tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82589544642927236402024-03-13T13:51:30.141+00:00Going GhanaJoe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-68102981496511832862013-10-01T12:32:00.000+00:002013-10-01T12:32:00.540+00:00Beer Bottles Find Medicinal Use<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though the reason for buying these packets of Oral Rehydration Salts at my local pharmacy was lamentable, the packaging design was totally worth the 80 pesewas (about 40 cents US) I spent, absent any health purpose.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Made in Ghana for distribution in West Africa, the graphics are locally-motivated and culturally appropriate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Directions (click on photo to see larger, more readable version) specify using a beer bottle (a standard size regionally, bigger than the usual US beer bottle) to measure the proper amount of water for mixing. To a Western mindset this is complete humor, but for local use it's right on - a normal Ghana 'kitchen' is often a space outdoors and won't include marked measuring cups, but the beer bottle is ubiquitous.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not laughable - the injunction to use clean (i.e. uncontaminated and drinkable) water. Access to water that is free of contaminants and disease is not a given in this part of the world.</span></div>
Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-15056287624029784472013-04-28T11:38:00.000+00:002013-04-28T11:38:32.193+00:00Funnier in Translation<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Buying my favorite packaged-for-Europe rice cakes at my local MaxMart grocery store in Accra, I noticed someone had (very helpfully) stuck on a sticker translating the ingredients and the marketing hype.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Ingredients: 98. % natural brown rice, sesame. Perhaps check the rice cakes, for example, for breakfast including, as a snack for in between, at home, traveling or at work. The recipes are as delicious as it manifolds: it tastes better with butter, honey, fruit spreads, curd, cheese, hearty cold cuts, delicious biozentrale spreads or as companion to all kinds of fruity yogurt."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It makes me laugh when I come across such examples of semi-mangled English. These even wittier for trying (and mostly succeeding) to sound upscale.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes things are simply funnier in translation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"…check the rice cakes…" - Check them for what? Well, if it's my kitchen these days, for ants.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"…as a snack for in between…" - For in between?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"The recipes are as delicious as it manifolds…" - Gotta applaud the random use of "manifolds."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I love the way "it tastes better with butter" rolls off the tongue.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I must admit that, after photographing the packaging just now, I had a rice cake with some fruity spreads.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Guess I'm a sucker for marketing hype. Maybe things are tastier in translation, too.</span></div>
Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-76611297680675687312012-12-27T11:45:00.000+00:002012-12-27T11:45:42.922+00:00Biking Accra with 500+ Friends<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This past November 17 I had fun riding the 2012 version of the Cowbell mass bike ride in Accra.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now that I have a kid to take care of my time is much less my own, and so I arrived to the starting line late. While <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/08/biggest-mass-on-road.html">last year I rode more in the main pack</a>, this year I fought traffic with the rest of the riders at the back of the group.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thus I didn't get the rush of being in a peleton 500+ bicyclists strong, and I didn't get to see <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/08/man-with-eggs-on-his-head.html">The Man With The Eggs On His Head</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I did, however, get to ride with my friend James (who kindly called to tell me the ride was on)…</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…who was very ably helping a friend's son complete the ride along with the big boys.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We took the usual route through Osu and over the Ring Road…</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…to Nkrumah Circle, where we cut straight down through the heart of Accra Central's Saturday market-morning madness.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were the usual stunt men…</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…hip young riders…</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…and this year, bizarrely, a peace rally.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just another day in Accra - this time with hundreds of blue-shirted riders taking over the streets.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Too bad bicyclists aren't <i>always</i> the biggest mass on the road.</span></div>
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Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-26848118005912913692012-08-10T10:06:00.001+00:002012-08-10T10:06:33.999+00:00Red, Red, Sad and Lively Red<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today Accra is red.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's the day of the funeral for Ghana's late president, Professor John Evans Atta Mills.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the US red is the color of love and passion. In Spain it's the color of bullfights. In Ghana it is the color for funerals.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Ghana, pass by a collection of tents with well-dressed folks sitting in rows of chairs and a few dancers moving to music pumping from large speakers, and you know you've passed either a wedding or a funeral.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If everyone is wearing black and red, it's a funeral.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The black is familiar - it's what we wear to funerals in the US, too. But the red is different.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Notice I said before that the music is pumping whether it's a wedding <i>or</i> a funeral. Yes, in Ghana, people dance at memorial services. To me this is what the red symbolizes - an admission that though a funeral is about sadness and grief (the black), it is also about life and celebration (the red).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so, today, Accra is red. There is red bunting wound around streetlights and road barriers all along Independence Avenue in front of the presidential Flagstaff House. Red strips of cloth fly from the side mirrors of decrepit taxis and fancy Land Rovers alike. A woman in a black and red funeral dress sells red-ribboned badges with a picture of the president "in loving memory."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">All around Accra, street vendors sell anything red - red strips of fabric, red shirts,<br />red hats and bags - to be used as a mark of commemoration.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A friend tells me people have been lined up day and night to view the president's body at State House.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Walking along my local shopping strip of Oxford Street yesterday, I stopped at a tiny street-side shop to buy an electrical power strip. The shop's barely-twenty-ish proprietor came running over.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As he helped me find what I wanted, his hips sashayed to music pumping from nearby speakers. When I asked him why the music and the dancing, "We are getting ready for the funeral of our president," he said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, preparing for grief with music and dancing. In Ghana, that's what funeral red is all about.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NUrPLKRrgoU/UCTa0J1yMNI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/s-E0Ym0X18c/s1600/Red+Sad+Red+blog-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NUrPLKRrgoU/UCTa0J1yMNI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/s-E0Ym0X18c/s400/Red+Sad+Red+blog-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-14867507096409157722012-07-18T21:05:00.001+00:002012-07-18T21:05:20.973+00:00A French Tour in 60 African Seconds<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I'm watching the Tour de France bicycle race, on TV, in Ghana. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today's breakaway group - a small number of riders who have established themselves some minutes ahead of the peloton, the main body of riders - is nearing the top of the famous Col du Tourmalet.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to be riding in mountains like that. Real ones of course, not the electronic beige ones of the official race ticker. Though I have trouble, these days, simply keeping my pace up on an hour-long, relatively flat pedal.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These days, this is the best I get for hills.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QwfK9DgRO4g/UAbSfXffi-I/AAAAAAAAAbs/Ky9YTeckPXc/s1600/climbing+to+Aburi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QwfK9DgRO4g/UAbSfXffi-I/AAAAAAAAAbs/Ky9YTeckPXc/s400/climbing+to+Aburi.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The climb to Aburi, north of Accra.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I watch the Tour I'm waiting for something to happen. For some rider to attack. For someone to take a corner too fast and end up in the bushes. Any kind of drama.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Tour unfolds so slowly in real time on TV... even on the crucial and race-deciding mountain stages. But if you can wait long enough to catch the decisive moments - an unmatched acceleration, a brutal crash, a solo rider just staying ahead of the peloton in the last 500 meters to cross the day's finish line first - the wait can be worth it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last night I saw on Facebook this photo:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Every60Seconds">http://www.facebook.com/Every60Seconds</a></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think this is hilarious, and exactly the kind of satire needed against the prevailing knee-jerk disinformation of 'Africa's' backwardness. Nothing but conflict and starving children? Hardly.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's an African rider in this year's Tour de France, actually. White, of course, and from South Africa. But hey - South Africa is still part of the continent last time I checked. Go Africa.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm writing this sort of disconnected, stream-of-consciousness post partly because I'm distracted by keeping part of my attention on the bikers on TV. And partly because, in the larger sense, I'm 'distracted' these days by my baby care duties. My son is nearing half a year old, now, and my stay-at-home-dad status has got my blog-post frequency way down. But I don't mind that too much.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I like it that my son is growing up in Africa, where every 60 seconds a minute passes. Though unfortunately I won't be riding him on my bicycle any time soon, here. Between the taxis that come much too close to my wheels and the open ditches waiting beside narrow city roads, I won't take the risk.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can't wait to teach him to ride, though. And show him the fun of satire. Maybe I'll even get him to see a Tour de France some day, in person.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For now, some little guy named Voeckler is pedaling at breakneck speed down a French mountain after leaving all his competition behind on a long day of racing that included four very hard hills. And an African-born rider is dragging the leader of the Tour up over the last climb of the day and back onto the wheel of his chief competitor, the African-born pedaler himself in second position overall in the race.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For me, I'll enjoy my next 60 seconds in Africa.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-60971585809413688072012-06-08T14:38:00.000+00:002012-06-08T14:51:08.634+00:00Urban Beach, Urban Beauty<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Seeking beauty in an urban environment has always something disconcerting; in Accra this means also overcoming the blatant lack of urban planning, the problematic concept of "public space" and the problems of everyday filth and hygiene. To find beauty where it is most hidden is the artist's most daring assignment...</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The vocation of the arts is in the desire to expose people to beautiful things, but the arts are selfish: in general we expect the people to come to the arts rather than the arts going to the people. Integrating museum art and street art into one overall event allows to bring the best of both worlds together...</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> -Rudek van der Helm, from <a href="http://thebeautyfulones.com/rudek.htm">thebeautyfulones.com</a> site</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I read Ghanaian author Ayi Kwei Armah's novel <i>The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born</i> back in my twenties when I, naively, thought I might go to Africa on a Fulbright exchange.