The Heated Ramadan

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

It’s been so pretty long since I wrote you a missive but as usual I’ll just attribute it to laziness. It is not that nothing is happening but that there are plenty things to talk about but I’ve just been lazy in telling you about them.  The post pandemic era in the northern hemisphere has been so pregnant with issues that I wouldn’t evenknow where to start. 

Kpakpo it is the period of Ramadan, the Muslim fast, which is mandatory to all practicing Muslims and it looks as if Tamale has ground to a halt. Charley, this year the fasting is on a whole new level because of climate change.  It has never been this hot since I relocated here and the heat season coinciding with the Ramadan fast has made it look like this is really a test of any Muslims faith. With temperatures sometimes as high as 36 degrees by ten am in the morning that will rise to 43 degrees by mid afternoon, itis obvious that dehydration sets in by noon and then the last few hours to breaking the fast at six pm becomes like torture.

Anyemi  to this effect the town square is practically empty and you enter shops and people have become like sloths. There is no sudden movement or any sign of hard physical activity because the exertion will take a toll on a person’s physical being and make it extremely difficult to go through the day during the fast. People are seen lounging in offices whilst casual labor personnel like cleaners etc are seen falling asleep at the least chance to while away the hours till six pm.  There are relatively less people moving about in town because if you have no important business in town, folks will rather opt to stay home and indoors or in airy areas, to conserve energy.  This is a time to be regionally lazy and even people of other faiths are seen behaving like they’re also fasting.

But hey, until Easter, Christians also had an excuse to also join in the fray because it was Lent and also a fasting period.  But now Easter is over, what next. As a friend will say “Dada nuaa” (the same old thing), we are still in it.

Nii Kpakpo, now that I’ve mentioned Easter, lemme tell you about the annual Kamina picnic. Honestly it used to be the only function that happened in Tamale and the whole town converged at the barracks on Easter Monday to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  It wasn’t only exclusive to Christians because it was a public gathering but open to all.  This time, it is not the sole event in Tamale because having become a fast expanding cosmopolitan town, several groups of people and organizations have come up and designed other programs for this day. Churches now do their own events, youth groups organize fun days for networking and relaxation, organizations organize meet ups and some individuals just gather a few friends, meet at home and have a barbeque or the other.  All these events run concurrently on the Easter Monday. Even in the evening pubs organize live band music or other planned programs and promotions to ensure that the day is well spent.

This year there was one event that practically stood out and it was a mini food festival ike we organize kenkey, waakye, etc fest in Accra and it was an elaborate event with food and games and mainly patronized by the youth because it was organized by a young man and his team who saw the need for such an event in Tamale.  Zuk’s food fest got revelers buzzing and it went so well people are craving for more events like that.  Those who missed it heard the stories and are clamoring to be part of the next one. Not only was there food and games but it was also a showcase of local drinks and cocktail mixtures and best of all it was an opportunity to network.  Indeed kudos to the organizers.

Anyemi, we are still in the Ramadan and it ends next week.  Charley even the pubs are dry because people don’t want to be seen having a cold drink after work else they be seen as evil people. So for this period we are all Muslims just groggily going through the motions and behaving like sloths until this period is over.  I don’t know whether to say thanks to the sun for blazing as high as it does or who did you put on sunlight duty up in the great beyond. Whoever it is is not sparing us up here at all but how for do, we take am like that.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson, how is the former Queen’s land and what is it we hear about a cancer pandemic in the family she left behind since it became a kingship?  Well if you ask me I’ll say the Queen was there for so long and now that she’s joined her contemporaries in the spirit world, our African ancestors are dealing with her for the thievery she supervised for over half a century on the African continent.  They’re bestowing it on her family to the tenth generation and they should brace themselves cos there’d be more. Unfortunately it wont touch the administration because those Indians occupying № 10 also have a history akin to ours and it’s pretty iconic that they’re now at the head of the Commonwealth administration. Very iconic!

It is early morning here and as usual, I don’t know if you heard but our lights misbehave and go off at the least provocation. The short bald man and his we-have-the-men cohorts say its not dumsor but localized faults so we’d take their word for it.  As to how they’re taking us for granted and treating as badly is a story for another letter.

For now I started writing this when lights went off around midnight and it’s morning and already the sun is yawning awake. Your sister is preparing for work and I guess I should head out too. Will write to you as soon as I can.

