Nathaniel's Blog
Friday, September 30, 2005
Accra, Ghana September 28, 2005
This may actually be my final blog from Accra. Our passports arrived yesterday. They contain all of the necessary stamps. This week is dedicated to ensuring that our vehicle is ready to handle the more altitudinous, muddy and notorious terrain that awaits us. This morning Sean and I spent four or five hours with an especially helpful, competent and hospitable Lebanese Ghanaian auto mechanic named Kamal.
His staff raised the back of our car an additional two and half inches by adding custom made thick rubber disks, cut from old truck tires, to the top of our rear shocks. When the trunk was loaded with eighty liters of our spare gasoline and drinking water, we tended to scrape the muffler and exhaust pipe on deeper potholes or uneven shelves of concrete. Hopefully, this will now be less of a problem. Given the way we pack the car, this new height should actually lift the front end as well, preventing the sickening noise of hard earth testing the strength of our skid plate.
We all began this trip completely ignorant of some very basic auto mechanical facts. We couldn't have told you why there were two dipsticks in our six cylinder engine, we couldn't change either of its belts and we didn't know where to pour our various clearly labeled bottles of car fluid. Kamal took the time to familiarize me and Sean with the basic maintenance of our own vehicle and he did this without making us feel like idiots. Under his guidance we removed and replaced the fan belt and the tighter, more essential and more inaccessible belt beneath it. He then gave us all of the tools that we will need to conduct this work in the future. His friend and co-worker, Alfred, assisted him in this patient and elementary instruction. It was wonderful. By and large, we are still car ignorant. But, slowly, we are learning to handle the machine and nobody has taken this much care to equip us for the technical trials that we are likely to endure.
Tomorrow we return to his shop to change the car's water pump which is as old as I am, to weld the trunk back together, to install a metal security weave over a pathetic plastic window installed by our inadequate Gambian help and to outfit the car with a new rim and two new tires. We've also finally got the right spark plugs, a functional right turn indicator and some internal lights. The car drives like it should. We like it. This is the first time I have enjoyed the prospect of going to the mechanics; formerly, our team quarreled viciously for the right to be the one person staying behind on days when the car needed fixing.
Like every auto mechanic we have met, Kamal expressed total confidence in our car's ability to make it to South Africa, reserving special praise for the strength of its engine. He also complimented Sean and I on our savvy decision to "dress like that". He was kind enough to assume that we had stored our nice clothing or perhaps our accessories, in order to avoid seeming worthwhile targets to serious thieves. In reality, we have never learned to groom ourselves or wear properly fitting or appropriate clothes and all of the accessories anyone has ever given us to wear, we have lost. All the same, it is as comforting to hear that nobody wants to steal our preposterous car or personal belongings as it is to hear that the vehicle has the ability to reach our half way point.
This may actually be my final blog from Accra. Our passports arrived yesterday. They contain all of the necessary stamps. This week is dedicated to ensuring that our vehicle is ready to handle the more altitudinous, muddy and notorious terrain that awaits us. This morning Sean and I spent four or five hours with an especially helpful, competent and hospitable Lebanese Ghanaian auto mechanic named Kamal.
His staff raised the back of our car an additional two and half inches by adding custom made thick rubber disks, cut from old truck tires, to the top of our rear shocks. When the trunk was loaded with eighty liters of our spare gasoline and drinking water, we tended to scrape the muffler and exhaust pipe on deeper potholes or uneven shelves of concrete. Hopefully, this will now be less of a problem. Given the way we pack the car, this new height should actually lift the front end as well, preventing the sickening noise of hard earth testing the strength of our skid plate.
We all began this trip completely ignorant of some very basic auto mechanical facts. We couldn't have told you why there were two dipsticks in our six cylinder engine, we couldn't change either of its belts and we didn't know where to pour our various clearly labeled bottles of car fluid. Kamal took the time to familiarize me and Sean with the basic maintenance of our own vehicle and he did this without making us feel like idiots. Under his guidance we removed and replaced the fan belt and the tighter, more essential and more inaccessible belt beneath it. He then gave us all of the tools that we will need to conduct this work in the future. His friend and co-worker, Alfred, assisted him in this patient and elementary instruction. It was wonderful. By and large, we are still car ignorant. But, slowly, we are learning to handle the machine and nobody has taken this much care to equip us for the technical trials that we are likely to endure.
Tomorrow we return to his shop to change the car's water pump which is as old as I am, to weld the trunk back together, to install a metal security weave over a pathetic plastic window installed by our inadequate Gambian help and to outfit the car with a new rim and two new tires. We've also finally got the right spark plugs, a functional right turn indicator and some internal lights. The car drives like it should. We like it. This is the first time I have enjoyed the prospect of going to the mechanics; formerly, our team quarreled viciously for the right to be the one person staying behind on days when the car needed fixing.
Like every auto mechanic we have met, Kamal expressed total confidence in our car's ability to make it to South Africa, reserving special praise for the strength of its engine. He also complimented Sean and I on our savvy decision to "dress like that". He was kind enough to assume that we had stored our nice clothing or perhaps our accessories, in order to avoid seeming worthwhile targets to serious thieves. In reality, we have never learned to groom ourselves or wear properly fitting or appropriate clothes and all of the accessories anyone has ever given us to wear, we have lost. All the same, it is as comforting to hear that nobody wants to steal our preposterous car or personal belongings as it is to hear that the vehicle has the ability to reach our half way point.
Ghanaian Detritus: September 28, 2005
I talked my way out of a speeding ticket along the Cape Coast highway. I have now weaseled my way out of moving violations in three West African countries. Weaseling means that I do not pay a red cent, dalasi, CFA or cedi. Generally, bribing is a method for impatient, deeply wealthy or unpersuasive people. I prefer flattery, intimidation, lecturing on the traditional treatment of visitors, name dropping and repetitive, insistent nonsense. All three of us have ample time and a deep love of escaping trouble; also, our car is starting to smell. When police have asked us for money in recent weeks, I have suggested that they lean into the vehicle and inhale its special odors. I ask them if they believe that wealthy people would travel in such a funk. This usually reduces their request from money to biscuits. Being asked for little cookies by policemen never stops being funny. Even when it is the fifteenth time in the same afternoon it is still an armed authority figure in imposing fascist attire pleading with me for snack food. In Ghana, it has also been possible to shame greedy officers by expressing disappointed shock that their actions and requests are contradicting the great hospitality of Ghanaian people—of which they are justly proud. Aren't the visitors supposed to be offered gifts? Aren't we welcome? In one case an opportunistic cop blushed deeply and repented. He invited us to his house that evening for dinner; unfortunately, we had plans. When we are back in Francophone countries I will resume the on again off again tiresome but convenient non comprehension of French that has served me so well in the past. In Nigeria, I fear, nothing but money will work.
* * *
Funerals are a massive affair in Ghana; they offer a clear indication of someone's importance and an opportunity for hundreds or thousands of people to throw an enormous good natured party. Ghanaians have pioneered in the field of coffins. Somber important looking western models can be found; but they are not in keeping with the festive nature of the Ghanaian death ritual. Along the road between Accra and its main port town, Tema, there are several workshops devoted to the creation of individualized representative coffins. A corpse can be buried, amongst other things, in an enormous colorful rooster, an ear of corner, a fishing boat, a sausage, a bottle of Star beer or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. I think that is wonderful.
* * *
More noteworthy signboards:
"The Body of Christ Frozen Foods" "God's Time is the Best Metal Works" "Finger of God Beauty Salon" "With God in the Vessel, I smile at the Storm Tro Tro" "Anointed One Enterprises" "Flaming Atomic Church of Christ"
* * *
Is it wrong that I was unmoved by the old slaving fort at Cape Coast? A few weeks back Sean and I walked through this World Heritage site in the company of a Ghanaian guide who informed us that we were in the male slave dungeon, the condemned sell, the sorting chamber and various other places of injustice and death. Nobody on the tour broke down and wept; nobody even stopped whispering or making private little jokes; three small boys kept up an impressive low voltage fart competition and a number of people wandered off prematurely. The architecture was intimidating, the artifacts and explanatory panels of history were well chosen and artfully displayed. But it can feel like effort or a schooling assignment to attempt the absorption of all of the information and variety in places like this. I visit fewer and fewer museums and forts.