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then, Ghana seemed an exotic place - unable to be understood, out of reach. Now I <i>live</i> here.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Six months ago I picked up a copy of the book and started to read it again. Figured I might have a different perspective these days. But my reading got waylaid.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was brought back to the book last week by a group of artists who are using the novel's title and themes as a springboard for an art exhibit and happening - sharing their own perspectives on Accra life. Anna Kurtycz and Rudek van der Helm of Studio Kurtycz, whose November/December 2011 show <i>Neither Black Nor White</i> I also <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/12/home-for-art.html">blogged about</a>, teamed with local artists to put together this group event.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The performance-burning of one of a local artist's installations.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While I haven't yet seen the gallery portion of the show hung at the Goethe Institut in Accra, I did get to attend an art affair that opened the companion open-air/installation portion of the show in the tiny urban fishing community of La on the edge of Accra's beachfront.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I arrived at the event a few musicians and dancers were beginning a procession through the community's winding dirt paths. Along the way they passed artist's photos hung on the concrete or plywood walls of village structures as well as numerous site-specific installations.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The most accessible and engaging of the installations that I saw were Rudek's larger-than-life, block-print-style portraits painted onto clear acrylic sheets and scattered around the community. Done in black with a sparing accent color or two where appropriate, I slowly came to realize these were portraits of La residents.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking at a portrait titled "John Wayne," a man came up to me and proudly told me I was regarding a picture of himself. Turns out he is the chief fisherman of the village, and I was standing outside his house; the print was mounted just by his front door.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently the chief fisherman loves Westerns, and so everyone knows him as John Wayne. His portrait carried a boat paddle and a fishing net instead of the obligatory cowboy lasso and six-shooter.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The "moving installation" of artists and La residents wearing "I (Heart) LA" t-shirts was another perfectly whimsical touch. Were the shirts originally 'I Love Los Angeles' tees appropriated for the moment? Were they designed and made to <i>be</i> Ghana-La shirts? I still don't know, but either way they were an invitation to contemplate the vast difference between the Los Angeles metropolis and Ghana's urban beach village of La, as well as a playful comment on the appropriation/appropriateness of tourist kitsch.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anna and Rudek's careful alliances with Ghanaian artists - and now a Ghanaian community as well - treated audience members on Saturday to a Western-style public-art display integrated into and complementary of the life of a ramshackle developing-country settlement.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Rudek's print-painting (left) of a common Accra sight - a man with his pants half down peeing -<br />echoed by a human in the distance fastening his pants after some business on the beach. Though an<br />unhygienic practice, the lack of access to toilets is also a justice issue.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"It's hard to tell where the art ends and the village begins," said art appreciator and audience member Laura Evans.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I felt that way, too, as I joined two middle-aged local men atop a lopsided pile of concrete blocks to get a better perspective on the crowd, the performers, and the art. I watched local kids kick a dirty soccer ball between contemporary-art-inspired installations that would have been just as at home in the Tate Modern in London as on this hardscrabble dirt field next to the tight clusters of village huts. I watched a small group of women stoking their open-air kitchen fires, stirring large metal pots of soup, tending to their children - as they always do - listening to the live music and regarding the art-audience-outsiders with appreciation and amusement.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I felt that, at least for this day in the dirty urban-beach town of La, ordinary life was an artistic enterprise and art became a reflection - perhaps even an illumination - of both the mundanity and the sanctity of the everyday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I'd better get back to finishing that <i>Beautyful Ones</i> book.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LkXVPckNMVs/T9IBlj9M7BI/AAAAAAAAAbY/XFwbUOVtv6o/s1600/Beautyful+La+event+blog+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LkXVPckNMVs/T9IBlj9M7BI/AAAAAAAAAbY/XFwbUOVtv6o/s400/Beautyful+La+event+blog+7.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A Zoomlion (refuse collection) worker's portrait mounted by the dumpsters<br />where she sorts her garbage, just across a dirt field from her hamlet of La.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-92188336000991099732011-12-20T11:46:00.000+00:002011-12-20T11:46:15.462+00:00Father Christmas Says Happy Holidays<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iAyISbIPosk/TvB08oa7i3I/AAAAAAAAAaQ/aQpD29Q0lpU/s1600/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+1+mark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iAyISbIPosk/TvB08oa7i3I/AAAAAAAAAaQ/aQpD29Q0lpU/s400/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+1+mark.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ia7Di-kTyMM/TvB1A8geQrI/AAAAAAAAAaY/mTsf_8CuhOA/s1600/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+2+mark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ia7Di-kTyMM/TvB1A8geQrI/AAAAAAAAAaY/mTsf_8CuhOA/s400/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+2+mark.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C-A2gojQdXw/TvB1DsqFLoI/AAAAAAAAAag/ryyI8cfzWWo/s1600/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+3+mark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C-A2gojQdXw/TvB1DsqFLoI/AAAAAAAAAag/ryyI8cfzWWo/s400/Happy+holiday+2011+blog+3+mark.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-76759739087739409692011-12-08T22:33:00.000+00:002011-12-08T22:33:56.780+00:00In Ghana, Bikes Going 'Green'<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been surprising to find, over the last year, that Ghana is becoming a center for the manufacture of bamboo bicycles.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wait, did that just say <i>bamboo</i> bicycles?!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yup.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You mean <i>real</i> <i>bicycles</i>, that you can actually <i>pedal</i>, out of bamboo?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Absolutely.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's kind of what went through <i>my</i> head, anyway, when I stumbled across the bamboo idea.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had no notion you could build a bicycle frame from the plant. Or that bamboo bikes had been catching on, in the US and Europe at least, with the environmentally-conscious and hipster crowds. But when I Googled "<a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=bikes+in+Ghana&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">bikes in Ghana</a>" sometime after moving here, there they were: bamboo bikes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wow.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A couple months ago I got serious about reading up on these uber-cool pedaling machines. Googling for more info, I found out that <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Turning-Bamboo-Into-a-Bicycle.html">Craig Calfee</a> - originator of the carbon-fiber bicycle and one of the first people to build a modern bamboo bike - was working with independent bamboo bike builders in Ghana and would be visiting soon.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wait, no, he's in Ghana <i>now</i>. Could I possibly meet up with him?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why yes, after a flurry of phone calls and emails to track him down, I could. Sweet.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IfvbxGO1bNs/TuD3bJeKAzI/AAAAAAAAAZw/gsoPzatViwY/s1600/Bamboo+bike+blog+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IfvbxGO1bNs/TuD3bJeKAzI/AAAAAAAAAZw/gsoPzatViwY/s400/Bamboo+bike+blog+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Craig works with local builder Wisdom Toxla to test a frame.</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I caught up with him at the bike shop his nonprofit <a href="http://www.bamboosero.com/">Bamboosero</a> organization runs in Accra. Craig and Bamboosero support small, independent builders to make high-quality bamboo frames for export from Ghana to the US, where they justly command a price few Ghanaians are able or willing to pay.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmDVJmNifx4">Wisdom Toxla</a> is Bamboosero's main bicycle builder in Ghana. Once a Ghana national road cycling champion, he lives to make things. As a teenager, he built a wooden bicycle that ended up in the local science museum as a model of home-grown engineering. Now, he's turned to bamboo.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since Craig introduced me to Wisdom at the Bamboosero shop, I've <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/11/looniest-thing-ive-done-in-awhile.html">gone back to him</a> twice to take advantage of his bike mechanic skills and hear more of his story.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-416enzCxwEU/TuD3o8OrelI/AAAAAAAAAaI/vylASGXEfbo/s1600/Bamboo+bike+blog+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-416enzCxwEU/TuD3o8OrelI/AAAAAAAAAaI/vylASGXEfbo/s400/Bamboo+bike+blog+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Wisdom truing a wheel in Accra's Bamboosero bike shop.</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've also visited another Bamboosero shop, stopping in the town of <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=abompe+ghana&hl=en&geocode=+&hnear=Abompe,+Fanteakwa,+Eastern,+Ghana&t=m&z=13&vpsrc=0">Abompe</a> on my recent <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/12/pedaling-to-kumasi.html">bike trip from Accra to Kumasi</a>, Ghana's second city and cultural capital. Local builder Peasah took the time to meet with me on a Saturday afternoon in the hot season, giving me a tour of his bike workshop before pedaling off into the heat on his own bamboo wheels for a delayed meeting with a friend.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qzc2YThik_s/TuD3eJGCjMI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/nY2Cg06ofVI/s1600/Bamboo+bike+blog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qzc2YThik_s/TuD3eJGCjMI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/nY2Cg06ofVI/s400/Bamboo+bike+blog+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Peasah and his bamboo ride.</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you're in Ghana, or want to call up the <a href="http://www.calfeedesign.com/">Calfee Design</a> workshop near Santa Cruz, CA, these 'green' and Made-in-Africa bikes are available for sale. They're beautiful, with polished bamboo tubes fading into the organic, plant-fiber joints that hold everything together.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, they perform well. Reviewers much more technical than I say bamboo frames exhibit damping action as good as or better than carbon fiber, creating a great ride.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another player in Ghana's bamboo bike scene is <a href="http://www.modernghana.com/news/355516/1/ghanas-bamboo-bikes-factory-to-expand-production.html">Bamboo Bikes Limited</a>. Financed by Ghanaian businessman Kwame Sarpong and with motivation and help from the <a href="http://www.bamboobike.org/">Bamboo Bike Project</a> at Columbia University's Earth Institute, this factory is aiming for full-scale production of low-cost bamboo bikes. They hope their two-wheelers end up in the small towns and rural areas of Ghana and West Africa, providing affordable, locally-made transport empowerment to under-developed communities.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uSVpx5zXPqQ/TuD3kJgojHI/AAAAAAAAAaA/jobhq9_BJV4/s1600/Bamboo+bike+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uSVpx5zXPqQ/TuD3kJgojHI/AAAAAAAAAaA/jobhq9_BJV4/s400/Bamboo+bike+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Factory builders ride samples of their work.</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Part of my idea for biking to Kumasi was to visit this factory just outside the city. I found their workers are fully trained and ready to put some bikes together. After a delay in getting bike components into the country, they are presently swinging into full production mode, hoping to crank out hundreds of bicycles a year.