Until then I still remain

Your Cousin in Law,

Savanna Boy

Blazing Wa

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

So one day I was sitting behind my laptop in the library and I got notified by a friend of a training program organized by the British Council for entrepreneurs and graduates and advised me to apply. Well I did and when they asked for options where I wanted to take the training I said Kumasi because it would be easier for me to travel there and have it. There was an Accra option but it was too far away.

Then I forgot about it.

Leaving Tamale for Accra I didn’t really  plan on it so when I got a call one morning that I was supposed to be at Blazing Trails I quickly did the necessary and took a straight “dropping” to the venue only to be told that the call had come from the Kumasi not Accra office. However how much I pleaded to get onto the training since it was running concurrently but organizers were adamant. Best they could do was put me on the next one, in Wa.

This time I had the date in mind but only had to convince myself if I really wanted to spend all that money for this program.

Kpakpo you know lately I’ve been traveling around pretty much and in three weeks I’ve traveled between Accra and Tamale 4 times already and now I had to go to Wa from Accra and then head to Tamale when I was done.

So I booked OA Travel and Tours tickets and as if by design I got a bus with plenty Walla women. Oh! I’ve told you about that already but what I noticed is that the company is making good money with the night travels because people can actually go to work and travel at the close of day since buses leave Accra at 8 pm. On this particularly night, there were four buses and we were the last to arrive in Wa. Another lesson learnt is not to travel at the last minute when program starts that very morning when I arrive.

Blazing Trails was fun any3mi. I was a few minutes late but fortunately the facilitator had to take a call so was outside when I went in and some of my colleagues helped me out to sign in and get the materials required and do the first assignment given. Just when I was about to settle in a tall dude walks up to me and calls me Kola Nut and after introducing himself says we had met at GhanaThink Barcamp in Wa, where I had attended as a mentor earlier on in the year.

Boy oh Boy! The way this world is going we cannot overemphasize the importance of networking which such programs like the Barcamp keeps stressing. There were 3 others there who recognized me. Wow!

Kpakpo, it would interest you to note that even my hosts in Wa were hookups from Barcamp. I posted in one of the offshoot groups from the Wa edition that I was coming to town and needed a host and one young woman said she’d take care of me and hooked me up to her brother with whom I spent my 3 days in town. Furthermore I also went to the basketball court and they were guys worried about where I was staying and when I wanted to play somebody provided me with training shoes that fit perfectly. 

Networking is key I tell you.

With the facilitator outside I quickly introduced myself and kinda coordinated an introduction session so we the participants get to know each other and also choose a training course representative. One dude was quickly chosen and seconded and truth be told he acquitted himself pretty well all through the period of the training.

Kpakpo for people who came from different parts of the country, oh there was a cutie from Tarkwa who stole the show with enough body, we really did get on pretty well even in healthy competition to get the attention of the gals on the program. Guys teased each other to get the ladies attention and overall the camaraderie was high.

The quips were plenty and with a very jovial facilitator who chips in plenty food  for thought especially when it comes to current affairs and the Ghanaian situation with governance and policy and relating entrepreneural life to relations with women, the training program was bound to be full of high energy and heavily interactive. It is not quite surprising that the facilitator confessed that albeit training people for years this particular group was impressive with the way everybody was contributing and sharing experiences with each other.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson, the Blazing Trails entrepreneur training in Wa was a success and interestingly it is one program where participants spent their Saturday at training and still wanted more. If even without the facilitation the participants wanted to see each other again because every day had an unexpected twist to it.

However I must say that there was a pervading sense of danger overhanging the town of Wa due to the incidence of several robberies especially of the university students by  some unruly residents. There has been incidents of especially female students getting robbed not even at night but early evening of their possessions and motorbikes, the main means of transport for students in town. Apparently it has reached a stage where there were also some domestic thefts such as armed robbers attacking the students in their hostels. For such a vibrant town it is such a shame that there is a stifling of youth freedom and entertainment and when it gets dark a self imposed curfew surrounds parts of the town.

Any3mi what that means is that unlike other campuses where events can be organized at night for fun and experience it doesn’t happen on the university campus in Wa and that’s pretty sad if you ask me. How can a student live in fear half the time on campus especially the women,  with almost no social life especially at night. Every evening was spent indoors except my last night when I took a walk in the zongo which apparently is the only place there are not robberies. I was too tired to go out anyway being tired from the training.

