Abdul

In the early 90s I conducted research in and around Freetown, and was greatly aided by a research assistant, Maligie, who at the time had a son aged 8, Abdul. Now aged 19, Abdul will be staying with me for awhile, enrolled in a local private high school here in Ghana, with some additional after-school professional tutoring in English literature and grammar. Abdul's hoping to do well enough on exams next year to qualify for university.



We chat each evening over dinner about something learned in class. I learned a new word, enthalpy. I'm sure you all already knew what that was.

The proportion of our evening meals devoted to rice has now greatly increased. Sierra Leone citizens consume more rice per person than any other in Africa.

We've decided that eggs every morning for breakfast is probably not a good idea. Now experimenting with millet porrige and honey coated oats with milk.



Abdul, Moses, and I had an interesting discussion about tastes in music this evening. The topic was "objectification of women in modern lyrics". I showed them how to use the Internet to find lyrics to popular songs. We reviewed one they said was among their favorites, 50 Cent's Candy Shop. I did not interpret it for them, and I do not think they quite caught what Mr. Cent was talking about...

Parenting advice appreciated...

Thanksgiving

In the morning I slept in until 7am, rather than my usual 6. Worked at home until about 11, then headed out with Sammy for some holiday shopping. Wild Gecko was an easy stop for shopping.



Around 3 in the afternoon, headed out to Goi, a small fishing village about an hour east of Accra. I wanted to deliver photos I'd taken on a previous trip, and to see if the birds from Europe had arrived.



Jacob (right) was waiting when we arrived, with a big smile, happy to receive a copy of his pictures. He accompanied us in the car for a short drive out to the salt ponds.



The surface of each little pond is covered with about an inch of salt water. Underneath, the mud is fine and squishy, a few inches deep, on top of a harder supporting layer. When harvested, each large sack of sea salt fetches about $3.



On the return to Accra, we sat on the rooftop terrace of Southern Fried Chicken in Tema, with a fine view of the Tema roundabout and motorway traffic below. Moses (center) was particularly impressed. "In my village in the North, this would serve six people," he said, holding up a rather large chicken breast. "This is just like Christmas. In my village, we eat chicken and rice on Christmas Day, and then we don't eat chicken and rice again like that until the next Christmas."



Happy Thanksgiving.

Spare Parts

An advantage of a Toyota Rav4 is that there are many of them in Ghana. Many cars means more spare parts. This one braces the rear differential to the chassis, if you know what I mean.



The hardest part was figuring out what to call it. If you don't know what it's called, you can't order one. My mechanic sent one of his workmen into the central market -- there's a section just for used and new car parts. Still, this particular part proved particularly difficult to find. Took several days. I was offered a used one for $150. My mechanic finally found a new one for $80.



Having a driver means I hear about all this by cell phone. Samuel stays with the car and reports on progress.

Limbé

On the 15th of April in 1999, a sluggish flow of glowing basalt pushed its way across the Idenau-Limbé Road and then ground to a halt, no more than 200 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. At the road cut, the solidified flow is perhaps 150 feet across and 40 feet high. Approaching from the West, speed bumps and signs warn of a diversion ahead, lest one accidentally smash into the side. Engineers have since poured a single lane of circumnavigating asphalt. Entrepreneurial district government workers hawk common volcanic beach rocks and postcards for amusing prices, and offer "tours" of the lava flow.


Picture by J.P. Lockwood of USAID

Our hotel offers simple yet comfortable rooms with bath en suite and remarkable views of distant islands. The beach sand is curiously clean yet black, of washed volcanoes. The water, too, is crystal clear, only waist deep a hundred yards from shore. A freshwater spring feeds water flowing rapidly through a narrow lagoon just inshore; a leisurely swimmer can stay in one spot.



Above on the slopes of Mount Cameroon sits the town of Buea, and nearby, nestled among curiously lower altitude tea estates, is the quaint village of Bonjongo. A steep and winding road leads up a volcanic chimney atop which is perched a lovely old church with a commanding view. On a sultry Sunday afternoon, the church is deserted but unlocked. A passing tourist offers a gift of 1000 francs ($2) in the box at the entrance.









Down below by the sea, Limbé hosts a well known botanical garden, the signage a bit faded, though the grass and walks are well maintained. Within the grounds is a small restaurant on a bluff overlooking the sea. Small, sheltered terraces offer comfortable tables with a view in the hazy distance of the volcanic Equatorial Guinea.



The young waitress in a pressed black skirt and white blouse is most pleasant indeed, with a quick smile and a bashful demeanor. She quickly proffers a basket of French bread, soft and chewy after a day in the humid tropics, sliced thickly, and served with softened butter. As fluent in French as in English, which is quite common in this the anglophone part of a country dominated by French speakers, she helps us translate the menu offerings of bar and merou into the more familiar sea bass and grouper.



Mutzig lagers are proposed, served very cold in 24-ounce bottles. The bottles are handy for anchoring the table cloth which threatens regularly with the regular gusts of cooling sea breezes to carry away our bread basket. Other customers trickle in, most likely wealthier local residents, perhaps employed by the nearby oil refinery or at the tea estate.



