Gelato

I have a crush on a Senagalese gelato-maker called Bary. Bary handed me an ice-cream cone yesterday as I sat in the back yard seating area in a new wicker chair whilst the other workers continued to prepare the restaurant that will open on Monday. Boxes and wrapping lay across the newly tiled floor and in the background I could spy a clay pizza oven. Everything is clean with a modern edge, and native flowers have been planted next to a painted wall with small pebbles tucked around the stems. The faint smell of woodchip and plaster blended with vanilla and stracciatella filled the shaded retreat.

Bary and his Senegalese friends are shyer and more demure than their Ghanaian counterparts and they speak Wolof, which is like Arabic, and French. Bary says that Senegal is much more beautiful than Accra. He says the sea is blue as blue and the sand is white. Sometimes he swims 8km to a small island out into the sea. I tried to imagine swimming 8km, but I think I’ve only ever swum just under 2.

Bary says that if I marry him I will have to live in Senegal because he will not live in England. He also says that he is allowed up to 4 wives. People say that there are times when a girl shouldn’t lose her head when it comes to men. I think that this is one of those times as I imagine a life ahead as one of four of Bary’s wives by a beautiful blue sea taking on a new spiritual existence in prayer five times a day facing a mecca I’ve never been to. This seems to contrast quite distinctly from the English framework of reading the Guardian paper on Sunday and preparing a roast dinner. I think for now I’m content with ice-cream and the promise of freshly baked pizza.

Epitaph to a Cockroach

After making several appearances during my morning shower, I decided to name the cockroach Philip. Everyone else has seen Philip too, so he isn’t very bashful. He has very long antennae. Apparently some cockroaches can fly. I hoped Philip wasn’t one of that kind, but I made sure not to disturb him so he could go about his business.

Katie told me the news before we arrived home and when I went to shower I saw indeed it was true: Philip had been decapitated. His body lay limp on the bath’s edge. What was mostly worrying was that his head was nowhere to be seen. My new conditioner, imported from the Arab world, was positioned next to him. Could this be the tool in question? Troles denied all charges under Kati’s questioning. Leonard is a vegetarian, and if his stance towards living creatures extends, is an unlikely culprit.

We went out that evening and when we arrived back Troels returned from the washroom to say that Philip’s body was now missing and a mouse poo lay in its place. I didn’t realise mice were so opportunistic and carnivorous. They must also be pretty foolhardy to leave such blatant evidence at the scene of a crime. Leonard assures us that he has since seen another cockroach and named him Pedro.

A Busy Weekend and some Ghanaian Friends

Friday

While I write, someone is busy drilling the door back onto the Financial Republic Santa Maria Branch front of house. As it turns out someone drove into the shop front (somehow) yesterday evening and broke it. The entire security gate was also bent in. Although already developing a fine burnt amber rust, the metal gate isn’t being replaced, but is being bashed back into shape with metal tools. The sound of metal striking metal has reached a constant. Both the director and another chap had to sleep in the branch overnight for security reasons and are now napping next to me in the office while the air conditioning struggles to combat the 30°C heat and 66% humidity coming in from outside.

I’m busy developing a human resources database to store staff information using the computer software I may or may not have learnt much about during our IT training session last week.

Since writing the above, I received a text from a German girl called Sophie asking me if I wanted to go to her leaving drinks that night at Container. She had been interning at a permaculture centre near Aburi Gardens and would be returning to her studies in Germany. Container is a bar on Oxford Street that consists of a sprawl of tables across the side of the road next to a shack selling beer. There are canopies above advertising different Ghanaian beers, Stone, Star and Club. We sat at one of the plastic tables with a group of people Sophie had gathered while she was here. There was a large Norwegian lady with a Rastafari local boyfriend. I sat down next to Kati and a shy boy with a sprouting beard and slim baby dreads who introduced himself as Nana. Sophie’s friends were interesting and well educated, and it was nice to meet some men who were laidback and not just interested in pronouncing their undying love for you. Nana’s friend, Kassa, writes articles for a football magazine about African matches. Both are thinking about starting an NGO.

While we were sitting, some street performers came and began performing acrobatics in the road. They didn’t seem fazed turning summersaults and executing flexibility stunts on the floor where two minutes beforehand there had been a stream of cars; likewise, the cars seemed quite happy to squeeze past without the usual excess of tooting. It was probably one of the most impressive displays of informal gymnastics I’d seen; street kids ran to their teacher and spun summersaults from his shoulders; they tucked their legs under their ears so they were shaped like mini planets and tossed through the air like flying saucers, untangling in mid-flight. When they came to collect money from viewers, I caught myself thinking that if they could go to Europe for a summer they’d probably make a killing to come back with and get off the streets. Katie suggested I go up to them and ask if they’ve ever considered opening a savings account.

I went to dance with our Danish flatmate, Troels. There were huge speakers emitting thumping Nigerian hip-hop, which got your hips moving before you entered the sweaty dance space where couples were grinding to the beats. Troels was a necessary barrier to grabbing hands and amorous advances; although he himself needed a fair bit of help batting away unsolicited dance partners.

Back to the table I sat down next to a guy wearing a beanie with long dreads appearing from underneath. After saying I was from London, he commented, “Ah, I have a lot of sisters in London”.
“A lot of sisters?” I hadn’t heard the phrase before…
“I have seven sisters in total and four are in London”.

I think that if anyone wants to think of development issues in this city, they may want to think about introducing a family planning service. Isaac says that it’s a matter of education, and that people have to be taught how to think ahead about the financial costs of large families. On the radio I overhear discussions which indicate the number of babies here is also down to socialisation- women are under a lot of social pressure to produce babies. Couples who don’t have a baby within the first year of marriage are frowned upon and couples who can’t conceive entirely can suffer enormously from censure from friends and family. Women are often asked quite soon after the birth of their first child when the second one is coming and so on.

