Looking ahead, being better

Here's to the start of a new year that began almost alcohol-free at a gay housewarming party in Amsterdam and promises change on different levels, hopefully for the good. My first new year's resolution is to always remain patient with clumsy Ghanaian waiters and bossy parking guards who, as soon as I've turned off the engine, appear suddenly and demand I park my car elsewhere. I'm also determined to respect the peculiar brand of Ghanaian pride, and to not scoff at exaggerated pronouncements I'm expected to take at face value. Take my losses. Focus on the good things in life. Look to the future.

The funeral of John Atta Mills -- who, in keeping with a tested African tradition, had been trying to hide the gravity of his illness before he died -- propelled vice-president John Mahama into the role of father of a bereaved nation. He played the part graciously. With only six months to go before presidential elections, the timing could not have been better: it was short enough to steer clear of major policy decisions, but long enough to embark on some serious campaigning and position himself as a worthy successor of Mills. After months of fanfare, the polling stations finally opened yesterday. Ghana used an expensive digital system that was supposed to speed up the process but slowed it down instead because the machinery didn't always work as planned. Still, it all went fairly well. Some people began queuing in the middle of the night to make sure they'd get it over with by daybreak. Private radio stations are doing a remarkable job updating their websites with preliminary results as they come in, and it looks like Mahama is ahead in the polls. We'll know the results by Monday.

 

White saviors, and black ones

This is one of the most depressing aspects of Accra: billboards and posters that promise redemption from clean-shaven pastors smiling benignly at the downtrodden flocks. All-night prayer events are held in the suburbs almost weekly, and white Americans seem just as intent on drawing the maximum possible amount of money from little lost souls as the multitude of Ghanaian and Nigerian pastors crowding the country's evangelical churches. In my first weeks in Ghana, I thought it could be interesting to attend one of these meetings, but I quickly realized I would find it simply too disturbing.            

Findings 3

Street traders selling scarves, key rings, vuvuzela's and other paraphernalia emblazoned with the faces of political leaders say business is booming ahead of presidential elections next week. Eleven people were killed when two vehicles collided with a truck in the Brong Ahafo region. The truck driver fled the scene of the accident but has turned himself in to assist with the investigation. Vegetables sold at markets in Accra, the capital, were found to contain chemical residues up to 5,000 times the permitted level, with the lowest recorded level exceeding 500 times the tolerable amount, according to a survey carried out in 2008 and handed to government yesterday. Farmers are probably using banned pesticides and mixing different chemicals ‘for maximum effect’, the report said. A 32-year-old American was found dead in his hotel room. Police do not suspect foul play. Homeless people are using abandoned railway coaches as toilets despite the recent celebration of World Toilet Day. Contacted by the Ghanaian Times, the acting manager of the Ghana Railways Company said he is seeking permission to put the coaches back to work or turn them into scrap. Ghana’s only military cemetery closed this week. It’s full.

Gold mining in Ghana

When I researched a story about the sudden, and as yet unexplained, influx of thousands of illegal Chinese in Ghana’s gold regions, I was invited to visit a long-established gold mine in the west of the country. We went by helicopter, a bumpy but exciting ride that left me with sweaty palms and the odd sense of accomplishment that comes with doing something one has never done before. I’d been on bulky military helicopters carrying passengers facing each other inward, but never in an elegant white dragonfly with large windows, and this was a VIP ride in the company of mining officials and the ambassador of a large African country.

Flying circles over illegal mining operations run by Chinese, the devastation caused by excavators gnawing away at the soil was unmistakable even for my untrained eyes. I saw green pools the color of moss lining one of Ghana’s biggest rivers, the result of cyanide used to filter gold from grit; and random patches of violently upturned mud protruding from the forest like filthy sores. Rumors abound about how Chinese miners manage to get themselves and their expensive excavators into Ghana. Some say they arrive from neighboring Togo, which thrives on shady deals and is known to turn a blind eye to all sorts of smuggling. Others argued convincingly that senior government officials are involved in luring the Chinese to Ghana and allocating farm land for gold mining; the occasional mass arrest of illegal miners rarely leads to a conviction, and exasperated villagers complain that the Chinese don’t seem intimidated by local police. On one of my fact-finding missions, I’d stuck my head around the door of wooden barracks where a couple of Chinese lay smoking on bunk beds as a cook in a sleeveless shirt stood over a steaming wok. No one spoke English, or everybody pretended to not understand a word of English, and I left without an interview but resolved to go back with a translator. The Chinese fascinate me to no end because they appear to adapt comfortably to an environment most westerners find harsh and alienating.



