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.