Makola Market

This market was made familiar to fans of The Amazing Race, where contestants had to sell sunglasses to local shoppers. The "market" is really a neighbourhood, devoted entirely to selling, and selling anything, that spans six square blocks or so, but seems much larger, because at every turn is another lane, another stall, another square foot of pavement with a whole new array of delights and puzzlements.

The market is:

• vibrantly primary,
• dangerously smelly,
• a cacophony of people yelling (frequently "Obruni, obruni" — literally, descriptively, and not pejoratively, 'white person'), cajoling, preaching, and of horns, sirens, music,
• replete with tasty delights, and
• slippery, slimy, irregular pavement, and abuzz with things to paw over and juggle.

 

The good news is I spot a number of first: great mounds of garlic and spices at the top of the list. None of the spices are labeled but most are probably identifiable by smell. I'm here with Veena and Mr Larteh, and he is able to name some of the spices and, better, some of the odd looking plants that are stacked in clusters on small tables. We also encounter piles of plant fibre that looks like packing material, but is chewed to clean teeth.

I'm not sure I would go here to really shop — there are logistical problems of parking, a confusing overload of choices, and most things can probably be had at a variety of smaller, local markets in Legon. I am on the prowl for a fridge, and we do encounter a real appliance store, in the middle of all the outdoor, street-side activity. It is run by a family of Sikhs from India, and the prices are good (especially with Veena making national appeals). But they don't deliver, and the thought of attempting to hire a cab (their suggestion), or more likely a truck, and getting it through the market to the shop, takes much away from the price they offer. 

But Makola is fun. Most of these photos were shot from my hip without looking in an effort to avoid people posing or chasing me down the street.

Veena and I have commandeered Mr Lartey to take us around town on a few errands. Since we arrived at Makola from an earlier stop where Veena was looking for kente and batik cloth, we first sought out an alleyway filled with shops selling cloth. "Shops" overstates it, when piles of cloth are neatly stacked in an area smaller than most bathrooms. 

That is a stack of toilet paper on the head of the man in the photo on the right. From dry goods to foodstuff, sometimes at the same table. Of the dried pigs feet on the left, I asked Mr Lartey where the rest of the pigs were and he quipped back, "In Canada. You only leave the feet for Ghanaians to eat."

Among these cast aluminum cook pots are stoves cleverly made out of car tire rims, visible just on the extreme right. In addition to an array of pots, which themselves look like they are cast from rims, these shops — this is several in a row selling identical wares — sell cast spoons, ladles, baskets, and forks. All of them have a wonderful, pebbly texture.

All kinds of people looking for all kinds of goods are here. Most, but not all, of the goods seem to be what you would buy at your local market, but I'm not sure this is anyone's local. Block after block seems to be devoted entirely to shops, without any sign of a residence. The market is bordered by a major tro tro depot (serving the Volta region in the east of the country), a railway station and tracks, and Accra's major police station. On the other hand, though the streets should be closed to traffic, cars and trucks weave in and out of buyers and sellers, or occasionally force either out of their way. This includes having to suddenly and quickly drag a table of goods out of a quick moving and persistent lorry. One truck quickly backs up a street, horning beeping at regular intervals, but the driver is not looking behind him; he just assumes everyone and everything will move.

One street in the market is largely devoted to watches, and Veena is suddenly keen on buying watches for Ghanaian friends who have helped her with her work and travels during her stay. We weave in and out of stores (now, in real buildings with doors and windows that lock) and between street kiosks and traveling salemen (with, presumably, the lowest overhead). This guy has a towel pinned to his shirt, and his goods pinned to the towel. Watches are purchased at extremely low prices. I have learned in the past weeks that Veena is a shrewd negotiator and I have sat at her feet and learned much.

On one street corner, under this bright yellow building, a young man is screeching into a microphone, with a distorted blast emitting from speakers behind him, facing in several directions. His sound bellows down two streets. He is not speaking English, and I'm sure I wouldn't understand him if he were. But I ask Mr Lartey if he can make out what the young man is saying. A pause. And then a simultaneous translation for twenty seconds or so as we pass through the stalls on our route down the street, the broken, distorted voice following us and still shuttering out the market sounds around us.