We ended up going to another club around the corner. At first the bouncers wouldn’t let me in with flip-flops. Someone came to my assistance and argued on my behalf and I was allowed to enter. The venue itself could be anywhere. It was classy with a white modern bar and tiled flooring and a raised dance area. It was the highest ratio of foreigners to Ghanaians I’d seen so far. There was a group of German students and some Lebanese business advisors. It wasn’t very big but there were strobe lights and a smoke machine all the same.

After a while I realised it is possible after all to have a bit too much fun. I decided to retreat. Nana and Kassa gave me a ride home. Nana had his dinner waiting for him on the back seat in a polystyrene box.
“Have you eaten Tilapia” he asked?
“No”
“You should have some. The banku will stop you getting a hangover. It’s the best thing for a hangover”. Despite not having drunk that much, I took his word for it.
We sat on the bench outside Mummy’s place and tore bits of fish off the bones with our hands. We took lumps of the ground up and beaten cassava and grabbed at the tomato and onion salsa. It was the freshest thing I’d eaten so far and probably far better than a kebab and chips at 4:00am.

Saturday

On the Saturday Isaac came to take Kati and I again to Aburi Gardens. I hadn’t expected to return so soon but there was an important cultural festival and there would be dancing.

There was a procession as chiefs were carried on thrones up the path through the town. Each was accompanied by a set of attendants, some held enormous adorned umbrellas to shade them, others fanned giant leaves to make a gentle wind and behind were some strong men bearing large drums on their shoulders. The chiefs were laden with so much gold (each generation chief has to contribute something new to display their wealth) that they probably wouldn’t have been able to walk under the weight of it anyway. Thick bracelets, gorgeous crowns with golden leaves carved into the sides and shapes like jewels on black velvet. One chief had a golden staff with some kind of bird in gold leaf at the top. Ghana did used to be called the Gold Coast under British rule and this was the first evidence of its abundance.

Everyone formed a square on the grass, some people had chairs. There was a microphone to the right next to a podium. One of the president’s chef advisors was going to make a speech. Everyone shuffled expectantly, waiting for the remaining Ashanti chiefs to arrive. The rains came without warning. Everyone squashed under canopies. A silver Rolls Royce rocked up in the centre of the grass square, ready to administer someone important to the canopy of chiefs. However the car wheel began to skid in the mud and couldn’t get to the red carpet. A serious looking security guard dressed in black with dark sunshades and a multi-coloured umbrella ran to assist. Bored of waiting for something to happen, we eventually left in seek of sustenance. The rains quenched, and at the café onsite we sat outside and ordered some drinks. A young man came over selling some hand painted cards. They were really good so after sorting through them I bought several. It turned out the guy had helped carve the tree stump that we had seen on Tuesday with his brother. He showed me some of his carvings and, liking his designs, I commissioned him to make me a wooden map of Africa to hang on the wall.

The young man introduced himself as Frank. He sat down beside me,
“I really like you”, he said as soon as he was seated. Declarations and praise come as hard and fast as the rains in Ghana.
“Here we go”, I thought.
“You know, you’re really nice. I want you to be my wife”.
By this time Isaac’s food had arrived and he offered me a chicken drumstick. I took it and proceeded to start eating it.
Frank leaned in closer, “I realllly like you. I do. I really mean it”. He spoke in a mellow tone and his eyes were soft.
I nodded and then tried to reach a hard-to-get piece of chicken from between the bones with my teeth. Frank smiled, “you’re really beautiful”, he said.
One of Frank’s friends had moved in sat down next to Katie.
Katie addressed me, “Fiona, you have some chicken around your mouth”.
“Thanks, Katie”. I wiped around, “has it gone”?
“It’s on your chin”.
“You’re really, really nice”, Frank murmured deeply. “Do you go to Church”?
“No”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know”
“Ohhhh Fiona, Oh Fiona, Fiona... You need to start going to Church now, because we will need to have our marriage blessed in a church and you will need to bring our children up well”.
“I’ll bare it in mind”.
“You are too good”
“Thanks”.

They escorted us back to the car making sure that no harm came to us along the way and checking the movement of oncoming cars, carts and people leaving the festival grounds. Isaac didn’t seem to mind that we’d both acquired life partners in the last 15 minutes. Eventually back in the car I wound the window up and watched as the foggy town got smaller and smaller at the top of the hill, leaving the gold-laden African chiefs, the party-goers and our lovers behind.  

Sunday

The next day I was pleased to have a lie-in. At 12:00 Kati and I took a taxi to meet Nana and Kassa at the bus station where they were waiting for us with Kassa’a car to take a trip to Kokrobite (prn. Kok-ro-beet-ay) Beach. It took about an hour to get there. As we left the city, the traffic thinned and the air became cleaner; I stuck my head out of the window at the back like a puppy and soaked my face in sunlight as the car sped along creating a strong breeze.

As we turned a corner along a long sandy red dirt track, beyond several low-lying houses there it was, finally: paradise. Palm trees lined the edges of finely ground yellow sand; beach huts rested beneath banana leaves and travellers’ dens housed fresh juice, vegetarian food and hippy paraphernalia. We enjoyed the afternoon just sitting on sandy wooden stools at a beach café where we ate yam balls and drank Guinness, which wasn’t Guinness but some strong tasting malt beer. At some point I wandered down the stretch of beach, past the area of leathery expats and sweaty travellers, past some housing on the left and groups of Ghanaian families. Towards the end of the beach I started to sense I’d come quite far and should be getting back. The sun was setting and the sky took on a deep orangey-purple. But it looked far away. A solution arrived as a man rode past me with a horse. I climbed aboard and trotted/cantered gingerly back to the others.  