Yet, seeing for the first time an industrial-sized gold mine owned by a large foreign corporation, it dawned on me that even the most regulated mining companies irreparably transform the earth into gigantic rock craters and plateaus filled with infertile slush. If western shoppers knew what’s needed to harvest their precious jewelry, I realized, maybe they’d think twice about buying a gold ring. It was a thought I kept to myself as I listened to faintly apologetic talk about bringing much-needed investment to poor countries in Africa. It’s undeniable that revenue from gold pays thousands of civil servants, and Ghana would be worse off without it.        

Driving

Dark clouds gathered in the eastern town of Ho last week, threatening to unleash a thunderstorm on a ruling party rally. A tempestuous wind blew them onward, and the rain came later, but when it arrived the hills were plunged in darkness and we had to drive back to the city using the tail lights of the cars in front of us as our guide. Worst-case scenario's played themselves out before my mind's eye, as they often do when I'm strapped into the front passenger seat, but we did not have a collision with an oncoming truck, ofcourse, and my companions put the soothing old-fashioned songs of Don Williams in the cd player, a country music singer I hadn't heard since I was 10.

Moses Gets Married

In the jumble of identical roadside shops and wind-blown gas stations that constitute a typical Accra suburb, it wasn’t easy to find the turn-off. But when we finally spotted Beach Road, the directions were clear. “Turn left at the Christ Embassy, which is so huge you can’t miss it, and continue on the unpaved road until you see the blue roof of the Lighthouse Chapel.”

 

Yesterday my colleague Moses and his fiancée Peace got married after a courtship that began when he was recruited to play the organ at her church choir. The credit for this fortuitous encounter went to God, and, as is customary in Ghana, God was also the principal wedding guest. Ghanaians like symbols of piety as much as they have a fondness for grandiose titles; the wedding was not a wedding, but a Solemnization of Holy Matrimony, and the reception opened with prayer. The center stage was taken by a flamboyant ‘lady reverend’ with a straw hat who expressed her wish that the beaming young couple be blessed with many children; then the band kicked off and played apparently well-known church classics everybody but me could merrily sing along to. An accomplished a-cappella group whipped out a couple of songs about Jesus before it was time for the buffet and more speeches, and I sat there enjoying the thoroughness of it all, the attention to detail, the impeccable hairstyles, the spotless white linen suits. I always feel sorely underdressed on these occasions, and wearing flat plastic shoes didn't help. Towards the end of the program, Moses’ brother, who is a pastor, praised God one more time and thanked the guests for attending. As soon as lunch was finished, everybody got up to go; some people undoubtedly hurrying to another wedding or to a funeral as weekends in Ghana are marked, sometimes even absorbed, by social obligations.



An acquaintance came up to me and asked: “Was this your first Ghanaian wedding? How did you like it?”
“It was lovely,” I said. “It’s interesting to see how present the Lord was.”
He exchanged a glance with a friend. They both laughed.
“Oh, that was nothing compared to the religious speeches you'll get in other weddings," he said. “Actually, this was pretty low-key."

Things I miss

A blue sky. It's been dirty grey and oppressively overcast since I began working in Ghana four months ago. I had to go to London, of all places, to see this. I felt an odd sense of freedom looking up at a clear blue midsummer sky.



Convenience. Walking into a lunch bar and telling a person who's not only ready to serve me, but also pretends to enjoy serving me, what I want to buy. Knowing that this person is going to be efficient and may even smile at me. Knowing that everything that's on the menu will be available. The smell of coffee.