"He is saying: For God to forgive you, you have to have sinned. God cannot forgive what is not there to be forgiven. If you want God to forgive you, you must have something to be forgiven for. If you do not act, you cannot sin, and God cannot forgive a person who has done nothing that needs forgiving. If God is going to forgive you, remember, that forgiveness is for sin. Forgiveness is what God does to those who have sinned and who accept God and his forgiveness..." Aside from the repetitiveness, and without directly saying it, our friend is advocating sinning (as a prerequisite for forgiveness). 

This is the standard way for Ghanaian babies to travel, lashed onto their mother's backs with a cleverly folded square of cloth.

I marvel at the Ghanaian ability to walk with pans, toilet paper, and wooden boxes on their heads. But running with same is just showing off.

After two hours wandering through the market we have not seen it all, and we are tired. Otto, on his visit to the market, and on getting thirsty, approached a drink seller with a cooler and a sign advertising "Coke, Fanta, Sprite". The exchange:

"I'll have a coke."

"I'm out of coke."

"Ok, I'll have a sprite."

"I'm out of sprite."

"What do you have?"

"Nothing. I'm sold out of everything."

"But you're still open?"

"Yes."

House Boy House

After posting pictures of my palatial house, I was surprised by the number of inquiries about the tiny servant's quarters. But, because several people asked, here are some pictures of what I previously called the servant's house. I have since been corrected on the name. It is the room for the house boy. This is the more Ghanaian phenomenon.

I think in a previous post I've explained the National Service Students. Instead of military service graduates do a year of service to the nation. You can request a placement, and a place can request you by name, but otherwise you can get posted anywhere in the country, doing just about anything. The Philosophy Department has two NSS who are philosophy graduates. One of them, Mawuli, had a grandfather who was a writer and wrote a book about his childhood. Which is pretty cool. Mawuli has a literary account of grandfather's childhood and of his great and great-great grandparents.

In reading the book, set in the 1930s, I learned that it was common practice to send a male child away in their early teens to work in another household, as a house boy. This was considered part of their education. They would still go to school, but would do chores in their new household. In turn, the parents may take in the son of someone else. So when the University of Ghana was being constructed, including my bungalow, there was a culture of having a live-in house boy.

As you can see, this is a modest affair. Though, in the 1930s, Mawuli's father did not get a separate room or bath at all. He slept on a mat on the porch of the house he worked in. There is no exterior door; in the entrance way is a sink, and beyond that two rooms with doors. 

Directly ahead is a room with toilet and shower (the shower head is behind the door). We encountered this design throughout South East Asia. In using the shower you soak the toilet. The only dry sit down is the first one in the morning and the last one in the evening. Unless, as I frequently do here, you shower twice a day. The one in the evening is just to wash the sweat off me and cool me down for bed.

The main room of the house is about nine square metres (big enough for a bed, dresser, and chair), with windows on two sides so you get a cross breeze. The house boy house is conveniently located just outside the kitchen, in a separate little courtyard, which also houses our water tank.

 

Applications are now being accepted. Base pay is 5 Ghana Cedi per week.

— the Management 

 

A campus walkabout part II

 Every day around 5:00pm a gecko appears from behind the curtain at the front of my office and heads toward the window behind me. I suspect an exit point is hidden somewhere around my air conditioner. Sometimes the gecko brings a friend and the two scamper back and forth, emerging and then discovering I am present and hiding, dashing across open spaces, forgetting I'm there and chasing each other, remembering I'm there and hiding again.

I've also had a gecko or two in my Guest Centre room, and now in the mornings I often startle a gecko who's avoiding the morning sun by hanging out between the screen and the shutter of the bathroom window. 

