-WE ARE GOING TO QATAR BUT E-LEVY AND THE HIGH FUEL PRICES REMAIN HOME

Someone asked me last week why I stopped writing. The truth is actually sad…Ghana is fucking hard!  For some of us we can only be creative when we are happy.

This past week has been a mixed bag!

I recently come across Jessica Opare-Saforo’s You Tube channel…and immediately subscribed to it. I always thought she was a fantastic presenter. Our very own Oprah in the making?

But what got my attention was the topic on one of her Vlogs – 32 great questions you want to ask every woman.

I further summed it up into 5 (or a little more) points:

1. Does she fucking work and how hard? 
2. Would her family and friends be a liability? Also, can she cook? Where and what does she eat (do you need to farm food for her to eat)?
3. Is she correct? – Be it religious or whatever moral code…?
4. Is she a freak or not in bed?
5. What are her interests?

Some of the specific questions resonated with me. “What is your favourite movie?” I asked a girl once as we watched Shrek.

Her answer, two decades later, still haunts me- ”I don’t like movies like this, with toys. My favourite movie is Commando.” SMDH

This is my take on the Good, the Bad and the UGLY for the past week;

THE GOOD 

Of course, Ghana qualified for Qatar 2022 beating arguably our biggest rival on the continent, Nigeria, to book a place in the World cup…. forget about the jollof wars…. we already won that hands down! Both Presidents of Nigeria and Ghana needed that win, of course to distract the suffering citizens of these accursed nations from problems at home.

THE BAD

Oh, yeah and E-Levy was passed! Our electronic transactions are never going to be the same. But yay, I’m elated though, because it means the Government has the magic wand to solve all our problems, right? Let the V8s and all the decadence that garnishes corruption flow!

THE UGLY

As the month ended, I did a quick assessment of my weekly fuel consumption. Since I live on the outskirts of town, I spend a GHc100.00 a day commuting to and from work (food and entertainment must go). My take away? I need to sleep less and look for more side hustles. Maybe I should learn how to flap my wings for errands. If I could muster that I could add in trips for entertainment.

I remember mid-month confidently asking the fuel attendant to fill the tank and then having to scream “Stop!” when he got to GHc500.00. What was he thinking? The nerve! To make me overspend past a family of 5 would on groceries. 

But hey, this is Accra-Town; where we are all “managers” so I will still be here, whining about the beautiful presenters in the TV box (how much electricity does the TV use? Find out and lemme know; we may need to just sit under the mango tree for entertainment; but I digress). 

The dreaded *170# that we use to send momo will be a bored short code as we navigate around this evil-levy…I mean e-levy. And as far as Qatar goes the boys should stay with us and fix Ghana. That trip smells of expensive oil and expensive jokes (‘cos let’s face it we might not win and all of a sudden our jollof will be sour ☹).

I’m still asking around for flying lessons so if you know anyone willing to teach me, free lessons preferable, I dey.

So last week I decided to go to Frankie’s with this young chick who fits my magic rule – half my age plus five years.

I wanted to park right in front of Frankie’s because it allowed me to do a quick recon of the place to inform myself about whether to go in or go elsewhere.

I waited patiently for a cretin in a Toyota Corolla to do a six point turn after which I coolly took his slot.

The young girl got out of my car and slammed her door like my car was a Merc…I silently cursed her and her mother.

We climbed the flight of stairs to the restaurant and on the way I got body blocked by an amorphous middle aged woman who for lack of a better description, reminded me of an amoeba.

The ‘thing’ had three kids in tow heading back towards the car park.

To my surprise ‘it’ actually turned round seconds later and called me by my name…it knew me!

I blankly stared at her. I was certain I did not know her…I didn’t know this woman!

She mentioned her name –  Tracy Adjavon. Still didn’t ring a bell.

“I was Tracy Simpson back then” she added,  glancing at the lithe young girl waiting for me with a look of boredom, up the stairs.

“We were in Primary school together…?”

My jaws dropped as I looked for anything on this imposter that had a semblance to a Tracy Simpson I knew a life time ago.

Now about two and half decades ago, I knew this scrawny and beautiful girl called Tracy Simpson. She was a head taller than all the guys and had a sexy, husky voice. She happened to be in my class and I had a mad ass crush on her.

I was not one to keep my feelings and doodle all day on my paper and day dream.

I was quick to let Tracy know how I felt about her in the only way a nine year old boy can tell a girl half a foot taller than him, that he was in love with her….I did her homework and gave her my lunch. She appreciated that gesture and took to me immediately. I remember her quickly gobbling up my paltry lunch offerings. In hindsight I should have realized that with the way  her eyes lit up when she chomped on my food and downed my drinks, that her trim figure would not last forever

Our love session usually ended with her burping up my lunch, playfully pulling my cheeks and saying “Oh, and thanks for helping me out with my homework today”.

Unfortunately for me, Tracy was in love with the class bully, Eric Tetteh.

Eric also happened to be the dumbest kid in class. He was a big galoot who didn’t speak much except with his fists. It was a sick love triangle – I gave her my lunch, she in turn gave half of it to the class bully who subsequently beat me up. Not only that. Since I was quite good at algebra, I ended up doing his homework too, to avoid being used as a punching bag during break time.

I quickly realized I was pretty much the class bully’s bitch.