On the way home to top off the perfect weekend the car pulled over so I could get out and vomit. Contaminated substance: unknown. According to the Norwegian lady at Mummy’s place, who did a Master’s degree in bacteria, it can take anything between 24 hours and 2 weeks for it to surface. I vomited again the next morning and spent the day moving between the sofa indoors to the plastic chair in the yard. I read Troels’s book about pathogens and tropical diseases like dengue fever, whilst tending to a painful stomach and warding off the residual cold and contemplated that it’s hardly surprising development is challenged in a hostile environment where your own country is attacking you in this cancerous cloud of bacteria and parasites. One tends to inflate things when one is ill.

Abogbloshie and the third Branch

Thursday morning I asked Isaac to pick me up from Venus coffee shop. A short walk up a backstreet from my lodgings at Mummy’s place takes you to Oxford Street. Oxford Street is pretty much like its equivalent in London- if it weren’t for the lack of pavements, busy flow of traffic with unchecked exhausts and street vendors in addition to shops and restaurants.Oxford Street, and the surrounding area, called Ossu are where you are most likely to find foreigners. There are some recognisable chains like KFC, but mostly foreigners from all over the world have chosen here to set up independent restaurants. You can find a host of delicious food but can also expect to pay at least five times what you would for local food. We enjoyed a very tasty meal last Saturday at a classy Italian restaurant with a lantern-lit outside garden, but we paid 30 cedifor a pizza, compared to the 3 cedi I spend on red red, rice and plantain for my lunches.

I arrived at the main office in Santa Maria as usual and was told I would be visiting the office at Abogbloshie market. It takes a long time to drive anywhere in this city and sometimes I feel like I spend as much time in Isaac’s car as anywhere else. At traffic lights sellers come displaying anything from chewing gum to board games and bubble blowers to drums or t-shirts. Occasionally beggars, who unfortunately are usually old or physically disabled, move between vehicles hoping for a few cedi to get by another day. The typical African setting of women balancing clay pots on their heads walking along dirt tracks in serenity has progressed to women weaving through the traffic bearing baskets of kitchen utensils, including spatulas, tea-towels and pans resting upon their heads, or metal bowls piled high with sachets of water. They serve as a reminder that however countries or cultures evolve, they will never develop in quite the same way.

I knew we were getting close when the roadsides started to get more crowded with street vendors and fruit sellers, people choosing handmade leather shoes and cheap imports from China. We crossed a bridge; the river widened as it flowed into the distance. Several meters from the bridge in the centre of the river lay a huge pile of rubbish. There were coke bottles and plastic wrappings, nondescript items and patches of dirty cloth. It was piled so high that when the tower couldn’t grow anymore some rolled down the back and started to form a new tower and so on.  Some rubbish was burning on the river in the background which produced an uncomfortable aroma. The banks of the river were covered in flakes of rubbish that were making their way down towards the floating heaps.

It was already quite late, about 11:00, by the time I arrived so I joined two field officers- two young girls- Abigail and Serwaah. The office manager introduced Serwaah as one of their best mobilisers of new clients. She looked only about 20 years old and had a wide smile but was too shy initially to say much. I was told Serwaah had a lot of clients to get through and we would have to move quickly. She was training Abigail how to meet clients, complete log books, collect savings and deal with loan clients. We moved through the market sharply. It was a huge expanse of stalls with vegetables everywhere in neat heaps on tables, wooden troughs containing red onions, sheets on the floor with small-time sellers offering just a few scraps. There were rows and rows of plantain and small shacks selling tins of tomato paste, sachets of Milo and some strawberry drinkmade in Ghana or toiletries imported from Russia. I struggled to keep up, curious to get sight of everything and not wanting to trip over table legs, muddy my feet in drains, or push past people through the narrow rows.

Only on the market did I realise why Serwaah was good at mobilising.Most of her clients were men who all seemed to smile a lot, or stretch out and rub their arms nervously when she came around with her big grin across her face. I had fun; lots of people were talkative but no one harassed like on the beach. My days have been better with the younger field officers and more relaxed than when I go out with the older ones or those in higher positions of authority. But the young ones are good at their jobs and their good people skills give clients confidence. I was surrounded by men selling plantain telling me about their dealings with FR.

Since up until now I’d only met fairly neutral, placid, savers or disgruntled customers, it was motivating to finally interview those with success stories. One man in a tiny wooden shack next to a dirty drain exuding a grimy smell built machinery for grinding corn. Since taking a loan with FR he had been able to buy bigger premises, where he would move to soon, and begin to sell more products. I met a man who had used his loan to buy an engine for a trotro and started a lucrative share taxi business. He was applying for a second loan in order to buy a second vehicle together with his savings. 

Several things have struck me about the role of field officers since starting with FR.One, to have mobile banking at all seems extraordinary. I tried to imagine in the UK every time I wanted to withdraw or deposit money phoning someone at the bank to come and give it to me or take money from me. Secondly the sheer number of field officers that are required to journey out to all corners of the city and meet with clients seems an enormous resource compared to the three or so clerks that sit behind protective glass at Natwest branches back home. Thirdly, I find it remarkable that this process happens daily. Surely weekly or even monthly savings would be acceptable and greatly reduce running costs for FR, saving vital funds for future loan customers. I asked the trotro driver if he would be happy to deposit savings three times a week instead of every day. He explained that field officers must come every day because there isn’t a savings culture. He said it wouldn’t work because people would just spend the money on the first day and have little to deposit the next day.