I don't mind the geckos, and have cohabitated with them in Cuba and Cambodia. And so far, they are the only reptiles who have moved in or passed through. But there are lizards about campus. Here is my favourite:

There are other animals on campus beside reptiles and birds. Mostly dogs, although I did see a cat coming out of a gutter the other day. It, not me, was coming out of the gutter. Most of the dogs are small dingo-like things. They are not aggressive, seem shy, and certainly aren't rabid. (At my visit to the public health nurse in Canada she urged me, in the face of the unknown, to take an expensive pre-exposure rabies treatment. I declined, and I think an occupational hazard of public health nurses would be the risk of becoming an alarmist. All day long they just look up destinations in The Big Book Of Horrible Things That Can Happen to You When You Travel. There was never any mention of a prophylactic against falling in gutters.)

The dog on the left is typical of the wild dogs that roam about on campus. The two on the right, best bet feasting on jollop rice and chicken bones, belong to one of the bungalows. My post about bungalows identified one with a pair of dogs in the front yard. That's these two and the owner seems to let them wander about campus. All the dogs are neither friendly nor threatening.

This is the view across the street from the Philosophy Department. You are looking at Legon Hall, one of the campus residences. There are five halls on campus, all laid out around a huge inner quadrangle, though several now have high rises near the original structures. This is the west side of the quad, from the outside. On the left and right, each rectangle in the second story is a terrace for a dorm room and each room houses four students in two bunk beds. Through the arches on the right is a help desk, a very small tuck shop, and an internet cafe. Beyond is the main entrance into the quad.

Housed in the quad is access to the original residence dining hall. At one time the university seems to have fed everyone on a set regimen of meals and times. Those days are over and now the Legon dining hall is a sleepy affair, made smaller with a partition for a study room, but containing the original dais at one end with a long table spanning the room that faculty are still expected to eat at, overlooking the lowly students. I dined once here, on a spicy plate of red red — beans and fish with fried plantain, both cooked in palm oil which gives the dish its name.

This and the other quads now contain independent food vendors. In Legon Hall is Tyme Out, serving Africanized Chinese food, pricey but with vegetarian options. Ralf and I often eat here on Tuesdays, enjoying a bottle of Castle Milk Stout and complaining about the abysmal service. Down the road in Akuafo Hall is Taco Bell (no relation). We can't decide if this ever served Mexican or Latin American food, but at present it offers straight Ghanaian fair, at much better prices than Tyme Out, but the Legon spot provides a respite from Ghanaian food. Another difference is Tyme Out has more of a bad boy, nightlife feel to it. It is open late, has a huge stereo system (rarely put to good use), and a small pool table. Taco Bell closes up as a restaurant on Sundays and becomes a Pentacostal church. A third Hall has a pharmacy in its quad but no restaurant that I noticed and I've not yet ventured into the others. As an aside, Ghana's Castle stout has lactose added "to make it creamy." It doesn't make it worse.

Here are two views of Volta Hall, the only all girls hall. Contrast this with Commonwealth Hall, an all male hall that for decades has proudly referred to its members as the Vandals.

  

I can see the Balme Library clock tower from my office. I haven't spent much time in the library. As a place to hang out and just do reading it lacks in a few key areas. It has no air conditioning, no screens on the windows and it is musty. None of this is good for the patrons, nor is it good for the books. Also, the holdings peter out around 1975. Although, the University has been aggressively buying in the last two years. I've yet to receive my faculty card so can't yet check out books. I'm hoping my card comes before I retire. 

But the building is charming and the mosquito breeding pond in front of it quite lovely. Actually, I don't know that the pond isn't stocked with fish.

To be continued....

Convocation

Saturday was convocation.

I was invited to be part of the procession, but decided I would just watch it this year (to get the feel of it, you know). Actually, I dreaded the thought of spending about 5 hours standing around in some British wool gown, with cape and hat. And while the event was under canopies, it certainly wasn't going to be air conditioned. Spoken like a foreigner.

A wise move. It was slated to start at 9:00am, but this was Ghana time. It kicked off closer to 10:00, and those in the procession had to be in place around 8:00am. Students graduating had to be in here at 7:30 to robe up and find their seats. The University choir warmed up the crowd while we waited.