We begin with salads of shredded carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, and red onions accompanied by a small tureen of tangy, homemade mayonnaise. My companion chooses the garlic baby shrimp and linguini, sauteed quickly in butter and lightly seasoned with cayenne and local herbs. I opt for the grilled filet of barracuda, tender and flaky, cooked just long enough, and served with roasted potatoes, slightly charred with a pleasing hint of charcoal smoke. Beers, salads, and main courses for about 8000 Central African francs per person ($16).

The Abedares

Lord Aberdare was, in the late 1800s, President of the Royal Geographic Society in England, and greatly concerned with filling in the "black spots" in maps of the continent. An explorer, Joseph Thompson, named a mountain range the Abedares, north of what is now Nairobi, just east of the Great Rift Valley and its Lake Naivasha, and just to the west of Mount Kenya, second highest peak on the continent.



From the verandas of The Ark, Mount Kenya quickly disappears in the mist and clouds shortly after sunrise. They say it creates its own weather, its temperature rising more quickly than the plains around it, sending updrafts of moisture-laden air to generate its crown.



My week away from Ghana was spent on golf, game drives in the Abedares, a round of golf, sharing restaurants with the visiting Senator Barack Obama, a bit of golf, and visits to markets. My dear friend Suzanne also took me out to play a bit of golf, most spectacularly at the (under repair) Abedares Country Club on the plains at the foot of Mount Kenya. Free drop for warthog piles, and you can use your club on the greens to scrape away the droppings of Thompson gazelles.

Rain

Kingfishers hunt in the rain. I can't decide if it's because the disturbance on the surface of the water makes it harder for the minnows to see the impending attack, or if the kingfisher is simply desperate from hunger.



Canoes creep back to shore quietly, their crew huddled with grim expressions, some in raincoats, others with a handkerchief laid across their heads. They leave their nets and traps and rush inside for warmth. Cold days like this are rare in Ghana, unaccustomed.



Basket tubes are tied in a cone and weighted at one end, and woven with a small hole at the other. Bits of rubbish are inserted, then the traps are all strung together with a line. A float holds the line up at one end as the traps are dropped from the canoe.



River shrimp crawl in the hole, but can't get out again, until it's too late.

Timber Market

The winding alleys and cramped spaces of the tiny shops are the heart of Accra's construction supply industry. The carpenter is well known, and the shopkeepers call to him by name. They bargain at length, but he knows all the prices in advance.



Each small shop specializes in something. Paint, hand tools, tiles, cement. Most are family run, open six days a week.



Nails are sold from big buckets, by the pound. The same shop offers hand tools, and coke bottles filled with carpenter's glue or other more mysterious lacquers and varnishes. A woman in her sixties, hair neatly pulled back in a bun, lips painted an astonishing lavendar, eyes darkly shaded, stands erect on a box behind the counter, high above her wares, seeing everything, seeing me, feigning indifference, yet barking instructions for a chair to be brought. Hospitality. The stranger, escorted by their friend the carpenter, sits and observes.



Negotiations are brisk and vibrant, yet full of humor. Even without understanding Twi, one can imagine each stage. A young clerk places a foot square of heavy paper from a used cement bag onto a scale, piles on first the 3-inch, then in turn the 2-inch and others of sizes deemed essential by my guide. Each is weighed precisely. My guide nods assent. She adds a few more as a gift, then folds each up into a neat packet, sealed with a nail inserted like a hairpin.



The owner's daughter deftly raises to her head our load of nails, gallons of liquids, a few brushes, and a stack of sand paper, then follows us several blocks to our car. She is incredibly strong.



A crowd surrounds the car even before it rolls to a stop, prying open the doors, imploring the occupants to do business, pushing back their competitors with angry shouts, crying out in anguish as the carpenter selects one but not others to start the negotiations.

A contingent follows the carpenter around, arguing, cajoling, pleading, looking for just the right planks at just the right price. Several complain bitterly to me. "Your carpenter is causing trouble," they cry. "He negotiates with one, and then another, and he makes this one fight with that one." I reply, "I should sack (dismiss) him." They nod, "Yes, you must sack him."

I will not sack him. He gets good prices, drives a hard bargain, and then does excellent work with the things he buys in my behalf.



"What are you doing?!" one man demands. "No pictures here without payment!!" But I have friends in the market. I have purchased here before, and they know my bag contains the money. They intercede in my behalf. I take my pictures.



While the carpenter negotiates for boards, we pause in the lathe section. The operator turns out dozens of posts and castors each hour. I will not be buying his handiwork today, but he graciously agrees to a picture in return for a small gift of cash.



Some of the wood is called "cedar" or "red wood". Perhaps we know it as "bubinga" or "African rosewood." A single piece of 2x12 inch, 8 feet in length, runs about 125,000 cedis (9200 = $1). Logs are reported to be huge.

