Monday, August 29, 2005
Accra, Ghana (August 29, 2005)
Accra's development and prosperity exceeds that of Kumasi; but its areas of misfortune are larger and more noticeable and child begging is back in action—light skinned Tuareg children, wandering two feet tall within eyesight of their seated mothers. Refugees from all over West Africa try to reach Accra and many of the poorest and most dispossessed people here are clearly not indigenous: Liberians, Cote D'Ivoirians, Tuaregs, Citizens of Niger seeking food. The brighter face of the city is quite stylish. Clothing fashion, restaurant design and choice of periodicals are all quite Western, revealing less of the authentic culture that once distinguished this place. The companies that advertise on all the city's empty spaces would be familiar to anyone in the West; but here, the models are entirely black. Whichever people paint the billboards and shop fronts in Ghana are also very talented artists. The amusingly disfigured and accidentally cubistic images of male and female heads (on barber shops, on boutiques, on restaurants) that decorate countless African cities have here been replaced by high quality portraits.
We are staying with a kindly and overworked man, younger brother to a more successful businessman who provides him with his spacious one story home. This has become a revolving door African house. There is a Beninese priest in one bedroom and others come and go freely throughout the day. Sometimes the only person at home is a traveler from another West African country, sometimes it's a woman from down the street. Are we supposed to talk with one another? Who speaks my language? Which one is the maid? Why won't anyone offer me something to eat?
This morning at 6:45 am silence was cut into thirteen pieces and scattered far and wide by Celine Dion, handmaiden of Bam Bam the better dressed maid, who cleans the kitchen with his elbows and a large scraping fork. There is now a weary need to decipher whether it is hospitality or aggression when my host enters the room where Sean and I are attempting to sleep only to empower the television with a repetitious battery of Celine Dion videos, subtitled and cackhandedly blundering with shampoo commercial eroticism. Many, many Africans display a fondness for Celine Dion that borders on reverence or idolatrous love. She is the evil flipside of an unfortunate coin with Phil Collins who is similarly, though less widely adored. Outside the expanding circle of Africans who love country western music, these two singers often represent all of white music. When I enter smaller more low scale restaurants the proprietor often hastens to turn off whatever local music is playing (perhaps anticipating the vicious "what is this crap?" reaction that some of our cultural ambassadors have so kindly meted out) and replaces it with high volume Phil or Celine. The thoughtful intention is to make me feel welcome and at home. Dismal, horrible irony. In the past three hours the music videos in our bedroom have not stopped and now their sound is pumped into the living room where Sean and I had taken refuge from the assault. For the last hour and a half they have been R. Kelly videos, approximately four of them, continuously looping. He should be in prison, forced to listen to Celine Dion. People are singing along and someone is whistling, badly.
Impending dilemma of giant forest snails, the most clueless impulse buy of our trip: Sean, "Um. There is a loose snail." Presumably it has crawled off to die in some inaccessible corner of our host's abode, which is sorely lacking in potted plants. Its soul can join the other three that we neglected to death during the arguments about how to prepare them, how many days they must be starved before a forced diet of mint, how many days they had been starving already, whether they could be cooked in the same way as dainty little French snails, whether or not they were still in the car and how to tell our host that we had brought giant forest snails into his home. Even as Sean bartered with the roadside boy, I declared, unequivocally, that I washed my hands, in advance, of everything having to do with snails. The other roadside men were holding giant mouse/rats by the throat; cars endangered us by pulling suddenly off the road to purchase these whenever a new hunter emerged from the roadside flora dangling his catch. I would rather have taken responsibility for one of these cat sized rodents.
There is a disadvantage to staying here. House of pressure. Gusty, desperate, eye-widening stomach. The veiled amphitheater of intestinal shame: our toilet sits behind a tiny plastic shower curtain that falls far shy of reaching the floor. On the other side of this curtain, approximately one meter from the ankles of any seated man, is the bed on which men and women of my age sit watching Celine Dion and R. Kelly music videos. Why does the newly ordained, shifty young Beninese priest keep locking his bedroom door when he leaves in the morning, blocking access to an isolated, solitary toilet (which would be the exact equivalent of the best thing on earth)? I wait for the room to empty; but nowhere else in the house is entertaining. I wait, at least, for the women to leave the room. Wait for the pretty one to leave? Wait no longer. Shuffle by, shamefaced. Even when it gives me dignity by masking my struggle, I do not enjoy the music of Celine Dion. Surrender pride. Exit sweating. Do not look the pretty one in the eye.
(Fans of Celine Dion, please do not feel personally attacked. Imagine I just don't like your baseball team.)
