Slaving it Out

Being a slave was pretty kak. One minute strolling through the fragrant forests somewhere in West Africas interior, the next in a dark cell where the only thing in shorter supply than sunlight was toilet paper. Then it was to the bowels of an imperial frigate where the captain wore a wide-brimmed hat and knicker-bocker trousers and had little sense of humour about either of these. Nor about his human cargo below, about which he accepted the fact that one in three probably wouldn’t make it out the other side.  Those lucky ones that did were deposited in spots where sugarcane was plentiful and human rights were not. Like Cuba. And the Caribbean. The really unlucky ones ended up in Americas deep south where their life of servitude was made all the more unbearable for having to suffer all their instructions from men similar in disposition and accent to George Bush. This may have been the straw the broke the camels back.

Ghanas dynamic postcard of a coastline houses three-quarters of all the slaving forts used by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and English for their trade between the years 1550 and 1850 when Steven Spielberg released ‘Amistad’ and the trade was forcefully abolished. And therein lies a strange contradiction: that these massive forts, home to so much suffering for so long, sit along a coast where tourists now flock to to escape the shackles of their daily lives. Its difficult to fully picture the horrors housed within these monuments when the café downstairs offers such damn good Pina Coladas. Or when the American with the pink tee-shirt stating he is, infact, a ‘Love Machine’ keeps interrupting the guide with inane comments like:

“You say slavery has been abolished. But has it?’

‘Yes’

‘But has it?’

‘Yes’

‘Really though. Has it?’

‘Yes. Watch Amistad.’

The only thing he could possibly have been referring to is the servitude of the Ghanaian men in the face of their ferocious women. The females here rule with an iron fist that send their happy-go-lucky male counterparts cowering and begging not be sent to the naughty corner for a smack. In the markets you buy what they tell you to buy and you offer double their quoted price just to escape their vengeful wrath. This brow-beating seems to have manifested in these poor males in the unusual form of homophobia. When out of ear-shot of their irate spouses and therefore happy to venture an opinion, these fellows will always – without exception – bring up the sticky topic of gay rights. In a particularly bizarre exchange we were informed, in no uncertain terms, that Jay-Z is a gay freemason, Michelle Obama is barking up the wrong tree with Barack and even poor old haggard Queen Elizabeth was ‘the biggest lesbian of all’.

So it is quite unfortunate that even here in Ghana – where the slaving system was its most ferocious – the people still seem particularly shackled by their prejudices. It would be a real pity if all we got out of three hundred years of intensive slavery and the better part of twenty million deaths was good rum and sweetened Nescafe. And a particularly moving performance from Anthony Hopkins. But alas it seems so.

Easter Evangelicism

The sandy dance floor throngs with sweaty bodies. Tinny music blasts from a very big and very old cassette player. Dance moves perfectly in tune to some kind of invisible rhythm that seems inaudible to those of us of a paler persuasion. Lots and lots of sweat. Lots and lots of abdominal muscles. An American volunteer lunges into the dancing circle with all the grace and skill of a copulating triceratops. The crowd of rhythmic and ripped Ghanaians make room for her as she performs what looks like a bizarre attempt at a sexy Macarena. Because they are very nice people they choose not to point and laugh. But I do. Soon she is forgotten and the party resumes its equilibrium. Awful music, excellent dancers with six-packs. This is not how I remember celebrating Easters back home.

We may have known that Easter in Ghana was a pretty big deal on driving through Kumasi’s industrial outskirts. A behemoth billboard looms over the highway forcefully punting the sale of ‘Turn the Other Cheek Glycophosphate’. Just beyond it lie ‘King of Hosts Funeral Catering Services’ and – invitingly for shoplifters – ‘Forgive and Forget Metallic Plumbing Products’. Goofy is the inappropriate mascot for ‘My Redeemer Lives Fast Foods’ and, as a reminder, ‘Remember the Sabbath Cement Mixers’ looks to consolidate your home as well as your place in heaven. A local stadium promotes the inevitably one-sided match between the terrifyingly named ‘Ashanti Warriors’ and the almost certainly crap ‘Forgiveness FC’. This kind of fervent Christian evangelicism may be off-putting to many people. But those are not the people who have lacked a lie-in for three months travelling through Islamic Africa. For such people, Jesus’ name has never looked sweeter. Or quieter. Or less French.