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beyond the obvious wow-factor of the bamboo bikes themselves, you know what's cool in all of this? That <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana">Ghana</a>, a nation on the supposedly struggling continent of Africa, is becoming known for a very contemporary and environmentally-leading technology.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I applaud.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-85812595268451416852011-12-02T12:10:00.000+00:002011-12-02T12:10:14.765+00:00A Home for Art<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've always dreamed of having a nice house with an open lawn, creating some art, then turning the place into a gallery for my work.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here in Accra, Parisian-trained expatriate artists Anna Kurtycz and Rudek van der Helm are living that dream. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And not only that, they're doing one better, using their current show "Neither Black Nor White" to showcase the work of a select few Ghanaian artists as well.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Working under the artistic brand of "<a href="http://studiokurtycz.com/">Studio Kurtycz</a>," Anna and Rudek have shared their display space with local artists Isaac Konney, Kelvin Haizel, and Nii Obodai to run an exhibit from this past Wednesday, November 30 to Saturday, December 3.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I dropped in on the show's opening on Wednesday and absolutely loved what I found: a medley of engaging installations, photographs, video work, paintings, woodcuts, and prints all tucked fondly into well-crafted spaces around a manicured garden, a pool, and a few outbuildings.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rudek told me they gave particular thought, for this show, to the use of lighting in shaping discrete and welcoming exhibit-spaces for the nighttime open-houses. Their care and attention paid off: it's a magical night garden of lovingly-created, well-displayed, quality artworks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A ghostly Rudek installation haunts the pool.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CRC09cUPX30/Tti-FVdQ1oI/AAAAAAAAAZA/XOaUrDQo1-E/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CRC09cUPX30/Tti-FVdQ1oI/AAAAAAAAAZA/XOaUrDQo1-E/s400/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a screened terrace, photos by Nii Obodai make inspired use of white space and blur to channel the harmony and devotion of a unique Accra-based community of Moslems and Christians.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TG1miz_J8ZU/Tti-Gfm_vsI/AAAAAAAAAZI/BE12JCbBKhk/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TG1miz_J8ZU/Tti-Gfm_vsI/AAAAAAAAAZI/BE12JCbBKhk/s400/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vibrant butterfly paintings by Kelvin Haizel float through a pool-side pavilion.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uW6d7668eZE/Tti-OPRniTI/AAAAAAAAAZg/wkHXyEDSL7Q/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uW6d7668eZE/Tti-OPRniTI/AAAAAAAAAZg/wkHXyEDSL7Q/s400/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beautifully-layered photographs of Accra's striking clothing store mannequins show off Anna's artistic city-wanderings.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-85w-j1ruyPA/Tti-P5wdFZI/AAAAAAAAAZo/QZfdGUYdmtc/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-85w-j1ruyPA/Tti-P5wdFZI/AAAAAAAAAZo/QZfdGUYdmtc/s320/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And ethereal charcoal drawings by Isaac Konney celebrate the beauty-in-the-ordinary that is everywhere in this sweaty, gritty city.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7KUiUNxz21c/Tti-JacmW7I/AAAAAAAAAZQ/A-ssIvGrutw/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7KUiUNxz21c/Tti-JacmW7I/AAAAAAAAAZQ/A-ssIvGrutw/s400/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's even a participatory painting hung on the swingset, with visitors invited to 'paint' a Rudek self-portrait by hitting it with thrown 'eggs' of red dye.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pOg90ZDUMVU/Tti-L5WvgqI/AAAAAAAAAZY/wkEVaVKinDE/s1600/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pOg90ZDUMVU/Tti-L5WvgqI/AAAAAAAAAZY/wkEVaVKinDE/s400/Kurtycz+black-white+blog+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An intriguing body of work. A cool feast, in this hot season, for the eyes and the mind.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The show is on for two more days. You can visit, according to the <a href="http://studiokurtycz.com/">Studio Kurtycz</a> website:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-today, Friday evening, from 6 to 9 pm</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-or tomorrow, Saturday evening, from 4 to 8 pm.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Find their studio in Ringway Estate near Ako Adjei interchange, behind the Canadian High Commission and across from the SSNIT guest house.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-75642650387218738312011-12-01T12:39:00.000+00:002011-12-01T12:39:51.411+00:00Pedaling to Kumasi<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kumasi - Ghana's 'second city' and its cultural capital - lies a few hundred kilometers north and west of Accra. It has a sprawling open-air market, an Indian restaurant sometimes claimed to be the best in West Africa, a railway station that's been unused for quite awhile, and the joking-est tro-tro conductors around.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05dk4CdbPbw/TtdwYONmrcI/AAAAAAAAAYw/rRfBXdJzwzU/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05dk4CdbPbw/TtdwYONmrcI/AAAAAAAAAYw/rRfBXdJzwzU/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Crowds in Kumasi's market.</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How do I know all this? Three weeks ago, I rode my bicycle there from Accra.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which makes me a legend to some. "You pedaled all the way to Kumasi! Are you crazy? I <i>flew</i> there."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To others, I've fallen a bit short. "Why yes, I remember that Accra-Kumasi stretch from my cross-continental bike tour back in the late nineties…" (Ok, no one's said <i>that</i> to me yet, but I expect it to happen one day.)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For myself, it's a mixed picture: I sat my butt on that bike seat for three full days, and I made it. But I took the VIP bus home.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Tlbf03pqiA/TtdwZDlzqMI/AAAAAAAAAY4/9__Zj9Tk5xI/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Tlbf03pqiA/TtdwZDlzqMI/AAAAAAAAAY4/9__Zj9Tk5xI/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was the first real bike touring I'd done since riding across the US with my cousin Glen back in 2002. Sure I did some out-and-back overnights here in Ghana, but this was to be a multi-day outing with some real distance to cover. I'd have to buckle down.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I did. Sort of.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Day 1: 85 kilometers through hills from Accra to Koforidua. Day 2: 110 kilometers from Koforidua to Nkawkaw, with a stop at the bamboo bike workshop in Abompe (more about that in a later post). Day 3: 85 kilometers from Nkawkaw to a friend's house on the edge of Kumasi city. And then another day of 30 or 40 kilometers riding around Kumasi and finally settling at a hotel in its downtown.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a way, there's not much to report from all those kilometers. I got on the road each morning for three days straight and pedaled until I thought it wise to stop - for a cold drink, or for lunch, or for the mid-afternoon break when all living and moving things should be shaded from the relentless tropical sun.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(And that sun was merciless. From 11 am onwards my overriding thought became: how far can I go this time until I have to break for some shade and some cold liquid.)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To me, bike touring is all about being on the bike. When I'm not on the bike, frankly, I get bored. One of the most exciting things about traveling with my new rear rack and saddlebags was that I had enough cargo space to carry a book. Something to keep my mind occupied when I wasn't in motion.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was in motion there were always little things to notice. The man riding a bicycle with a plastic chair over his handlebars. The orange-headed lizard who raced me (and won) up the hill to Aburi. The laborer in a dirty yellow T-shirt laying down his machete to buy plastic packets of gin to spike his afternoon. Water so cold vapor poured out the top of my bike bottle as I filled it. A woman in an outdoor shower calling "Hello!" to me as I rode past, her chocolate shoulders dripping with soapsuds. The "Only Jesus In Stock" store. In cocoa-farm country, a whole town smelling like cocoa powder.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, some more substantial memories.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-The joy of the early morning cool. It was a struggle for me, a natural night owl, to get up and on the road as early as I should have. In Ghana, the sun rises every day right around 6, and the wise bike tourer is pedaling by then, getting in the miles before the noon-day sun begins to addle the brain. I usually managed to have my butt in the saddle by 7. Which left me about an hour to enjoy any sort of morning coolness left in the air. And boy, did I learn to savor that hour.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-The joy of a cold packet of Fan Ice soft serve ice cream on a hot day. 'Nuff said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cfC9a25WCZI/TtdwPxVlHII/AAAAAAAAAYI/w3qEk_oRyj0/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cfC9a25WCZI/TtdwPxVlHII/AAAAAAAAAYI/w3qEk_oRyj0/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-Getting spanked by a teenage girl outside Mamfe. Yes, spanked. I was zipping downhill from Mamfe town and saw some kids horsing around on the road ahead. They turned out to be teenage girls, who scattered to the side as I passed. They yelled and laughed at me, as teenage girls will at sights less strange than a white man in biking gear whizzing through African hills. And, as I glided past, one of them reached out with a stick and tapped me lightly on the butt. Admirable aim.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-The marching band of Asankare. Video below.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy_qVbG9E87O9HNUJXrcgVUVRzGUVrcsZpACIJxasMNcQT3Tr_aU-dZ38a2ftGv05UiBDp6zuClLKLvGzrRcw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-Bowls of rice and beans with the chickens. Restaurant kitchens can be quite slow in Ghana, and so I often turned to the side-of-the-road, under-the-tree, pot-over-charcoal-fire sort of eating establishments to get fuel for my legs. You stop, the woman dishes out some rice and beans, you're eating. Done. These rice-and-bean moments were some of the best of my trip. The beans were tasty, and I could just sit on the offered wooden bench and watch the street-life around me as hens scratched in the dirt under the plastic table and little yellow chickies ran across my shoes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P03VkEOGYHg/TtdwWkpd8DI/AAAAAAAAAYo/NqrgEkm1RkU/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P03VkEOGYHg/TtdwWkpd8DI/AAAAAAAAAYo/NqrgEkm1RkU/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-The man who bought me my first Malta. This was in a road-side bar called the "Hollywood Spot." Which bore no resemblance at all to Hollywood. But the man was kind, and called out to me as I sat sweating at a table, waiting for a drink. "The sun is too hot for you!" he joked to me, but then was suitably impressed when he realized it was a bicycle and not a motorcycle I was riding to Kumasi. He bought me a Guiness Malta, a sort of non-alcoholic version of Guiness beer. I don't usually like these dark, malted drinks, but this one tasted sweet and thick and I downed it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zHUpsSg3ALg/TtdwQ85HH0I/AAAAAAAAAYQ/-ry8gBQDEhs/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zHUpsSg3ALg/TtdwQ85HH0I/AAAAAAAAAYQ/-ry8gBQDEhs/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-Craggy hills and peaceful sunset at Nkawkaw. A line of green hills had been on my right all day after I hit the main Kumasi-Accra road at the Bunso rest-stop junction. Around Nkawkaw, as the sun set, they became particularly craggy and picturesque. Maybe I'll get to bike into them one day.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Qxq1ssfnCf0/TtdwTRkb0BI/AAAAAAAAAYY/QSnggkwIuDo/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Qxq1ssfnCf0/TtdwTRkb0BI/AAAAAAAAAYY/QSnggkwIuDo/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For now, I'll have to just bike into the sunset.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QspsfmCsrGo/TtdwUhv4kxI/AAAAAAAAAYg/DdKY3s0aZmk/s1600/Bike+Kumasi+blog+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QspsfmCsrGo/TtdwUhv4kxI/AAAAAAAAAYg/DdKY3s0aZmk/s400/Bike+Kumasi+blog+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-72021012797683034102011-11-22T12:54:00.000+00:002011-11-22T12:54:34.250+00:00This Should Bring in the Tourists...<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A little sticker-gem from the hotel in Kumasi that I stayed in after my bike ride to Ghana's second city.