One day, deciding to add a little spice to my sick love life, I took a bold step and wrote a totally cringe worthy love poem to Tracy, which I slipped into her backpack as she headed home one Friday.

I was too scared to write my name – What if she didn’t like the poem? What if she didn’t like me any more after reading it?

On Monday morning I glanced over at Tracy, who was totally ignoring me. Maybe I should have signed off with my name?

During break time she walked straight to me, took half my lunch and as she munched on my bread and garlic sausage said:  “I really  loved your poem. That was so sweet” and promptly pulled my cheeks hard.

She knew! I was so happy I didn’t protest as she took the other half of my lunch and headed in the direction of Eric Tetteh.

I sat down smiling like a fat kid in a candy store for a good five minutes.

The next day at lunch I overheard Tracy reading my poem to Eric Tetteh. The clueless dumdum had his usual blank expression. This however, was my first lesson in plagiarism and I decided then and there that the love triangle had to end.

Tracy, as usual  did not even attempt to do the next algebra homework we were given.

She came to me with Eric in tow. Without even acknowledging me, the lunkhead growled in my general direction:  “Do my homework or ‘cheecha’ will beat me and I will beat you” He was getting smarter…actually managing to string whole sentences together.

“Please, please do this hard maths for me” Tracy purred.

I nodded like the faithful minion I was and got to work for my wicked bosses. I finished the assignment in record time.

“Wow, you are soooo smart, you didn’t even look on your book” Tracy remarked with admiration.

If she were smarter she would have noticed that was not the usual way I did her homework.

I had written very wrong answers to the maths problems for both of them.

The next time we had maths, Mr. Quist our teacher (God bless his soul) came to the class and gave out our marked maths assignment.

He announced what we all knew, that copying of other people’s homework was forbidden. Mr. Quist was old school and carried a cane which he never hesitated to use.

He called out Tracy and Eric to the front of the class where they were given five exquisite lashes of the cane.

That day at break, Tracy didn’t ask me for my lunch and Eric did not pick on me either.

In one beautiful stroke I had gotten rid of my cheating sweetheart and her bully boyfriend.

That was two decades ago and now I looked at the whale before me…I could vaguely recognize the old Tracy in her.

“You haven’t changed at all” she said

My response to that was silence and a grin. After the awkward pause, I ventured to ask:

“Whatever happened to Eric Tetteh?”

“Eric who?” Tracy asked.

“That big guy who was with us up to class 6” I said

“Oh, right.Him. You haven’t heard? He died in the States five, six years ago. He was mixed up with some gang there and was shot”

“Oh no “ I said, turning to check on the young lithe girl I came with. She was  looking totally bored and irritated with my inadvertent reunion with Tracy.

I quickly said goodbye to Tracy .

“Was that like an aunt of yours?”  the girl  asked as we went into Frankie’s

“uh huh” I said. My mind somewhere else

Tracy: humongous and fugly. Eric: shot and dead. Karma was a cold, cold biatch. I love happily ever after stories.

Have you ever had the dubious pleasure of spending an entire day with the Nouveau rich or a self proclaimed bourgeoisie? Had to endure going shopping with them and all? Kwaasi the Cunning Linguist finds that with many of his “friends” now working for the banks and oil companies, hanging out with them now means trying to keep up with a schedule of activities designed to let the world know who just joined the Joneses.

Money Swine-/muhn-ee swahyn /n/(derog offensive) – Nouveau Riche, a man or woman previously belonging to a lower social or economic class but due to the (often sudden and unexpected) acquisition of new money, has moved up in status and now wishes to announce his or her arrival by splashing that new money waa waa.

Credit: The Official Ghanaian Haters Dictionary

DROP THE KIDS AT GIS

I don’t plan to have kids any time soon, but even I know education ranks supreme (Just ask Nana Addo and President Mahama). I was with a friend the other day at an overpriced café and he was going on and on about how he had moved his kids from Christ the King to Galaxy International, to give them the needed quality education. I thought Christ the King, where he and all his siblings had gone to, was a pretty good school. Indeed I hoped, if I ever had any rugrats of my own, to send them there. He then told me how much the move was going to cost him –  to me, it was like the English Premiership football transfer – crazy expensive. I almost choked on my cappuccino and made a firm resolve to definitely not have kids any time soon. Most of the so-called “good primary schools’ that I knew when I was growing up seemed to be on the decline – at least so my friends with kids would like me to believe.

The other day, I was literally dragged to watch a friend’s child from Ghana International School (the original GIS) perform in a musical at the National Theater, called “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dreamcoat” . It was superbly produced and took me back to my primary school days when we acted the same play almost every year – either “the birth of Christ“or one particular Ananse story.

Check list one: I’m so taking my kids to GIS when I get rich and not so famous.

