Chants, Prayers and Slogans

We planned to leave Mankessim on Tuesday, but our clothes on the line were still wet and we heard too many speeches. We went to the grand opening of a school outside Cape Coast. It was funded by a British oil company and build by a British NGO (Sabre Trust). It is beautiful. Mostly bamboo. Excellent natural ventilation through a series of accordion shutters that run the length of the classroom on one side as doors, the other as windows above shelves filled with schoolbooks. It is a kindergarten, a small one at that. Three classrooms. But it is part of Ghana's efforts to make good on universal kindergarten education. It is law but there are no facilities. Something like 11% of Ghanaians currently attend kindergarten.

That is what I learned sitting through two hours of speech making before the ribbon cutting, honorary youth soccer game, and drumming and dancing that marked the dedication of the school. And I learned that they like speech-making. There were speeches from at least 80% of the white people in attendance. And representatives read papers with speeches with staples in them in monotone English on behalf of absent politicians representing the Central Region, the Ministry of Education, and countless others. The oil company guy got lots of time on the microphone. God, the chiefs and elders, the oil company, and Sabre Trust got more shout outs than there will be children in this school. By the time it was over, our 10 a.m. departure would be lucky to be 5 p.m. So we decided to chalk it  up as another great day in Ghana and try again tomorrow.

A girl holds scissors for the ribbon cutting.

Dancers.

The new school.

 

We made it out of the house by 8:45 a.m., bags in the bed of the Toyota Hilux. Late enough to make Allen late for his 9 a.m. Global Brigades staff meeting at the house we were departing. Early enough to make it to Kumasi and on to Agogo via tro tro, provided all goes well. We arrived to the tro tro station in Mankessim to find a tro tro with one seat and no room for our bags. So, we walked across the lot to an empty tro tro and decided to be first in. We slid one bag in underneath the seat and clipped Annette's backpack behind the front seat and waited. Tro tros leave when they are full. Our's would take about 35 minutes to fit 15 people into a space that can't be designed for more than 10.

While we wait, we watch. A boy sells some sort of packaged chips out of a wooden blue box on his head. White words scribbled in the print of a 12-year-old on the back of the box say, “I love my life.” Same as my faded, sweaty visor. Another woman walks by with a box on her side. It has four glass sides and a shelf inside. It's octopus. A young girl explains this to me and asks me if I want some. I decline multiple times. Finally another guy gets some and hops in the back of the tro tro. The parade of items carried on heads continues.

“Pineapple, waaaaaan seedee.”

“Plantains. Waaan seedee.”

“Fried rice, waaaaan seedee.”

“Bread, waaaan seeedeee.”

500 ml bag of water, 5 pesewas.

The parade continues. Boiled eggs. Live chickens. Posters and DVDs with graphic images of Qaddafi's lifeless body. Talcum powder. A counting chart with the numbers 1 to 100, an English word below each number. Sleeve-like bags with three apples stacked in them. Also one sidi. Rolls of toilet paper. Often little feet stick out from the backs of the women. Babies ride momma’s back, usually asleep while momma hollers, “waaaaan seedee.” We see the individual toothbrush Annette has been looking for and buy it for a grand total of, you guessed it, one cedi.

I love my life.

Bread for sale.

 

When the driver is done shouting “Kumasi,” we are full. He brilliantly maneuvers us out of the parking lot crowded with chickens, goats, taxis, unidentified bundles and sacks, trucks, small children, wooden shacks, and an occasional lizard in addition to people selling things from their heads. We are on our way to Kumasi, a ride promised to be three to four hours that turns out to be five without stops.

Annette and I sit in the front of the tro tro, prime seats for watching the action outside unfold. My arm slowly burns as it hangs out the window. My feet and even my head fall asleep at various points. The driver dodges potholes, manholes and sinkholes. “Poor road conditions are a good speed deterrent,” I think to myself. Instead of driving 120 km per hour, we drive slower and into oncoming traffic to avoid huge holes in the road. That's gotta be safer. We pass through a landscape of bamboo, palm and thick undergrowth. Occasional sentinel trees pierce the horizon alone. They are easily 100 feet tall. Roadside stands display pineapple, plantain, tomato.

The goods carried on people's heads get more impressive the further out we get. Huge bamboo logs, sacks of firewood, bags of rice, huge metal bowls filled with bags of water. Strong necks. I think to myself that I would probably sell toilet paper off of the top of my head. It doesn't get much lighter than that.