Perhaps it stems from surfeit of travel: these places are starting to resemble one another. I would much rather explore unique and revealing city streets, however unobtrusive or significant or read about what is currently being mismanaged and destroyed in today's world. I guess I am also repelled by the politics that underlie a country's decision to focus on one injustice over another and by the dubious value of drawing people's limited attention to injustices of the past. I could've spent hours at an exhibit that clearly outlines the suffering and death caused by the ordinary workings and trade policies of governments right now. Anyways. It may be lamentable that I do not have the capacity to be consistently moved by every retelling of everything that ever went wrong. I am sure that the slaving forts are powerful and life-shaping for some who pay them a visit and that's wonderful too.
In contrast, I had no problem whatsoever getting full enjoyment from Kakum National Park's world famous canopy walk that is suspended frighteningly high above an unmolested butterfly laden ecosystem and I enjoyed reading about the ecology of West Africa's shrinking rainforests. Thank god I am not completely inured to the beauties of nature.
I talked my way out of a speeding ticket along the Cape Coast highway. I have now weaseled my way out of moving violations in three West African countries. Weaseling means that I do not pay a red cent, dalasi, CFA or cedi. Generally, bribing is a method for impatient, deeply wealthy or unpersuasive people. I prefer flattery, intimidation, lecturing on the traditional treatment of visitors, name dropping and repetitive, insistent nonsense. All three of us have ample time and a deep love of escaping trouble; also, our car is starting to smell. When police have asked us for money in recent weeks, I have suggested that they lean into the vehicle and inhale its special odors. I ask them if they believe that wealthy people would travel in such a funk. This usually reduces their request from money to biscuits. Being asked for little cookies by policemen never stops being funny. Even when it is the fifteenth time in the same afternoon it is still an armed authority figure in imposing fascist attire pleading with me for snack food. In Ghana, it has also been possible to shame greedy officers by expressing disappointed shock that their actions and requests are contradicting the great hospitality of Ghanaian people—of which they are justly proud. Aren't the visitors supposed to be offered gifts? Aren't we welcome? In one case an opportunistic cop blushed deeply and repented. He invited us to his house that evening for dinner; unfortunately, we had plans. When we are back in Francophone countries I will resume the on again off again tiresome but convenient non comprehension of French that has served me so well in the past. In Nigeria, I fear, nothing but money will work.
* * *
Funerals are a massive affair in Ghana; they offer a clear indication of someone's importance and an opportunity for hundreds or thousands of people to throw an enormous good natured party. Ghanaians have pioneered in the field of coffins. Somber important looking western models can be found; but they are not in keeping with the festive nature of the Ghanaian death ritual. Along the road between Accra and its main port town, Tema, there are several workshops devoted to the creation of individualized representative coffins. A corpse can be buried, amongst other things, in an enormous colorful rooster, an ear of corner, a fishing boat, a sausage, a bottle of Star beer or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. I think that is wonderful.
* * *
More noteworthy signboards:
"The Body of Christ Frozen Foods" "God's Time is the Best Metal Works" "Finger of God Beauty Salon" "With God in the Vessel, I smile at the Storm Tro Tro" "Anointed One Enterprises" "Flaming Atomic Church of Christ"
* * *
Is it wrong that I was unmoved by the old slaving fort at Cape Coast? A few weeks back Sean and I walked through this World Heritage site in the company of a Ghanaian guide who informed us that we were in the male slave dungeon, the condemned sell, the sorting chamber and various other places of injustice and death. Nobody on the tour broke down and wept; nobody even stopped whispering or making private little jokes; three small boys kept up an impressive low voltage fart competition and a number of people wandered off prematurely. The architecture was intimidating, the artifacts and explanatory panels of history were well chosen and artfully displayed. But it can feel like effort or a schooling assignment to attempt the absorption of all of the information and variety in places like this. I visit fewer and fewer museums and forts.
Perhaps it stems from surfeit of travel: these places are starting to resemble one another. I would much rather explore unique and revealing city streets, however unobtrusive or significant or read about what is currently being mismanaged and destroyed in today's world. I guess I am also repelled by the politics that underlie a country's decision to focus on one injustice over another and by the dubious value of drawing people's limited attention to injustices of the past. I could've spent hours at an exhibit that clearly outlines the suffering and death caused by the ordinary workings and trade policies of governments right now. Anyways. It may be lamentable that I do not have the capacity to be consistently moved by every retelling of everything that ever went wrong. I am sure that the slaving forts are powerful and life-shaping for some who pay them a visit and that's wonderful too.
In contrast, I had no problem whatsoever getting full enjoyment from Kakum National Park's world famous canopy walk that is suspended frighteningly high above an unmolested butterfly laden ecosystem and I enjoyed reading about the ecology of West Africa's shrinking rainforests. Thank god I am not completely inured to the beauties of nature.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Accra, Ghana September 27, 2005
Our paperwork has finally arrived. We now have visas for Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, leaving only the visa for Niger still to be processed. We'll tackle that small obstacle in Cotonou, Benin.
Tomorrow we are having the car's suspension raised by about two inches in anticipation of the water logged and devasted roads of central Cameroon. We'll also weld metal bars over a particularly vulnerable and shakey rear plastic window, attempt to prevent the lid of our trunk from decomposing any further and purchase a few more tires since we've blown through about six so far.
That should enable us to leave Accra on Thursday. We have some business with World Vision around the Volta region and Sean is unwilling to leave Ghana until he redeems himself as a custodian and cooker of giant forest snails. After those goals are accomplished, we get to go to go Togo and I have no idea what it will be like togo there.
Our paperwork has finally arrived. We now have visas for Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, leaving only the visa for Niger still to be processed. We'll tackle that small obstacle in Cotonou, Benin.
Tomorrow we are having the car's suspension raised by about two inches in anticipation of the water logged and devasted roads of central Cameroon. We'll also weld metal bars over a particularly vulnerable and shakey rear plastic window, attempt to prevent the lid of our trunk from decomposing any further and purchase a few more tires since we've blown through about six so far.
That should enable us to leave Accra on Thursday. We have some business with World Vision around the Volta region and Sean is unwilling to leave Ghana until he redeems himself as a custodian and cooker of giant forest snails. After those goals are accomplished, we get to go to go Togo and I have no idea what it will be like togo there.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Accra and Ada, Ghana September 22, 2005
We hear today about the fate of our passports in Washington DC. We have all been given visas to Nigeria (deep joy) and Sean has been awarded a visa to Cameroon. Mysteriously, my passport and Tuuli's are taking an additional day to process. If all goes well, they will be in the mail this Friday afternoon and in our hands early next week.
I have started to feel like I live in Ghana. I have never stayed this long in a place that I do not live and I think I would enjoy living here. Maybe, sometime, I will come back and do that. I would simply need a surf board and a job and I am confident that I could acquire both. My suspicion is that it is all downhill from here. Ghana's reputation for safety, hospitality and modernization is unique in sub-Saharan Africa and it is well deserved. It has often felt very unlike Africa in this place. While we may encounter 24 hour broadband internet in a few capital cities, we are unlikely to walk their nighttime streets with ease. Starting in a week, we go on guard in French. We are beginning to build our advance network of contacts and advisors to learn about the optimal routes through territories made questionable by the effects of extreme weather conditions on poor roads and roving theft and violence of various denominations.
For the last five days we have stayed clear of Accra. We tolerated our pint sized room in the previous budget hotel even after Tuuli's unusual medications were stolen. We tolerated the shower that smelt strongly of rotten eggs and fell into cracked tiles that supported a visible population of active black swimming worms. We tolerated the noise emanating from the adjacent lot where a story building was being constructed entirely with hammers and a tamping machine. We tolerated all of that because vacancies are tough to come by in Accra and that place was the cheapest we'd found. But it hardly contained our belongings and it began to smell.
We realized that we could wait for our documents in a more affordable fashion if we were camping and preparing our own food. So we packed up and drove toward Togo. One coastal road comes to an end in Ada, a collection of small towns along the estuary of the Volta River. We found a massive beach hotel that would accept our request to camp and pitched our tents in their massive sandy compound. I set up beneath three palm trees that supported a fishing net hammock. I know. It sounds really rough. But, however you look at it, in Ghana, a beach vacation is the way to save money.
