Ho, Ghana

My head was spinning. Tuuli had just convinced me that the cure to AIDS was found in Mandingo, a local bitter that reeked off Neem bark. A pleasant drink, it was not. Yet, by its very nature it drew my attention away from the mediocre white rice with shito splattered salad that I was compulsorily ingesting. It was not bad and I was hungry, but I was not enjoying it. With Mandingo burning down the back of my throat, I wondered where Nate had wandered off to. Not in a funk, it seemed as if he was seeking something that we could not provide. Yet Ho, a hilly town with meandering gutters and exhausted shops with names like Lords Diner, Observers are Worried Chop Bar, Fear God Metal Works, and Dick Win Enterprises, could hardly be the place to find the substance he seemed to be seeking. It wasn't a bad place; in fact I was feeling more comfortable here than I had during the many weeks that we had spent in Accra. Nonetheless, Ho seemed a half filled vessel and I felt empty, unable to provide it with the sustenance that it needed.

It was clear that I was not the only one that felt this way. Across the street from where Tuuli and I were eating was a heavy middle aged woman. A crowd had formed around her. She was pacing back and forth in front of wooden stalls that advertised hair weaves, rubber hoses and fried plantains. She held in her right hand a large black bag, laden with domestic goods, and was desperately struggling to hail a car. Taxi after taxi, tro-tro after tro-tro passed her by until, fed up, she struck back with the only weapons she had. With the growing crowd egging her on and shouting encouragement, she stepped out into the street as the dual lights of a far off taxi made itself known. As they grew in size, she slowly swung her black bag back and forth, preparing it for the projectile it was about to become. The swelling crowd became still.

As the unsuspecting taxi driver, in search of vital fair, slowed to scout the crowd, the woman wound back and fired the bag at his passing car. A loud thud sounded as the bag struck the front windshield. The driver rolled to a stop a short distance from the crowd before, judging a confrontation was not in his best interest, speeding off. This scene was repeated numerous times, with the woman hurling her bag at passing trucks, vans and private cars while heaping abuse on unsuspecting drivers. Vehicle after vehicle slowed after being unexpectedly pelted with large objects, but none made any attempt to confront the woman and the increasingly curious crowd she was attracting. Finally, as an empty taxi slowed as if to give her a lift, she turned her back on the scene that she had created and marched off towards the anonymity afforded by the ghost stalls of the deserted and looming day time market. Nate returned and, with the spell broken, we turned back in the direction of our hotel.

But would she be back? How many others felt a similar rage? What caused her unexpected outburst, and why was the crowd so acquiescent? Disconnected drivers, unprepared for the naked wrath of a distraught, yet presumably rational woman backed by an indecisive mob caught in limbo between uncontrolled aggression and abhorrence of such random violent acts, were left to take flight as if they were guilty. What kept the teetering crowd in check, and what would it take to annihilate the dikes keeping their possibly deep rooted frustration at bay? Maybe I will never know.
* posted by Sean at 4:41 AM