Well, I can say that my second trip to Wa was well spent and it was both a learning experience and time to increase my social network. Thank you all who made my trip a fun one both old and new friends. Inasmuch as it wasn’t as much fun with boys boys sitting in pubs or having nights out with friends, which would’ve been fun, Wa had its own perks and every moment spent was memorable.

Kpakpo I’m now back to your sister in Tamale and back home a better person. Let’s keep getting better and influencing our society in whatever ways we can.

I still remain
Your Cousin in Law,
Savannah Boy.

Savanna Events

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

It has been a very eventful few weeks here in the savanna and I will try to chronicle some for you.

As you might rightly know, Tamale is arguably the fastest growing city in Ghana now and I think I have mentioned several times that it comes with its attendant problems. Kpakpo, the filth is just overwhelming the city. Hitherto a place that did not have people sleeping on the sidewalks now has a few homeless people loitering the pavements till morning. There is now pressure on social amenities and I hope city authorities are noticing the changes and acting accordingly.

Nii Kpakpo, as for the NGOs the less said about them the better. At a recent global forum on youth organized by Action Aid we came to a conclusion that it was obvious that there was a lack of cooperation between the donor countries and agencies and they all ended up just duplicating what each other did in the communities without really affecting the communities much. There is the need for them to collaborate with each other so they can actively monitor the impact they make in the various communities especially with regards to women and children issues.

Kpakpo, we have realized also on several platforms that it is the organizations with less money that do most of the work whilst those with more just steal the data on the improved communities for themselves.

Chale! You didn’t hear it from me oh.

That is not to say some of them are not doing amazing stuff. No names mentioned.
Nii Kpakpo Thompson, the other day the morning show host made me very shy when he asked me on air when I had last written to you. Chale! I tell you laziness is not good oh. We are discussing the issues with regards to our national multiple award ace journalist who uncovered the rot in the third realm of the estate.

Kw33!! Our judges?? Oh Ma Gwad!! They don’t even shock me as much as the court clerks who are the go between in this whole sham. But I promised myself I wont talk about it till I see the full video. However I am glad that with the suits flying left right and centre it still managed to be aired and shown to the world as it was scheduled.
Kudos to the Tiger Eye Team.

What they have done is to put Ghanaians on our toes that whilst we point one finger at others, we point four more at ourselves. In these trying times, it is difficult to be honest especially when everyone is culpable one way or the other but it is best that we do what we can to promote national development in our own small corner.

Talking about doing our own small thing to help national development, you know Founders Day which is Nkrumah’s birthday was declared National Volunteer Day by the GhanaThink Foundation and this year several activities marked the day all over the country. Youth volunteers were seen cleaning up communities, donating blood, teaching in schools, spending time with children in orphanages and painting buildings all over. In the savanna, we did all these and for me I had quite an experience visiting the Tamale Children’s orphanage to make a donation and then spending time helping to nurse and read to children at the children’s ward of the Tamale West Hospital.

Nii Kpakpo, #NVDay15 was an eye opener and it was overwhelming to see people come out just to help other people at least put smiles on their faces. The babies I carried had a profound impact on me. There was this one little boy barely two years old who just sat alone in the corner whilst most people made a fuss about the cute newborns in the orphanage. He just sat there and when I went to sit in front of him without talking but tweeting away on my tablet we just sat there, two lonely souls oblivious to the world around us.

Kpakpo, I could relate to how this little boy was feeling because there have been times when I was surrounded by many people yet felt so lonely than ever before. We just understood each other and sat there. Finally when I reached out to him he just lifted his arms out to be carried and then we joined the others in the little room set aside for spending time with the children. We had all along been sitting outside the room in the middle of the corridor.

When we finally joined the rest he spent his whole time sitting in my lap and whenever somebody tried to take him off me, he would cry to be left alone. We just sat there most of the time and when refreshments were brought he didn’t have to tell me to put the straw in his juice for him, he just offered it for me to do it for him. We just understood each other and I was so taken by this little quiet boy barely two years old.