The beach was straight in either direction to the vanishing point. The on shore breeze was ceaseless, comforting and incredibly powerful—we needed to fill our tents with belongings to prevent their undesirable flight—and the ocean was treacherous, dropping off quickly and full of powerful currents. Lamentably, it was also full of plastic bags. Full. At any given time you could rush into the ocean and collect thirty of them in the space of a minute. The sensation of being plastered by them under water or entwined around the arms and legs was discomfiting at first; but we got used to it. As Sean said, "At least we know they are clean." Tuuli informed us that the beach was crystal clear three years ago. Anyways, we all know how to avoid problems like that and we all cause them anyways. Whenever we generated trash at this place, which invariably included plastic bags, we would give it to the watchman—since there were no visible containers—one afternoon I caught him walking around the walls of the hotel and throwing our refuse in an unused plot of land at most one hundred meters from the breaking waves. By saying "I caught him" I do not mean to imply that I sprang out of hiding and accused him of being a bastard with the effect of moving his conscience and changing his behavior. I mean that I saw him doing what everyone does, felt bad and did nothing. Littering in much of the developing world is a total non crime. Throwing trash from the windows of a public bus, a boat or a balcony will not result in dirty looks, cash penalties or recrimination. It is positively ignored. People of all classes, ages and colors do it as naturally as breath.
All the lightweight plastic trash in our enclosure collected far from us in a corner at the back. It was unnoticeable, so the place looked nice and clean. We got back in solar rhythm, refreshed our one-burner cooking skills, worked on our articles, read books and waited. At one point we discovered that a nearby "yacht club" would rent us little sailboats (Lasers, I think) for six dollars an hour. That's three dollars each. Sean and I took a boat. They didn't ask us to wear life jackets or sign responsibility waivers. They didn't ask us if we knew how to sail. I haven't sailed in approximately fourteen years and nothing I've done since that point has kept the process fresh in my mind. Sean had sailed more recently but also remembered just about nothing.
The winds were gusty and strong. We were in a branch of the Volta River that was more than five hundred meters wide; it was flat, deep, salty and fast moving. We capsized at least fifteen times. About two minutes after I took control of the boat for the first time and about two seconds after I attempted to turn it, Sean fell off. I was not skillful at returning to Sean. Actually, I sort of panicked. I turned in rapid circles, forgot how to steer and got further and further away. When I finally hit on the proper trajectory, I charged toward Sean with idiot speed. My attempt to slow the boat in his vicinity lead to my falling out of it and it sailed away from both of us before losing interest. The only real challenge this caused us was staying afloat while laughing uncontrollably. After ninety minutes—only sixty of which can have been spent inside the boat—I had the hang of it and managed, ungracefully, to navigate against the wind back to the "yacht club" (in quotes for its notable lack of yachts).
After five days we felt the need to return to Accra, primarily to access the internet, learn about our passports, do a bit more research and send evidence of our industry to the wonderful people who maintain this website free of charge. The break was refreshing and necessary. It is amusing how many times we have now driven into Accra and sought accommodation. We are now in our third stage of being here. The first stage was with Tuuli's friend, the second was in a different neighborhood at the hotel described above and we are presently in another dingy place in a slightly different neighborhood that is thankfully near to the fufu place with the best rat.
We were delighted upon returning to discover a new surge of support for our project that makes us confident that we can pay our way to South Africa—barring misfortune. Special thanks go to friends of my family in the Chicagoland area. Thank you for taking notice and thanks for your valuable assistance. My friends and I will do our best to deserve it.
We hear today about the fate of our passports in Washington DC. We have all been given visas to Nigeria (deep joy) and Sean has been awarded a visa to Cameroon. Mysteriously, my passport and Tuuli's are taking an additional day to process. If all goes well, they will be in the mail this Friday afternoon and in our hands early next week.
I have started to feel like I live in Ghana. I have never stayed this long in a place that I do not live and I think I would enjoy living here. Maybe, sometime, I will come back and do that. I would simply need a surf board and a job and I am confident that I could acquire both. My suspicion is that it is all downhill from here. Ghana's reputation for safety, hospitality and modernization is unique in sub-Saharan Africa and it is well deserved. It has often felt very unlike Africa in this place. While we may encounter 24 hour broadband internet in a few capital cities, we are unlikely to walk their nighttime streets with ease. Starting in a week, we go on guard in French. We are beginning to build our advance network of contacts and advisors to learn about the optimal routes through territories made questionable by the effects of extreme weather conditions on poor roads and roving theft and violence of various denominations.
For the last five days we have stayed clear of Accra. We tolerated our pint sized room in the previous budget hotel even after Tuuli's unusual medications were stolen. We tolerated the shower that smelt strongly of rotten eggs and fell into cracked tiles that supported a visible population of active black swimming worms. We tolerated the noise emanating from the adjacent lot where a story building was being constructed entirely with hammers and a tamping machine. We tolerated all of that because vacancies are tough to come by in Accra and that place was the cheapest we'd found. But it hardly contained our belongings and it began to smell.
We realized that we could wait for our documents in a more affordable fashion if we were camping and preparing our own food. So we packed up and drove toward Togo. One coastal road comes to an end in Ada, a collection of small towns along the estuary of the Volta River. We found a massive beach hotel that would accept our request to camp and pitched our tents in their massive sandy compound. I set up beneath three palm trees that supported a fishing net hammock. I know. It sounds really rough. But, however you look at it, in Ghana, a beach vacation is the way to save money.
The beach was straight in either direction to the vanishing point. The on shore breeze was ceaseless, comforting and incredibly powerful—we needed to fill our tents with belongings to prevent their undesirable flight—and the ocean was treacherous, dropping off quickly and full of powerful currents. Lamentably, it was also full of plastic bags. Full. At any given time you could rush into the ocean and collect thirty of them in the space of a minute. The sensation of being plastered by them under water or entwined around the arms and legs was discomfiting at first; but we got used to it. As Sean said, "At least we know they are clean." Tuuli informed us that the beach was crystal clear three years ago. Anyways, we all know how to avoid problems like that and we all cause them anyways. Whenever we generated trash at this place, which invariably included plastic bags, we would give it to the watchman—since there were no visible containers—one afternoon I caught him walking around the walls of the hotel and throwing our refuse in an unused plot of land at most one hundred meters from the breaking waves. By saying "I caught him" I do not mean to imply that I sprang out of hiding and accused him of being a bastard with the effect of moving his conscience and changing his behavior. I mean that I saw him doing what everyone does, felt bad and did nothing. Littering in much of the developing world is a total non crime. Throwing trash from the windows of a public bus, a boat or a balcony will not result in dirty looks, cash penalties or recrimination. It is positively ignored. People of all classes, ages and colors do it as naturally as breath.
All the lightweight plastic trash in our enclosure collected far from us in a corner at the back. It was unnoticeable, so the place looked nice and clean. We got back in solar rhythm, refreshed our one-burner cooking skills, worked on our articles, read books and waited. At one point we discovered that a nearby "yacht club" would rent us little sailboats (Lasers, I think) for six dollars an hour. That's three dollars each. Sean and I took a boat. They didn't ask us to wear life jackets or sign responsibility waivers. They didn't ask us if we knew how to sail. I haven't sailed in approximately fourteen years and nothing I've done since that point has kept the process fresh in my mind. Sean had sailed more recently but also remembered just about nothing.
The winds were gusty and strong. We were in a branch of the Volta River that was more than five hundred meters wide; it was flat, deep, salty and fast moving. We capsized at least fifteen times. About two minutes after I took control of the boat for the first time and about two seconds after I attempted to turn it, Sean fell off. I was not skillful at returning to Sean. Actually, I sort of panicked. I turned in rapid circles, forgot how to steer and got further and further away. When I finally hit on the proper trajectory, I charged toward Sean with idiot speed. My attempt to slow the boat in his vicinity lead to my falling out of it and it sailed away from both of us before losing interest. The only real challenge this caused us was staying afloat while laughing uncontrollably. After ninety minutes—only sixty of which can have been spent inside the boat—I had the hang of it and managed, ungracefully, to navigate against the wind back to the "yacht club" (in quotes for its notable lack of yachts).