We sat down at one lady’s stand in the market on a mini wooden bench. We had to wait some time because her stall selling banku and other nibbles was so popular she didn’t have time to spare. Next to her stall was a huge poster advertising hair braiding. I bought some oranges from a lady opposite us. Abigail took the oranges and with a knife began to peel them. I know I don’t know everything, but I thought I knew all the ways to eat an orange. First it’s skinned with a long knife until only the white layer remains around the orange. They then slice off the very top but leave a bit so it acts as a flap. To eat it you enclose your whole mouth around the gap and squeeze with your hands whilst simultaneously grabbing at bits with your teeth. When you encounter pips you spit them on the floor. It’s actually quite a refreshing method when you’re thirsty, it’s hygienic and your hands remain clean. The only trick is perfecting the method, which I haven’t, to avoid getting a face bath.

The lady eventually came over and I learned that a loan had enabled her to build a wooden structure in the market from which to sell her snacks. This had greatly increased the size and popularity of her stall. She was talking about opening a sister shop on the other side of the market. Serwaah has agreed to help me collect client data as a company record and for producing the FR annual report.

As we walked through the market to return to the office we passed a lady with a metal basin on her head turning on a tap with one of her free hands. The mouth of the tap was built up high so she didn’t have to bend down or remove the basin in order to fill it with water. When the basin was full she moved off and weaved back through the stalls to her stand. We arrived at a section for yam selling. There were so many of them, almost a far as the eye could see, it was like a party of yams. How did people know which ones to choose? Yams are great big brown elephant feet, hairy tree trunk-like root vegetables.

When I went to meet Isaac, Abigail revealed he was her dad. This information was new to me. I was surprised to be hearing it for the first time. Isaac had mentioned he had children but I assumed his daughters were young for some reason. He never mentioned one was with FR. She was very sweet and modest, and had been helpful all day. It didn’t really surprise me that Isaac’s child should be like this.

I got home early for once and went for a jog.It’s not a bad way of gaining bearings for your surroundings. A left turn out of Mummy’s courtyard and at the end of our street is a main road. I crossed it, and with my nose to the sea, ran down a dirt track. Somewhere along the road the lethargy kicked in and I stopped next to a lady carrying water on her head. She explained that she lived at the church just ahead. When we reached it, the church yard had a pretty blue-washed picket fence surrounding it, with a simple white cross standing in the middle. Behind the church, waves crashed against the bank and made for an atmospheric setting, and the grey blue sky swirled in the background. Through the churchyard I found the beach and ran onto the sand. A boy sat to my left digging holes. I closed my eyes and breathed in the same salty air that reaches the beaches of Brighton and Hove, Hastings and Camber Sands. When I opened them, I saw tracks in the sand and followed them up to where three pink and black grubby pigs were snuffling around in a pile of rubbish.

That evening I had planned to make dinner for everyone and so had purchased some vegetables and other bits in the market to make a pasta sauce. The others arrived one by one back at Mummy’s and soon we were gathered in the kitchen. Leonard came home with chocolate and announced it was his birthday, which made me glad we were preparing something and heightened the pleasant, and now celebratory, atmosphere. It was quite a procedure, not least because nothing was clean and the water was off, so Leonard had a system going washing plates and utensils outside. Kati was making a mega salad with mounds of peels collecting on plates around her. I was boiling water on the electric plates without a kettle and balancing the frying of Aubergines, garlic and onions. I showed Sonja, the American Peace Corps volunteer, who’d just come to the city after spending two years up north in a village in the Ashanti region bordering Burkina Faso, how to peel tomatoes with boiling water. She got through about fifteen of them. We eventually sat outside under the stars to a magnificent feast- after the collaborative effort- with baguette and olives from the supermarket.

Eid al-Adha: A Muslim holiday and the Botanical Garden

The Ghanaian government announced earlier this year that October 15^thwould celebrate the important Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, or the "festival of the sacrifice".The day honours the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his young first-born son Ismail as an act of submission to Allah's command, and his son's acceptance to being sacrificed, before Allah intervened to provide Abraham with a Lamb to sacrifice instead. This sounds remarkably similar to the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. In fact Muslims and Christians share a lot of stories. Although Muslims make up just 16% of Ghanaian citizens, according to Isaac, the current Prime Minister, John DramaniMahama,is seeking their votes in the next election and so declared a public holiday for them.

Despite the slightly unsettled feeling this might give some erudite or politically aware Ghanaians, most of us were pleased not to have to work on Tuesday.Isaac took Katie and I to Aburi Gardens, which rests about an hour’s drive from the city centre.It was incredibly refreshing to leave the choked up traffic, dusty red dirt tracks and roadside street vendors to tootle up the windy hillside road to Aburi. Aburi itself was a small town at the top of the hill with an amazing view of Accra spread out below, surrounded by a more familiar African savannah scape. The scene was awash with the greens and browns of nature, a few umbrella trees and farms dotted around, with the backdrop of more hills and clouds.

Isaac had said that I didn’t need to bring my sun umbrella because the weather would be like Europe. I didn’t really understand until we got there. Aburi Gardens is like a magical botanical garden. It’s cool and refreshing, and quiet with trees planted from all over the world. It’s well maintained and the grass surrounding the trees is kept trim. Through the grand entrance gate, large straight trees that looked like giant-sized poplar trees adorned the road edges within the gardens. First built by the British in 1890, the gardens were later intended to form part of Nkrumah’s presidential palace, but after the coup in it’s now a public space and different significant people of Ghana come here to plant various rare or imported trees. In one particular place a tree stump had been elegantly carved into a sculpture displaying African creatures like giraffes and elephants, as well as human figures and traditional instruments. Apparently the tree was going to be removed but two artists decided they wanted to protect it and so carved it for their community to enjoy.