The same thing at the children’s ward when I took a sick child from the mother to console whilst health attendants put a drip in his hand and he was crying. The whole time I held him close he kept quiet and allowed the attendants to take care of him but when his mother had to take him to give him medicine and later breast milk the little one burst out crying and hanged on tighter to me. Finally I had to coax him that I will be back and went to another sick child to read a picture book to so he could eat his food. I was overwhelmed when the mother smiled in gratitude to say that it has been difficult for him to eat in his sickness and that the picture book helped and he ate a whole bowl of tuo zaafi which had been his heaviest meal in three days.

Nii Kpakpo, volunteering is giving oneself to the benefit of others and these stories really got to me on the long weekend after we had had an interesting reading clinic. Yes! The reading clinic is still on and the children have improved so much in their writing skill and confidence that on Friday I was so overwhelmed coordinating the Founders Day special that I went home to weep. It was so touching especially when a 12 year old gal wrote and performed a poem on Nkrumah during the creative writing exercise.

Nii Kpakpo, lemme not put all the stories in one letter and lemme save some for the other letters. With that I will end this one here and admonish that we keep encouraging people to volunteer. Keep well till I write again.

Your Cousin in law,
Savannah Boy

Strikes & Chale Wote

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

i have been extremely patient with the happenings in this country especially with the strikes ongoing. well, finally the recently grey haired first gentleman of the nation, the man from the savannah, had to say his fill and free his chest on the issues at stake. let’s just say that he didnt tow the line of the vice’s wife who screamed vehemently that she wont give today and give tomoroow in one of the most flowery ethnic languages of the nation. but at least he reasoned with the doctors that their claims had budgetarty implications.

honestly Kpakpo i think the doctors really wanted to prove a point that politicians were earning way more for obvioulsy no visible work done (since the country is now worse off than it used to be) and i think their justapostioning thier demands as against the politicians salary was proof enough.

now the university teachers have also gone on strike claiming some allowances. there are other small groups just waiting in the wings to join in the class act and take a swing at the government.

could also be my conspiratory mind working in overdrive.

there have been some interesting happenings in Tamale and me and a couple of friends have fantaszed just blocking one of the major roads in town on our own accord and seeing the reactions and news reports that are going to come from the south. the media do not do us proud at all and it is really sad. we have become like the proverbial Bethlehem in teh bible where nothing good comes ouf of.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson, it has been such a long time since i came down south and it is not too appealing especially with the incidence of the dumsor in the south and the social pressures, traffic, pollution, noise, etc. Now up north we haev our own food courts, cinemas, and the other day i even went to a comedy show and a host of other entertainment places as exist in the south so we do not really miss it much. oh! lest i forget, there is this pizza joint whose pizza tastes better than their 9min 20s advert on radio..

anyemi i think when the guy was given the write up to use for the advert, instead of just taking a bit of it for the bare essentials, he didn’t understand it and read the whole 3 pages as the advert. trust me, i have been listening to this advert after playing basketball all the way across town to get home.it is the only advert i have heard where you listen to for the third time and you know the whole menu for the restaurant because he doesn’t leave even one item. from starters, to main courses, to desserts and then trough  drinks, wine and spirits, with examples to pizza they are all there..

what a wow!

however i will be drawn south by the chalewote street festival coming up and it is one of the youth cultures that are springing up in this country that i would not miss. last year i had to miss saturday because of BarCamp Tamale but luckily this year the latter is a week early so I don’t have any crashes.

reminds me of the last time we met which was during the concert by Kubolor and friends at One Republic in Osu.

these are the kinda concerts they should be doing so discerning people can just enjoy rather than the noise these young people churn out these days full of sexual innuendos and ambiguity. they are such ephemeral sounds that only have a beat going for them and within a short time just fizzle out when a new beat comes on the scene. what can i say?

anyways Kpakpo, just wanted to touch base with you and let you know that I’m heading your way soon.

keep on keeping on and Ghana will overcome some day.

Your Cousin in Law

Savannah Boy

Savannah Tourism

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

I recently wrote an article on the state of our tourism sites in the northern parts of Ghana and barely a month after, as if by coincidence, I hear the minister of tourism has carted her honorable self with an entourage of hopefully intelligent people to tour the north and see what the ministry can do to boost the tourism potential in these parts.

Like all the programs that have been embarked on in the past, I sincerely hope her report as well as the others before her including the ones from members of her entourage will not go gathering ‘cowboys’ on some dusty shelf for generations to come.

