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I am working towards a PhD in African history. I spent the first three months of the year in Ghana, conducting research on political and religious change in the late 19th century. Most of my work has been concentrated in the area of Accra, the capital, because that is where the national archives are; but I've also spent a fair amount of time travelling through the towns on the coast to the west of Accra, which is the area that my work focuses on. -Scott

Its been a good month or so since I e-mailed anybody, so I thought I would
write a few lines. I kind of went off the e-mail bug for a while there, plus
I've been ill off and on over the past few weeks (but who hasn't been?) --
the seasoning fever, they used to call it, although I didn't actually have
malaria as it turned out.

Anyway, I am still in Ghana and in fact never ended up going to Sierra
Leone. I decided about a week before I was planning on going to bottle that
leg of my trip. There were a lot of reasons, but mainly I just couldn't get
excited about throwing myself into a new country and trying to figure the
place out -- I was only just beginning to feel settled in Accra after 6
weeks, so what would I have gotten out of 3 weeks in Freetown but a whole
lot of stress? The epiphany came when I was doubled-over in the midst of a
bout of food poisoning. All I could think was, "I'm glad this is happening
here and not in Freetown," which kind of got me thinking.

Although, I was excited about the prospect of taking a helicopter between
the airport and the city centre, and the beaches outside of Freetown are
supposed to be amazing. Another time, I suppose.

Auntie and Jennifer (the anthropologist) were both wholeheartedly behind me.
Especially when I mentioned that the police in Freetown had broken up some
student demonstrations with tear gas the very day I decided not to go.
Auntie's not too keen on travel in Africa these days, but then Cote d'Ivoire
to the west has been in meltdown for about two years, Nigeria, Liberia and
Sierra Leone are all more or less no-go areas, and several people have been
killed in Togo in just the last few weeks, since President Eyadema died.

Anyway, Accra has been keeping my busy on its own. The city is going through
the beginnings of a kind of law and order campaign, which is pretty
absorbing to watch.

The newspapers are constantly talking about crime rings and police efforts
to break them up. Ghana's most wanted man, an armed robber named Ataa Ayi,
was captured a few weeks ago. He was notorious for carefully planning his
attacks and for targeting foreigners. And for having very strong spiritual
protection: when he was caught in a dawn raid on a his girlfriend's house,
he had a crucifix, two amulets containing passages of the Koran (a common
talisman in West Africa) and a pouch of juju medicine. Someone told me today
that he was caught because his medicine ran out. It never occured to me that
juju might have an expiration date.

The local authorities have also been cracking down on unlicensed street
peddlers who block the sidewalks near the main market, and the TV news is
always going on about sanitation, drainage problems and planning violations.
Which is all to the good, as far as I can see, and most Ghanaians seem to
agree.

Accra is a fabulously dirty city. The sewers are open trenches at the side
of the road, and prone to flooding after rainfall, which as you might
imagine is pretty disgusting. The roads are often blocked with piles of sand
and gravel outside of building sites. herds of goats and stray chickens roam
where they like. Trash piles up where it may; there are vitually no trash
cans (in fact, about fifty newly installed ones in the Ministries district
were stolen for scrap metal in January). People -- typically young men, of
course -- routinely piss in the sewers or against walls, often not even
bothering to find an out of the way place to do it.

All of which you quickly get used to, in practice. This is a poor city in a
poor country, where many people struggle just to make ends meet; of course
its going to be untidy. But Ghanaians aren't happy about it. One message to
would-be urinators painted on a wall captured it pretty well, I think: "Oh
children, do not urinate here" -- you can just hear the note of pained
resignation in the way its phrased.

I've also been watching a lot of Knight Rider lately. It turns out that
Auntie is a big fan., of course She's not so into David Hasselhof, though he
is cool, but she loves the car -- the way it can leap over other cars, start
itself, etc... She loves TV. Last night they had the fighting Somalis on --
the Parliamentary meeting in Kenya that ended in WWF-style street fighting.
The plight of the Somali nation and the Somali people is a very sad thing.
But Auntie and I both thought the fight was hilarious -- we could hardly
talk for laughing. And for the rest of the night it was "did you see when
the two guys had the chairs... and then the other guy came from behind..."
It was great. Auntie is optimistic about Iraq, but pretty gloomy about
Somalia, understandably enough.

I did manage to tear myself away from the Accra show for a few days to go
down the coast to Cape Coast, which was once the largest town on the coast.
I spent a few days in the regional archive there, fruitlessly, and then hit
the road. Thousands of tourists go to Cape Coast every yeat, mainly to visit
the Castle, a former slave trading port which is one of the big sights in
Ghana. But hardly anyone visits the towns 5 or 10 miles away, so I spent a
day hiking along the coast, which was good fun. Its amazing how the people
are instantly more friendly and genuine once you leave the beaten path. The
fishermen in these towns still use these huge, 40-50 ft. dugout canoes for
fishing, which are a sight to see.  They usually have bizaare names and even
stranger carvings and paintings on them. Some of them have women and
mermaids; one had a foot with a giant syringe sticking out of it; often they
have flags of various kinds. I saw one flying an Italian flag, and at one
point passed several that were all flying Israeli flags -- I think they were
owned by the same guy, but its anyone's guess why he picked Israel.

The best one, though, was unquestionably the canoe with a big Knight Rider
flag, with David Hasselhof's face right in the center. I nearly fell over
when I saw it. I tried to take a picture but I couldn't time the wind right.

Its this kind of stuff that I think about when people talk about cultural
imperialism. I don't think Ghanaian culture has ever been colonized.

I'm long past the rambling stage, so I'd better break it off. But I'm keen
to hear from everyone, so drop me a line when you get a chance.

Scott

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