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iMPezuAQZvc/Tsua9yANKNI/AAAAAAAAAYA/8ac08Xi_-X8/s1600/PromoteTourismPicBlog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iMPezuAQZvc/Tsua9yANKNI/AAAAAAAAAYA/8ac08Xi_-X8/s400/PromoteTourismPicBlog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Check back soon for more about that ride, including my successful search for Ghana's bamboo bike manufacturers.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-60418084995466109882011-11-04T14:30:00.001+00:002011-11-04T14:30:00.744+00:00The Looniest Thing I've Done in Awhile<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last week I rode my bicycle 60 miles over Ghana's uneven roads, braving bug bites and speeding trucks, overflowing streams and tropical heat, to the riverside town of Akosombo.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But that wasn't the crazy thing. The loony was what happened <i>after</i>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">See, on my way back from Akosombo to Accra, I heard a metallic pop from the vicinity of my rear wheel. I looked down through the pannier-laden rear rack. Broken spoke. Crap.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wanted to keep pedaling - the hill I'd been looking forward to climbing was just ahead.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Lots of people in the world ride bikes with wobbly wheels," my brain reasoned. But some sane advice from a friend convinced me to stop.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I flagged down a tro-tro, one of Ghana's go-everywhere, rattletrap, privately-run, minivan-style buses. The driver hopped out to lash my bike into the scant rear 'boot' of his rattle-y contraption.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"No-no," I said, horrified that my bike might travel in such appalling conditions. "I want to buy one seat!"</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Ok, one seat!" the tro-tro conductor said. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so, for my bike's safe and comfortable transport, I paid the equivalent of three fares to Accra - for it stretched itself perfectly across the front bench seat, just behind the driver, taking up the same space as three people.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xMhcmvu9EhU/TrFUMM19LaI/AAAAAAAAAW4/woRufCFSHaY/s1600/Looniest+Thing+blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xMhcmvu9EhU/TrFUMM19LaI/AAAAAAAAAW4/woRufCFSHaY/s400/Looniest+Thing+blog1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And bike and rider were both safely home within two hours.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, that was kind of crazy, treating my bike like three people. But loonier far was what I did next.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wanted that rear wheel fixed, and the only person I knew to turn to in Accra was Wisdom Toxla. He's a local bike builder who I had met just the previous week doing an interview with Craig Calfee. Craig is a US-based bike designer who built one of the first modern bamboo bikes, and I caught up with him in Accra where he was helping Wisdom and other local builders make and market bikes fashioned from Ghanaian bamboo.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I called up Wisdom, and he said I should come right over to his shop. Trouble was, that meant getting way across town to the market-neighborhood of Kaneshie, and I knew traffic would be bad. I didn't want to sit in a taxi for an hour.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I realized, hey, I'm already in biking gear. I've already got sunblock on. I'll just <i>ride</i> over there.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But wait, you say, how could I ride my bicycle if its missing a rear wheel? Well, I have a second bike, see, a 'beater bike' for running errands and such. So, I popped that broken-spoke rear wheel off my mountain bike, got onto my beater bike, and took off.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And now, finally, here comes the loony.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For the uninitiated - and sometimes even for the <i>initiated</i> - simply riding a bike through Accra traffic is crazy enough.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tro-tros are always pulling over in front of you as they pick or drop passengers at the roadside. There's long lines of traffic stopped at lights, which means shooting between lanes of cars to advance. There's side-of-the-road and middle-of-the-road street-goods sellers to dodge as they go car-door to car-door working the same long lines of traffic at the lights. There's smoke-belching, dubiously-maintained trucks carrying huge containers from the Tema port with drivers who care not a whit about a peon on a bike. And, in the general melee of Accra traffic-time, spaces between vehicles are sometimes so tight that not even a bicycle can get through.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AcHOjs91E_U/TrFV16rgM5I/AAAAAAAAAXI/-kIxAUSmicY/s1600/Looniest+Thing+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AcHOjs91E_U/TrFV16rgM5I/AAAAAAAAAXI/-kIxAUSmicY/s400/Looniest+Thing+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Caught between tro-tro and motorcycle, this is how the traffic gets,<br />
sometimes, in Ghana.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now here I was, dealing with all this - plus I had a bike tire dangling off my left-side handlebar!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had started out simply carrying the tire in my left hand and riding with my right hand. But a bike wheel, I discovered, is much heavier than I thought. So I soon hung the wheel from my handlebar, gaining also the advantage of steering with two hands instead of just one.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As luck would have it, I soon ran into some of the worst traffic Accra has to offer. There had been flooding, just the day before, at the central Nkrumah Circle roundabout, and cross-town traffic was at a standstill for kilometers at a stretch.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I launched my determined self down the long lines of cars and trucks, pedaling now between the lanes, now on the street-side shoulder. I had to put my bike-bell to good use warning those street-sellers to get out of my way. Several times I dragged my bike up on a sidewalk or median to get past a particularly snarled section of traffic. All the while that bike wheel dangling off my handlebar.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Completely loony.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know how many times that dangling wheel nearly hit a car's rear lights or side-panel as it swung back and forth from the handlebar with each cutting-through-traffic swerve. But I loved the thrill of the charge, of going faster than all those four-wheeled beasts irredeemably stuck in the worst Accra-jam I've seen.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, miraculously, within twenty minutes of my arrival at his shop, Wisdom had the spoke replaced and that rear wheel was good as new.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lcaiE7i012E/TrFUOPe7-aI/AAAAAAAAAXA/frJEptSpVc4/s1600/Looniest+Thing+blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lcaiE7i012E/TrFUOPe7-aI/AAAAAAAAAXA/frJEptSpVc4/s400/Looniest+Thing+blog2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Wisdom truing my rear wheel on one of his bamboo bike frames.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Time to charge home. Back into traffic. Rear wheel dangling from that handlebar once more.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Edging my swervy, dangly way back through the snarl of cars and trucks and pedestrians at Circle, I spotted a guy selling some small foam blocks. I remembered that I needed a couple for my Halloween outfit. I stopped at the roadside and hissed at him.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He came over, dodging traffic. I asked how much. "Fifty pesewas for one," he said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Twenty," I said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I leaned my bike over to let a motorcycle squeeze between us and a crammed-full tro-tro.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Fifty," he said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Oh! That is the <i>obruni</i> price," I said. You're treating me like a no-nothing white man.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"No, no…" he started, slightly aggrieved. Then he caught the twinkle in my eye. He laughed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A bus stopped on my left, its door right next to me. Passengers had to dodge my bicycle immediately upon stepping down. The bus driver didn't move. The passengers didn't seem to mind. I held my ground. I bought two of the foam blocks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I saw a ten year old kid peddling Fan Ice, a Ghana-made soft ice cream product sold in a small plastic pouch. I hissed at him, or her, I wasn't sure which.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"One Fan Ice," I said. He didn't say a thing, just dug in her pocket for the change he knew I would want then took the box of ice cream pouches off her head to hand me one.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I threw the foam blocks and the Fan Ice into my bike's front basket and took off again.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Through Circle, the traffic cleared. It was time to eat my Fan Ice.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, you gotta understand, I'd been craving a Fan Ice since 10 in the morning, when I had been working up a sweat on my way back to Accra, before that spoke broke. It was now four in the afternoon, and a lot of craziness had happened since that 10 am desire.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so, with my left hand both steering and holding onto the bike wheel as it dangled from the handlebar, and with my right hand clutching the Fan Ice pouch, I glided over and around the potholes of Accra in soft-ice-cream-fueled bliss, insanely happy.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes, ice cream deferred is the best ice cream there is. Even if it comes with a dripping topping of loony.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-49996118238870684202011-11-02T13:28:00.000+00:002011-11-02T13:28:02.995+00:00"I love you, my darling!"<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was on my way from Accra to Aksomobo on my mountain bike last week, some 60 miles by (mostly) paved road.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had ridden safely through the congested 'suburb' of dusty Medina and pedaled my way across the gently rolling flats that followed, and was almost at the climb into the low hills north of Accra city.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Oi4J0QHGlck/TrFCknsu4gI/AAAAAAAAAWA/zWYFbKFp1q8/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Oi4J0QHGlck/TrFCknsu4gI/AAAAAAAAAWA/zWYFbKFp1q8/s400/Love+u+darling+blog1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pulling past a tollbooth tucked in at the base of the climb, I looked briefly into the small knot of road-side sellers - hawking bread, or cell phone cards, or plantain chips - that alway gathers there.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I made eye contact with a teenage girl. Her head was shaved, like most school-age girls around, and she wore a red T-shirt. She looked back at my white, bike-helmeted self and laughed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I love you, my darling!" she spontaneously called out.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is what I love about my long rides here: the love that Ghana shows to me. The loveliest offerings - like the woman calling to me at the tollbooth - being the random encounters with people and things that simply tickle my randomosity-loving side.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Later, up in those hills, I heard a shout. I looked up to see a young man hoeing a field on the side of a green hill.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qLaj9GoobSw/TrFCqmK4vFI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/3ugqpLfbeMg/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qLaj9GoobSw/TrFCqmK4vFI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/3ugqpLfbeMg/s400/Love+u+darling+blog3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You are my brother," he yelled out. I waved.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then: "Take me to Europe," he cried. He held up his hands. "I am ready!"</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He had no luggage other than his hoe, and I'm guessing no passport either. But I don't doubt that, if I had said yes, he would indeed have been completely ready.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not long after that, I happened upon a very yellow building, Victory International School. But better even than the irony of a school in hill-country Ghana being called 'international' was the Disney-style decor hung on the yellow walls.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-431-JMlwH2w/TrFCn6ei3AI/AAAAAAAAAWI/tDglrsH50Ig/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-431-JMlwH2w/TrFCn6ei3AI/AAAAAAAAAWI/tDglrsH50Ig/s400/Love+u+darling+blog2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Evidently, Snow White goes to school in Ghana.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there was the taxi driver overhauling his engine by the side of the road. His orange-hipped chariot parked on the shoulder, hood open. Engine in ten pieces strewn on the pavement in front of the car, all the pistons out. No repair shop needed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The electric blue sky was a treat, too, more random love in a tropical country that most often thrives on a humid haze.