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GO TO THE GYM

(These gyms are joined not for the equipment or quality of workouts, but to see and be seen by other social climbers and prominent figures)

I have a friend who works at a bank. She was with me the other day when she randomly announced that she was going to check her BMI (body mass index), to know whether or not she was overweight. I smiled to myself because, I could have saved her a trip. She was astonished to find out she was considered obese. I feigned shock. “What? How?That’s impossible?” The truth is, when she sits in my car and my hands keep brushing against her amorphous legs, I wonder whether she thinks it’s deliberate and that I remotely enjoy the contact? For Christ sake, she virtually sits on my hand brake. She and a group of her rotund friends, making way more money than I do, and thus eating far more than they really ought to, decided to stop the cheaper way of exercising  like, jogging and brisk walking and opted  for hitting  the gym.. When my friends told me the prices some of these wicked gyms charge you to sweat, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, with the dum-sor (power cuts) in my office every other day, I sweat for free. She mentioned a popular gym and sang it’s praises, whilst dropping names  of a  host of celebrities who visit it, to drive home her point about how awesome the gym was. I dropped her off the other day at said gym and saw this super fine girl on the treadmill;

Check list 2: I’m so hitting this gym at Ringway estates, when I get rich

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MUST GO TO THE MECHANIC’S SOON

(2nd hand Mercedes is @ 200,000km next week)

My friend asked me to drop him at Silver Star, his car had hit 200,000km and he had to service it. I almost fainted when I saw the bill – the equivalent of servicing my jalopy for the entire year. I had always secretly coveted his Silver Warb but now I looked at him with a mixture of pity and respect. I don’t even remember the mileage on my car, all I know is when I started driving it some commuter of the sort had driven it on every major road in the USA and when it was finally rear ended, it came to me here in Ghana. I bought it “home used” (the Commuter dog am but me I spec am) and loved it forever. The mileage said 80,000, only for my mechanic to tell me it was miles not Km. My friend is always fretting about his mileage and the next appointment to the “mechanics”. I call mine “fitters” and they are good at what they do, save for the occasional bolts which find themselves dancing aimlessly on my car seats instead of holding or fastening something in the car.

My friend thanked me profusely, for taking time off my low paying job and driving him to his mechanic. He promised me drinks at a bar in Osu and we agreed to meet there in a few hours. My friend called me 3 hours later, by then I was sweating, my sleeves rolled up, my bonnet opened and trying to understand (not for the first time) why my car was overheating. I need to ditch this car and buy a showroom car soon so that I can go to the mechanic when my car hits 10,000km, when I’m rich of course.

Checklist 3: Buy a showroom car soonest or better still get my own Silver Merc from abroad.

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 MUST DO LUNCH AT SOME   OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE PLACE WITH KWAME (WHERE I WILL RUN INTO “BIG MEN”)

My friend Kwame told me I am not making much progress in life! I keep wondering whether I left my pay slip in his car and he realized that I don’t earn so much or it just randomly came up. “Kwaasi, you need to rebrand yourself”, I nodded sheepishly (after all he was buying drinks, if he said I was Mother Theresa who was I to complain?) Kwame went on: “you need to hang out at cool places where you can connect socially”. The list of cool places naturally featured places I could not afford. Didn’t the idiot see how much I was making? Kwame and I went to the same schools,we used to be very close  until he landed a good job a few years ago. Now he earns a shite load of money and is apparently a lot smarter too (school records say otherwise). According to Kwame my fortunes could drastically change if I ate at X or Y place where I could run into  Mr. A or Mr. B who was “a big man”. By now my Green Label was almost all gone; I wouldn’t take this crap from anyone!

“By the way what are you doing Thursday lunch time?” Kwame asked, I wanted to scream “the same thing I do every lunch time: Eat my hot Kofi brokeman in my office and flip through the dailies”  but instead I said, “nothing concrete, Kwame.” “Let’s do lunch, say 1pm” he suggested.

Thursday Kwame and I metup at this fancy shmancy place, he was with the kids of some big men. They wanted property in Labone, apparently for an office.  I told them that I could hook them up. Out came the expensive looking business cards from leather case holders. I had half a dozen of my cheap looking cards, which looked like printed them out myself,  in my pockets. I lied that I had left my cards in the office. I saw Kwame look at me like I had broken a sacred code. Three months later I made a sale thanks to that meeting. Was down to my last GhC200.000 and by then lunching on Kofi (plantain) without the Brokeman (groundnuts), that huge check was extremely timely and I have to say, begrudgingly, that I was grateful to my snotty friend for that meeting.

Check list 4: Must do lunch at that expensive restaurant again… ASAP

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MUST PICK UP SUITS AT THAT VERY EXPENSIVE TAILOR’s …OOPS FASHION DESIGNER’S

(Must put distance between myself and ‘By the Grace of God Fitting’, Opera Square where my Dad used to have his suits made in his hey days)

I met a guy the other day, he said he was a prophet looking for a place to build a church, “The Church of the Disciples of the Holy One” or something along those lines. He acted and spoke as if he was Moses and had just come down from Mount Sinai with his own version of the Ten Commandments. He mentioned his name three times every minute; I realized he was supposed to be well known. He is in the same league with some of the, well very (in)famous pastors we often hear on radio. His suit was very unique! Very flashy… Very shiny and it looked bullet proof as well as water proof. His shoes were in their own right, mirrors in which slightly distorted images of myself frowned back at me. I saw him off to his Nissan Armada which had taken up my entire car park. I decided that day that I needed new suits, not bullet proof ones like the pastor/prophet but definitely decent new ones.