After five days we felt the need to return to Accra, primarily to access the internet, learn about our passports, do a bit more research and send evidence of our industry to the wonderful people who maintain this website free of charge. The break was refreshing and necessary. It is amusing how many times we have now driven into Accra and sought accommodation. We are now in our third stage of being here. The first stage was with Tuuli's friend, the second was in a different neighborhood at the hotel described above and we are presently in another dingy place in a slightly different neighborhood that is thankfully near to the fufu place with the best rat.
We were delighted upon returning to discover a new surge of support for our project that makes us confident that we can pay our way to South Africa—barring misfortune. Special thanks go to friends of my family in the Chicagoland area. Thank you for taking notice and thanks for your valuable assistance. My friends and I will do our best to deserve it.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Accra, Ghana September 14, 2005
At the fringes of the working class neighborhood of Usher town are three adjacent shops for the deeply misguided. They display magical products imported from India and Nigeria that smell strongly of sugary indelicate incense. Most of the shelf space is given over to soaps, oils and candles with interconnecting purposes. For example, one can purchase the "Rabbi Rafael Herbal Solomon Commanding Do As I Say Soap" which is printed with the following grammatically flawed instructions: "To command someone to do your wish, bath with Rabbi Rafael Commanding Soap, write the name of the person or what you want the person to do on a piece parchment paper, place it beneath a purple candle which you have anointed with Rabbi Rafael commanding oil. Burn for fifteen minutes daily till your wish is done. For wisdom, put some pure honey in a glass cup cover it with looking mirror while going to sleep. In the morning, anoint yourself with oil and drink part of the honey, it will give you clear memory. Bath daily with the soap. Important: It is important to have a clean image of your goal. This can be vital to the success of the spell. If you have fears about a particular spell they may be projected through images in your mind and consequently act as a blocking agent. Movement of the body is very powerful ritual. It will enhance spell in this products. It can also be use to celebrate the success of a spell to maintain its effect. Dance after using any of our products with your favourite music and think of the spell."
Also available are "Return to Sender" soaps and oils for repelling demons, bad dreams and poor luck as well as "Evil Blocker" products to repulse witches. "Crowd Pulling Anointment Oil" is available for those seeking to succeed as public speakers as is a special "Virgin Mary Soap for Virgins" that ensures protection against defilement or temptation. In the long tradition of bogus medicines there is also a "Good Fortune" soap that promises success with love, money, speaking, health, and any other problems. A genuine panacea. Tuuli purchased the Do As I Say Soap with the hopes of holding more sway in debates with me and Sean—disregarding options to secure her great love and happiness.
These objects will fit well with the Sadam Hussein and glorious Imam stickers, Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia and hokey bumper stickers that we have been collecting to remember the mass market ideology trinkets of West Africa. If I can get them for a reasonable price, I'll try to collect the packaging of drugs that are said to cure HIV/AIDS.
Numerous visitors to the markets of developing world countries are reminded of Europe's own past and feel connected to scenes of common medieval life as recalled by writers and painters. Certainly the little circles of people gathered around salesman demonstrating miraculous cleaning products and the overawed consumers of do-it-yourself magical personal hygiene products bring to mind the middle ages before the connection with infomercials and internet scamming becomes apparent. In several Francophone countries the governments has tried to dent the sale of bogus medicines with a print ad campaign fronted by the slogan: "Les Medicines des Rue, Ca Tue" (roughly: Street Medicines Kill). These feature a very sinister street merchant with glowing yellow pills.
On a completely different note, the vast majority of unmarried women in Ghana shave their heads. This took some getting used to after the elaborate hair extensions and imaginative rope arrangements of Francophone females; but I've grown to prefer it. Or, more accurately, I think it's hot. It works well with the shorter and better fed body type that prevails here.
On a second completely unrelated note, I have developed a real taste for grasscutter: the hoisted roadside rodent carcass mentioned in a few of our blogs. At many of the chop shops you can order a chunk of grasscutter for sixty cents that is looped around with string and tossed into your bowl of pepper soup next to the ball of plantain/rice clay. It's a tender white meat that comes apart in layers and there's a shocking lot of it around each of the bones. By comparison, goat, chicken and beef pieces tend to be a rip off. I'm still waiting to find a chop shop with snails and waiting to build the courage to try the flattened, smoked and flayed grasscutters that look like raunchy little throw rugs of rat jerky.
At the fringes of the working class neighborhood of Usher town are three adjacent shops for the deeply misguided. They display magical products imported from India and Nigeria that smell strongly of sugary indelicate incense. Most of the shelf space is given over to soaps, oils and candles with interconnecting purposes. For example, one can purchase the "Rabbi Rafael Herbal Solomon Commanding Do As I Say Soap" which is printed with the following grammatically flawed instructions: "To command someone to do your wish, bath with Rabbi Rafael Commanding Soap, write the name of the person or what you want the person to do on a piece parchment paper, place it beneath a purple candle which you have anointed with Rabbi Rafael commanding oil. Burn for fifteen minutes daily till your wish is done. For wisdom, put some pure honey in a glass cup cover it with looking mirror while going to sleep. In the morning, anoint yourself with oil and drink part of the honey, it will give you clear memory. Bath daily with the soap. Important: It is important to have a clean image of your goal. This can be vital to the success of the spell. If you have fears about a particular spell they may be projected through images in your mind and consequently act as a blocking agent. Movement of the body is very powerful ritual. It will enhance spell in this products. It can also be use to celebrate the success of a spell to maintain its effect. Dance after using any of our products with your favourite music and think of the spell."
Also available are "Return to Sender" soaps and oils for repelling demons, bad dreams and poor luck as well as "Evil Blocker" products to repulse witches. "Crowd Pulling Anointment Oil" is available for those seeking to succeed as public speakers as is a special "Virgin Mary Soap for Virgins" that ensures protection against defilement or temptation. In the long tradition of bogus medicines there is also a "Good Fortune" soap that promises success with love, money, speaking, health, and any other problems. A genuine panacea. Tuuli purchased the Do As I Say Soap with the hopes of holding more sway in debates with me and Sean—disregarding options to secure her great love and happiness.
These objects will fit well with the Sadam Hussein and glorious Imam stickers, Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia and hokey bumper stickers that we have been collecting to remember the mass market ideology trinkets of West Africa. If I can get them for a reasonable price, I'll try to collect the packaging of drugs that are said to cure HIV/AIDS.
Numerous visitors to the markets of developing world countries are reminded of Europe's own past and feel connected to scenes of common medieval life as recalled by writers and painters. Certainly the little circles of people gathered around salesman demonstrating miraculous cleaning products and the overawed consumers of do-it-yourself magical personal hygiene products bring to mind the middle ages before the connection with infomercials and internet scamming becomes apparent. In several Francophone countries the governments has tried to dent the sale of bogus medicines with a print ad campaign fronted by the slogan: "Les Medicines des Rue, Ca Tue" (roughly: Street Medicines Kill). These feature a very sinister street merchant with glowing yellow pills.
On a completely different note, the vast majority of unmarried women in Ghana shave their heads. This took some getting used to after the elaborate hair extensions and imaginative rope arrangements of Francophone females; but I've grown to prefer it. Or, more accurately, I think it's hot. It works well with the shorter and better fed body type that prevails here.
On a second completely unrelated note, I have developed a real taste for grasscutter: the hoisted roadside rodent carcass mentioned in a few of our blogs. At many of the chop shops you can order a chunk of grasscutter for sixty cents that is looped around with string and tossed into your bowl of pepper soup next to the ball of plantain/rice clay. It's a tender white meat that comes apart in layers and there's a shocking lot of it around each of the bones. By comparison, goat, chicken and beef pieces tend to be a rip off. I'm still waiting to find a chop shop with snails and waiting to build the courage to try the flattened, smoked and flayed grasscutters that look like raunchy little throw rugs of rat jerky.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Twifu Praso, Ghana September 12, 2005
Some people, myself included, question our decision to focus narrowly on HIV when Africa is suffering from so many other afflictions. There are several diseases that claim far more African lives than AIDS—diseases that we have a greater ability to treat and contain—and there are issues of social and economic justice that underlay all of the continent's maladies. Sometimes HIV/AIDS seems overemphasized even to the people who devote their lives to working against it. Several people who I respect, who have worked in Africa in the fields of health and education, stress the greater need to focus on Tuberculosis or Malaria—fatal but curable illnesses that claim millions of lives that could otherwise have been protected. Sure, Africans are still dying in large numbers and suffering gruesomely from diseases that we fought hard to evict from the western world. This unfortunate fact seems about as interesting to western audiences as the fact that poor people are provided with miserable education opportunities and little health care. AIDS is more interesting because it is relatively new, reliably fatal, sneaky and willing to kill anybody anywhere. So, what bothers me is the occasional suspicion that I am buying into a sensationalization of the AIDS "pandemic" (the special word coined just for AIDS). My friends and I are aiming to present a particularly balanced and detailed understanding of AIDS in Africa, but our goal establishes a very singular priority and that sometimes feels unwise.
