Things to buy in Ghana on the side of the road:

1. Grasscutter. Cane rat as big as a rabbit. Either held dangling limply by their tails, still furry. Or already cooked – splayed out like a wombat, with four little legs at the corners, trapped between the makeshift grill which has been used to cook it – a ping pong bat like affair.

2. Newspapers. A huge variety. Sample headlines: ‘Rawlings explodes.’ ‘When the love has gone’. ‘Man, 83, begs for his case to be heard before he dies.’

3. Lizards. Hanging limp like the grasscutter, they resemble some sort of fish

4. Chewing gum. From little kids who stare at you with eyes which betray their hunger and desperation.

Bywel Bar, Accra, Ghana

The ‘obrunis’ – white people – aren’t really standing their own on the dance floor. My sister in law comments on their awkwardness, thrown into embarrassing relief by the effortless rhythmic moves of the Ghanaian dancers. The band is excellent and the music has varied from great local songs to an inspired rendition by a man in latex trousers and funky glasses, waistcoat and hat, of ‘’n I would have like to love you but I was just a kee, jo caddo spurt out long before, your lee gin ever did.’ In front of us a table with 5 Ghanaian women and 1 obruni man dressed in an imitation kente (local cloth) shirt, are filming the singer on their mobile phones, bending over with the laughter which rocks their bodies.

It’s Thursday night and this is my night out-on-the town experience. I am really pleased that there is no hassle at all. About 80% of the people are black, 20% white. In Zimbabwe, there would be loads of men vying for the attention of the white women. Here people just get on with their own night out. Tomorrow is a public holiday and everyone seems determined to enjoy themselves. Next to us a white man in his 70s, who walks with a stick, is being tended to by the woman he came in with – a pretty black 30 something dressed in a western, revealing style, who fetches him drinks and drapes herself over him in between trips to the dance floor. She brings back a friend, also pretty, also dressed like her. My sister in law expresses distaste at their apparent arrangement.

We were going to go to Chesters, which is known as a gay bar. But it’s only open on Wednesdays and we were all too tired after our drive back up from the beach on that night to go out. Apparently there has been a recent article in a local paper warning of the scourge of these gay bars. But the journalist was quick to point out that it is easy to identify this danger. You can tell a gay man because they smell, and wear nappies to soak up the fluids which pour out of their anuses.

Nima, Accra, Ghana

The antique district is one half of a road in a chaotic part of town. There is no town planning in Accra, and it is a two minute drive from ‘The Ivy’ where we had a lunch of avocado and shrimp salad, and French onion soup. Yesterday I told my brother and his wife that I hadn’t understood the reports from others of my friends and family who have visited them during their posting here, that Ghana was filthy. I did accept, however, that as I had spent much of my time driving around in an air-conditioned Landrover, I may have missed some of the fruitier sights and smells of the place. Today, walking down the road past the uncovered ditches in the road which form the sewers of the city, I am forced to reassess my opinions. I would say ‘eat my words’ but the thought of eating anything in this fetid environment is not a savoury one. Especially when I can see black plastic bags everywhere, which my sister in law told me yesterday are used to dispose of faeces after people have relieved themselves into them, on the side of the road. The practice is known as packaging. I should be grateful – apparently many do not bother with the plastic bags.

Inside the shops – plain rooms piled high with Ashante, Fante, and Ewe wood, cloth, and metal artefacts – the atmosphere, again, strikes me as being calm and unhassled. After my visit to Kenya at Christmas, this non-pushy sales technique is a relief. Many of the antiques are newer copies. My brother knows little of how to assess whether a piece is genuine, and I know nothing. One pointer is that if they refuse to bargain on the price, it is probably a genuine antique, and the piece I really want – a Fante fertility doll to be given as a present to my friends who have just become engaged, is way beyond my price range. The sums spoken about would be pricey in a London antiques shop. Across the road when we ask for a Fante fertility doll, we are presented with something with horns, which looks slightly sinister, like the tokoloshes of southern Africa. The doll is, apparently, US$1000. My brother carefully hands it back. I eventually buy a piece similar to the Fante doll I had originally seen, next door to the shop I saw it in – still expensive, but one sixth of the price. As my brother and I look at it when we drive away, we both agree it is the nicer piece anyway.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 1st, 2005 at 2:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.