I called a few friends to get some opinions. “Get them from China they are cheaper,” “No, you want to go to Quarshie Taylors, Dan Morton etc…

I made a few rounds and cancelled about half of those from my list. I wanted new suits not to die of a heart attack. All my friends led me from one expensive tailor to another (or designers as they like to refer to themselves). Forget about the material, it’s the sewing that kills it. They don’t even care that you have your own material!

I ended up calling my dad, a real practical man, who worked hard to make his money (definitely not in Monnie Swine fashion!) but who was a real dandy in his days. He had no number for his tailor; didn’t need to in those days.

I ended up in front of a small shop at Opera Square that should certainly have collapsed by now if it was as big as the infamous Melcom building (that once stood at Achimota), and ordered about three very affordable suits. I kept wondering why people didn’t come to this humble, good and cheap tailor. I loved his old-fashioned triangular chalk he used to mark up the material; his place smelt like a tailor’s shop. I almost hugged him when he told me the price of all three suits. I saw the shiny material that I had previously seen on the Prophet and wondered if he came here, too. As I looked at it my tailor asked, “do you want a fusion suit?” Ah, so that’s what they called them.

I run into a friend 3 weeks later, wearing my bespoke suit from “By the Grace of God fitting” and feeling good (save for the turn-ups I didn’t want). “Nice suit,” he said, feeling them up in way that made me feel a tad uncomfortable. “Where did you sew them, Dan Morton’s?”

I hate to say it I but I’m human and sometimes I can’t help but want to be part of that Money Swine Class, so I smiled like I had been found out.

He shook his head. “Don’t like them anymore. Ghana designers can’t get things right and who does 3 buttons these days? (I secretly rejoiced that he did not comment about the large turn-ups.) Sarah is off to London in 2 weeks let me have your measurement, I usually get mine from Saville Row.’
“How much that would cost me,” I croaked in very real fear.

He told me the price.

“The equivalent of 50 suits,” I mumbled to myself as I shuffled back to my car.

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MUST TAKE THE KIDS TO BALLET AND PIANO AT 3PM

(They have to be prodigies even though Akua is flat footed and fat like a hippo)

Okay, I don’t have kids but that does not make me insensitive to their plights. After all, I treat the kids of all my friends as my nieces and nephews. So imagine my dismay, when I saw my friend taking her daughter who, forgive me, is rather on the high end of chubby, for ballet lessons! The kid is flat footed and can’t even turn 90 degrees without falling.

“Why not shot put?” I proffered.

“What is the relevance of shot put?” my friend asked testily. What is ballet to a baby hippo I wondered, in the deep recess of my ever wicked mind.

Her daughter was in the backseat looking miserable, I guess the ballet lessons were a torture session for her, but my friend was using her own rose tinted glasses and bent on  giving her daughter all the opportunities in life, probably after watching the movie  Black Swan (did she not see the frame of Natalie Portman?)

The following week, another friend was taking his two sons for soccer practice.

‘It reminds you of our soccer days, no? We should have gone pro” he said excitedly in a way that just irked me.

It reminded me of nothing like my soccer days. Those days it was Chilensa. (that hard plastic football) How many of us had Case 5s and certainly not Adidas Jabulani plus my dad NEVER EVER took me for soccer practice. What is that animal? It was gutter to gutter, abatay, small poles and playing on any available space you could find. I looked at the two boys wearing their jerseys with their names and numbers on their backs and their soccer boots. Couldn’t their dad remember it took us 3 years to get a soccer boot (and we saved for it forfeiting poki, skippy, alewa, zoee , adunley and other unhealthy foods that will kill the small brats where they stood), and I used one boot and gave the other to a left legged player. I kicked the ball very hard to one of my “nephews” who instinctively kicked the ball back, going in an awry angle to the great dismay of my friend and my even greater delight. “He isn’t going to be an Essien,” I muttered to my friend as if I was a world-class football scout.

In fact Nouveau Riche parents should look at their kids objectively and stop taking them from one class to the other, in their bid to make them supermen and wonder women of the future. Let the kids wake up, take a walk in the park and figure out what they want to do. Two days ago I heard my friend’s daughter play a rendition of Mozart on the piano. She was so good, even I clapped. Maybe the idea of people paying for things I did for free puts me off. After that Mozart I heard, I’m so taking my future unborn daughter to that expensive piano school. If she ends up years later in the Julliard School in New York, all the best and if she doesn’t, she can always play the organ at my Presby Church.

Checklist 5: Taking my future daughter for piano lessons!!!

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MUST PICK UP A CAKE AT THAT EXPENSIVE HOTEL

(Cake tastes like crap but smile, Mrs Morton bought one for her mom)

The inability of the Nouveau Riche to think is sickening. Araba bought a cake from X and so I also need to buy a cake from X, even though my aunt is a baker and makes great cakes we used to eat as kids. Ok true, Aunt Jane cannot make a Spiderman cake, granted, but why go buy a random cake that tastes like crap just because all the people you hobnob with buy from there. At a friend’s one year old kid’s party, I was drinking some cold beers and in the middle of a group of chirping mothers and the hostess. I was a little bit irritated at them for crowding my space, and not allowing me to be the bushman that I am and burp to my heart’s content. The conversation went something like this;

“So where did you get the cake?’

“ The bouncy castle?”

“Who is doing the kids painting?”

“The photographer?”

“I will get the numbers”

I just couldn’t relate, can’t they bake, can’t they paint (get the right paint and do it) and don’t they all own phones with cameras. Christ help us!!!