Unbridled fecundity

Ghana's politicians receive praise for respecting the rules of democracy, that is, for not overtly rigging elections or clinging to power indefinitely. Campaigning for the December elections began soon after President John Atta Mills was buried, and the political meetings are cheerful noisy affairs with vuvuzelas drowning out much of the speeches. Mills still appears on stage at rallies of the ruling party, hovering in the background in the shape of a man-sized cardboard cutout. It's hard to say how heartfelt the chanting of the supporters is, and how spirited the revolutionary battle-cries, but people are clearly having fun. Me too, sometimes: the story below had me laughing out loud. Political debates get personal in a peculiar way: the new vice-president was forced to dispel rumors he's gay (the worst sin in West Africa for any man) and the opposition leader is facing accusations of getting involved with drugs dealers. The incumbent, well, he is many things, but not a womaniser.

Prez Mahama: "I'm no Womaniser"
 (The Daily Guide) -- President John Mahama has finally broken his silence on his alleged extra-marital escapades that apparently resulted in a string of children outside his marriage, saying it is “certainly not true”.

President Mahama denied the story in an interview with New York-base magazine African Watch. “There is this notion of me being a womaniser which is certainly not true," he said. "I have had children outside my marriage. But I am at peace with my wife. She understands the circumstances in which it happened and I have been a responsible father to my children.”

President Mahama lives with four boys who he had by his wife and a baby girl adopted from the Osu Children's home about two years ago. It is officially accepted that the President has also fathered two other kids outside his marriage with an unknown woman and had a boy before his marriage.

President Mahama has been at the receiving end of a raging controversy over the actual number of children that he has sired. A curious omission fuelled this perception when he was first selected the running mate of then candidate Prof. John Atta Mills in 2008. Mr. Mahama's official CV released at the time indicated that he had nine children. However, the CV was quickly withdrawn and replaced with a new one stating seven as the number of children he had borne.

The incident raised a lot of eyebrows. New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary aspirant Ursula Owusu, said she could swear that the information provided by the President was not accurate because she personally knew a lady in a suburb of Accra who had borne three children secretly for the President. Other people seeking anonymity have volunteered information to our newspaper about the President's unbridled fecundity. Sources told Daily Guide that President Mahama had several children by other women.

The president's father, the late Emmanuel Mahama, a former minister in the Nkrumah government, had 19 kids by various women. The President admitted this in the African Watch interview. "Yes, we were many siblings from different mothers, but one of the things he did was to bring us together and make sure that every single child of his was put through school. He gave us the opportunity”, he said. [...] President Mahama said he took after his dad. “The way my dad looked after me is the same way I am looking after my children. I have been there for them.”

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Getting to know Accra

After almost four months in Accra, I can confidently state that Ghana isn’t the ‘Africa-for-beginners’ it’s made out to be by flippant expats whose stately townhouse or furnished luxury apartment has been provided by their embassy or their mining corporation, and who always have a fully loaded water tank in the backyard, and a water heater, and a water pump. It’s not my intention to complain about the city and its residents, even if I still find the smell of rot emanating from the open drainage system appalling, and even if I am dumbfounded by the lethargy of the cashiers at the city’s most popular supermarket. Is this West Africa’s economic success story? I suppose it must be, for I am expected to pay $2,000 for a furnished ground-floor apartment overlooking a gutter, a parking lot or the muddy backyard of a family that hastily fills up its buckets when the taps are working, three evenings a week, maybe more, probably less. Rent twelve months in advance please -- in cash. Accra is a city divided, a city with two parallel economies: one for those with access to dollars, and one for those aspiring to get rich.

Tanzania bis

One more Tanzania landscape picture.

Monkey attack

A failed attempt to breakfast on the balcony of our hotel in Tanga.

