had to stop and pick it up again. It was then I felt Mr. Turquoise’s hands all over me like an overeager teenage on a first date. I slapped his hand away and shouted “get your hands off me!” He climbed down from the bus after me and I glared but said nothing. I realized, only after he’d left the scene, that he had succeeded in nabbing about 30,000 (maybe $4) from me. It’s not a big loss, but I hate being targeted like that, double-teamed, mildly invaded.
Miia took it even harder than I did and went hunting for the guy. We found a turquoise-clad man nearby and I think it was him, but he denied having been on the bus with me and told Miia she was beautiful. I decided it better to just leave it be than confront possibly the wrong guy over 4 bucks. We walked through the market (where several men have tried and failed to pocket my possessions) and grabbed another trotro homeward and thanked the gods for the survival of my tooth against all odds.
That night I tried banku (fermented corn and cassava beat into a gooey paste, like fufu but fermented) for the first time, and was surprised to find it more palatable than fufu despite the fermentation.
Return to the Village
Our return to Ayirebi village was less eventful and less comfortable than our first trip. We landed first in a bus station insane asylum where the inmates swarmed us like a last meal offering friendship, transportation and merchandise all at a fair price. We headed right over the wall and landed at the next station over, where we were rescued by David and his brother-in-law, a professional getaway driver surrounded by hitman serenity. “I’m so happy you’re here,” David told us. “We’re so bored in the village! And I miss my boy. How’s he doing?” Sim is actually performing much more regularly under the watchful eye of Dacosta, who notes wistfully that corporal punishment is normal in Ghana.
We made a few stops along the way to the village, including a visit to a district assembly executive, who told us about the newest craze: cultural tourism. “The white people we know like to stay in big hotels,” he told us, but he had learned of another breed that apparently enjoys meeting people and learning about the place their in. When he learned that I write for the paper he jumped double-footed into the conversation and tossed a card and a special report my way.
We were put up in the spare house of a local doctor which was visibly clean but smelled of bat urine, where we slept on a comfortable mattress under two full-blast ceiling fans to ensure our full attention at the morning ceremony. The turnout was Friday low but some local politicians and media made the day and quoted our near-impromptu speeches verbatim. The Chief thanked us for single-handedly saving the village and we reiterated that it was but a small donation to a hardy and innovative group of people who had survived thousands of years without us. There was the usual talk of us starting an NGO and our usual efforts to diffuse such misplaced time-bombs. Our speeches were punctuated by spontaneous outbursts of cheers from the crown, especially when Miia said that girls need better access to school – at the moment they make up less than 40% of the senior secondary school.
After the ceremony I wanted to visit the new school feeding program where every primary student gets one square meal from the government; it’s a means to encourage attendance and improve health, and comes complete with de-worming kits and monthly weigh-ins to track growth. We brought along our own entourage in the form of David’s sister and his nephews, who had not forgotten our last visit and spent hours hanging about our windows peeking in at us, and loved holding our hands. The Sister wanted to know if having a pen-pal in Canada would improve her chances of immigrating there.
The teachers raved about the program saying attendance was soaring, and the kids tore through giant bowls of food. I interviewed a couple teachers and the lunch-lady on behalf of the paper while Miia did recognizance work via informal conversations and snapshots of the hungry future of the village. “Make sure you mention my name in the article,” said the Sister, a teacher herself but at a different school.
The only detractor from the program we found was our host, Dr. Bigman, who paid us a visit that evening as his minions ran in to build us a new bed. “I have a mattress that is Canadian-sized,” he told us. “But it needs a frame.” Fortunately the bed-frame was not really ready because the Canadian-sized mattress was filthy and we preferred the Ghana size, which is a double. The good doctor, who used to be leader of the opposition, a splinter group from the former military dictator turned international speech giver Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings, explained to us that he is a rich man in terms of assets, even if other Ghanaian doctors who stayed in the west make more money. “I have six children and three houses,” he told us. “My friend in the UK has only one house and one child, a daughter.” Dr. Bigman felt that the school feeding program encourages children to go to school only to have them leave without an education, and that educating farmers is dangerous anyway because next thing you know they don’t want to farm anymore. “What they need is to be told to farm a small piece of land as hard as they can, like in the Soviet Union,” where he himself had been educated. It was the first time I’d ever heard someone use the Soviet Union as a good example of agricultural management.
Our ongoing party was joined by a Mr. Sleezmo, a long-time beat writer from the Daily Graphic, who informed me, several times, that the Daily Graphic is the biggest paper in the country, reaching 200,000 readers (I had heard 50,000 so maybe let’s call it an even hundred). He wanted to know how much our donation was until David intervened saying “don’t worry about the amount.” The writer wanted to know if we’d start an NGO and where in the world we had traveled (and also how to spell the names of those countries).
“Come to us you can write every day,” he told me, refusing my request for a business card. When I ran into him the next day he did make a point of showing my his name as the writer of a piece in the paper and reminded me of the circulation figures; whether he was trying to win me over to the graphic or rub it in that I worked in the minor leagues was unclear. I do wonder what it would be like to write for a state-run and controlled newspaper that focuses on crime stories and has a large circulation.
In time we finally excused ourselves from our gracious host and paid a late-night visit to the Chief, both to pay our respects and interview him for the paper. He obliged on both accounts and also humbly asked us for money to help him publish his book about the chieftancy system. We capped the day with a discussion with David about corruption, culture shock, and the tendency of some people to get a little and ask for more more more.