The event did have lots of pageantry. First, the procession of faculty and dignitaries arrived. They were followed by native drumming and dancing, then the choir again, then a few speeches (the first by Kofi Annan, the Chancellor of UofG) — only some were long, tedious, and off-topic. More drumming and dancing (really the best part), then the valedictorian gave a speech, awards of merits were passed out, I left, and finally degrees were handed out to those graduating. I was standing, and my acreage was shrinking, to the point where I couldn't put my weight on both feet at the same time. This resulted in my damaged knee complaining, and off I went.

Kofi Annan addressing U of G convocation

I will have to explain, in the future, that my failure to participate is nothing personal. I have never taken part in a convocation, at any of the four universities I have taught for. In fact, of my own three convocations I only attended one.

A campus walkabout part I

Most of these pictures were taken shortly after I arrived, before classes started and before the first big rain fall. I feel they don't show enough of the campus to give a real sense of it. But I've come to the slow realization that if I wait for that these will never get posted. So here is my first impression of the campus.

First, the new Arts Building. Since my arrival, every week day the gate to this construction site is open. I have never seen more than three people inside working, and the building itself shows no sign of progress. I realize that some parts of a building project don't show a lot at the end of the day. Also, since all of this is poured-on-site concrete, there is a lot of waiting for concrete to dry and cure. However, I don't think there is a move-in date scheduled, and I think some people expect we will never move in. Actually, the philosophy department itself won't be moving in; this is administrative and classrooms.

Next, the campus post office. This charming little building is right behind my office; my window looks out on it. The activities that take place within the building were made famous by a 1975 recording that can be found here on youtube. I think the staff from that recording have all retired, but the current staff is pleasant and efficient, if not overtly musical. I have sent postcards to a few people and they have arrived. What more do I want?

Every year the University hosts a New Year School, which is open to the public. People register and attend classes on a specific annual theme for a week. The opening ceremonies took place just after I arrived so I got to see chiefs in full regalia presiding and this bit of dancing and drumming in the courtyard outside The Great Hall (which, by the way, is depicted on the back of the 5 Cedi note).

My classroom(s):

This is a pair of pictures of my first classroom for the Existentialism course I am teaching. I thought it a real charmer, especially with the benches that have desktops built into them. However, we outgrew the room. 

Things are done a little differently here, than in Canada. Instead of capping the enrollment of a course (in Canada, sort of based on the size of the classroom — though we build bigger classrooms so we can have bigger classes), here enrollment continues regardless of the size of the scheduled room, growing until the add period ends, so the final count is based on popularity alone. While this means no one doesn't get into the class they want (a regular occurrence back home) it does present other, obvious logistical problems.

Outgrowing a classroom is a regular event. In fact, classrooms weren't assigned until just before classes started, and the assignment was then based on the current size. But also, class times weren't assigned until then. This means students sign up for a class not knowing when and where it will be.

This isn't as bad as it sounds. My existentialism course is an elective, but only philosophy majors may take it. Beyond first year only philosophy students take philosophy courses, English students take English courses, etc. (Students can have double majors.) Each department then is assigned a set of differently sized rooms at different times based on their predicted needs. When my class outgrew its room, we simply looked at the philosophy course schedule and moved classes around to accommodate us. 

Moving a class from one room to another in the same time slot requires negotiating with another department for one of their rooms. We did this on week two and met in a new room. Unfortunately, that deal fell through and we had to opt for a different room at a different time. Philosophy had a large unused room at a different time so we moved there. This doesn't run the risk of causing a conflict with students schedules since they are only taking philosophy courses. We have access to their entire possible timetable.

By week three we were in our third room and in a new time slot. I joked to my students that my plan was to so confuse them that enough of them would get lost or drop the course and we would fit back into our original room.