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MXbipxv-944/TrFCtd62JZI/AAAAAAAAAWY/zjTPshhlleA/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MXbipxv-944/TrFCtd62JZI/AAAAAAAAAWY/zjTPshhlleA/s400/Love+u+darling+blog4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another 'treat' was this freakish painting on the outer wall of a medicine man's compound.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MGIkjzNq_PU/TrFCwVZ9dQI/AAAAAAAAAWo/7tlLxcoqEsc/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MGIkjzNq_PU/TrFCwVZ9dQI/AAAAAAAAAWo/7tlLxcoqEsc/s320/Love+u+darling+blog6.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn't stick around to see if the medicine man might give me some love or throw me a curse.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The next morning, pedaling back toward Accra from Akosombo, the random-ness started again with an 8 foot tall by 8 foot wide stack of speakers set out in a dirt courtyard, pumping hip-life music into the 9 am air, no party in sight.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not long after, I passed a small roadside stall of shoes for sale. The shoe-seller was polishing and putting out his wares for the morning. He gave me a big, exaggerated <i>wink</i> as I pedaled past. Just showin' the love.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then a tro-tro (local minibus) showed me some love, too - in its own way. It ran me off the road.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I took exception to this, yelling at the young 'conductor' as I pedaled beside, he simply stuck his head out the window of the minivan's sliding side door and said to me mildly, "Don't fight, my man." Ah, Ghana.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Soon I was treated to a tro-tro 'school bus' full of blue-suited schoolkids yelling "Obruni, obruni" at me. "White man, white man."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyXKgHMy5eeonU-8eEuczDjRKDw5DyM8_YnZnWh-lr9ogdpzflIaxzygtpynaF2abCSBp182YFdjhhHLn9Epg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And then, in a shop-wall mural depicting an idyllic country-pond scene, a painting of a rabbit riding a goose.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bufbkbz4QSo/TrFCzV0DEuI/AAAAAAAAAWw/k40enTAm_Gs/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bufbkbz4QSo/TrFCzV0DEuI/AAAAAAAAAWw/k40enTAm_Gs/s400/Love+u+darling+blog7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Later, the randomness continued as, pushing my sunglasses up on my nose, they simply disintegrated off my face, falling to the pavement in several pieces.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently, <i>they</i> didn't love me.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Maybe my touch was simply more powerful than I knew. Or maybe I had indeed picked up a touch of a curse when I stopped to photograph that medicine man's paintings. Here's another one.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw1Q_KEW0BM/TrFCveuSncI/AAAAAAAAAWg/IHKvDBGBjZ8/s1600/Love+u+darling+blog5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw1Q_KEW0BM/TrFCveuSncI/AAAAAAAAAWg/IHKvDBGBjZ8/s400/Love+u+darling+blog5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We'll hope the Ghana love wins out over the Ghana jinx.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-59956966142977477102011-10-13T16:18:00.000+00:002011-10-13T16:18:17.145+00:00Embracing the Grit of the Ordinary<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From kebab skewers of cedi coins on the grill, to a miniature cityscape formed from cast-off electronics, to an asymmetrical and abstract portrait of a football star, the current <a href="http://fcaghanablog.wordpress.com/">Foundation for Contemporary Art</a> exhibit showing at the <a href="http://www.afaccra.com/">Alliance Francaise</a> is an exciting look at emerging postmodern trends in the Ghanaian artistic psyche.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The group show features work from over 30 artists and is chock full of exactly the kind of art that I get excited about. There's video, installations, found-object work, street-scene-based painting, and loads of three-dimensional and mixed media pieces.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exhibit - "Wobole Kutu Wokpe: Cultures in Confluence" - is so big, in fact, that it needs two venues. It's running concurrently at the Alliance and the <a href="http://www.goethe.de/ins/gh/acc/en8176175v.htm">Goethe Institut</a> through October 29, 2011.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I attended the opening ceremony at the Alliance on Wednesday (Oct 12) and was very glad I went. Otherwise, I would have missed the welcoming performance piece that, reminiscent of the Biblical last supper, linked me with other attendees in a communion of pita bread and pounded yam with palm oil - a perfect culture-blending moment to set off the culture-questioning exhibit.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pONe_HxTsb4/TpcJhaDVrbI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/P0WVE4W9C7A/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pONe_HxTsb4/TpcJhaDVrbI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/P0WVE4W9C7A/s400/FCA+contemp+art+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are some of my favorite works from the show.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Circuit boards from discarded computers and other electronics designed into an architectural-model cityscape. Fascinating and brilliant.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bV9kWkqqw0Q/TpcJjqLu9sI/AAAAAAAAAVg/4lubR2U-SZs/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bV9kWkqqw0Q/TpcJjqLu9sI/AAAAAAAAAVg/4lubR2U-SZs/s400/FCA+contemp+art+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nana Afari<br />
"Untitled"<br />
Installation</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A sort of post-impressionist style painting of a street-side phone card seller. I talked with the artist for awhile, and he explained that the panel to the right represents the thought-space of the woman. She is "reflecting" on how, not long ago, she would have been selling vegetables at her stand, not cell phone cards. The repeated emblem in the panel was designed by the artist in the spirit of Ghana's rich symbol-tradition.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IwRfHnePBQc/TpcJmdMU6bI/AAAAAAAAAVw/6i0j-yNQVXg/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IwRfHnePBQc/TpcJmdMU6bI/AAAAAAAAAVw/6i0j-yNQVXg/s400/FCA+contemp+art+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andrews Yao Torsu<br />
"Reflection"<br />
Acrylic on canvas</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cedi coins skewered up and 'grilling' on a makeshift grill made from a car wheel - a typical street scene in Ghana. Only, of course, it's usually meat and not coins on the skewer. A lovely, wry culture-comment of an installation.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mGCunAp0kpo/TpcJi6t7GCI/AAAAAAAAAVY/gFqZaA6mRLk/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mGCunAp0kpo/TpcJi6t7GCI/AAAAAAAAAVY/gFqZaA6mRLk/s400/FCA+contemp+art+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B. K. Quaye [Sir Black]<br />
"Untitled"<br />
Installation</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Abstract portrait of Black Stars football standout Asamoah Gyan. So much more engaging than the more lifelike but oh so run-of-the-mill portraits of Gyan usually seen roadside in Ghana.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V9QOEdja1Ic/TpcJlcBQmYI/AAAAAAAAAVo/WfFGd-W_Dhw/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V9QOEdja1Ic/TpcJlcBQmYI/AAAAAAAAAVo/WfFGd-W_Dhw/s400/FCA+contemp+art+4.jpg" width="393" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">S. Tete Katchan<br />
"Asamoah Gyan"<br />
Acrylic on canvas</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And finally, video art! By artist Ama Adinkra, who I had already met through the <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/09/woman-riding-bike.html">Woman on Bike</a> workshop at the Goethe Institut. Her piece juxtaposed fluid dancer sequences with close-up portraits, exposing the power of the video camera to capture both external motion and strong traces of internal expression.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VWEUfgx0Rs4/TpcJoiPuEbI/AAAAAAAAAV4/gXqEz0Am18c/s1600/FCA+contemp+art+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VWEUfgx0Rs4/TpcJoiPuEbI/AAAAAAAAAV4/gXqEz0Am18c/s400/FCA+contemp+art+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ama Adinkra<br />
"Reflect"<br />
Video Performance</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exhibition, according to the FCA's event postcard, "Represents a step towards an investigation of the complexities of contemporary Ghanaian society… Who is the Ghanaian? What does national identity mean to him/her? What are the issues that engage the Ghanaian's attention?"</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For myself, I was simply glad to have found a group of local artists consciously working to embrace contemporary ideas that extend art beyond the two-dimensional canvas and beyond traditional ideas of portraiture or landscape into the sometimes-uneven but always exciting world of the found object, the culture-questioning installation or video piece, the streetscape-driven painting.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The works in this exhibit manage to escape both the predictability of Ghana's established art scene and the mundanity of the local craft industry. Embracing the grit of the ordinary, these artists have produced extraordinary work.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-17494754287700686232011-10-06T14:05:00.000+00:002011-10-06T14:05:26.798+00:00Maxwell the (Mad?) Chalk Artist Man<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Take me to New York City," he said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was standing under Accra's only train bridge, talking to the city's number one chalk artist. I had noticed his work - chalk text scrawled on sidewalk and bridge walls around Accra's main motorway interchange - pedaling past with my mountain bike on rides north toward the Aburi hills.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this time I wasn't biking through. I came to check out the art and artist, and I brought my camera.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Take me to New York City," he said to me again. I wasn't sure whether to make a joke or ignore the request. I didn't realize I was about to become this artist's patron.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RHZH-4Bkp3E/To2TdQ4rqzI/AAAAAAAAAU4/5Jazg6z8W9k/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RHZH-4Bkp3E/To2TdQ4rqzI/AAAAAAAAAU4/5Jazg6z8W9k/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After that direct opening, and given the dense and conspiracy-driven nature of his text art, I wasn't sure what to expect. But as I squatted down beside the man for a chat, I found him quite lucid and conversational.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His name, I learned, was Maxwell, and he seemed happy for some attention. I spent some time, then, taking pictures of Maxwell and his art.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nkzYeCJYeSU/To2TgUhCHYI/AAAAAAAAAU8/cg6S2YB_YDE/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nkzYeCJYeSU/To2TgUhCHYI/AAAAAAAAAU8/cg6S2YB_YDE/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In our conversation, it came out that he was out of chalk. A few nubs by his flip-flopped feet, he showed me, were all he had left.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJmsevXXk6E/To2TjptZmFI/AAAAAAAAAVA/IzWtEGE8Mdk/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJmsevXXk6E/To2TjptZmFI/AAAAAAAAAVA/IzWtEGE8Mdk/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, after doing some other shooting around the area, I wandered over to the nearby mall, picked up a couple boxes of chalk, and brought them back to Maxwell. He was glad to have some tools for his trade again.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e4p6zqryNFo/To2TlJfisWI/AAAAAAAAAVE/1ICl8gee3x4/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e4p6zqryNFo/To2TlJfisWI/AAAAAAAAAVE/1ICl8gee3x4/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My first patron-of-the-arts position. And all it took was two packs of chalk. What a deal.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In return, Maxwell shared his lucky lotto numbers with me.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HvhcX_VqT5E/To2ToMT-WoI/AAAAAAAAAVI/axlUPcc2lOI/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HvhcX_VqT5E/To2ToMT-WoI/AAAAAAAAAVI/axlUPcc2lOI/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I was leaving, a passerby in a bright yellow t-shirt stopped to talk to me, curious why I was taking photos of the off-the-grid guy hanging out under the train bridge.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"He's just a mad man, you know," the man in the bright yellow t-shirt said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"He's an artist," I said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The man in the bright yellow t-shirt asked me how long I had been in Ghana. He asked for my telephone number. He said he liked me. “I want to spend time with you,” he said.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Um, I just met you, dude. Who's the mad one <i>now</i>?