Looking for paradise

After driving hundreds of kilometers on empty roads past square brick farmers’ houses and green savannah filled with thorny shrubs as far as the eye could see, the road went up through glorious mountains and down again to an eerily quiet Lake Malawi, where we slept in a rattan hut on the camping ground of a lone German adventurer who proudly declared his barren lakeside home the most beautiful place in the world. The lake is almost devoid of fishermen and remains largely undiscovered by tourists because of its remote location, though the German, like most Europeans building a hotel in Tanzania, has big dreams. One day, he said, he will be able to charge visitors several hundreds of dollars for an overnight stay, just like the lodges in the famous Serengeti national park. For now he’s living in a container converted into a makeshift house with a pregnant wife, cats and dogs, and countless sand flies for company. I understand his desire for solitude and the romantic pull of rural life; but the thought of having to accommodate a tourist herd would kill my dream immediately. After all these years in Ivory Coast I’d forgotten that tourists look like overweight children; one sees them trudging along unpaved roads in shorts and faded t-shirts, roughing it to the next bar, the next museum, the next national park. The white man likes to walk, oh yes; the African walks because he has no bicycle.



Tanzania is an immensely beautiful country but there isn’t much I can say about the people; an old village woman scolded me for taking pictures, children yelled “white person”, and I’ve been offered peanuts, bananas and fried termites by street vendors. C. is the one who does the talking; he speaks the language; he haggles with policemen and wards off the beggars. Yesterday’s journey went northwards on a road connecting Tanzania with Congo, Zambia and Malawi. It was lined with wrecked trucks and squashed trailers, and C., who in a previous life ran his own trucking business, entertained me with a running commentary on driving skills and truck maintenance. He has great stories to tell about the dangers of trucking in Tanzania, but the best story is unsuitable for sharing publicly, and will remain untold.

East Africa

Hello Tanzania. Hello cheetah. Hello 2012.

New army, same violent behavior

A trader was shot at point blank range at a checkpoint manned by FRCI soldiers in eastern Ivory Coast. Days earlier, FRCI soldiers melted plastic bags over the naked backs of four men who stood accused of theft. The four are being detained until they have to appear in court but they have not received any medical care. In central Ivory Coast, a woman who refused to sweep a local market on the orders of FRCI soldiers was dragged on the ground and severely beaten. Another woman was rushed to intensive care after being assaulted by an FRCI soldier. The police persuaded the family of the victim to settle the matter amicably and accept $30 from the alleged perpetrator to cover medical expenses. The condition of the victim remains critical.

Merry Christmas

Hand-delivered at the doorstep: a bottle of Moet & Chandon and a bowl of chocolates. With compliments from the presidency's communication department. Ivory Coast finally has a president who has noticed the existence of non-French foreign correspondents.

Six years without a job

“They say: when life is tough, it’s the tough ones who survive. I’m trying. But I can’t help thinking: why did my life turn out like this? I haven’t always been good, good, good. But even if I had to pay my dues, I’ve certainly paid them by now. It’s been six years. Six years without a job. I used to believe things would improve. The fact of the matter is, they are getting worse. I’ve moved in with an uncle. He has given me a room in his house. But I’m not free there. I can’t speak my mind. You know how it is in Africa: you must respect your elders. When his son comes home, he takes the room, and I sleep on the sofa. I’m in my thirties. It used to be me who took care of people. Luckily both my parents are dead. If you saw me – I’m no longer wearing fashionable clothes. I can’t afford them. I look like a villager now.



"Six years without a job. The boredom! I don't even have a TV anymore. Listening to music on my mobile phone is my only distraction. Sometimes I go to church, that helps a little. When it gets dark, all kinds of thoughts enter my head. These thoughts eat me up. Last month I was close to killing myself. I sat on my mattress thinking about my life, and I decided to commit suicide. I'd just had enough. Then my phone rang -- a friend invited me to a birthday party. I probably wouldn't be alive today if he hadn’t rung. This year it was such a struggle to buy school books for my daughters. They are living with their mother, who is also unemployed. What depresses me most is the fact that I can’t map out a future for my daughters. I want them to go to university, but I can’t afford to think about it. It’s impossible to think long-term. I barely have enough money to eat. Plantain bananas are twice as expensive as before. You order a loaf of foutou [a doughy ball of mashed plantains], that’s all you eat that day.