In the work that we have conducted so far there has been nothing that has affected me personally. I haven't tapped the essential dread or tragic sadness that are expected to surround the disease and that is why AIDS has received so little attention in my travel journals to date. Instead, I have dealt with dedicated, professional and informative individuals who have given me valuable insights into the complicated and expensive large scale operations to keep AIDS in check and care for the people who were reached too late. I am grateful to everyone who has shared their experience with our team and I am often impressed by the work that they are doing. Still, though, it often feels as though they might as well be fighting illiteracy or election fraud.
That changed a bit this weekend. On Friday, Sean and I were taken by World Vision to visit what they referred to as "PLs", these were "People Living with Aids". We sped into a small roadside town in the obligatory SUV and piled out with our large driver and two World Vision staffers of the district level—all Ghanaian men in their thirties with better jobs and clothing than anyone else in town. We headed straight for an anonymous compound and waited as a delegate checked on the appropriateness of our sudden unannounced arrival. Not surprisingly, our visit was approved and we were given permission to enter the concrete courtyard around which the compound's various rooms were arranged. The five of us took small wooden chairs and stools while the child population was sent scattering away from our congress. A healthy looking woman in her thirties pulled up the lowest stool and completed our circle, lower, more hunched and more colorfully dressed than the rest of us.
Her husband died of AIDS approximately one year earlier. She contracted the disease from him and spent weeks in the hospital, approaching death. The hospital that first diagnosed her, brought her to the attention of World Vision who sometimes elect to become the comprehensive health care provider of people in her situation. She was fortunate. They decided to care for her and the anti retrovirals that they paid for successfully reversed her trajectory, helping her to regain health, hope and body mass. She spoke with quiet strength. In her opinion, World Vision saved her life. This has prompted her, in spite of anxiety or self-regard, to cooperate with some of their initiatives.
That's the good part. She received counseling, life saving medicine and financial assistance for the schooling and feeding of her half dozen pre-teenage children (who have not been tested for the disease). The bad part is multi-faceted. Firstly, World Vision will withdraw from her district in five years in accordance with their policy of remaining in any given area for just fifteen years—this will mean the sudden end of a massive level of assistance to which she has grown accustomed. Secondly, nobody in her compound or her village knows that she has AIDS. They were all very suspicious when she grew ill after her husband's death and her uncle even removed her belongings from her room in the compound while she was in the hospital. He was preparing for the ostracism that didn't make sense to anyone when she returned in apparent good health. While she speculates that most people in her district have a moderate understanding of what AIDS is, she is keenly aware of how completely her life would change if anyone discovered that she is infected. It is unlikely that her own family would allow her to perform her essential household chores or permit her to eat from their shared dishes; a complete emotional withdrawal would also be likely. Our conversation was literally conducted in whispers.
Impressively, she is not content to live in the comfort of deceptive normalcy. Under the guidance of World Vision, she travels to other towns where she would not be recognized and helps to spread information about the reality of AIDS and its presence in Ghanaian communities. She also works as a "care giver" within her own community. That title designates her role as a counselor and helper to the sick in her village and denotes that she has been trained in such activities by World Vision.
A younger, wide eyed and uncomfortable woman was brought into our circle after we'd finished our discussion with the first. Whereas the first woman had spoken at length and with total confidence about every aspect of her experience, this woman looked a bit cornered, near tears or sudden flight. We asked her one question. World Vision had launched a new program earlier that month that brought together the nine PLs that they support in the district (of 100,000 people) for an informal gathering that enabled them to speak with one another and share experiences. We asked her to tell us about this event. She said that following her diagnosis she lived in miserable, secretive isolation, telling nobody of her condition, waiting to deteriorate. Whenever advertisements about the dangers of AIDS came on the radio or the television, she would break down in tears of self-pity and despair. Since the meeting with other PLs, she has not done this. She said that her interactions were of massive personal importance but they were too recent and too moving for her to discuss. She began to cry and rose to leave the courtyard. The first woman shook her head, saying "she still does not believe in the drugs."
These two women made it acceptable to me that we are focusing on HIV/AIDS. The enormous prejudice and misinformation surrounding AIDS are unparalleled—those who suffer from malaria, TB, leprosy, dysentery or typhoid are pitied and cared for (however inadequately) with relatively little judgment. Ultimately, it is money and medicine that are necessary for the treatment of such diseases. They have not been eradicated from Africa because there is an insufficient willingness to spend time and money on the disgusting illnesses of poverty. In the case of HIV/AIDS there is a massive and growing amount of time and money being deployed; yet the disease is gaining ground and its victims are subjected to all sorts of thoughtless and hurtful treatment. It is uplifting to hear that people and organizations are capable of bringing help and hope to the people touched by this illness and it seems important to share how they do this.
Some people, myself included, question our decision to focus narrowly on HIV when Africa is suffering from so many other afflictions. There are several diseases that claim far more African lives than AIDS—diseases that we have a greater ability to treat and contain—and there are issues of social and economic justice that underlay all of the continent's maladies. Sometimes HIV/AIDS seems overemphasized even to the people who devote their lives to working against it. Several people who I respect, who have worked in Africa in the fields of health and education, stress the greater need to focus on Tuberculosis or Malaria—fatal but curable illnesses that claim millions of lives that could otherwise have been protected. Sure, Africans are still dying in large numbers and suffering gruesomely from diseases that we fought hard to evict from the western world. This unfortunate fact seems about as interesting to western audiences as the fact that poor people are provided with miserable education opportunities and little health care. AIDS is more interesting because it is relatively new, reliably fatal, sneaky and willing to kill anybody anywhere. So, what bothers me is the occasional suspicion that I am buying into a sensationalization of the AIDS "pandemic" (the special word coined just for AIDS). My friends and I are aiming to present a particularly balanced and detailed understanding of AIDS in Africa, but our goal establishes a very singular priority and that sometimes feels unwise.
In the work that we have conducted so far there has been nothing that has affected me personally. I haven't tapped the essential dread or tragic sadness that are expected to surround the disease and that is why AIDS has received so little attention in my travel journals to date. Instead, I have dealt with dedicated, professional and informative individuals who have given me valuable insights into the complicated and expensive large scale operations to keep AIDS in check and care for the people who were reached too late. I am grateful to everyone who has shared their experience with our team and I am often impressed by the work that they are doing. Still, though, it often feels as though they might as well be fighting illiteracy or election fraud.
That changed a bit this weekend. On Friday, Sean and I were taken by World Vision to visit what they referred to as "PLs", these were "People Living with Aids". We sped into a small roadside town in the obligatory SUV and piled out with our large driver and two World Vision staffers of the district level—all Ghanaian men in their thirties with better jobs and clothing than anyone else in town. We headed straight for an anonymous compound and waited as a delegate checked on the appropriateness of our sudden unannounced arrival. Not surprisingly, our visit was approved and we were given permission to enter the concrete courtyard around which the compound's various rooms were arranged. The five of us took small wooden chairs and stools while the child population was sent scattering away from our congress. A healthy looking woman in her thirties pulled up the lowest stool and completed our circle, lower, more hunched and more colorfully dressed than the rest of us.
Her husband died of AIDS approximately one year earlier. She contracted the disease from him and spent weeks in the hospital, approaching death. The hospital that first diagnosed her, brought her to the attention of World Vision who sometimes elect to become the comprehensive health care provider of people in her situation. She was fortunate. They decided to care for her and the anti retrovirals that they paid for successfully reversed her trajectory, helping her to regain health, hope and body mass. She spoke with quiet strength. In her opinion, World Vision saved her life. This has prompted her, in spite of anxiety or self-regard, to cooperate with some of their initiatives.