Accra's development and prosperity exceeds that of Kumasi; but its areas of misfortune are larger and more noticeable and child begging is back in action—light skinned Tuareg children, wandering two feet tall within eyesight of their seated mothers. Refugees from all over West Africa try to reach Accra and many of the poorest and most dispossessed people here are clearly not indigenous: Liberians, Cote D'Ivoirians, Tuaregs, Citizens of Niger seeking food. The brighter face of the city is quite stylish. Clothing fashion, restaurant design and choice of periodicals are all quite Western, revealing less of the authentic culture that once distinguished this place. The companies that advertise on all the city's empty spaces would be familiar to anyone in the West; but here, the models are entirely black. Whichever people paint the billboards and shop fronts in Ghana are also very talented artists. The amusingly disfigured and accidentally cubistic images of male and female heads (on barber shops, on boutiques, on restaurants) that decorate countless African cities have here been replaced by high quality portraits.
We are staying with a kindly and overworked man, younger brother to a more successful businessman who provides him with his spacious one story home. This has become a revolving door African house. There is a Beninese priest in one bedroom and others come and go freely throughout the day. Sometimes the only person at home is a traveler from another West African country, sometimes it's a woman from down the street. Are we supposed to talk with one another? Who speaks my language? Which one is the maid? Why won't anyone offer me something to eat?
This morning at 6:45 am silence was cut into thirteen pieces and scattered far and wide by Celine Dion, handmaiden of Bam Bam the better dressed maid, who cleans the kitchen with his elbows and a large scraping fork. There is now a weary need to decipher whether it is hospitality or aggression when my host enters the room where Sean and I are attempting to sleep only to empower the television with a repetitious battery of Celine Dion videos, subtitled and cackhandedly blundering with shampoo commercial eroticism. Many, many Africans display a fondness for Celine Dion that borders on reverence or idolatrous love. She is the evil flipside of an unfortunate coin with Phil Collins who is similarly, though less widely adored. Outside the expanding circle of Africans who love country western music, these two singers often represent all of white music. When I enter smaller more low scale restaurants the proprietor often hastens to turn off whatever local music is playing (perhaps anticipating the vicious "what is this crap?" reaction that some of our cultural ambassadors have so kindly meted out) and replaces it with high volume Phil or Celine. The thoughtful intention is to make me feel welcome and at home. Dismal, horrible irony. In the past three hours the music videos in our bedroom have not stopped and now their sound is pumped into the living room where Sean and I had taken refuge from the assault. For the last hour and a half they have been R. Kelly videos, approximately four of them, continuously looping. He should be in prison, forced to listen to Celine Dion. People are singing along and someone is whistling, badly.
Impending dilemma of giant forest snails, the most clueless impulse buy of our trip: Sean, "Um. There is a loose snail." Presumably it has crawled off to die in some inaccessible corner of our host's abode, which is sorely lacking in potted plants. Its soul can join the other three that we neglected to death during the arguments about how to prepare them, how many days they must be starved before a forced diet of mint, how many days they had been starving already, whether they could be cooked in the same way as dainty little French snails, whether or not they were still in the car and how to tell our host that we had brought giant forest snails into his home. Even as Sean bartered with the roadside boy, I declared, unequivocally, that I washed my hands, in advance, of everything having to do with snails. The other roadside men were holding giant mouse/rats by the throat; cars endangered us by pulling suddenly off the road to purchase these whenever a new hunter emerged from the roadside flora dangling his catch. I would rather have taken responsibility for one of these cat sized rodents.
There is a disadvantage to staying here. House of pressure. Gusty, desperate, eye-widening stomach. The veiled amphitheater of intestinal shame: our toilet sits behind a tiny plastic shower curtain that falls far shy of reaching the floor. On the other side of this curtain, approximately one meter from the ankles of any seated man, is the bed on which men and women of my age sit watching Celine Dion and R. Kelly music videos. Why does the newly ordained, shifty young Beninese priest keep locking his bedroom door when he leaves in the morning, blocking access to an isolated, solitary toilet (which would be the exact equivalent of the best thing on earth)? I wait for the room to empty; but nowhere else in the house is entertaining. I wait, at least, for the women to leave the room. Wait for the pretty one to leave? Wait no longer. Shuffle by, shamefaced. Even when it gives me dignity by masking my struggle, I do not enjoy the music of Celine Dion. Surrender pride. Exit sweating. Do not look the pretty one in the eye.
(Fans of Celine Dion, please do not feel personally attacked. Imagine I just don't like your baseball team.)
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