On the way home we stopped at the roadside to buy some boiled corn on the cobs that had been soaked in coconut milk, which also came with pieces of chewy coconut. We arrived back into the city to enormous cheers and the sound of cars tooting as Ghana scored its first goal against Egypt in the World Cup play-offs. The game was taking place in Kumasi, which is Ghana’s second largest city. As we journeyed in further and the traffic thickened in the forest of pollutant vehicles, the Black Stars scored more goals against the rapidly losing Pharaohs. On the radio, the commentary was spoken by a chap from somewhere in the north of England. 

Isaac pulled up at Ghana’s largest shopping mall. I was quite intrigued because the building reminded me of South Africa, where roadside malls are extremely popular for friends and families to hang out in at the evenings and weekends. They are super malls like Blue Water that house everything from cinemas to bowling alleys to restaurants and worldwide designer brands. As we entered there was an electronics shop on the left with a crowd of men grouped around the outward facing TV screen displaying the football match. Some were holding babies and didn’t even seem to mind as long as they didn’t move too much or distract them. Another whoop which rippled across the mall indicated the score was now 4-0.We passed the overpriced birkenstocks and Tom Toms and the Nandos knock-off in the food court. 

I was enchanted by one particular shop that had a security guard operating the spotless large and slender glass door. Through the glass were mannequins wearing extremely elegant modern dresses and gowns with traditional African colours and designs. Some dresses had more than one pattern, with a different fabric for the sleeves or body. There were walls of fabric. It was like Charlie’s Chocolate Factory for textile procurers, seamstressesand pattern designers. Shelves lined up to the ceiling with gold thread, yellow cultural designs on blue, pink horses on green backgrounds, stars and hearts. For about £600 you could choose your pattern and then the fabric and have a dresscustom made. 

After buying only a smoothie, we returned to the car and ventured homeward. As we approached Oxford Street, the main thoroughfare had been shut off to traffic, making way for huge TV screens and tooting fans. The match came to a close at 6-1 and Isaac hooted and whooped. Despite being billed as the tightest of the five African play-off ties that will decide who will make it to next year's tournament in Brazil, Ghana is now almost guaranteed to be on the plane to South America after the huge win.

That evening we went to a bar called Republic to take part in a pub quiz that happens every Tuesday. It was a very international audience, with an American team from the previous week administering the questions. They seemed, however, unaware that the round on New Jersey might not be accessible to much of the audience. We sat at tables outside, and, despite doing badly on a few rounds, managed to come third. This means that we get a round of free drinks next time!

To the Lighthouse via La Palm Beach Paradise

I named this blog ‘Ghanaian Beats’ in anticipation of African cultural music played in sultry seaside settings, djembe groups on white sands and local pop classics. I forecasted music in local tongues like Twi or Ga and tunes to get the shoulders moving. However, the bulk of what I’ve heard so far has been the expressive gospel music in Isaac’s car each morning and incredibly cheesy American 80s pop. There have been episodes of Hip hop or Reggae blasting out of speakers from joints such as the ‘Rising Phoenix’ bar that pull in a certain local crowd. In the end, never quite knowing if it’s lamentable when traditions are ‘lost’, or just representative of a Western desire to preserve cultures in a pleasingly time-warped state like marmalade for us to sup on, eventually the onlooker must accept modernity as it flows.

   

That said, on Fridays in the office everyone wears cultural dress. I wasted no time in getting mine made up in the week by one of our clients who’s a seamstress. I liked the novelty of being measured for clothes and the idea of wearing a garment that perfectly fits the bust, waist and hips rather than 40,000 Primarkers. One of my colleagues chose the material. It’s an Egyptian blue with a typical Ghanaian pattern and is cut so it hangs off one shoulder.

On Thursday I had felt like I was starting to come down with something; by Friday morning it had developed into a stinking cold. I started feeling feverish in the afternoon so Chairman worried I might have malaria, which made me worried I might have malaria. It was my first Friday night in Accra and I went to bed at 8. Thankfully it's passing now.

On Saturday I went with Leonard and Katie by taxi to La Palm Beach Hotel. The contrast from the dusty urban sprawl was like escaping from an ants’ nest to paradise. Businessmen lay on loungers with i-pad minis perched on rotund bellies. Russian twins stalked past in matching bikinis. Such is life in golden cages. I went to the bars at the edge of the compound which protected guests from the outside world and surveyed the sandy stretch of beach through the gaps. Labadi beach is not attractive, but it’s not ugly either. To the left some children were playing at the water’s edge. I’d only been there a few minutes when a man approached and tried to sell me bracelets through the bars. After a brief conversation I receded to my sun lounger under a coconut tree and barely moved for the entire day, nursing my cold with fruit smoothies. I went to bed at 7pm.

On Sunday I felt better and we walked along the beach. It was good to finally connect the dots on the map and gain a sense of our bearings. To get there we wandered through an area of wooden housing with narrow gaps for amblers; washing hung on lines outside, women sat preparing food and children played freely. There were baby goats and chickens milling around the spaces between homes.

On the beach people swam in the ocean or played football. Our presence attracted a lot of attention. There aren’t many beggars or people selling things in Accra, but every man and child wants to shake your hand, ask where you’re from and ask if you have Facebook. If out and about on your own it’s sometimes best to take the Paris Hilton stance of wearing sunglasses and earphones so you can’t hear when people hiss at you (in a friendly way) or shout ‘obruni’ (white person). We passed Independence Square and arrived at the lighthouse. The British built the lighthouse in the 1600s, and from the top was an amazing view of the city below, with the mayor’s house, children playing football and a small fishing cove in the foreground, topped off by a refreshing sea breeze. 

Encounters with a Fisherman, a Lady Offering Banku and a Reggae Tribe

This week I have been overcome by an epic tiredness. Every afternoon has taken unsustainable energy to ward off napping in chairs and unwarranted siestas.