That's the good part. She received counseling, life saving medicine and financial assistance for the schooling and feeding of her half dozen pre-teenage children (who have not been tested for the disease). The bad part is multi-faceted. Firstly, World Vision will withdraw from her district in five years in accordance with their policy of remaining in any given area for just fifteen years—this will mean the sudden end of a massive level of assistance to which she has grown accustomed. Secondly, nobody in her compound or her village knows that she has AIDS. They were all very suspicious when she grew ill after her husband's death and her uncle even removed her belongings from her room in the compound while she was in the hospital. He was preparing for the ostracism that didn't make sense to anyone when she returned in apparent good health. While she speculates that most people in her district have a moderate understanding of what AIDS is, she is keenly aware of how completely her life would change if anyone discovered that she is infected. It is unlikely that her own family would allow her to perform her essential household chores or permit her to eat from their shared dishes; a complete emotional withdrawal would also be likely. Our conversation was literally conducted in whispers.
Impressively, she is not content to live in the comfort of deceptive normalcy. Under the guidance of World Vision, she travels to other towns where she would not be recognized and helps to spread information about the reality of AIDS and its presence in Ghanaian communities. She also works as a "care giver" within her own community. That title designates her role as a counselor and helper to the sick in her village and denotes that she has been trained in such activities by World Vision.
A younger, wide eyed and uncomfortable woman was brought into our circle after we'd finished our discussion with the first. Whereas the first woman had spoken at length and with total confidence about every aspect of her experience, this woman looked a bit cornered, near tears or sudden flight. We asked her one question. World Vision had launched a new program earlier that month that brought together the nine PLs that they support in the district (of 100,000 people) for an informal gathering that enabled them to speak with one another and share experiences. We asked her to tell us about this event. She said that following her diagnosis she lived in miserable, secretive isolation, telling nobody of her condition, waiting to deteriorate. Whenever advertisements about the dangers of AIDS came on the radio or the television, she would break down in tears of self-pity and despair. Since the meeting with other PLs, she has not done this. She said that her interactions were of massive personal importance but they were too recent and too moving for her to discuss. She began to cry and rose to leave the courtyard. The first woman shook her head, saying "she still does not believe in the drugs."
These two women made it acceptable to me that we are focusing on HIV/AIDS. The enormous prejudice and misinformation surrounding AIDS are unparalleled—those who suffer from malaria, TB, leprosy, dysentery or typhoid are pitied and cared for (however inadequately) with relatively little judgment. Ultimately, it is money and medicine that are necessary for the treatment of such diseases. They have not been eradicated from Africa because there is an insufficient willingness to spend time and money on the disgusting illnesses of poverty. In the case of HIV/AIDS there is a massive and growing amount of time and money being deployed; yet the disease is gaining ground and its victims are subjected to all sorts of thoughtless and hurtful treatment. It is uplifting to hear that people and organizations are capable of bringing help and hope to the people touched by this illness and it seems important to share how they do this.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Accra
I have no idea how many of you are reading these blogs. Make me feel like it's worthwhile to write them by commenting now and then. It is unecessary for you to say something witty or memorable. It is even unecessary for you to use your real names; just let me know they aren't falling into some bottomless technological pit. Also, let me know if you want a different focus; I'm not writing them for my own well being.
I have no idea how many of you are reading these blogs. Make me feel like it's worthwhile to write them by commenting now and then. It is unecessary for you to say something witty or memorable. It is even unecessary for you to use your real names; just let me know they aren't falling into some bottomless technological pit. Also, let me know if you want a different focus; I'm not writing them for my own well being.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Accra, Ghana (September 5, 2005)
Ghana has one of the world's largest public squares. Independence square is third only to Russia's Red Square and China's Tiananmen; it can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. This Saturday, it was the sight of a free, well-organized concert featuring several prominent local acts including one of Fela Kuti's musical sons and Salif Keita, one of Africa's most famous musicians. This concert is one in a series of six "Stand Tall Against Poverty" concerts that are being held across Africa at times strategically selected to correspond with gatherings of world leaders, such as the G8.
The concert's MC was dressed like a peppermint stick and had very little luck exciting the crowd—the headlining bands are ultimately not beloved of the young and energetic. He repeatedly shouted "Say No To Poverty" and incorporated this basic slogan (already appropriated from anti-drug campaigns) into a call and response chant. He also asked if we, the audience, were standing tall against poverty, to which we were supposed to shout, yes! However, by world standards the audience was poor and the connection between their acquiescence to slogans and the reduction of poverty remained unclear.
An NGO called ActionAid was operating an informative booth near the concessions. I asked a senior worker there to explain to me what the practical message of this concert was, whether or not they were actually going to reveal how to "say no" to poverty. While she spoke, one of her assistants came and wrapped a velcro "say no to poverty" bracelet around my exposed left wrist. The ActionAid worker was blunt. "The message is not for these people; they are poor; they cannot just say no." However, the concert is being widely broadcast (she said "around the world" but on what channel and to how many rich people one can only guess) and she hoped that the basic message—more unfortunate people are gathering to express their impatience and dissatisfaction with the current distribution of wealth—will reach powerful audiences and prompt action or generosity on their part. Fair play. Some of their projects are very imaginative and some of their staff are committed and compassionate. I left my new bracelet on the table (since I am doing nothing to stop poverty) and rejoined the audience.
Seun Kuti was a treat. He looks just like his father, dresses the same, plays some of his music and pulls it off with style and ability. I have my reservations about musical dynasties and inherited publicity (dynasties and inheritance in general); but my cynicism, though well-seasoned and brutal, surrendered completely to the illusion that I was watching one of my favorite musicians of all time—an illusion generously assisted by the fifty thousand Africans packed closely round. Salif Keita's set was also memorable. But he didn't begin until around three in the morning and I'd been there since one in the afternoon. Since he would only be the headliner from the perspective of a music snob or critic, he had lost at least sixty percent of the audience and performed to a thin and marginally curious crowd with tiny pockets of weary dancing.
Most young people departed after the lip-synching boy bands finished capering around. These grinning, rubber waisted puppets were the only people to truly energize the crowd and they did so with the tremendously original recipe of thrusting their pelvises while forgetting to sing along with their own pre-recorded garbage. When they performed it was better to sit on the fringes eating grilled sausage and hot pepper, fighting poverty by drinking stout. The show wound down just after four am. Every one walked off in safe and soft-spoken masses, thinning into their city streets—after big events in other African countries, I have never felt safe and there was never a reason to.
There have been a few other late nights in Accra, worth mentioning for the sense of the city they offer. The first one happened early in our stay as a result of several friends showing us around their favorite places. In the early stages, a budget conscious Ghanaian man showed us to a laid back, sit down, outdoor bar with cut rate liquor. The patrons spilled into the street, spending modestly on their good spirits. I could see the US Embassy from the open topped plywood stand up bathroom—I could also see my friends. There was heavy foot traffic between the similar establishments on this little side road and I didn't notice any other white people.
Then we split up and Sean and I were taxied to a place called the Office that we were told was "cool". It was split into a nightclub and a bar. The nightclub expected something like 30,000 cedis for its entrance fee (just over three dollars) but Sean and I are generally resistant to cover charges for night clubs so we entered the affiliated bar next door, which was full in any case. The expensive, well tended and imported cars in the parking lot would have prepared us for the scene indoors if we had been paying attention. Several flat screen TVs broadcast soundless soccer matches through the dim blue glow of the air-conditioned bar and lounge. Decked out Lebanese and white people sat in the trendy thin leather relax chairs or the high svelte stainless steel bar stools. There was a small number of Africans around as well, but the ones that I overheard were sporting imported and expensive accents. Add popular western music to the offerings of this establishment and you have a fairly comprehensive list of things that I work hard to avoid. But a friend of Sean's who we knew from Gambia bought us some drinks (hell if we were going to pay the look-how-much-I-can-spend prices of a place like that). So we shouted into each other's ears for a little while and looked at the pretty girls and then an exodus occurred. We had found the club jumping set of locals, so I got to stretch out my Arabic and talk about Lebanon in the back of someone's BMW SUV—they referred to it by name and number: "get into the X52" (or whatever other senseless code) instead of saying "you can ride with my friend, Ahmed".