Kpakpo, when I first heard this, my first reaction was ‘tis about damned time’. In my other article I made mention of tourism being the third highest foreign exchange earner in this country and that is even in its raw state. Nothing has been done to improve it and our tourism is mostly concentrated in the south and even perceptions about the areas where tourist sites can be located up north is all negative and skewed. Why would a foreigner or even a local person visit a place that is known to be prone to violence at the drop of a hat or when haggling over the price of a guinea fowl can escalate into a civil war with serious ethnic undertones.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson that is what I’m talking about. I really hope the minister and her entourage really map out the north and something comes out of it. And any time at all I am available as a consultant on what can be done.

It is really up to us to market our tourist sites and up to government to make provisions, policies and also infrastructure available for these sites. I hope everything works well.

Kpakpo, I have said my piece and all I can do now is wait. Will get back to you when I have more stories for you.

Keep on keeping on..

Your Cousin in Law,
Savannah Boy

Job Search

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

In the light of the current economic situation of the country aggravated by the government debt owed me, it has become imperative that I find another job to be able to survive in my own motherland.

Money has become hard to come by these days unless you’re a political crony or within politics itself and surprisingly even the politicians are complaining.

What is this I was hearing over the radio few days ago. A member of Parliament claims that their money is not enough for them to pay school fees (whose), hold constituency meetings in their various constituencies and not enough to host funerals. Wow! Now hosting a funeral is justifiable cause for a politician to make a case for a salary increase especially when they have all those subsidies with utilities and fuel and a myriad of tax free allowances.

Damn! This country is rotten. I’m forced to believe that some of us are doomed who can’t stand politics and politicians.

So yes Nii Kpakpo I decided to go look for a job and my first point of call was this remedial school where the primary students assemble every morning.

Luckily I got to talk to the proprietor himself. When I expressed interest in teaching he asked what courses I could teach to which I told him Social Studies and History. I had already studied the time table stuck to a tree trunk on the premises. He shook his head to mean whatever I couldn’t read then with a blank look asked me “level of education?”

Acting the idiot that I am I said oh but this is a senior high remedial school right? Then he said “No! Meant your level of education”. Kpakpo this is a place I’ve been passing every day around the same time they are sitting in groups to play basketball and they already seemed to have formed an opinion of who I am. You should have seen the look on his face when I said “Masters”.

It would’ve seemed to him I was responding to the Phobia slogan and then he managed to stutter slash stammer “in what?” Why would it disconcerting for the man when I told him I had a masters. Anyways he managed to tell me to submit a CV.

After the incident didn’t submit the document until days later and meanwhile I was acting like the conversation never happened. I just greet and pass. The day I handed the document over I could sense he was eager to verify I hadn’t lied but didn’t want to show it and instead of leaving I just stood there waiting for him to say something. When I walked away I didn’t look back.

Then it was back to the waiting game.  Waiting to get a feedback on my application. I walked there the other day and waited for him to get to the premises and then I approached him all jovial to check on the feedback of my application.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson what I knew would happen did and it happened as exactly as I thought it would. It took him a few seconds to recognize me as “the man with the long cv” and then the harangue about “already have full compliments of teaching staff but someone could get sick or pregnant or indisposed then we can call on you to step in”.

Then he concluded by saying “that was a very rich cv”.
I just laughed.

Who acts as a substitute teacher in a remedial school nowadays and he wasn’t the first person I was hearing these same words from. Like a good friend of mine keeps telling me, maybe I should ‘lighten’ my cv a bit so proprietors like him don’t feel intimidated by my experiences.

Oh yeah! Giving it a serious consideration.

So Nii Kpakpo that’s how my job search attempt went and I’m sure there will be more. Will tell you about them as and when they happen.

It’s my birthday today and I wonder what Dr Boom of Rawlings fame is up to since his government is in power. He’s probably lighting fires in front of the ultra modern Flagstaff House I’m sure but that’s his own prerogative.

Kpakpo I’ll be in the capital at the weekend and will be for maybe a week. I think I’d work from there for a few days because my boss wants us to write some proposals and I can use the time to write them. 

We could also hook up for celebratory drinks one evening with some friends. Will call you when in town.

Your Cousin in Law,
Savannah Boy

Tweeaaa Kpakpo!

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

A whole lot has happened since I last sent you a letter. So much so that I don’t even know where to begin.

Eish! These days the way social media has taken over everything you will think social media should run the country instead of our comedian debutante at the helm of affairs.