My alarm went off at 6:30 on Wednesday. I thought maybe I needed to get my body moving to revive some energy. I splashed my face with water and cleaned my teeth to try and liven up my mouth and then tried to get swollen feet into trainers. My fingers look like bulbous root vegetables. My level of physical dehydration is like a sunblushed tomato. I don’t have far to go.

Going out on the road is dangerous; not because I’m jogging in Africa but because there are ditches, open drains, rubble and an absence of pavements. People around here must be fairly accustomed to the sight of foreigners. I got a few stares and giggles from school children. It’s just a case of getting over my own discomfort of looking startlingly white, as if someone put me in the washing machine with bleach and then hung me up to dry on the line with all the other shirts.

Isaac has been taking me to a stand for breakfast on the way to work. It has an umbrella next to it that says “Tigo. Rule Your Life” and they sell mobile phone top up. The lady running the stand is very good at multitasking because she can serve tea, whip up porridge and fry omelettes all at the same time. My morning omelettes are very good. They have peppers and similar crunchy vegetables inside and are wrapped in fresh white bed which is then slightly squashed in the pan with a wooden block.

Isaac suggested today I try this egg dish which has packet chicken noodles and corned beef. I said maybe next time. All the food is very rich. I turn away before the lady pours the oil in the pan because I don’t want to see it and get put off my breakfast. The porridge is made with half a can of condensed milk and about 4Tsp sugar. The tea goes through the same process. I had the tea with one teaspoon of sugar and it still tasted like thick warm caramel with a hint of tea. Isaac says that many people want to be fat because it looks like they have plenty; he also says that many men like their women big. I think a lot of people round here must have plenty.

At the stall there were two twins. In the Igbo tribe in Nigeria twins used to get thrown away because they believed they were encapsulating evil spirits and would bring drought or disease. Luckily for these guys they live two countries west and a century later and so ate their porridge unfazed.

Ghanaian children are extremely cute. It seems every second women is either pregnant or carrying a baby on her back wrapped in a nesting blanket full of colour and vibrantly patterned cultural fabric. Babies with big eyes peer at you from behind buildings or hanging limp from mothers’ backs. The back seems an ideal place for a baby. It’s probably good exercise, more agile than moving a huge cart around and apparently is good for the child’s development. There aren’t any children in London. I don’t know where people hide them but they’d just get trampled on by human traffic on Oxford Street and the tube system doesn’t really cater for buggies. Victor told me not to come home with an African child.

Another thing hidden away in our culture is nature. There is barely a sprout sprigging or a sprig sprouting where it is not supposed to. I looked at the chickens clucking and chasing each other down the path with the same fascination as giraffes in a nature reserve.

I had a really good day on Wednesday. As soon as I arrived at the office we went straight to another office in Tetagu from where I was instructed to accompany two young field officers on their day doing the rounds. They are called Gloria and Enoch. Enoch looks like he’d fair better than me in East London with his dark rimmed spectacles. He also has the markings of his tribe (Ga) on his face. Marks like these are usually made with a knife or jagged tin when you’re a baby, but the practice is now illegal.

I met a lot of friendly people from whom we collected daily savings. We took a tro tro to our destination, Wieja, which was a really hilly region on the edge of the city which lay dotted with basic houses made of wood or concrete. I must have met 100 clients, who were lively and engaging, and who generally spoke some English, or Gloria and Enoch translated, and I practiced a few Twi expressions. From some we collected as little as 2 cedi, which is about 60p and from others nothing. One lady beckoned me over to come and eat. There was a bowl on the floor with something that looked like Mexican salsa and some banku piled high, which is ground fermented cassava, and I was handed one of the blacked fish that I had seen drying in the market sun the day before. Despite my initial hesitations it was actually pretty good.

Later I met a fisherman resting under a tree next to his hut who agreed that I could come out with him on the river one morning. He said “we arrive at 5:30 am. Make sure you can swim”. I said I thought it was the fish that swam and we who caught them. We made slow progress in the heat; I luckily managed to buy an umbrella to protect myself from the sun’s tenacious rays. We walked past a small stream shaded by banana trees and arrived at a wall. On the wall sat shoulder to shoulder a group of men whose dress suggested they were attempting to unite Reggae and Gangsta hip hop cultures. The smell of ganja came strong to the nostrils and one man was holding a joint the size of an ice-cream cone. Under a shelter one of the guys took his mother’s cooking- a whole BBQ chicken with its head lolling- and taunted me with it. He ripped some off for me to eat. It was actually tasty and spicy like piri piri at Nandos.

That evening after the excitement of the day I had a quiet evening in. It seems to get dark so early- at about 5:30- which feels strange when it’s so hot out. I could get a dongle for internet, but I think it’s more relaxing to spend the evenings without 600 odd million pages of information at my fingertips. People must have done something in the 1800s. I went to bed early.

Microfinance through the Looking Glass

Microfinance offers savings and loan products as well as financial training to individual entrepreneurs in developing countries. Traditionally, banks have not provided financial services, such as loans, to clients with little or no cash income. This is due to the high cost of processing loans and the fact that most poor people have few assets that can be secured by a bank as collateral. Because of these difficulties, when poor people borrow they often rely on relatives or a local moneylender, whose interest rates tend to be very high. 

Famously led to success by the economist Muhammad Yunus in the 70s, in Bangladesh, microfinance has been growing rapidly with $25 billion currently at work in loans. It is estimated that the industry needs $250 billion to get capital to all the poor people who need it.  Women are generally the primary focus of services since evidence shows that they are less likely to default on their loans than men.