Four men approach me with earnest expressions and inquire in pidgen, "Escus me sah, we de mehk wehjah. Na oos kuntri yu cumoht?" (Excuse me sir, we are making wager. It is which country that you come out?) I answer, "American." One grabs 20,000 cedis from the hand of another, and dances off with glee. Some thought I was German. Others guessed British.



Huge men carry stacks of boards as if they are matchsticks, dropping them at the feet of the sawmiller. More negotiations and specifications, these more amiable. Paper and pen. Some will be shelves. Others will be ripped into battens for tacking screen into windows. Others will become 2x2's for framing and support.



The first crew squares the edges of each board. The second planes the flat parts smooth. The third uses a circular table saw to cut the various sizes. They move fast and efficiently, and would surely glisten with sweat if they were not at the same moment coated with fine sawdust. They wear masks of various styles. Nothing protects their ears from the constant din. Conversation is in brief shouts.



No safety goggles. Hands precariously close to the blades. But procedures are in place. Hand signals indicate when machinery are to be turned on or off. "Agoo" means "move out of the way."



Huge piles of sawdust surround all the workspaces. They'll later be bagged and then sold from gardening shops.



I ask permission, and snap lots of pictures. I'll print these, then send Moses back next week with copies to distribute. If I ever visit the timber market again, I'll be a hero, the man who promised pictures and then really did deliver them.

World Cup

While not as exciting as the Ghana-USA game (for reasons too obvious to elucidate here), the Italy-France game was nonetheless interesting. The crowds both in my living room and on the veranda were a bit smaller. But we had fun.



The guy that watches my gate and feeds the cat sometimes pulls up a plastic chair and invites a couple of friends to watch through the window when I'm watching some kind of sporting event. He has a TV in his room out back, but says my picture (via satellite) is quite a bit better.



The headbutt was quite spectacular. I occasionally sing with a local group that performs obscure Irish and French folk songs and old Latin religious pieces, and we're often joined by several French friends, who were of course watching the match and have been following the newspaper accounts of what the Italian player did or did not say to deserve the butt. The butt seen 'round the world, sometimes known as a "Glasgow kiss," has certainly been a hot topic for watercooler conversation.



One French version, favored by my French friends and the anti-racist group SOS Racisme in France, is that Materazzi called Zedane a dirty terrorist. Others including Zedane himself say Materazzi insulted Zedane's mother. Duleep Allirajah, writing for the online mag Spiked, thinks Materazzi said, "You play football like an Englishman."

Veranda

Mr. Philip Fianku completed the screening of my veranda in record time. It remained to find a bit of furniture to match.



Sammy and I drove to perhaps Ghana's largest workshop of furniture makers, spread out over a couple of miles under a gallery of trees beside the northern motorway. We "window shopped" a bit. There was quite an extensive selection, including bamboo, rattan, wrought iron, and hardwood, with either upholstery or cushions. This is the middle-class stuff. There's a much more upscale set of workshops just outside of town, in and around the Wild Gecko showroom, with European and American prices, but certainly well worth it, particularly to furnish a home interior. I was in the market for the basics, and at a fraction of the cost.



We settled on a traditional kente design for the seat cushions, and bamboo as the overall style. The diameter of a bamboo pole seemed somehow more comfortable to the arm as it rested with book or glass in hand, though I did spot a couple of rattan designs where the artisan had woven a wider flat armrest.



We found a nice rattan box to serve as the coffee table, thinking I could store magazines or other veranda essentials inside. The one on display was not yet finished, but with a few shouts, the craftsman quickly found a young man with a pail of varnish and a suitable brush while I wandered around under the trees snapping pictures.



There must have been several hundred artisans at work, and the quality seemed really quite remarkable. Each "manager" stakes out perhaps a 20-yard stretch of territory under the trees, and assembles four or five craftsmen to perform various jobs. It is this manager that keeps an eye on passing cars and escorts customers around the "showroom" next to the street.

Don't see what you like? No problem. Each manager has a photo album of furniture designs. A sofa and loveseat, complete with side tables and cushions, can be prepared to your particular specifications in just a day or two, though I know they sometimes get backed up a bit with orders around Christmas.



I particularly admired the work of one rattan weaver. With permission, I took his picture. He smiled at the attention.



Emmanuel, our particular workshop manager, hailed a stationwagon taxi and negotiated a good fare to my residence: 40,000 cedis. I paid 700,000 for the two chairs, and another 120,000 for the box. Sammy chastised me for not bargaining the price down further, but the total bill only came to about $100, including a small dash to the rattan weaver as appreciation for letting me take the closeup, and another to the taxi driver for being so careful with the loading and unloading.

If you'd like to negotiate your own purchase, you can reach Emmanuel at +233 (24) 643-9257. His particular showroom can be found on the main motorway, coming from Tetteh Quarshie Interchange. Just before you reach Achimota Road, you'll see on the right-hand side of the road a small blue sign with white lettering indicating the various directions of the upcoming crossroad. Emmanuel's team is just opposite that sign. Ask around, everyone knows him.







Enough shopping, time to enjoy.