And the t-shirts people wear say all kinds of things. It seems like most folks are completely unaware of what is on their t-shirt. This is odd considering how long the looks are at my Dr. King Day of Service 2008 t-shirt. But maybe that is because it has a picture on it. So small children with t-shirts about sex and drugs is ordinary. A schoolgirl walks past our tro tro with a cannabis t-shirt. A strapping young man digging a drainage ditch at a school wears a bright red shirt. It reads, “NUTS ABOUT FRUITCAKE” in big letters. Another wears, “Wisconsin: The Badger State.”

But the t-shirts don't hold a candle to the car mantras and storefront slogans. I love a slogan as much as the next guy, so how can I not want to buy something at “No Weapons Cosmetics,” or “Lion of Judah Food Store?”

We see tro tros and taxis invoking the names of Jesus, God, Jah, Allah and Yahweh, usually with a blessing or a grace.

And there are ample driving contradictions. Like the taxi that tears through town at 120 with the “On God's Time” written across its rear window. It's true. Driving like that means you are on God's time cause you won't live long on man's time that way. If it wasn't for the thick black smoke coming out of the speeding tro tro with the slogan “Don't hurry,” I would let out an open-mouthed laugh. The car with the “Be Careful” on the back window merits the same response. And “no weapons” on a tiny taxi packed with people and plantains hanging out the back under a trunk tied with twine can only mean, “my car is not intentionally a weapon, despite how I am driving it.” “The Blood of Jesus,” reads one windshield. I cannot help but finish the sentence, “will be spilled alongside the blood of all of these other passengers because I drive like a crazy man.”

“GOD IS ABLE,” one tro tro proclaims. Good, because it looks like we will need him when this tro tro breaks down any minute now. Another says, “Holy Ghost Power.” Good, 'cause with these roads, horsepower ain't gonna cut it.

“Victory Ahead,” says one taxi as it's driver guns it like it is in a Formula One race.

Then there is the philosophical but obvious: “God is God.”

But they venture away from the religious, leading me to believe my next career should be in writing African proverbs. “No Food for Lazy Man,” one truck windscreen says. “Just Do It,” says a small taxi's back window. I have heard that one before somewhere. Hmm.

“Consider!” proclaims another. Consider what, I wonder?

“Life.” “Beloved.” “Good Daddy.” “Respect the Police.” “I'll Be There.” “Confidence.” They continue.

“Enemies of Progress.” This must be a statement about the other drivers on the road. “Black History.” “Sweet Mother.”

We drive through several police roadblocks, each sponsored by “Latex Foam.” They advertise their “honeymoon mattress” at each and every roadblock stretched across both lanes of traffic. And the police are known for requiring bribes. When we were with the Global Brigades folks, Orion made the mistake of giving one police officer his license. We had to pay five sidi to get it back. The tro tro drivers are smoother. They leave a two sidi bill folded inside the registration certificate. Everything miraculously checks out all right upon receipt of payment.

We eventually make it to Agogo by dusk where these two exhausted travelers are warmly welcomed by Samad, our newest couchsurfing host. He is from Kumasi, a 24-year-old accountant who works for a British timber company. He quickly introduces us to have of the people in their twenties in the hilly town of maybe ten thousand that is Agogo. I had the distinct pleasure of drinking ginger gin before 9 am with a police officer in uniform, gun on the bar. He was stumbling drunk by 10:30 a.m. Presumably he spent a few hours passed out on a Latex Foam Honeymoon Mattress at a nearby roadblock later that day. Annette and I had the distinct pleasure of sleeping on a brand new one still in the packaging our first and only night in Agogo, presumably paid for by the British timber company. It was heavenly. But I wonder, if it is a honeymoon mattress, does that mean the magic of it disappears after you've had it for a while?

Samad connects us with his cousin Alhassan, an accounting student from Ivory Coast, who lives in Kumasi. We stay with his aunt, Mama Dora, who cooks delicious Ghanaian food – jollof rice, plantains, yams, red sauce, fried fish. He plays tour guide calmly and brilliantly. People say Ghana is very religious because of its slogans. But some people who live in Ghana just say Ghanaians like to party and use slogans. I thought it was the latter until Annette and I found ourselves waiting for Alhassan to pray outside of a mosque in Kumasi during the Friday midday prayer. Black men line the street and stack the sidewalk, maybe two hundred of them, all unified in prayer. Each with a carpet laid out in front, shoes removed, hands and feet cleansed carefully from teapots of water. Very moving.

This weekend we will join Alhassan and Samad for the celebration of Ede, which we have heard about eagerly since Aquermood, Morocco. In addition to sheep, here cow's are slaughtered for the occasion. And we have seen herds of them gathering around Kumasi for the occasion. Then, we will head on to Tamale Tuesday morning and Mole National Park.

Just another Ghanaian meat shop...