I knew I was going to get sick when I moved to the table of men and there they were, drinking coke and talking about the same thing – unfugging believable!

Did I leave? Hell no, I’m too polite, I drunk three more Guinness stouts, burped and scrambled for the door.

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DAMN! I NEED TO ARRANGE A MEETING WITH AKUA AND KOFI’S SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

(FYI – Principal=Headmaster without the cane)

These days my friends have an annoying habit of going to see the principal or the class mistress (I forget the exact fancy name) to sit and plan their kid’s life forever.  Look, PTA meetings are vital, but this one on one meeting with the principal is alien to me. The headmaster’s office, when I was a kid, was a place you went to when you got into trouble. He lashed you and that was it. These days this Parent Principal Arrangement (PPA) makes me sick… lash the kid already. The rod is spared, Mom and Principal make an appointment, and the talk starts about how the kid has a promising future then the bombshell about the bad things come…You call it ADHD, I call it an unruly kid. This candy coated treatment is time-wasting and unproductive. I am all for discipline (not necessarily caning mind you). The Mother’s blast the kids on the way home, but before they reach their destination they pull in to KFC for treats and buy a burger or some chicken nuggets for the little pip squeaks. I miss the good old days when we were less sophisticated and a whole lot smarter.

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GOT TO GO TO THE RIGHT CHURCH

(Last week I even sat next to…)

Many of my friends, all now hoity toity, are recently going to these “fancy” places of worship. They never tell me what the word was, that is, what they learnt. It is all about who drove what, who they sat next to, who had a new Prada bag and a host of things far removed from developing spiritually. I love my church by the way, my Ga is not top-notch, but in my Presby Church I follow the sermon and the men’s fellowship is great. Till date no one has laughed at my Jalopy and many men scramble into the back for a lift including the rotund women who come for choir practice (hmm that could be why I am having problems with my shocks lately). Last week I was invited to one of those high and mighty Churches. I was feeling a little rich having recently come into some little money.  I sat on a pew and got angry stares from some ladies.. I figured I must have usurped their positions. I looked frantically for my friend to no avail. After communion, I found myself seatless! I stared at the good Christian ladies who had found an artful way of displacing me, like a game of musical chairs. I stared at them perplexed and a little confused. They looked intently into their hymn books as they sung, without so much as a glance in my direction. I was grateful to find a space next to a little boy who kept “booting” me and laughing throughout the sermon. After Church I made my protestations known to my friend. Without blinking an eye, she said “next time come sit on the left side of the organist. That is my sitting place, a few seats behind Harry.”

“Harry?” I asked

“Yes, Harry Zakour”

The next week I went back to my old church.

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MUST GO TO A HOUSEWARMING PARTY AT WEST LAND BOULEVARD

I recently moved to Dansoman to be close to my office and invited two of my old friends for banku at Dela’s. One of my friends now a manager at a prominent bank, looked at his exquisite Patek Phillipe watch, shook his head and said “sorry, mate but Mandy is having a house-warming party at West Land Boulevard.” The other talked of a prior commitment for that same housewarming. I knew Mandy and since she had not invited me because she had lost my number (so Kofi and Ato said) I decided to come along. I had the sinking feeling on the way there that my friends had crossed that dark side and were now officially money swines. I wondered what they had to do to join that class. Parallel parking my smoking Toyota Corolla 2002 model, between Mandy’s Toyota Venza and Kofi’s Mercedes benz C230, that night at West Land Boulevard, I made a strong resolve: Must move out of my flood prone ghetto ass neighbourhood.

Most people have a ‘boga’ friend or relative whose occasional pilgrimage back to the ‘motherland’ disrupts their schedule. For many, this trip from these friends can be a bit of a pain in the behind. Kwaasi the Cunning Linguist, for one, has had it up to here and shares his painful reasons why.

BOGA-/borger /n/(derog. offensive)- A not too sophisticated Ghanaian with an idealistic and simplistic view of life who has managed by dint of his/her perseverance to go to a country usually in Europe, toils there and decides to revert to his/her country of origin for a few days usually for a funeral, a marriage ceremony or has been deported (and is working on going back)….
THE OFFICIAL GHANAIAN HATERS DICTIONARY