The next morning we met with the youngest district assembly member in the region and a village elder to hand over the 500,000 cedi (about $60) donation we promised and had a great antidote of a conversation about how education and agriculture are not mutually exclusive. He young DA member had great energy and optimism and told us that he ran for office because he wanted to help his elders bring positive developments to his village.
It was then that we tried fufu, cassava and corn pounded into a gooey pasty doughy kind of stuff that you dip in peanut sauce with fish – it’s as tasty as it sounds. David and Hannah took us out for lunch in the nearby town before we headed back to Accra. It is a delicacy that Ghanaians take very seriously: I read an account of inmates who, denied their fufu, pounded their cassava with their infected feet on a dirty floor to make it for themselves.
We made a few stops along the way to the village, including a visit to a district assembly executive, who told us about the newest craze: cultural tourism. “The white people we know like to stay in big hotels,” he told us, but he had learned of another breed that apparently enjoys meeting people and learning about the place their in. When he learned that I write for the paper he jumped double-footed into the conversation and tossed a card and a special report my way.
We were put up in the spare house of a local doctor which was visibly clean but smelled of bat urine, where we slept on a comfortable mattress under two full-blast ceiling fans to ensure our full attention at the morning ceremony. The turnout was Friday low but some local politicians and media made the day and quoted our near-impromptu speeches verbatim. The Chief thanked us for single-handedly saving the village and we reiterated that it was but a small donation to a hardy and innovative group of people who had survived thousands of years without us. There was the usual talk of us starting an NGO and our usual efforts to diffuse such misplaced time-bombs. Our speeches were punctuated by spontaneous outbursts of cheers from the crown, especially when Miia said that girls need better access to school – at the moment they make up less than 40% of the senior secondary school.
After the ceremony I wanted to visit the new school feeding program where every primary student gets one square meal from the government; it’s a means to encourage attendance and improve health, and comes complete with de-worming kits and monthly weigh-ins to track growth. We brought along our own entourage in the form of David’s sister and his nephews, who had not forgotten our last visit and spent hours hanging about our windows peeking in at us, and loved holding our hands. The Sister wanted to know if having a pen-pal in Canada would improve her chances of immigrating there.
The teachers raved about the program saying attendance was soaring, and the kids tore through giant bowls of food. I interviewed a couple teachers and the lunch-lady on behalf of the paper while Miia did recognizance work via informal conversations and snapshots of the hungry future of the village. “Make sure you mention my name in the article,” said the Sister, a teacher herself but at a different school.
The only detractor from the program we found was our host, Dr. Bigman, who paid us a visit that evening as his minions ran in to build us a new bed. “I have a mattress that is Canadian-sized,” he told us. “But it needs a frame.” Fortunately the bed-frame was not really ready because the Canadian-sized mattress was filthy and we preferred the Ghana size, which is a double. The good doctor, who used to be leader of the opposition, a splinter group from the former military dictator turned international speech giver Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings, explained to us that he is a rich man in terms of assets, even if other Ghanaian doctors who stayed in the west make more money. “I have six children and three houses,” he told us. “My friend in the UK has only one house and one child, a daughter.” Dr. Bigman felt that the school feeding program encourages children to go to school only to have them leave without an education, and that educating farmers is dangerous anyway because next thing you know they don’t want to farm anymore. “What they need is to be told to farm a small piece of land as hard as they can, like in the Soviet Union,” where he himself had been educated. It was the first time I’d ever heard someone use the Soviet Union as a good example of agricultural management.
Our ongoing party was joined by a Mr. Sleezmo, a long-time beat writer from the Daily Graphic, who informed me, several times, that the Daily Graphic is the biggest paper in the country, reaching 200,000 readers (I had heard 50,000 so maybe let’s call it an even hundred). He wanted to know how much our donation was until David intervened saying “don’t worry about the amount.” The writer wanted to know if we’d start an NGO and where in the world we had traveled (and also how to spell the names of those countries).
“Come to us you can write every day,” he told me, refusing my request for a business card. When I ran into him the next day he did make a point of showing my his name as the writer of a piece in the paper and reminded me of the circulation figures; whether he was trying to win me over to the graphic or rub it in that I worked in the minor leagues was unclear. I do wonder what it would be like to write for a state-run and controlled newspaper that focuses on crime stories and has a large circulation.
In time we finally excused ourselves from our gracious host and paid a late-night visit to the Chief, both to pay our respects and interview him for the paper. He obliged on both accounts and also humbly asked us for money to help him publish his book about the chieftancy system. We capped the day with a discussion with David about corruption, culture shock, and the tendency of some people to get a little and ask for more more more.
The next morning we met with the youngest district assembly member in the region and a village elder to hand over the 500,000 cedi (about $60) donation we promised and had a great antidote of a conversation about how education and agriculture are not mutually exclusive. He young DA member had great energy and optimism and told us that he ran for office because he wanted to help his elders bring positive developments to his village.
It was then that we tried fufu, cassava and corn pounded into a gooey pasty doughy kind of stuff that you dip in peanut sauce with fish – it’s as tasty as it sounds. David and Hannah took us out for lunch in the nearby town before we headed back to Accra. It is a delicacy that Ghanaians take very seriously: I read an account of inmates who, denied their fufu, pounded their cassava with their infected feet on a dirty floor to make it for themselves.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Wonderful Mongolian Family
This fantastic family invited us to stay in their home, gave us 6 am vodka shots and plenty of food, and were fantastic hosts!
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