I was completely unprepared for the club we entered next. I didn't protest when they extorted 50,000 cedis at the door; doing so would have embarrassed my hosts. The average daily wage in Ghana is around 13,400 cedis. In this club a bottled coca-cola, 3,000 cedis on the street, was 40,000. We didn't drink a thing.) Terrible leisure time of the Accra white youth. This place was full of at least four hundred people at two in the morning and the only black ones were behind the bar. The DJ, also black, was very talented; the music was entirely electronic Western dance music with a sporadic Arabic track for the Lebanese, who constituted at least sixty percent of the clientele. The second story of the club was a wrap around indoor balcony from which you could observe the two hundred and fifty people on the dance floor, if you didn't mind smoking their breath.
Backing up, this is in West Africa at two in the morning. There are hundreds and hundreds of young light skinned people all dancing along to familiar tunes behind their 50,000 cedi fence. There is no sliver or shred of Africa in this place. I haven't seen this many white people since New Years in New York City, and there was more racial variety then. Why are these people here? I understand the attitude of transplanted businessmen and women, grumpy with longing for Beirut and keen with desire to succeed there. They are here in Ghana because they saw a business opportunity and took it; nobody should force them to go listen to high-life music in a shack with awful toilets. But there were nearly two hundred other people there, random Europeans and Americans in their twenties, dancing tirelessly, happy as hell, representing what we are known for. It was breathtaking. I think I oogled for two hours. Then Sean and I wanted to leave. But much of the club was coked up or on E; it was packed, people who weren't drugging were probably drunk and leaving was not a popular suggestion. We were kind of hoping everyone would move to a more interesting place next; but next would have been 7:30am and we were tired. We ended up taking a taxi, closing out the rising sun with the house curtains. The next day even the folded map in my pants pocket reeked of cigarettes. In contrast, nobody else in Ghana seems to smoke.
During the day I do not see these people. Once there was a group of four, gathered in a completely western food court that nearly gave me a panic attack and there were clumps of them at the poverty concert; but aside from that, they are hiding somewhere nicer and more expensive than where I go. When Accra is western, it is completely western.
Another night was in between. An intensely crowded spot for local music hosted Orland Julius, a talented Nigerian Afro Beat musician who played the poverty concert a few days later—a shorter set with flashy costumes and sex appeal; I didn't recognize them at first. This place was also open air. It provided ample seating, a dance floor and two bar counters, reasonably priced. There was something like a meeting of the races here. Perhaps one seventh of the people were not Africans. However, the reason for this was probably the large population of whores—white men of all ages were flatteringly accompanied, recipients of public affection. This place was full of sex workers and they were unflinchingly direct and physically flirtatious. Naturally, there were plenty of women there who were not attempting to seduce anyone for a cash transaction and probably, from time to time, I suspect a woman of soliciting when she is not. But the overtures of many of these women (mostly refugees from other English speaking West African countries—too poor to pay a cover charge just to listen to music of their parent's generation) left no guess work. These women complicate the simple act of listening to music. But once you earn a reputation for unnapproachability—which you have to do by behaving coldly if not rudely towards the most well trained seductresses outside the porno industry—you can enjoy an atmosphere far more authentic than the air conditioned expatriate retreats. And you can also enjoy the damn good sausage that they make in the back. Ghanaians, in general, seem gifted with sausage. Compared to surrounding Muslim countries, Ghana is a regular killing field of pigs. After a porkless decade, I may simply be overwhelmed by the charm of cooked hog; but my travel mates seem similarly impressed.
Ghana has one of the world's largest public squares. Independence square is third only to Russia's Red Square and China's Tiananmen; it can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. This Saturday, it was the sight of a free, well-organized concert featuring several prominent local acts including one of Fela Kuti's musical sons and Salif Keita, one of Africa's most famous musicians. This concert is one in a series of six "Stand Tall Against Poverty" concerts that are being held across Africa at times strategically selected to correspond with gatherings of world leaders, such as the G8.
The concert's MC was dressed like a peppermint stick and had very little luck exciting the crowd—the headlining bands are ultimately not beloved of the young and energetic. He repeatedly shouted "Say No To Poverty" and incorporated this basic slogan (already appropriated from anti-drug campaigns) into a call and response chant. He also asked if we, the audience, were standing tall against poverty, to which we were supposed to shout, yes! However, by world standards the audience was poor and the connection between their acquiescence to slogans and the reduction of poverty remained unclear.
An NGO called ActionAid was operating an informative booth near the concessions. I asked a senior worker there to explain to me what the practical message of this concert was, whether or not they were actually going to reveal how to "say no" to poverty. While she spoke, one of her assistants came and wrapped a velcro "say no to poverty" bracelet around my exposed left wrist. The ActionAid worker was blunt. "The message is not for these people; they are poor; they cannot just say no." However, the concert is being widely broadcast (she said "around the world" but on what channel and to how many rich people one can only guess) and she hoped that the basic message—more unfortunate people are gathering to express their impatience and dissatisfaction with the current distribution of wealth—will reach powerful audiences and prompt action or generosity on their part. Fair play. Some of their projects are very imaginative and some of their staff are committed and compassionate. I left my new bracelet on the table (since I am doing nothing to stop poverty) and rejoined the audience.
Seun Kuti was a treat. He looks just like his father, dresses the same, plays some of his music and pulls it off with style and ability. I have my reservations about musical dynasties and inherited publicity (dynasties and inheritance in general); but my cynicism, though well-seasoned and brutal, surrendered completely to the illusion that I was watching one of my favorite musicians of all time—an illusion generously assisted by the fifty thousand Africans packed closely round. Salif Keita's set was also memorable. But he didn't begin until around three in the morning and I'd been there since one in the afternoon. Since he would only be the headliner from the perspective of a music snob or critic, he had lost at least sixty percent of the audience and performed to a thin and marginally curious crowd with tiny pockets of weary dancing.
Most young people departed after the lip-synching boy bands finished capering around. These grinning, rubber waisted puppets were the only people to truly energize the crowd and they did so with the tremendously original recipe of thrusting their pelvises while forgetting to sing along with their own pre-recorded garbage. When they performed it was better to sit on the fringes eating grilled sausage and hot pepper, fighting poverty by drinking stout. The show wound down just after four am. Every one walked off in safe and soft-spoken masses, thinning into their city streets—after big events in other African countries, I have never felt safe and there was never a reason to.
There have been a few other late nights in Accra, worth mentioning for the sense of the city they offer. The first one happened early in our stay as a result of several friends showing us around their favorite places. In the early stages, a budget conscious Ghanaian man showed us to a laid back, sit down, outdoor bar with cut rate liquor. The patrons spilled into the street, spending modestly on their good spirits. I could see the US Embassy from the open topped plywood stand up bathroom—I could also see my friends. There was heavy foot traffic between the similar establishments on this little side road and I didn't notice any other white people.
Then we split up and Sean and I were taxied to a place called the Office that we were told was "cool". It was split into a nightclub and a bar. The nightclub expected something like 30,000 cedis for its entrance fee (just over three dollars) but Sean and I are generally resistant to cover charges for night clubs so we entered the affiliated bar next door, which was full in any case. The expensive, well tended and imported cars in the parking lot would have prepared us for the scene indoors if we had been paying attention. Several flat screen TVs broadcast soundless soccer matches through the dim blue glow of the air-conditioned bar and lounge. Decked out Lebanese and white people sat in the trendy thin leather relax chairs or the high svelte stainless steel bar stools. There was a small number of Africans around as well, but the ones that I overheard were sporting imported and expensive accents. Add popular western music to the offerings of this establishment and you have a fairly comprehensive list of things that I work hard to avoid. But a friend of Sean's who we knew from Gambia bought us some drinks (hell if we were going to pay the look-how-much-I-can-spend prices of a place like that). So we shouted into each other's ears for a little while and looked at the pretty girls and then an exodus occurred. We had found the club jumping set of locals, so I got to stretch out my Arabic and talk about Lebanon in the back of someone's BMW SUV—they referred to it by name and number: "get into the X52" (or whatever other senseless code) instead of saying "you can ride with my friend, Ahmed".