1. Airport – I think this is where my problem with the Boga starts. The fact that they have like a hundred relatives here, but you have somehow become the “Chosen one”. You are chosen, not because you are the closest relative or friend but because you own a car or have a house to yourself. Luckily it is not
   too difficult to spot the quintessential Boga from Yankee, Babylon, Germano or Holland (YBGH) with their humongous, whilst a couple of porters lug along about three more bags….each! (you take a deep breath – lights, camera, action ….”give a weak smile and wave -it’s go time )
2. The Voyage Home  – You might be thinking, “ah being a chauffeur is that bad”, until the Boga opens his mouth: “Wow, Ghana has changed, its getting developed” (usually expressed when you get to the Accra shopping mall).Ghana has changed because of a mall? Negro please, this is standard fare the world over. The more blunt ones, depending on where they are coming from or the level of exposure they had before they left simply say “ In YBGH everything is different” (yep it certainly would be considering it is another frigging country.)
3. The Ultimate Gift – This is the part I love! Not because I am going to get a gift from this Boga,  I just love surprises. Last time it was a useless toothpick holder, another time I got a $1.00 shirt that said “I’m too Cool for you”, I wore it exactly one time because as soon it was washed it faded and the letters disappeared.   So like a Magician, the Boga dips his/her hand into his magic bag of tricks and hands you yet another completely useless item, guess what it was…….. a poster of Barack Obama (yay, this is exactly what I have always wanted to put up on my wall, awesome!)
4. The Perfect Sleep –  Ok, to be fair this does not happen all the time but the Boga is ready to tell you all the fantabolous tales of YBGH like it was on another planet…mostly its 12am …I “needs” to sleep…wake up and work (that is how we do in GH)..but no this Boga won’t write his/her autobiography and
   let me read it later, he just wants to go on and on  about all these “interesting tales featuring the Boga and other future Bogas…and  then I hear “sorry I can’t sleep my (f$$$$$$) biological clock” or whatever…something about a clock. Not sure why I have to be punished for that. But in a nutshell, Boga cannot sleep so neither can you.
5. The Next Three Days -Expect your quintessential Boga to continue yapping and have an opinion about every single thing he/she knows nothing about. In case you didn’t know, staying in YBGH makes you a lot smarter than the average Ghanaian and much more sophisticated. Fashion? Don’t go there! Technology? Nigga please the Boga owns an I-phone 5!  Food? Yes, he worked at Burger King for 2 months…not sure how that make him a connoisseur
   on red wine, but he sure thinks it does. Expect to hear “oh my God, is this what they call Chinese food here? You should come to YBGH and taste proper Chinese food…Want to get back at them? Take them out to the club on Friday and do the Azonto dance. I guess they didn’t see that coming!
6. Cars – The quintessential Boga is going to ask about…your car, where he can get a car or harangue you about the transport system. More often than not the truth is- The Boga never owned a car before the exodus did not own a car in YBGH but now wants a car. A party?…”Sorry I don’t have a car”, “how do I get there…do cars go there?” (No people in GH, the country you were born in before you left barely 2 years ago,  trek everywhere!) What happened to taxis if you don’t want to use a trotro or Metro mass!!!… I get… it they
   are expensive beside “it is 10 bucks, OMG….that is ridiculous!”
7. Cash – When it comes to cash the Boga has the irritating ability to convert everything into Dollars, Pounds or Euros. The Boga is shopping with you and you’re about to pick a pair of trainers, hair cream or new plasma tv…PING!! Conversion Alert!. ”This is a hundred bucks… ridiculous! in YBGH it is only 10 bucks…..”  “oh, things are so expensive here, next time tell me and I would bring this down it is only 2 bucks there” (great idea, it will sure beat the Barack Obama poster you gave me). Sadly in spite of all this conversion the Boga, due
   to grabby relatives, higher standards like “Evian” mineral water, and higher taste in the necessities of life means they run out of money before they depart. Some end up borrowing from you by asking straight up  “can I have fifty dollars or indirectly, “can I use my credit card here” (eyes rolling to the back of
   my big skull)
8. The King’s Speech – I usually have a knack for figuring out accents, even the difficult ones like Australians, New Zealanders, but the Bogas I know, mostly have accents I can’t quite place; They drawl, they are nasal and they talk like they have saliva in their mouth. Their accent is  not Yankee (north, midwest or south), not from anywhere in London (north or South) and not from Germano or Holland….some call these accents LAFA…I don’t know how they perfect it but when they speak Ga, Twi or Ewe all trace of this accent disappears and for a brief while they almost sound like my long lost friend.
9. Wall Street and Higher Learning – These Bogas also come back after being abducted with higher business acumen- they want to sell coffee and latte, ice cream and frozen yogurt, get into real estate (buy hectares of land in places like Cantonments, Labone and Airport). Wow, why didn’t I think of all that, and recently some want to  get into oil and gas. Many don’t finish a first degree but proffer advice on things I majored in, because…. “Gad Bless Americar!”
10. Green Card – By the time the Boga is going (and trust me by this time you can’t wait), she/he drops this line,  “I have finally gotten my papers/my stay/my green card” or whatever legal document that allows them to stay in YBGH
    “forever”. It usually takes me a few seconds to comprehend the enormity of this (Does that mean they would not actually be coming back again???…yay!)  You promise to call each other more regularly and  to come visit next summer or winter (you said December and she said winter)….you look at your childhood friend disappear into the airport and breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God, that’s finally over…you wish him/her a safe journey,  and hope they stay in YBGH and never step on the shores of the Gold Coast (I mean Ghana) again!

    are on”)

The year was 1998; it was that time in life when man did not have a pesewa. I had not heard of Kpakpakpa movement, but I guess that was how we lived…a hustle here and a hustle there. Something happened to me that year too. I met a lady, and for the first time in my life I was prepared to do anything for her. Well more like, to do anything for her to sleep with me.

I imagine at that age all this rush of testosterone hits the body. Her name was Alice, she was cool but not drop dead cool. OK to hang out with…and she had the body of a goddess. I discovered three weeks into our friendship that she belonged to a cult  church, located somewhere in Achimota. As with many mushroom churches, the leaders, one Prophet Ezekiel and another Prophet Xavier, had fought. Prophet Ezekiel lost, broke away from the Children of the Light Church and moved a sect to an uncompleted building somewhere in Accra, with a new found Children of the New Light Church… how original!