In practice microfinance is not an amazing thing. It’s a collection of small offices with sketchy lighting and wooden partitions; it’s a bunch of ordinary workers and some people with stalls in the market. But what it offers is banking to those for whom a bank account was out of reach and had previously rested above their field of vision. It offers security to those who’ve never had a safe place to put their earnings and an opportunity to think about investing in new products or equipment. Subsequent business expansion and a 10% interest on savings means that over time people find that they can pay their children’s school fees or send money to family members, and so the way it impacts lives can be significant.

What I like about the scheme is that it’s a micro-development project that focuses on individuals. Microfinance doesn’t require fundraising as it isn’t wholly dependent on charity and as a social enterprise it doesn’t operate entirely outside the market system or dampen entrepreneurial activity as food aid for example has been known to.

Unfortunately the merry story isn’t without its problems. The system can easily fail, as seen in the State of Andhra Pradesh (India), for various reasons such as lack of use by potential customers, over-indebtedness, poor operating procedures, neglect of duties and inadequate regulations. On the market today one of the ladies running a small shop was really angry. She had saved enough to be granted a loan- the amount required for a loan is 400 GHA cedi, or £120- but the loan hadn’t arrived. The answer given by the field officers is that it takes time to process. The problem is deeper than that- funds are drying up at the bank. Nana, the organisation’s founder in the UK, is currently applying for funding from various international organisations. If it doesn’t come quickly enough people are going to start demanding their savings back. The shop owner said she didn’t have cash to top up on certain products like sugar and her customers would go elsewhere. If the loan doesn’t arrive by the end of this month she won’t have enough to buy the extra stock needed in time for the Christmas rush.

Fiona Afia Nyarkoah

I am not unconditionally amazed. I think having travelled before makes things lose their ‘wow’ element. On the way to work on Tuesday, the streets were dusty, the heat teased my intolerance and small clouds of car fumes hovered just below the car ceiling.

Soon after arriving at HQ I was told I would be going out on the field. On Mondays Field Officers wear white polo shirts with “Financial Republic” across the chest, and Tuesdays to Thursdays the shirts are ‘lemon green’. I hadn’t heard that expression before but since the lemons here really are a bright green with a waxy bobbly texture there isn’t much to argue about.

On the field means going to visit clients to collect savings, which are carefully noted on a clipboard. At the market wooden shelves were stacked high with tropical fruits which gave way to bags of corn, millet, pounded cassava and cocoa. Medium sized crabs squirmed in buckets, reaching out as if pockets of air could be grabbed with their legs. Fish lay drying in the midday heat, blackened by the sun, but looked unappealing. Chickens clucked at table legs as chicks darted around them. There were giant land snails to purchase and goats ate rubbish and food remnants in the market square.

I made friends with one lady who gave me my African name, Afia Nyarkoah; ‘Afia’ because I was born on a Friday, and ‘Nyarkoah’ because she liked it. I’m having trouble remembering the pronunciation of my second name. Kofi Anan, the UN Secretary General, was also born on a Friday, but since he’s a man he’s named ‘Kofi’. People also tend to have a Christian name that come first, like Dorothy, Maxwell, Eric Brian and Mr. Thomas Martin.

In the market they sell palm oil which is as red as strawberry Ribena. I had some more red red- the beans, spicy sauce and palm oil with some ground corn sprinkled on top. It’s like baked bean’s rich and spicy cousin with a crunchy topping. It was so good that when the flies saw it, they wanted some too.

That afternoon in the office we had a computer training session. The technology is more advanced than at my school in Japan. The table was spread with hi-tech equipment and state of the art laptops but it was 2 and half of the most tedious hours of my life, whereby someone with a foreign accent explained every detail of the new software from some unknown location through headphones as we all sat studying the screens. It was made worse by the fact that the ins and outs of the work are not yet relevant to me. Every detail was explained with an example which took ages to load. As I sat, an enormous millipede wiggled past my chair. Thankfully by the end we were all in the same boat and managed to ring off the call laughing as the speaker asked for the 10th time, "any questions?".

In the car on the way home I was accompanied by Nana’s father. Nana is the lady in the UK who founded FR, but her father has returned to Ghana for retirement. He’s a serious man; his countenance deserves the kind of authority of a King or African chief. An accountant in the UK, he now chairs Financial Republic. I asked him if he’s happy to be back in Ghana, “Ohh yes”, he replied, “England is a Police state. They are always watching with CCTV and even with the tube passes ... There is no place like home”. I pondered this for a moment. As the car turned the corner, I saw a man urinating in the street. Freedom comes in many forms. 

Akwaaaba! Welcome to Financial Republic

This morning the Ghanaian boy in the room next to me drank the tap water. I don’t think I’ll go straight for it, but it gave me confidence to clean my teeth with it and cook noodles in it. If I get cholera I can write books like ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’; except that I’ll be the only one.

When I came to shower the water had stopped so I filled up a bucket from the tub outside. It smelled of urine in the bathroom, not a deep cloudy stench that chokes the rooms but a gentle steady reminder of the human function.

Isaac came to fetch me at 7:30. Initially the fact that Financial Republic provided a driver didn’t seem like a lot, but actually it’s quite a privilege. The others in my block have to get about by tro tros (privately owned mini bus taxis).

At the Santa Maria bank branch, it was quickly apparent to me that I was interrupting mass morning prayer. It was deep and soulful like in the churches in the deep South of America; it was also rhythmic with an intense hum like an exorcism. It involved all the colleagues except me. I sat in the office, which was a small room divided from the main banking area by a wooden separation. As I sat and waited the noise rose with a force the missionaries would have been satisfied with.

… “We thank the Lord that there’s a Financial Republic of liberty… in the name of Jesus” etc. etc.
… “Amen”

I went  outside to buy a coconut. A man wielding a barrow of coconuts and a machete cut it open for me.