I was completely unprepared for the club we entered next. I didn't protest when they extorted 50,000 cedis at the door; doing so would have embarrassed my hosts. The average daily wage in Ghana is around 13,400 cedis. In this club a bottled coca-cola, 3,000 cedis on the street, was 40,000. We didn't drink a thing.) Terrible leisure time of the Accra white youth. This place was full of at least four hundred people at two in the morning and the only black ones were behind the bar. The DJ, also black, was very talented; the music was entirely electronic Western dance music with a sporadic Arabic track for the Lebanese, who constituted at least sixty percent of the clientele. The second story of the club was a wrap around indoor balcony from which you could observe the two hundred and fifty people on the dance floor, if you didn't mind smoking their breath.
Backing up, this is in West Africa at two in the morning. There are hundreds and hundreds of young light skinned people all dancing along to familiar tunes behind their 50,000 cedi fence. There is no sliver or shred of Africa in this place. I haven't seen this many white people since New Years in New York City, and there was more racial variety then. Why are these people here? I understand the attitude of transplanted businessmen and women, grumpy with longing for Beirut and keen with desire to succeed there. They are here in Ghana because they saw a business opportunity and took it; nobody should force them to go listen to high-life music in a shack with awful toilets. But there were nearly two hundred other people there, random Europeans and Americans in their twenties, dancing tirelessly, happy as hell, representing what we are known for. It was breathtaking. I think I oogled for two hours. Then Sean and I wanted to leave. But much of the club was coked up or on E; it was packed, people who weren't drugging were probably drunk and leaving was not a popular suggestion. We were kind of hoping everyone would move to a more interesting place next; but next would have been 7:30am and we were tired. We ended up taking a taxi, closing out the rising sun with the house curtains. The next day even the folded map in my pants pocket reeked of cigarettes. In contrast, nobody else in Ghana seems to smoke.
During the day I do not see these people. Once there was a group of four, gathered in a completely western food court that nearly gave me a panic attack and there were clumps of them at the poverty concert; but aside from that, they are hiding somewhere nicer and more expensive than where I go. When Accra is western, it is completely western.
Another night was in between. An intensely crowded spot for local music hosted Orland Julius, a talented Nigerian Afro Beat musician who played the poverty concert a few days later—a shorter set with flashy costumes and sex appeal; I didn't recognize them at first. This place was also open air. It provided ample seating, a dance floor and two bar counters, reasonably priced. There was something like a meeting of the races here. Perhaps one seventh of the people were not Africans. However, the reason for this was probably the large population of whores—white men of all ages were flatteringly accompanied, recipients of public affection. This place was full of sex workers and they were unflinchingly direct and physically flirtatious. Naturally, there were plenty of women there who were not attempting to seduce anyone for a cash transaction and probably, from time to time, I suspect a woman of soliciting when she is not. But the overtures of many of these women (mostly refugees from other English speaking West African countries—too poor to pay a cover charge just to listen to music of their parent's generation) left no guess work. These women complicate the simple act of listening to music. But once you earn a reputation for unnapproachability—which you have to do by behaving coldly if not rudely towards the most well trained seductresses outside the porno industry—you can enjoy an atmosphere far more authentic than the air conditioned expatriate retreats. And you can also enjoy the damn good sausage that they make in the back. Ghanaians, in general, seem gifted with sausage. Compared to surrounding Muslim countries, Ghana is a regular killing field of pigs. After a porkless decade, I may simply be overwhelmed by the charm of cooked hog; but my travel mates seem similarly impressed.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Accra, Ghana (September 2, 2005)
Thankfully, even here where the headquarters of well funded organizations look transplanted and impenetrable, I can still walk up to the receptionist unannounced and ask for and receive an immediate audience with the coordinator of projects relating to HIV/AIDS. I should not speculate about such a wonderful thing, the thing that enables our trip to progress rapidly and with success. But I am too curious. Are these people never busy? It is the inevitable first thought. Is it because I am white? The inevitable second thought and then a more charitable conjecture: perhaps these people are in fact hardworking and generally free of prejudice, willing to spend time in discussion with me and my friends because they are generous, compassionate or even hopeful about our project. Alternately, they are bored and we are new and different. Thankfully, as I began, our luck continues to hold on this front and we are making headway on all of our Ghanaian features.
On our last day in Ouagadougou, the director of Burkina Faso's Doctors Without Borders project gave us some significant news. The road from eastern Niger around Lake Chad, into Ndjamena is, for our purposes, impassible. For hundreds of kilometers it is hilly with deep sand; even Dr. Lorenzi's typically state of the art, NGO powerhouse, white four by four was repeatedly mired, needing help. (NGOs uniformly hook their nationals up with amazing cars, often granting them checkpoint immunity with special license plates—there is no populace in which this cultivates good will.)
This busted road skews our route and buggers our planning. It means that we cannot avoid driving through Nigeria and it means we are no longer passing through a capital with a Cameroonian embassy. We intended to purchase the Cameroonian visa in the capital of Chad and are now faced with two miserable options: Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, which remains dangerously unstable and Abuja, Nigeria, which many foreigners consider to be an overwhelming and crime-ridden vortex. I was never excited to visit Chad. In fact, I have never wanted to visit Chad in my life, but this complication is creating a nuisance of frenzy and paperwork. In the past three days I have visited the embassies of Togo, Benin, Niger and France, communicating also with the US embassy and the High Commission of Nigeria. The result, when boiled down, amounts to the following: we all have visas to Togo and Benin; we should not go to Abidjan; we should not go to Abuja and none of the francophone embassies will issue Cameroon's visa, though such opportunities sometimes exist. We will have to DHL our passports to an indispensable friend in Washington DC who can process our visas for Cameroon and Nigeria there. (To visit Nigeria you must process your visa application at the Nigerian embassy in your home country—what Tuuli is supposed to do with the absence of such an establishment in Finland, remains to be seen.) Hopefully this will work. Certainly, it means more time waiting in Ghana. Thankfully, we couldn't be in a more agreeable place to wait.
Thankfully, even here where the headquarters of well funded organizations look transplanted and impenetrable, I can still walk up to the receptionist unannounced and ask for and receive an immediate audience with the coordinator of projects relating to HIV/AIDS. I should not speculate about such a wonderful thing, the thing that enables our trip to progress rapidly and with success. But I am too curious. Are these people never busy? It is the inevitable first thought. Is it because I am white? The inevitable second thought and then a more charitable conjecture: perhaps these people are in fact hardworking and generally free of prejudice, willing to spend time in discussion with me and my friends because they are generous, compassionate or even hopeful about our project. Alternately, they are bored and we are new and different. Thankfully, as I began, our luck continues to hold on this front and we are making headway on all of our Ghanaian features.
On our last day in Ouagadougou, the director of Burkina Faso's Doctors Without Borders project gave us some significant news. The road from eastern Niger around Lake Chad, into Ndjamena is, for our purposes, impassible. For hundreds of kilometers it is hilly with deep sand; even Dr. Lorenzi's typically state of the art, NGO powerhouse, white four by four was repeatedly mired, needing help. (NGOs uniformly hook their nationals up with amazing cars, often granting them checkpoint immunity with special license plates—there is no populace in which this cultivates good will.)
This busted road skews our route and buggers our planning. It means that we cannot avoid driving through Nigeria and it means we are no longer passing through a capital with a Cameroonian embassy. We intended to purchase the Cameroonian visa in the capital of Chad and are now faced with two miserable options: Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, which remains dangerously unstable and Abuja, Nigeria, which many foreigners consider to be an overwhelming and crime-ridden vortex. I was never excited to visit Chad. In fact, I have never wanted to visit Chad in my life, but this complication is creating a nuisance of frenzy and paperwork. In the past three days I have visited the embassies of Togo, Benin, Niger and France, communicating also with the US embassy and the High Commission of Nigeria. The result, when boiled down, amounts to the following: we all have visas to Togo and Benin; we should not go to Abidjan; we should not go to Abuja and none of the francophone embassies will issue Cameroon's visa, though such opportunities sometimes exist. We will have to DHL our passports to an indispensable friend in Washington DC who can process our visas for Cameroon and Nigeria there. (To visit Nigeria you must process your visa application at the Nigerian embassy in your home country—what Tuuli is supposed to do with the absence of such an establishment in Finland, remains to be seen.) Hopefully this will work. Certainly, it means more time waiting in Ghana. Thankfully, we couldn't be in a more agreeable place to wait.
Archives for Nathaniel's Blog:
July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006