Alice invited me to hear Prophet Ezekiel deliver a Wednesday sermon. First of all, who delivered a sermon midweek at midday ? I could see we weren’t going to go far, me and this indolent soul. I saw beautiful curves and lovely full lips, and those voluptuous tatas…..Man, I had plans for us. If she wanted me to come to Church or whatever cult-like gathering they had every day, why not, as long as we did not have to drink some poison Kool-Aid, hold hands and make a death pact.

On Wednesday afternoon I sat very close to Alice in an old uncompleted building that served as Children of the New Light Church. ‘Prophet’ Ezekiel was an animated lanky figure at over 6 feet tall. He told the congregation that before he found the Lord, he was a thief….Somehow I believed him.He moved his long arms and gesticulated with his hands like the talons of an eagle ready to swoop and pick. He moved with ease from the Old Testament to the New Testament and back to the Old Testament. He probably knew every verse in the bible. He spoke about Noah and the flood and the way he sent fountains of spittle my way I thought it was the flood all over again.

As for me, I was in a different dimension, and it involved Alice alone. I moved my hands closer to her. ‘Prophet’ Ezekiel spoke in a stereotypical Ga accent ;

“Some of you ‘ave evil in your ‘earts” he boomed at us

Yes, if getting Alice into my tiny room was evil, so be it.

“The wicked shall perish they shall be cast in to burning fire…” he added. Such a negative guy, this Ezekiel chap, I thought to myself. He prayed for the holy spirit to descend on us and suddenly there was a lot of noise in unison. I wasn’t familiar with tongues at the time and it threw me off the first time I heard it.

I heard Alice say over and over again;

“Raybaba babayaa shede raybababa”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Where had I heard this sound before? Oh, I remembered – it was a character in the Namco game, Mortal Kombat,. Raiden a character in it had said something similar every time he flew.

I laughed so hard and joined in the chants, making it up as we went along…these buffoons. God loved me!

I suddenly heard a rumbling like thunder, I looked around in fear. The noise was not coming from the skies…it was actually coming from my stomach.  Alice looked straight ahead chanting her magic lines.  I knew what was happening to me. Suddenly, I needed to use the gents and real bad….I knew the shrimps I had with the kenkey and hot pepper was suspect.

Should I tell Alice?…oh how?

“Where is your bathroom I asked?” through clenched teeth

She pointed towards the back of the Church still chanting all the while

I sprung up and heard ‘Prophet’ Ezekiel say ”Touch not my anointed”

I scrambled out of the church and realized there was only a small roofing sheet planted as a dwarf wall where members squatted or stood and… urinated. The Children of the New light Church whose aim was to find light had not found a proper lavatory yet!

I run into the middle of the road and tried hailing a taxi. Five minutes later I got an empty one. I mumbled the name of a hotel I knew in the area and jumped into the back of it.

My goal was simple…reach the toilets of that hotel.

I felt another wave of movement in my stomach and cried out in alarm. The driver glanced worriedly at me in his rear view mirrow. By this time I was sweating profusely.

I prayed to God that if I got safely to the hotel,I would go to that Children of the New Light Church next Wednesday and endure another ‘showers’ of blessing from ‘Prophet’ Ezekiel.

God obviously did not take my promise seriously and another wave hit me, immediately after this thought.

This time I promised to go to the Children of the New Light Church and NOT laugh at them.

God didn’t find this promise genuine either and I was hit by another wave of cramps. I found it difficult to concentrate.

I continued to make desperate promises and finally I knew what I had to give up…Alice.

“God, please get me to the hotel without any incident and I will never see that girl again” I promised.

I discovered that letting in fresh air and breathing slowly helped, I clung to the handle of the car door and yelped in pain.

I realized the cab driver was playing Sisquo Unleash the dragon….I felt like I was going to unleash my own dragon in his cab. Why hadn’t I settled for more rustic settings like the bushes at the church. After what seemed like an eternity,  the driver finally pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. I gave him whatever I had in my pocket and just left my change with him. I struggled and hobbled to the lobby, waving off a woman there, who insisted on going through a whole lecture on the different available rooms.

I gasped “Bathroom” then screamed “toilet” when she still wasn’t grasping what I was asking for. She looked at my half crazed, sweaty face and pointed in the direction of the toilets.

I got there and was hit by the smell of cheap disinfectant and curry.

There were three stalls and the middle one vacant. I almost burst into tears of joy.

It was the best feeling I had experienced thus far. I told myself that the greatest inventor was the man who invented the WC.

I sat on my throne like a king

I heard a phone ring in the stall to my left and a man with a distinct Indian accent answered the phone

“ can’t talk now, will call back”

I randomly thought of Alice and Prophet Ezekiel and suddenly I heard a scream from another man in the stall to my right,  “Sweet Jesus!”, followed by “oh my God! oh my God!”

I didn’t find it funny at all, because suddenly I empathised with  him. I understood the man on my left and the man on my right. Here we were, three different individuals, bound by our endeavours to just have a little decent down time.

It was beautiful to be alive and be on the throne in dignity. I stayed  long enough on that throne to have seen the rise and fall of five kingdoms.