Although I arrived at the office at 8:00, by 11:00 still no one had come for me. There were staff milling around the office and getting on with their duties, but the director had not come yet. By 12 I was slightly bored and frustrated. I went outside. The heat of the day had settled in and was scorching everything, but mostly me.

Isaac had left. At least there was internet, though I shouldn’t be on Facebook anyway. I should be going all out and gung-ho, as if it were the time when everything was disconnected and people had to write letters home in their best calligraphy. At least my phone looks like they did in the early 1900s.

Although, to be honest, this isn’t really a fair representation. Most people have the latest smartphones in one version or another, with 3G, but the simcard didn’t work in mine. In some African countries more people have access to mobile phones than clean water.

For lunch I tried my first red red- delicious black eyed beans in a rich orange curry with sticky plantain and a fiery red sauce over white rice. This was got from a little stall down a dirt track off the side of the road and I sat in a wooden shack with some workers on their lunch break.

Something in the air is making me really tired. I really felt like I needed a nap. It might have been nice to have had more than a day to orientate myself before starting full days in the office. I met the director of the office, Menza, who came across instantly as a very smart man. In the afternoon I worked with one of the ladies dealing with walk-in clients. They have a money passport which is stamped when they want to withdraw and all amounts are added to the system online.

I was relieved to be in the car going home. I bought some salted popcorn through the car window from one the kids in the street and watched the streams of cars ignoring red lights, tooting at pedestrians weaving through and bypassing traffic by driving down the wrong side of the road to turn left, and so-on.

My room presented a slightly unappealing escape hole. The musty smell and darkness seemed amplified somehow, and despite the bright sunlight outside, the florescent light needs to be on. The other inhabitants named it “the cell”. It was also smaller and less airy than theirs with a grubbyish plastic floor. The landlady tells us to call her “Mummy”. Mummy says that if another room becomes available I can have it.

I went for some food at a little restaurant-shack just down the road. I thought I was getting African chili beef with plain rice. What I got was a strange take on Chinese food with fried rice and a gloopy gravy, but thankfully with lots of fresh vegetables. Later I went with Leonard the German, Katy the Canadian and Troels the Dane for a much needed beer. 

A Sunday to Unwind

I woke up glad to be alone and in Ghana. I felt incredibly tired. I lay in bed thinking maybe I could just absorb the culture shock by osmosis through the walls. Isaac was going to be at Church all morning so there was no need to move. Really I just couldn’t remember when last I had the luxury of lying in bed with nothing to do and no one to contact.

I lay listening to the drum of air conditioning, motorcycle engines and the far off sawing of wood. Even the tapping, banging and creaking of doors sounded new, enhanced perhaps by the echoes of plastered walls. I plugged in my laptop. One useful side effect of Britain having shockingly invaded over 90% of the world (the remaining 22 countries can be seen on the map) is that the plug sockets were a perfect match.

I stumbled into the bathroom and splashed my face with water. The malaria-filled blighters buzzed around me. As I rubbed my eyes I had a shocking thought- can bacteria and cholera enter the blood stream through the eyes much like people taking vodka shots? I realised it would take a little while yet to wash away my developed country standards and embrace the new surroundings.

Back to bed. After some time I heard the sound of a key in the door and my flatmate returning. He or she went into the room next door and started speaking on the telephone. Through the wall I tried to depict the language being spoken above the noises outside. Later I heard the person in the kitchen. Eventually I went for a shower and returned to my room knowing that my noises would now be audible. Back in my room I could hear the flatmate’s movements again in the kitchen. I wondered how long this tap-dance would continue.

I decided to unpack. My conditioner had performed the classic suitcase explosion, as if to say, that from this moment on, my hair wouldn’t need much conditioning. I hung up all my clothes until the right side of the wardrobe looked like my wardrobe at home: a stream of clashing patterns. The left side was still a mystery since the door handle was missing and I couldn’t open it.

In the kitchen, the fridge had some fast food remnants and a KFC box in it. I wondered if this was more reflective of the purchaser or the local cuisine. I went outside into the bright sunlight now wondering where Isaac might be. I had no way of telling the time. Here I met my first inhabitant. A large fresh faced blonde curly haired youth emerged from one of the rooms in the courtyard wearing long red shorts and a grey t-shirt. I wondered if he was the owner of the KFC. It turned out he was from Denmark and had been teaching at a local school for a few months. He was friendly enough, gave me a few tips and I returned to my room to study the guide book.

At least 2 hours after he said he’d come Isaac still wasn’t there. I was frustrated because I was bored, and more crucially, hungry. Should I open the gate and venture alone into the big wide world?

I briefly met a Scottish girl who said she was here working for IPA (Innovation for Poverty Action); she said she was going to get a smoothie and did I want to come? But I didn’t have a way of calling Isaac to say, so I declined. Eventually Isaac came and we went to a shopping mall and got chicken with chili curry and rice. We also went to see the Black Star Square, which stood stark and bare like a North Korean marching ground but with the backdrop of the ocean with a fresh sea breeze. Isaac said that we could go to his village one weekend and see his family and I spoke to his sister on the phone.

Back in the courtyard of the lodgings that evening I met a German guy who’s working at the Kofi Anan International Peacekeeping Centre and a Canadian girl, Katy, who’d just arrived and would be working in administering development projects for a private agency that deals with Canadian government funding. There are also 4 Senegalese guys in the top apartment who are here opening an Italian restaurant in Accra. Sadly my French isn’t good enough to communicate properly with them. It turned out that the person I’d heard shuffling about in the room next to me earlier had been their driver- a chirpy young Ghanaian guy.

That evening in the bathroom I saw my first cockroach. I decided not to tell Katy about it.