"Last time I went to the city I ran into two girls I used to be friends with. They asked me where I live these days. I didn’t tell them the truth. ‘I live in Cocody,’ I said. They said: ‘Oh really, you don’t look like you do.’ I said: ‘Well, I don’t have time for fashion.’ I took my phone and pretended someone was calling me. ‘Sorry, I have to answer a call,’ I said, and walked away. I didn’t want to face their questions.”

One more note on the West African sex trade

Stories about prostitutes are a staple of West African newspapers, and I tend to believe they tell us more about what it means to live in poverty than statistics ever can. As a newly arrived correspondent I used to be fascinated with Abidjan's nightlife - until I went about town to research an article on prostitution and discovered how grim and depraved the local sex trade really is. It was an unforgettable exercise in cynicism that managed to dampen my curiosity completely. Following below is a newspaper story, edited for brevity, that recounts what happened in Liberia while Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf went to collect her Nobel peace prize in Norway.

Sex Workers in Dog Fight Over Customer
A local shop in Paynesville was a dramatic scene when two commercial sex workers were locked in a dog fight over a man believed to be their customer. According to eyewitnesses, one of the girls, identified as Gertrude, 14, negotiated with her male customer for short time for a fee of $1. Gertrude said while she and her customer were on their way to a motel room, she left her customer to buy a condom in the shop. Upon her return, she was surprised to see her customer in conversation with Princess, a well-known commercial sex worker in her late 20s. "I thought she was negotiating to go with him too, but I realized they agreed to leave me alone," she noted.
Princess and the man agreed on $0.75 for short time. But Gertrude could not allow her customer to be taken away by Princess. Both girls got into a serious fight, something that attracted the attention of bystanders. According to Gertrude, this was not the first time Princess stole one of her customers. "She thinks she can take advantage of me because I am a little girl who’s just coming into the business. But whatever she can do, I can do even better," she explained in tears.
Girls between the ages of 13 and 14 are often seen in the area selling sex for $0.50 and beyond. Our reporter who visited the scene said he was engaged by many teenage girls who wanted short time. Some of them explained to this paper that they were on the streets because they are self-supported.

Rumors of lightning bolts and human blood

Ivory Coast held parliamentary elections yesterday. We might imagine people were keen to cast their vote after having witnessed ex-president Gbagbo’s dogged sabotaging of the 2010 presidential elections. But Ivorians don’t necessarily want what we think they want. Gbagbo’s party declared a boycott in an attempt to cast doubt over the credibility of the outcome and the popularity of Alassane Ouattara, and many voters stayed at home. Newspapers offered different explanations for the apathetic response to the country’s first parliamentary elections in eleven years: fear of violence, social pressure, disgust with politics in general, and anger at Gbagbo’s transfer to the International Criminal Court. ‘Some people don’t see the point of having deputies,’ a journalist wrote. Indeed, the politicians most likely to win a seat in parliament already have positions of wealth and power. I’m wondering to what extent rumors affected the turnout; someone told me he didn’t dare leave the house because there were “strange stories” going around. Last week a candidate in the west of the county was heard struggling with somebody in his bedroom, which his family members said was most peculiar because he was alone in the room, with the door locked. Panicked by his screams of agony, his relatives broke down the door, whereupon the night sky released a single bolt of lightning and struck the unfortunate candidate dead. Few Ivorians seem to doubt the veracity of this story, although I can't say for sure what it is supposed to mean.

Liberians have a way with rumors as well. When residents of a Monrovia suburb noticed blood dripping from a white van that had been parked in the area for hours, the news spread so fast the vehicle was rapidly surrounded by ‘people from far places to see what they believed was human blood’, according to an online newspaper today. The police arrived around the same time as the owner of the van, who explained he had delivered an order of pig meat before rushing off to a wedding. But as he fumbled for his car keys, the angry crowd began pelting the police with stones and threatening to burn the vehicle. ‘He then got some boys to break the locks and when the door flew open, only a bag of palm nuts was in the back,’ the newspaper reports. ‘A bystander who was missed by a rock, said: “The youths of Liberia have no control, look at how they were going to hurt me for nothing."'