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A few days later, I stopped by to see Maxwell again as I pedaled through once more toward the Aburi hills. He was sound asleep, but had left his own reply to the man-in-the-yellow-t-shirt's comment scrawled on the sidewalk by his head.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uQhcnlWy4yg/To2TqwKnc-I/AAAAAAAAAVM/FbAD6c08EUg/s1600/Maxwell+chalk+blog+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uQhcnlWy4yg/To2TqwKnc-I/AAAAAAAAAVM/FbAD6c08EUg/s400/Maxwell+chalk+blog+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"Everybody crazy."</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm inclined to agree.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-47759845529054379212011-09-29T17:01:00.000+00:002011-09-29T17:01:05.842+00:00"Run in the middle of the road, it will be safer!"<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">This past Sunday morning I ran a half-marathon. Yes, 13.1 miles. Sounds like a lot of miles? It is.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm more of a biker than a runner. So why did I do it? I dunno. Cross-training, I guess.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">To dodge Ghana's tropical, near-equatorial heat and ocean-fed humidity, the race started at 6:30 a.m. I had to de-bed at 4:45 to get myself ready and to the starting line. 4:45, people! No small feat for a night-owl.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The starting-line experience was awesome. Surrounded by shipping containers stacked five-high at the port in Tema, Accra's sister city, a hundred dazed runners milled about sporting oh-so-fashionable race numbers pinned to the fronts of their shirts. I made a Ghana milestone for myself, before the race even started, by peeing in a nearby street-side ditch (<i>somewhat</i> screened by the back of a bus stop).</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Hey, I had to go. And, if you're a man in Ghana, you gotta pee in a street-side ditch at least once. It's tradition.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The start of the course followed the coast. Waves crashed pleasantly just to my left. Ocean breezes kept things cool. By the 3 mile mark, I was thinking about quitting. Why not just sit on the beach all day? But then I forgot about quitting and just ran.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Running the <a href="http://www.aimghana.com/index.html">Accra International Marathon</a> is a unique experience. "It can be kind of like orienteering," a friend said, giving me pre-start advice from his adventures the year before. And he wasn't joking. He had a GPS strapped to his wrist.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">In this marathon/half-marathon run, there are no regular race markers. The road is <i>not</i> closed off to vehicle traffic. Water stations can be hit-or-miss. There are no ambulances standing by.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The majority of the course is done on potholed roads, where runners compete with taxis, diplomat-plate SUVs, exhaust-spewing tro-tros (local mini-buses), and the occasional bicycle for road-space; on rutted dirt shoulders, where runners compete with trucks broken down at the side of the road, tro-tros pulling over to pick up passengers, and again the occasional bicycle for shoulder-space; and on busy market sidewalks, where runners compete with pedestrians, sidewalk kiosk sellers, men carrying jugs of water on their heads, and yes the occasional bicycle, for sidewalk-space.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">This road-and-shoulder sharing didn't bother me as much as it might have, however. I've done plenty of walking and biking in and around Accra traffic, and I've learned to trust Accra drivers enough to know they won't hit me. They're better drivers than I am - at least in the sense that they can reliably come within six inches of my person and <i>not</i> bash me in the kneecaps with a fender or catch my elbow with their side mirror. This is a skill I wouldn't trust drivers in the US, say, to possess.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">But still, the best only-in-Accra moment of the race came at me completely unexpected.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I was on the most challenging part of the run. It was the dropping-tired 9 to 11 mile-mark section, and the racecourse was running straight through the bustling town of Teshie, right down the main market street. I was struggling down the left-hand side of the gritty thoroughfare, constantly in danger of barging into a phone-card seller if I ran on the sidewalk or of being flattened by a pulling-over tro-tro if I ran on the street's margin.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Finally, a policeman directing traffic at an intersection took pity on me. "Run in the middle of the road," he hollered to me, holding up traffic with one hand to let me pass. "It will be safer!"</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The thing is: he was right. Traffic was backed up enough to be moving slowly, the road was very well-paved in the middle, and my two-leggedness definitely made me visible among all the four-wheeled madness.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">So I ran the last miles of the race following the center stripe, with traffic steaming past in both directions on either side of me. Taxi-drivers yelled encouragement as they drifted by, keeping their side mirrors at least six inches (usually) away from my hips and elbows.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Equatorial cross-training at its best.</div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-23725607422344268532011-09-22T16:25:00.001+00:002011-09-22T16:25:25.393+00:00'African' Art, with a Twist<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The exhibit "Pret-a-partager: A transcultural exchange in art, fashion and sports" has been making its way around the continent, and I was lucky to catch it here in Ghana last week.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Sponsored locally by the <a href="http://www.goethe.de/ins/gh/acc/enindex.htm">Goethe Institut</a>, the exhibit contained artifacts and artworks from an artist's conference organized by the German international cultural exchange organization IFA in Dakkar, Senegal in 2008.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Walking through the exhibit rooms, it was quickly apparent that this group of artists had played hard with the sort of mediums - installation, street/performance art, found objects - and themes - race, cross-cultural identity, cityscapes, the juxtaposition of art with the everyday - that I often contemplate.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">A <a href="http://www.ifa.de/en/exhibitions/exhibitions-abroad/bk/pret-a-partager/zohra-opoku/type/98/">series of photos</a> by <a href="http://www.zohraopoku.com/">Zohra Opoku</a>, for instance, combines fashion design with photography with the urgency of momentary performance in a fleetingly-captured cityscape. Her photographs of white-clad dancers performing capoeira-inspired moves at sites around Dakkar are just the sort of thing I'd love to pull off in Accra.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yaatPxG30rk/TntgdU4Tb1I/AAAAAAAAAUs/dvWvBVS8uKA/s1600/Pret+Partager+blog+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yaatPxG30rk/TntgdU4Tb1I/AAAAAAAAAUs/dvWvBVS8uKA/s400/Pret+Partager+blog+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Another piece I loved was what I laughingly called the "butt-calabash" - a part of a large gourd (in local culture named a calabash, traditionally used to carry liquids) sewn onto the seat of a pair of jeans.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ui0Z-857OOo/TntgiO8HHaI/AAAAAAAAAU0/77ju6PxojKg/s1600/Pret+Partager+blog+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ui0Z-857OOo/TntgiO8HHaI/AAAAAAAAAU0/77ju6PxojKg/s400/Pret+Partager+blog+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">A perfectly irreverent twist on fashion, tradition, and 'African' culture. I wish I could have been the white guy wearing these jeans around Dakkar for a day.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">My favorite piece was probably a video documenting a street performance inspired by the then-upcoming Muslim celebration of Eid. Taking advantage of the city's street-side sheep markets and playing off the imminent household sheep-slaughter that is a prominent Eid ritual in Dakkar, artist <a href="http://www.ifa.de/en/exhibitions/exhibitions-abroad/bk/pret-a-partager/athi-patra-ruga/">Athi-Patra Ruga</a> took over a small piece of sidewalk, enclosed himself within a table with only his head peeking out, then let the sheep eat fruit placed on the table around his head. Brilliant nuttiness.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9y84Lu26U3g/TntgeyefKeI/AAAAAAAAAUw/UwVz_8obcsM/s1600/Pret+Partager+blog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9y84Lu26U3g/TntgeyefKeI/AAAAAAAAAUw/UwVz_8obcsM/s400/Pret+Partager+blog+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The <a href="http://www.nubukefoundation.org/home/">Nubuke Foundation</a> in Accra's East Legon suburb hosted Pret-a-partager. Though the exhibit ended on September 17, I'm sure I'll be dropping in again soon to sample more of their creative offerings.</div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-13273882972078264202011-09-13T11:27:00.000+00:002011-09-13T11:27:41.924+00:00Woman, Riding Bike<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last week there was an intriguing workshop at the <a href="http://www.goethe.de/ins/gh/acc/enindex.htm">Goethe Institut</a> - a German language and cultural center - in Accra. Called <a href="http://zohraopoku.blogspot.com/2011/08/women-on-bike-workshop.html">Woman on Bike</a>, it focused on the intersection of art, gender, fashion, and (of course) bicycles.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since all these subjects intrigue me, I was intent on attending, but could only manage to get there one day out of the five. Dropping by on Wednesday afternoon, I found a small group intently discussing both the possibilities for bicycle-themed art/graphics/performances and for getting more people - especially women - to ride bikes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bicycles are present on the streets of Accra but not in large numbers, and I can count on one hand the times I've seen a woman pedaling anything with two wheels. Until last week, that is. I joined the Woman on Bike group for their daily ride and, with five females saddling up, more than doubled my count.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We tooled slowly around the city, starting on the quiet suburb-like lanes of Labone before venturing into the vehicular madness around the Burma Camp Road and Trade Fair. I've heard plenty of excuses for why folks don't like to ride bike here, the traffic and the road-side open ditches always high among them. But riding in a group was profoundly comforting: our number made us collectively a larger vehicle than one biker alone, and we knew someone was there to help us if we tripped into that ditch.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Were drivers always kind? No. We had large trucks rumbling by way-too-close and tro-tro drivers pulling over sharply in front of us to pick up their next passenger. But, even as a group with a high number of fairly novice riders, we tackled one of the most difficult stretches of road to bike in Accra - the beach road between Labadi and La Palm hotels - and came through unscathed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The ride reminded me how good it feels to get out on the bike, and how fun it is to ride with others. I hope last week's workshop helps more of Accra's citizens find, and never forget, the joy of biking.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Note: This workshop ran in conjunction with the <a href="http://www.accraexpat.com/events/?story=652&type=event">Pret-a-partager exhibit</a> at the <a href="http://www.nubukefoundation.org/home/">Nubuke Foundation</a> in East Legon. A collection of work from a Dakkar-based artists meeting in 2008, the exhibit has been showing around the continent and is in Accra till Sept. 17.</i></span></div><div><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PHExJ_wqiBM/Tm85mfdqg-I/AAAAAAAAAUY/hdH4D9CGZEc/s1600/WomanBikeBlog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PHExJ_wqiBM/Tm85mfdqg-I/AAAAAAAAAUY/hdH4D9CGZEc/s400/WomanBikeBlog1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Starting out brings smiles.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y85Wa9SitkE/Tm85t4I4MkI/AAAAAAAAAUg/-BoiYUxh3a8/s1600/WomanBikeBlog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y85Wa9SitkE/Tm85t4I4MkI/AAAAAAAAAUg/-BoiYUxh3a8/s400/WomanBikeBlog3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Our biking lineup battles Accra's taxis for supremacy on the road.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9MmDsGs0UHI/Tm85o-T2v1I/AAAAAAAAAUc/NuRcnWMGz5c/s1600/WomanBikeBlog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9MmDsGs0UHI/Tm85o-T2v1I/AAAAAAAAAUc/NuRcnWMGz5c/s400/WomanBikeBlog2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The joy of biking is irrepressible, even on this potholed and cars-go-too-fast section<br />
of Accra's beach road.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EmwqvEW0DG0/Tm85yZ6sQ6I/AAAAAAAAAUk/aTETk4-1aOc/s1600/WomanBikeBlog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EmwqvEW0DG0/Tm85yZ6sQ6I/AAAAAAAAAUk/aTETk4-1aOc/s400/WomanBikeBlog4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fearless leader and workshop facilitator Zohra Opoku<br />