Weekends at the Guest Centre:

It's now been a week since I moved out of the Guest Centre, but while there I had two regular interruptions. Most Saturdays the grounds outside the restaurant were taken over by a wedding reception. This would involve someone arriving early in the morning (7:00am is not too early), unloading and then stress testing the sound system. This was most important. If the speakers, as HST said, couldn't sterilize a frog from a hundred yards, then the whole event would have to be called off.

While the sound system was being tested, others would set up canopies, tables, chairs, linens, etc. By mid-afternoon the wedding party would begin, and usually by early evening it was all over. The greater disruption was in the preparations. I would just head off to my office for the day, and when I arrived home could expect a couple of hours of (often, but not always, really great) music. A couple of places I regularly eat on campus are fond of American country music, and I have heard Celine Dion wafting through the mangoes. But the weddings tend to favour funk and hip-life.

On Sundays, there is always the chance that I will be awakened before 6:00am with the church band tuning up. It seems about once a month a giant temporary church is set up across the road from the Guest Centre. This is big enough for a congregation of over 500.

Noisy activity starts with bass and drums around 5:45 and then just after 6:00 the full event gets underway, with a lot of preachin' and testifyin', all out gospel singing, mass glossolalia, and general whooping it up. But the event is over by noon.

But there is always forewarning, as the canopies and chairs, dais and sound system are set up on Saturday.

This morning was no exception, even though I have moved a big block away from the site. All this means is I didn't see the signs, and was taken by surprise at 5:45 this morning when the bass and drums started thumping it out. This, after a rare late night of campus revelry last night. Not my revelry, everyone else's. Yesterday was convocation and the campus was the busiest I have seen it. Finally, it felt like a campus with 30,000 students, though most of the crowd was former students and their families. I suspect most of these had departed by evening, but the event seems to have left a residual festive atmosphere, and music and people could be heard late into the night.

This is very rare here, where early to bed and early to rise has many practical advantages: often the power is out so there are no lights at night, it is cooler in mornings and you might actually feel like doing physical things, the pre-dawn chorus of birds is symphonic. On this note, it really does sound like a Tarzan soundtrack at night, with a lot of ooh-ooh, aah-aahs. 

To be continued...

The botanical gardens

While the University of Ghana has an area designated as botanical gardens I have not visited them. One Sunday, Veena and I set off to see them, but when we got close we lost our way and asked for directions. The security guard we asked said "Don't go there. You'll get robbed." We weren't sure if he was being an alarmist or overprotective, but we agreed we would feel very stupid if we continued on our way and did get robbed. So we altered our course and continued our walk around safer parts of the campus.

On Friday, Ralf drove us out through the botanical gardens and there is not much to see. Mostly, it seems to be empty forest and field, with a few plots of crops used as test grounds for the departments of soil or crop sciences.

However, as part of our tour of the countryside northeast of the campus, Ralf took us to a real botanical garden.

Entry to the Botanical Garden did provide a cultural lesson. At the gate stood a sign with clearly marked entry fees. For adults, the options were Ghanaian, non-Ghanaian, and student. Ralf argued that he was Ghanaian, as he lived here full time, had for many years, and was married to a Ghanaian. He also argued that Veena was a student, in that she was at the University doing research (though she has neither a student nor faculty card). And while he couldn't think of an argument for my getting in at a lower rate, he felt I caved too quickly when I finally offered to pay the going rate (which amounted to about $3.50). Driving through the gate he noted that most of the money was going to end up in the attendant's pocket anyway, so prices really were negotiable.

Though small, and a bit run down, it was charming and offered some nice sights. Ralf thinks it would be an excellent place for a yoga, meditation, and chi gong retreat. And we agree. While work would have to be done (and perhaps bribes paid), it even has a small hotel, two dining rooms and an outdoor bar with a lovely view.

Here is a coconut tree growing up through the roots of another tree.

 

Many trees, including this one, are covered with another plant (I don't think it is a parasite). In Canada, people used to sell a bit of this crazy glued to some drift wood; it was called an air plant, and you just had to mist it occasionally.

Oddly, in the middle of things is the wreck of a helicopter.