Life was funny, me whimpering like the dog I was, the Indian on my left and this man with his blasphemous and heretical talk in the right stall.

I remembered Prophet Ezekiel and his words as I run out of the church….”Touch not my anointed!”.

The phone rang again in the stall to my left and the Indian fellow started a conversation. Then I heard on my right, the blasphemous one say “Thank you Lord”

I walked gallantly out of the stall and was shortly followed by the sacrilegious gentleman.

He was about six feet two inches, and he glanced at me sideways as he washed his hands.

“God has a plan for you my son” he said suddenly turning to me.

“You are destined for great things my brother” he obviously could not make up his mind whether I was a son or a brother.

Before I could say anything, if I was even expected to say something, he continued, “Let me introduce myself, I am Bishop Xavier of the Children of the Light Church, I want you to join me for deliverance this Sunday”

a.k.a BOO-GIRL

The year was 1996, the theme to my life was “Last Night” by Az Yet……………..(damn, whatever to those poor black guys?).

Anywho, I had my headphones on my neck, my walkman tucked underneath my shirt.

The epitome of swag, I was clothed, designer, from H to T: I  was wearing my favourite Fila sneakers, white and squeaky clean; my favorite Karl Kani shirt and fake designer jeans that read “Nike” which I had recently purchased from Kantamanto and dyed black at some corner in Osu. I was ‘stepping’ or ‘maintaining’ (depends on what secondary school you went to) in those days.

I was at the crowded bus stop at Legon, en route to Adenta, when I spotted her. She was a fine specimen, not too tall not too short, all the right accessories, a bright red skirt that showed enough legs and white blouse that raised he breasts, and an ass so big you could see it from the front. She was waiting for a taxi and standing next to an old man and a middle aged woman. The man stared at her lustfully whilst the woman, eyed her disapprovingly.  She was my kind of girl, though…hawt, hawt, hawt! I was about to enter a ‘jet’ (trotro) that stopped close to my home, on seeing her I quickly cancelled my trotro plans and inched closer to her.

She was, I quickly realized waiting to enter a taxi that was also Adenta bound. An Opel Vectra taxi, came to a screeching halt at the bus stop and many people scrambled for it. I maneuvered quickly, elbowed a few people out of my way including the middle aged woman and the lascivious septuagenarian. In a few seconds, I had deftly entered the taxi and found myself next to the beautiful girl who had swerved many of the crazy people and ended up right next to me in the back seat . In fact she ended up sandwiched between me and another guy, making the magic three at the back seat.

The old man was a fighter and had virtually yanked a school boy out of the cab, pushed the middle aged woman as well, and sidled his way into the front seat. I was so close to this girl who had dropped from heaven, I was afraid she could hear me breathe. The boy on her right, was also donned head to toe in designer accessories, wearing a Pepe shirt, Armani jeans and black Timberlands, his eyes didn’t leave the girl for a second. As the taxi pulled out of the bus stop, I realized that both the taxi driver and the lecherous Methuselah were using the rear view mirror and a strange round mirror next to the rear view mirror, to catch a glimpse at this fine creature who was firmly ensconced between me and the other guy I would simply refer to from now on as…..the “loser” (come on Pepe shirt paaaaa?)

This was no competition! I was the natural winner in my mind.

The driver gave a long sigh and concentrated on the bad road after entering two or three knee deep high craters. The old man finally decided the white bloused chick was not worth the heart attack. That left me and the loser! The loser could have been my double save his choice of “designer” clothes. I had on my foreheads Ray Bans, street orbs mind you. He had on Versace dark glasses and huge head phones on. The Loser nodded his head to some loud music as he held his walkman in his left hand, which meant he had light contact with the right breast of the beautiful damsel.  I eyed the loser. “cheap move” I thought, “how convenient!”. The Loser finally adjusted his Versace shades and placed them on his forehead like mine, “Copy cat” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Lose the sportin’ waves already!”, Loser!

I had to say something before this loser could beat me to it. There was something on the radio and the driver was giving his opinion about everything, I laughed weakly and the girl flashed her set of pearly whites. Man, I had plans for us! The girl moved slightly to the left and her hands rested lightly on my thighs, in that move the loser’s left hand lost contact with her left breast, and in that same magic move her left breast touched my right arm…it helped my self confidence that I had doused myself with Calvin Klein CK1 that morning. I smiled. A minor victory. For now. Now, for the major move.

Then something unexpected and quite traumatizing happened…the beautiful girl in the red skirt and white blouse suddenly inserted her index finger up her nasal passage, twisted it around and pulled it out. I was in shock! she actually looked at her find, flashed a wide smile when she realized she had struck gold, she then rolled her catch between her thumb and her index finger, left the catch on her thumb, then used the index finger to flick the booger to kingdom come…landing it on the driving mirror. I inched away from her and closer to the door, shaking all the while. I looked closely at the beautiful girl and realized she had metamorphosed, somehow. She suddenly had huge ears, really huge ears and horrible gnarled toes….how had I missed those? The loser took off his head phone and introduced himself,  she extended her booger hand to him. I looked at the rear view mirror where the offending booger stayed put.

The driver was having a heated debate with the septuagenarian on President Rawlings, whilest the loser and the booger girl chatted happily – a match made in heaven, no doubt!. I shook my head and put on my headphones…Losers!