First week in Ghana

People selling things on the traffic signal, traffic rush, city with churches and mosques .........isn't this all sounds pretty familiar or say pakistanish? , But its not......................Dozens of men and women selling, bread, tissue papers, biscuits etc etc on the traffic signal as if you are moving through a grocery store...... hours and hours of waiting in traffic jams,....... churches of every god-dammit type (mehodist to catholics to "Lambs of god" to 12 apostles and jehovahs) and mosques of Ahmadis and other sects.......and above all you being treated as a white man, one can easily say Pakistan is doing quite fine.

But that was just the space around. The real beauty comes with the raw friendliness of ghanians. The real organic innocence of these huge kingsize people and such acceptance, one can easily understand how the actual white men, britishers, portugese, french, dutch may have sliced them with their sweet knives.
The chaos part started as soon as i boarded the aircraft to africa, when it was diverted to nigeria instead of ghana and recieving my luggage will the locks broken and the suitcase packed in a large plastic bag. But things started to change as soon i came out of accra airport to find my friendly driver samuel waiting for me, surprised to see an asian face manager instead of a Swedish. My driver full name is Kwame Samuel.

As per ghana tradition every body writes the day he is born with his name (kwame is Saturday), and so my new name now is Kuoku Salman (wednesday). :) Things i have learned so far from mydriver is: "Papa" means good, "Dada" means "boss" and "Kaisay" means big. and apart from that which lady is of which age group(something i am still struggling to guage correctly). And not the least, how to have a ghanian hanshake and how to break fufu food with 2 fingers only and eat.

Sad to see is that the globalization is playing its part here as well , with all the similar names, Cocacola, head & shoulders, guiness, toyota, showing up on signboards with just the addition of black model girls. Same roasted chicken, french fries and pizzas filling up the streets making the indeginous food harder to find.

With just few days in africa and Still living on the periphery of african society, this is what i have to say so far. Lets see how much i can enligten myself with the next few months here, but I am already becoming skeptic of the reality of things around me. Are the things and perceptions we think we stand on, really tangible realities? or are they just color shades of another tangible reality existing outside my sunglasses?. Is it possible to see reality without the sunglasses of societies & beliefs, rich poor, black white, hygenic non-hygenic, ding dong blah blah, from our eyes? I think reality for me in the end will just become only my frequent fits of feeling of self existense only assured of itself, which with the decay of time & space around me will soon be vanishing along with, leaving me as a stone with no sense of existense, as my other friends and fellows are becoming.............

Salman from Africa

The rain attack

As if summoned by the tribal witchdoctors chanting some ancient voodoo call, the majestic rain army comes down with all its pride, sounds and fury……. The big palm trees shivering in fear just by the sound of these tiny soldiers …the Commander in chief totally in control of His army…..the water-brigade totally in sync with the wind battalion and the thunder snipers ………..rivers of dead rain soldiers flowing everywhere with the same gruesome dignity fulfilling their motives of momentary life.

A big thunder strike and I found myself woke up in utter darkness, with the rain soldiers still dancing and laughing, rushing towards their own end….…..

Whatever it was….. a rain dance for the funeral celebration of a tribal chief …. or the angels of the strange land coming to pick the unnamed child who has not passed 8 days to claim his worldly name and existence…. Or just another splash of rain to keep things wet and waking us up……. the drama of life and death continues, and we in our comfortable zone of existence, undisturbed by these small whispers, sleep….enjoying our dreams of reality. Our convenient amnesia keeps dozing us into the modern lifestyle of running for money , branded food and espresso coffee shots, away from all the simple things…the clear blue sky clouded with stars….the chanting of thick rain forests…the noisy calmness of untouched beaches….eating with friendly village people who have good reasons to believe in nature’s food and time abundance.
All it takes is just for once to forget about the things we don’t understand and live with the simple ones we do….., with our desires directing our thoughts and not the other way around. Imagine a person having his tummy full out of fresh hunted meat, and not thinking about tomorrow’s food (why think when you can see plenty out their)…. Can he be compared with today’s modern civilized rich man having a lot of money and sense of ownership but with a curse of how to secure what he owns.

I think I am getting old or perhaps mad……..