Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Scenes of a Small Sliver of African Life


One of my common pastimes, especially on days where I haven't done much, is to take one of the plastic chairs from my house and sit under one of the shelters in the market place and watch this small part of the world go by. My house sits against the meandering border of the town's main market space. On market days one can hardly move without tripping over a person, a child, a goat, or some wares for sale, but on non-market days, though still bustling with the activity of daily commerce and community life, much of the space is empty. The purpose of the two small log and thatch shelters by my house is to shade the live poultry section of the market, but most days they shade nothing but goat poop. The space also serves as the lorry station so a few cars dot the larger space and at the far end, the women set out their stools and bowls of fish for sale as shoppers and sellers gather for the daily evening market. I sit out under those poultry shelters in the afternoon and watch some scenes that have become familiar, ones I will surely miss when I leave here...

The toothless old man with his walking stick and hoe hung over his shoulder who always looks like he is coming from a day of farming.

The green mosque shouts messages over its loudspeaker to the shoppers and sellers below and the faithful all over town in these early days of Ramadan.

Packs of school children in bright and smartly pressed uniforms of yellow and blue or green or orange going home carrying their stack of text- and notebooks on their heads.

Women and girls sit behind their individual tables blocking the sun with their makeshift awnings while selling bread, bananas, coconuts, and kenkey with fried fish.

The boy with cerebral palsy who always smiles and seems to be friends with everybody and enjoys walking around town despite his disability.

Children in hand-me-down clothes with bowls of greens or large plates of smoked fish on their heads walking to market to sell their goods for their mothers.

Goats, their babies, chickens and their babies, dogs and sheep wandering around looking for scraps.

Women who walk to market carrying the entire contents of their mobile business on their heads, babies tied to their backs with cloth, and illustrating their avid conversations with gestures from their free hands.

Children wearing nothing but tattered underwear riding iron bicycles with over sized frames.

Men tossing yams to each other in an assembly line from the storehouse to a truck that will transport this bit of farm work to more comfortable people living in Accra.

Two older men who have probably known each other for decades holding hands as they walk through the market, a sign of close friendship my millions of African men.

Large buses lumbering along on a road gouged by rain and runoff.

Children running over rocks barefoot behind a large rolling hoop they keep balanced by expertly guiding it with a stick—a favorite childhood pastime.

A Zambraniba Muslim man trying to sell from the stack of cloth strapped to the back of his bicycle.

The only working tractor in this town coming back from a full day's work wondering who will be next on his long waiting list.

Gershon running an errand for his father and stops to greet me every time.

A small girl bent over with a hand broom sweeping the garbage away from the area her mother will set up her rice table for the evening.

The lady I buy fried yams from teaching her young son to ride a small pink bicycle.

Young girls wearing the latest village fashion in Western clothes, women in colorful and busy Ghanaian dresses with equally catchy head wraps and fine scarves, men in the ever popular soccer jerseys or traditional smocks and modern business trousers or long Muslim robes.

A heavy stream of people on motorcycles and bicycles passing through the market from the road to the houses beyond.


This is just everyday life lived in everyday tasks. There is nothing extraordinary or extra special about what happens here on a daily basis. The thing about Ghana that makes it different from most any other African country which many tourists visit is that anyone who comes here can see exactly how life is lived by millions of African people everyday, unadorned. In other places on this continent where great wildlife scenes or “current traditional African cultures” of the Masai or the Himba are cultivated by tourism companies and sought after by millions of visitors, in Ghana there is no real tourism industry so any visitor or traveler can see how life is being lived in a current African way as a nation, through each individual, struggles to find its place between the modern and the traditional. This is what Ghana shows to the world, not tribes of people that haven't changed in a hundred years, great herds of wildebeest or elephants crossing great plains, or majestic mountains and thunderous rivers and mysterious jungles, just people living their lives everyday, trying to find new ways of making a better life or following the ways their ancestors accomplished a task. It's the forward march of a modern, transitioning African life.







1 comment:

  1. You have got to get into a profession that allows you to use your writing skills!

    ReplyDelete