speeds toward the ride's finish.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I8qYm1z6V3Y/Tm850p0r60I/AAAAAAAAAUo/ITnapPq_Kxg/s1600/WomanBikeBlog5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="106" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I8qYm1z6V3Y/Tm850p0r60I/AAAAAAAAAUo/ITnapPq_Kxg/s400/WomanBikeBlog5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Trying out my new point-and-shoot's automatic photo-panorama function<br />
as we take a rest at the Du Bois Center.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><br />
</div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-47766529010899303002011-09-07T13:44:00.001+00:002011-09-07T13:46:39.031+00:00Towed by Taxi<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taxis are nearly everywhere in Accra, and throughout Ghana as well. Country or city, paved road or dirt lane, there's bound to be a taxi passing soon.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you got no car in Ghana and need to get somewhere fast, this is great. Flag down one of the orange-hipped wonders, barter your price, off you go.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a recent trip to the US I told a friend that, if I walked out my front door and didn't find a taxi within two minutes, I got frustrated. They were surprised at this. I was surprised that they were surprised. Then I remembered, "Right, the US don't got taxis like Ghana's got taxis."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4uIzM_O4-U0/TmdzsEz1GgI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/gVJQ-L8XSbI/s1600/TowedTaxi-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4uIzM_O4-U0/TmdzsEz1GgI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/gVJQ-L8XSbI/s400/TowedTaxi-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">One of Ghana's iconic orange-paneled taxis passing Accra's iconic<br />
Independence Arch.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you <i>do</i> have your own car in Ghana and want to get somewhere fast, however, the omnipresence of taxis is <i>not</i> so great. And that's because taxi drivers here know how to behave as if they were the only thing on the road.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These guys (I've never seen a woman driving a taxi) are practically a force of nature, a law unto themselves. If they push their way into an intersection in front of you (even though you have the right-of-way), or drift pointedly into your lane, or otherwise cut you off - let them. They're more determined than you. And, with their chariot sure to be already scraped and dented from the bump-and-grind of Accra traffic, they've got less to lose.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taxis in Ghana are quite versatile. They can take you across town to the mall. They can get a bed or a dresser or a sofa or a mattress home from the store for you. They can take you and your 200 yams to market.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They can even be tow trucks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a recent weekend trip to Ghana's Volta Region, my car broke down. Now, if I was stuck on the side of the road in the US, my procedure would be something like: call a tow truck, get car to mechanic, wait while mechanic tries to fix.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here, I just flagged down a taxi.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The driver took me to the nearest mechanic. He took the mechanic and me back to the car. Then, when the mechanic said we should get the car to his nearby shop, the taxi driver broke out a dirty length of rope. He roped my car to his taxi. And off we went to the mechanic's place - no tow truck needed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I spent some hours, then, on a wooden bench in this mechanic's 'shop' - little more than a rickety corrugated-roof pavilion over a patch of dirt, with a cluttered workbench and a few old cars sitting under a nearby tree.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YM-WrtdEI4s/TmdzwBUX-LI/AAAAAAAAAUU/0_JzkD_qMnE/s1600/TowedTaxi-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YM-WrtdEI4s/TmdzwBUX-LI/AAAAAAAAAUU/0_JzkD_qMnE/s400/TowedTaxi-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was oddly pleasant, though, probably more so than sitting in some enclosed and greasy-smelling anteroom in a car garage in the US. The wind ruffled my hair. Traffic breezed past. The mechanic's friends dropped by to say hello.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I never did get to the Volta Region that weekend, and regrettably spent more time with the mechanic than I spent having fun.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But at least I can say I've had my car towed by a taxi.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-56684908443107348182011-08-31T17:52:00.000+00:002011-08-31T17:52:58.664+00:00A Coca Cola Eid<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In honor of today's Eid holiday in Ghana - the end of the fasting-days holy month of Ramadan for Muslims worldwide - I'm posting a photo of a Coke bottle. Hey, it's a special Coke bottle.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had a lot of fun this past Christmas shooting some photos of folks holding the Santa-adorned 2 liter bottles of Coca Cola found in Accra. Now, seems Coke doesn't just do special branding for Christmas, but for Ramadan too. Which, in a society with a diversity of faiths, is a good thing.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Though I didn't do any special <a href="http://goinghana.blogspot.com/2011/08/christmas-in-almost-july.html">Coke-bottle photo shoots</a> with this Ramadan design, I thought it was still a fun (if very commercial…) way to celebrate. Happy Eid everybody.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2VsBWJGJEZo/Tl5zhUXqSOI/AAAAAAAAAUM/jthIRsY6pEk/s1600/CokeRamadan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2VsBWJGJEZo/Tl5zhUXqSOI/AAAAAAAAAUM/jthIRsY6pEk/s400/CokeRamadan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-56822352325645139782011-08-28T19:38:00.001+00:002011-08-28T19:41:56.045+00:00The Biggest Mass on the Road<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Last weekend I went on my first big-group bike ride. </div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I'd heard of rides like <a href="http://www.sfcriticalmass.org/">Critical Mass</a>, where a large group of riders pedal slowly over city streets, a car-shutting-out celebration of self-propelled transportation. But I'd never participated in one.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TrOw1GU812k/TlqSSB5-0jI/AAAAAAAAATk/IkRHMlk-TDk/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TrOw1GU812k/TlqSSB5-0jI/AAAAAAAAATk/IkRHMlk-TDk/s200/Cowbell+ride+blog-1.jpg" width="200" /></a>I've been lucky to meet a few serious Accra bikers through the local Chain Gang riding group, and one of them called me up to say there was a bike event Saturday morning. I should come down to Accra's main stadium ready to register and ride.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f7nbvc0aH7E/TlqWX87jU3I/AAAAAAAAAUI/CddjojxbMJs/s1600/Cowbell+mascot+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f7nbvc0aH7E/TlqWX87jU3I/AAAAAAAAAUI/CddjojxbMJs/s1600/Cowbell+mascot+small.jpg" /></a>I expected something small, but boy was I wrong. This ride had a sponsor - milk-powder brand Cowbell, whose cartoon-cow mascot I think I've fallen in love with - and hundreds of participants.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">After picking up my deep blue Cowbell t-shirt (I was Semi-Skimmed Cowbell for the day, though I envied those who were Cocount-flavored) we set out past Accra's iconic Independence Arch.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PCIt5aet2Uo/TlqSUBAHcgI/AAAAAAAAATo/0rmv6wCebuQ/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PCIt5aet2Uo/TlqSUBAHcgI/AAAAAAAAATo/0rmv6wCebuQ/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">It was pure joy on the streets, then, as what must have been around 500 bikers - used to being pushed around by cars and trucks much bigger than us - transformed ourselves by mass into the biggest vehicle on the road, claiming the streets for two wheels.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">But bigger than the feeling of bicycle empowerment - that heady take-over of the streets that Critical Mass riders in the US celebrate - was my sense of wonder that this was happening in <i>Accra</i>. I was in <i>Africa,</i> for goodness sake, where it's supposed to be all disease, destitution, and disorganization. Yet here I was in a band of biking brothers bigger than any I'd experienced anywhere else. And we'd actually started on time.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0dt7tG677Zs/TlqSYSSqMpI/AAAAAAAAATw/6yoPbuTHPiI/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0dt7tG677Zs/TlqSYSSqMpI/AAAAAAAAATw/6yoPbuTHPiI/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I soon discovered that large-group rides have some down sides, like the constant need to keep your own wheels, pedals, and handlebars at least a few inches separate from your neighbor's. But there were friendly fellow riders to talk to, taxi drivers to shame as they tried unsuccessfully to cut through us, and photos of this to-me-historic occasion to snap.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">And, there were fun bike tricks to watch from the hot-shot teenage contingent on the ride: wheelies, spins, a guy standing up on his crossbar, another lifting a friend atop his shoulders. One of the riders appeared to doing the whole 15 kilometer course with no front wheel.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uiFULDJ69Ek/TlqSWqAp7sI/AAAAAAAAATs/o4N7EXY90nU/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uiFULDJ69Ek/TlqSWqAp7sI/AAAAAAAAATs/o4N7EXY90nU/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JvJ3NyTM2eQ/TlqSZ6RlwOI/AAAAAAAAAT0/zMGoIyfQ2Ic/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JvJ3NyTM2eQ/TlqSZ6RlwOI/AAAAAAAAAT0/zMGoIyfQ2Ic/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-5.jpg" width="286" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">As I and my 500-or-so friends paraded between Danqah and Nkrumah circles - two of Accra's most iconic and heavily traffic-ed roundabouts - cars, trucks, and pedestrians halted to let us pass. And then, as one single body, we pulled the largest trick of the ride: getting through downtown Accra on a market-day morning.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZWeRcwMrM4/TlqSb2ZPXWI/AAAAAAAAAT4/CdcopmrziVs/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZWeRcwMrM4/TlqSb2ZPXWI/AAAAAAAAAT4/CdcopmrziVs/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The central area of Accra is a blocks-long market spilling over with horn-honking taxis, harried shoppers, calling-out saleswomen, and dozens of teenage girls carrying other people's purchases on their heads. It's a jammed-packed part of town, and I wasn't sure the planners were thinking straight when they chose this route. But we all got through ok, a mass of cyclists sticking so tight to each other even the market's thousands of hurrying pedestrians couldn't get across the road till we went past.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">After winding through Accra central we soon arrived back at the stadium from which we had started, where entertainment, raffle prizes, and of course Cowbell drinks were offered to the masses.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I rode away with a big smile, a few new friends, and of course a blue Cowbell t-shirt.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzX30_DCvcQ/TlqSeNSpBvI/AAAAAAAAAT8/YR-Q_Rc5k9M/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tzX30_DCvcQ/TlqSeNSpBvI/AAAAAAAAAT8/YR-Q_Rc5k9M/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JEdO0yuLsXo/TlqSgRXYwYI/AAAAAAAAAUA/XvEBLnIBVW0/s1600/Cowbell+ride+blog-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JEdO0yuLsXo/TlqSgRXYwYI/AAAAAAAAAUA/XvEBLnIBVW0/s400/Cowbell+ride+blog-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Hey, looks like I'm not the only one who is falling in love with that mini-skirted mascot.</div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-2776096230500078422011-08-25T14:48:00.000+00:002011-08-25T14:48:32.370+00:00The Man with the Eggs on his Head<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This past Saturday I did an amazing thing in Accra - I went on a large-group bicycle ride with about 500 other cyclists. Coordinated in our blue Cowbell (the milk-powder brand that sponsored the ride) t-shirts, we rolled through the streets of Accra, a living mass. Police held traffic at intersections, bystanders lined up to wave, and we were jubilant in our momentary take-over of the city's traffic-ed streets.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While most of us pedaled sedately along, as is wise in a group that size, some young guys couldn't resist the occasional show-off trick.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But the best riding-trick of the day was The Man with the Eggs on his Head.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bR77yNXLMag/TlZeXQ-niLI/AAAAAAAAATU/P7THAsoSeLo/s1600/man+with+eggs+on+head-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bR77yNXLMag/TlZeXQ-niLI/AAAAAAAAATU/P7THAsoSeLo/s400/man+with+eggs+on+head-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This man did the whole 15 kilometer (about 10 miles) ride, start to finish, with at least 12 cartons of fresh eggs (count 'em for yourself!) balanced on his noggin. That's talent.