And well the locals here may be particularly grateful for their lot. They live on an island of prosperity and stability in a region where democracy is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule. They have loads of gold, cocoa and, more recently, oil. The beach they are setting ablaze with their timeous manoeuvres is so picturesque it’s cheesey. Turquoise waters, palm trees, white sand – the whole shebang. Like the garden of Eden itself. Adam and Eve, however, weren’t slowly pushed off their land as a result of the artificially raised cost of living from the discovery of offshore oil deposits. Semantics. These problems, however, seem a world away for this gyrating mob whose biggest worry seems to be the occasional cuts in the music as a result of the independence-era solar panel malfunctioning. Yes, as the sun dips and casts long palm-tree shadows over the glittering sand it becomes pretty apparent that these guys do have a lot to be thankful for. Whichever way they choose to show it.

A Blaize in Ouagadougou

The name ‘Burkina Faso’ is just cool. It has a kind of rhythmic quality to it that pops out of your mouth like a child down a foofie slide. Most people only know of the country because they remember the groovy ring its name has and because it hosted a relatively unsuccessful African Cup of Nations a few years ago. But then success is not something that has come naturally to the Burkinabe. They are landlocked, dirt poor and have no industry to speak of. The tomatoes they do grow are shipped south to Ivory Coast where are tinned and sold back to them at double the price. Even in a region where coups are about as popular as Lucky Dube and economic accountability sits one rung below sending FW de Klerk an annual Christmas card in government priorities, this is quite something. And this may be the only standout feature of Burkina Faso: that it is exceptional only in its mediocrity.

It is almost like a small microcosm of greater West Africa: it has the arid Sahel in the north, the humid and tropical greenery of the West, it’s zig-zagged by a number of winding rivers, hosts a variety of of indigenous animals in its parks, has bizarre cultural history from its myriad minority tribes and, the standard, has a government that came to power by snatching it in a coup. And yet it doesn’t distinguish itself in any of these fields. Its desert lacks impressive dunes or al-Qaeda, its forests house only a handful of largely tame animals such as ‘vervet monkey’ and ‘dog’, its rivers can generally be jumped over with a run-up, its cultural minorities are losing their identity and – worst of all – its power-grabbing president has lauded over relative political stability rather than buying his nephew a concorde. Even the French who colonised it were largely uninspired by it, arbitrarily naming it Upper Volta before largely forgetting about it, leaving only a legacy of bad French and good bread.

There are some exceptional things in Burkina. The name of its capital, for example. Ouagadougou. Probably the greatest named city in history. Then there are other exceptional things to consider.  The name of its second city, for example. Bobo Dioulasso. Or, branching out, the name of its largest national park: ‘W’. Then there is the penchant of the local population for flat-out strangeness: many love puppeteering, pink cowrie masks, yoghurt and high-fives. They lack the piousness of their more fervent Islamic neighbours and gamely slurp down the local brew Brakina (another great name!) on every street corner, safe in the knowledge that their booze-fuelled slumber is unlikely to be interrupted by an irate imam at 4am. The landscapes are a bit like the people and refuse to play it straight by fashioning themselves into some truly bizarre, often phallic contortions. And then of course there is the insurmountable awesomeness of the name of the president ‘Blaize’.

If nomenclature was given the eminence it deserves in regional politics, it’s very clear that Burkina Faso would be a West African giant. Nigeria, Ivory Coast and – yes – even Guinea Bissau would tremble at the mention of its silky, honey-tinged name. Alas until that great day arises it will just have to remain as the weird country where the mediocrity of things are elevated by the simple fact that people want to say their names more than anywhere else on the planet.  And this, I suppose, is pretty exceptional.

Light it Up, Burkina

Today is 'World Autism Awareness Day' - not as big as, say, 'Breast Cancer Awareness Day' or even the lesser known 'Pink Cowry Masks for Funsies Day' (its a Burkina Faso thing) but by no means is it less important.

One of the offshoots of our trip is to raise money for a school specialising in the management of Autistic children. The Key School does some phenomenal work with these kids and is truly an amazing institution.

If anyone is feeling particularly generous at this, the beginning of the month - and having safely negotiated the hurdle of April Fools Day - any donation to this great school would go to excellent use and be extremely appreciated. To donate just click on the link on the upper right corner of this blog.

Alternatively the very American theme for the day is 'Light it Up Blue' so you can show your support by lighting up a blue lightbulb. Personally I have never seen anyone who owns a blue lightbulb besides stores specialising in trance music and leather whips, so this seems particularly obscure to me. I think a small donation would be better.