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For most of the ride he was the leader, in fact, setting the pace for the rest of us down Accra's uptown Oxford Street shopping strip, around the double-wide Ring Road to Nkrumah Circle, then straight through the Saturday market-morning madness of Accra Central.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And what's more, if you take a closer look at this photo…</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WlLGad8YS7g/TlZebfibAgI/AAAAAAAAATY/5CvQFX3JRQE/s1600/man+with+eggs+on+head-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WlLGad8YS7g/TlZebfibAgI/AAAAAAAAATY/5CvQFX3JRQE/s400/man+with+eggs+on+head-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…you'll see he's doing it all with half a handlebar!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">About two-thirds of the way through the ride, I started trying to make my way to the front of the pack to get some close-up photos of this extremely balanced individual. It was tough going, though, as we were riding bunched-up on confined streets chock-full of fellow cyclists. Clipping another guy's pedal or running into someone's bike tire was a constant worry, and I was having trouble moving forward.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I finally found The Man with the Eggs on his Head, though, in the middle of a pack just behind the leaders. "Ah, I've got him," I thought, and whipped out my camera.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1pURy2Nosg/TlZef-aq69I/AAAAAAAAATc/Gk-bp1Gbsl8/s1600/man+with+eggs+on+head-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1pURy2Nosg/TlZef-aq69I/AAAAAAAAATc/Gk-bp1Gbsl8/s400/man+with+eggs+on+head-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But the moment I started snapping he took off through the crowd, intent on regaining his place at the very head of the column. I tried to chase him through the mass of cyclists, but simply couldn't keep up. He was faster and more maneuverable through the crowd than I.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hK6fNCqJoHQ/TlZeipH1k5I/AAAAAAAAATg/LordWa8OZW8/s1600/man+with+eggs+on+head-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hK6fNCqJoHQ/TlZeipH1k5I/AAAAAAAAATg/LordWa8OZW8/s400/man+with+eggs+on+head-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He was so intent on getting back to the front that, at one point, he got off his bike, pulled it over a street-center median, and rode forward against the car traffic on the other side. All with those eggs still balanced in the airspace above him.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's not every day a biker has the privilege of getting beat by a guy with 36 dozen eggs on his head, and riding with only half a handlebar to boot. I had to simply applaud and give up my chase.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Too bad he didn't drop them. We could have all had a nice egg scramble off the frying-hot pavement of tropical Accra.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'll feature more writing and photos from this ride soon, but for now, I just wanted to give this guy his due.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-31156766729448590652011-08-16T15:00:00.000+00:002011-08-16T15:00:26.578+00:00Is the Normal That I Bring With Me More Normal Than the Normal That I Find Here?<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've tried to refrain from posting very much about Accra's perceived everyday oddities. I'm a guest in Ghana, after all, and loudly proclaiming that the normal I bring with me is more normal than the normal that I find here feels a little prejudicial.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But, if I'm going to get my blog quotient up, I need fodder for quick posts. And, now that I have a phone with a (very poor) camera inside it, I can snap the stand-outs of daily life any time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We'll put this photo in the "How the Heck Did This End Up on the Shelf of a Fancy Grocery Store in Ghana?" category.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JXRg5amHKSU/TkqEDSidIeI/AAAAAAAAATQ/S1e95wq7XDU/s1600/Photo0031b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JXRg5amHKSU/TkqEDSidIeI/AAAAAAAAATQ/S1e95wq7XDU/s400/Photo0031b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And on aisle 5, between the Fairy detergent orbs and the latex doctors mitts,<br />
a box of Subway-brand plastic gloves, polyethylene for that filmy freshness.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently, next time I need a bunch of Subway-sandwich-shop logo-ed plastic gloves for my everyday life in Accra, I'll know where to go.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But with the absence of Western-branded food places here, for the actual sandwich, I'd have to fly one in. So much for eating fresh.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-17430598258800966032011-08-11T17:48:00.001+00:002011-08-11T17:54:31.046+00:00Is Africa Scary?<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Is Africa scary?" my niece asked me recently.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was visiting my home country, the United States, for a few weeks, and had been trying to persuade her to visit me in Accra.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given the bad-news reputation of the continent - wars, pirates, dictators, famine, mosquitoes and disease - it was a fair question. I was quaking in my boots myself, I'll admit, the first time I boarded an airplane bound for that large land mass across the Atlantic.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this week I've been thinking about a different question: Are the US and the UK scary? And I've had to answer: Um, yes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With the US still recovering from a greed-driven recession, narrowly enduring a debt crisis seemingly created by self-interested politicians, and now watching its financial markets in a fearful free-fall, it does seem like a scary place. And with disparity of wealth in the States on the rise, how long until resentment over the riches of others helps drive a major societal uprising? Frightful stuff.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ghana, by contrast - where poverty can be much more in-your-face and yet the fear of violence and crime is much lower than in some US neighborhoods, where the economy appears to be booming - seems a positively refreshing and stable place.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fpQUEUbYJY4/TkQTgMFLeII/AAAAAAAAATM/CR4pllv2ke4/s1600/P1320791.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fpQUEUbYJY4/TkQTgMFLeII/AAAAAAAAATM/CR4pllv2ke4/s400/P1320791.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Riotous looting in the streets of Accra? Nope. Just a regular day<br />
in the always-busy downtown market district.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there are, of course, the nights-on-end of hooliganism that have plagued the UK this week. The photos and footage of burning buildings, looted stores, and rampaging rioters has been shocking. Especially given the high standards of 'civilisation' that we expect from one of the leading countries of 'the West.'</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In an ironic twist, an international friendly football (that's soccer for you who have your head under a US sports pillow) match between Ghana and Nigeria on Wednesday night had to be canceled because of the riots. Why, you ask? Because it was slated to be played at a stadium in London. Duh.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Barring comment on why a sports event between two African nations was scheduled to be played in England (I'm sure there are good reasons…), isn't it sweetly and satirically wry - for anyone who is a fan of the African continent - that a stadium in Accra or Lagos would have been a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">safer</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> place for this match to take place?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who's the scary now, huh? (Poke in the English-man's ribs.) Huh?</span></i></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">colonized</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> don't often get to outshine the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">colonizer</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, but as a former subject nation of England, all of Ghana should be reveling (in a humble and sorrowful-for-the-violence way, of course) in this turn-around. Ghanaians who have lived abroad often come back home and complain about the relative disorganization of traffic, government bureaucracy, and other parts of public life here. But what are they thinking now? "Hey, thank God I'm back on the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">safe and sane</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> continent."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's not much scarier than mobs of internet-coordinated hooligans converging to do violence wherever they please, apparently motivated by little more than a thirst for destruction and theft. Africa has had its share of child soldiers in the battlefield bush, but at least they were coerced into the hard life. In the UK, this latest life-of-crime drama seems to be a free and personal choice by the criminals, a lark. Mob violence as adrenaline. (See <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Race+woes+Court+tells+different+story/5239625/story.html">this Daily Telegraph writer's article</a> on how a good-sized segment of the looters appear to be white-and-well-to-do, not stereotypically minority-and-poor.)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Is Africa scary?" my niece asked me, voicing a sort of primal American fear of the 'dark' continent.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"No," I said. And then, with a wink: "Not unless you're afraid of black people."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My niece, who has an African-American father, glanced down at her own brown skin.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Oh," I could see her thinking. "Right."</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly, Africa seems the place to be.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8258954464292723640.post-88497327710989142742011-08-02T12:24:00.001+00:002011-08-05T12:39:14.159+00:00Christmas in (almost) July<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thought that, in the middle of the summer months, it might be nice to have a reminder of the Christmas time of year; thus, this post.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This past December, a friend of mine showed me a 2 liter bottle of Coke he had bought in Accra. Locally produced for the madhouse Christmas-market season, the plastic bottle's wrapper-graphics featured a black Santa with curly white hair and beard holding out a bottle of Coke in front of Independence Arch, Ghana's iconic monument to colonialism's end.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We were delighted with this bit of local kitsch, and set about figuring out how to use the bottle in a photo shoot. I came up with the idea of trying to recreate that wrapper-graphics Santa scene with a street-found 'model,' like this:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k1DkVtsq-zg/Tjvig9LxTHI/AAAAAAAAATI/FDINIKWjCqw/s1600/Xmas+in+July+blog6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k1DkVtsq-zg/Tjvig9LxTHI/AAAAAAAAATI/FDINIKWjCqw/s400/Xmas+in+July+blog6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You'll notice I gave up on asking someone to wear the Santa suit and beard. But I think the hat gets the general idea across.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o0hYRM1UPHk/TjvibmyWv0I/AAAAAAAAAS8/of3pM1vdRtk/s1600/Xmas+in+July+blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o0hYRM1UPHk/TjvibmyWv0I/AAAAAAAAAS8/of3pM1vdRtk/s400/Xmas+in+July+blog3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I showed up at the arch around Christmas-time, camera gear dangling, I was immediately met by a short-ish, grizzled, middle-aged Ghanaian guy who claimed to be the arch's 'caretaker.' He said he'd have to prevent me from taking any photos of the arch unless I got government permission. But I simply stayed on course, setting up my tripod and taking a few test shots, all the while engaging him in conversation. And, by the end of it, he was agreeing to be my first subject.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rUIhCCNyqwU/TjviYCr93PI/AAAAAAAAAS4/QKax6TlYnM4/s1600/Xmas+in+July+blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rUIhCCNyqwU/TjviYCr93PI/AAAAAAAAAS4/QKax6TlYnM4/s400/Xmas+in+July+blog2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After that there was a line of 'models' waiting to hold the Coke bottle up in front of my lens, as passersby - and some local refuse collection professionals - got into the Santa spirit.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xq77ieGJZ2w/Tjvif_oYxbI/AAAAAAAAATE/uxC7OR6GDL4/s1600/Xmas+in+July+blog5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xq77ieGJZ2w/Tjvif_oYxbI/AAAAAAAAATE/uxC7OR6GDL4/s400/Xmas+in+July+blog5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u9UFBp1TTr0/Tjvic0xbgUI/AAAAAAAAATA/5MHMvrZWv9A/s1600/Xmas+in+July+blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u9UFBp1TTr0/Tjvic0xbgUI/AAAAAAAAATA/5MHMvrZWv9A/s400/Xmas+in+July+blog4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, if I can just meet someone from Coke's advertising department, I can sell them their Christmas 2012 ad campaign idea.</span></div>Joe Lapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13359700580454917374noreply@blogger.com0