Now I call him comedian debutante because of his audition joke about Ex Prez Dr Boom and His RIP Madiba when he was alive and out of prison.

The audition tape is not clear but it is an undisputed fact that the handsome gentleman was on stage had had an uproarious applause.

Well do we blame him? His predecessor was a natural from the greatest line of comedian ethnic groups in the world. Being a vice, a whole lot must have rubbed off him.

But now what I’m worried about is the way nowadays tapes and videos leak and go viral on social media. Case in point is the Honorable (are they really) DCE who at a program to honor somebody else is ‘yabbing’ about being given the platform to speak because he’s an important personality in the community (self pomposity) ends up almost fighting a member in the audience who chuckled ‘tweaa’ at his speech.

His outburst has gone viral and typical Ghana, we have made him popular so much so that when he attends another social gathering, this time a funeral, everybody wants to catch a glimpse of the ‘tweaa DCE’.

Up here in the savanna we hear the news very late and especially only after the yabby yabby radio stations in Accra are syndicated to the stations here. That is only when the furore gets to us.
Well it is obvious we are too far from the epicenter to feel the impact of some of these things. It is rather the literatti amongst us who follow the news on social media who are caught up with the heat of events as they happen.

Nii Kpakpo, I tried discussing the ‘tweeaaacident’ in my office and you could see the blank looks, must have been like I was talking about Martian rocks.

Speaking of the office, the other day I set up a meeting inadvertently on the same day that the president was coming to town. I went to an earlier appointment and was delayed so had to rush back to the office to the meeting I had convened myself which I didn’t want to miss, only to find only a handful of people in the office.  Upon enquiry I was told that they had mostly gone to the airport to meet the president.

Nii Kpakpo I didn’t want to be shocked. Somehow I hadn’t expected it but the gravity of the political loyalty within the government circles in the savanna is real and stares us in the face. There is no way any political entity will come into the savannah and beat the sitting president now especially since he is from these parts. The foot soldiers abound too much and more or less they dictate the policies of the government in these parts.

There is even an insider joke that the foot soldiers were disgruntled at the inadequacy of jobs for the youth. When they go look for jobs they are asked to bring their certificates and this annoys them because when the political party was canvassing for votes they didn’t ask them for their education qualifications.

Pretty interesting indeed!

But Yes, like we always say, life must go on. Ghana our motherland should be bigger than our political issues. We should all put our hands to the wheel and as a friend said this week, the more hands to the wheel the lighter the burden.

Kpakpo I’m feeling too drained to continue. Will pick up the other stories later.

For now Please don’t say tweaaaa! because I’m not your Co-equal and you don’t have to rub it in.

I’m just married to your sister so if I want to keep her I’m obliged to keep quiet.

Enjoy your weekend.

Your Cousin in law,
Savannah Boy.

New Year Walkabout

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

This is the first letter of the new year and I’m writing to you with a blocked nose because the weather took a turn for the worse. Chale! You won’t believe it but just when we thought the harmattan was about to subside, it takes a turn for the worse.

In all my visits here before I finally moved here, the weather has never been this bad. In the morning, we hit temperatures as low as 18degrees and even when the sun is up in the morning the temperature gradually rises until it hits 38degrees few hours after noon.

This weather pattern is pretty normal but like the changing weather patterns all over the world, this time the weather is very dry, not humid at all. It is so dry that in the abundance of Shea butter, residents are buying a particular Heel Balm from France. As to how that one too became popular beats my mind Nii Kpakpo.

Personally I carry two portable containers, one for Robb to grease my extra large nose against my dust allergies and the other is Shea butter for my face (especially lips), hands and feet. The weather is so dry that the hair on my body gets cranky and irritating so needs constant oiling with Shea butter lest it gets uncomfortable.

The weather is so dry Nii Kpakpo that when you see clouds in the sky it’s not the usual rain clouds but rather dust clouds. The dust is so much that you can actually taste it on your tongue.

Today I went back to work after the long holiday break and as usual the attendance book was full. People had grudgingly dragged themselves to work. The dust is worse on the way to work because now my district decides that they want to construct the main road and the way they are going about it is just dusty.

Honestly sometimes I don’t understand our Ghanaian engineers especially when it comes to road construction. There is a whole lot of space by the roadside and the kind of gutters they are constructing I think will reduce the size of the road drastically. Are they waiting for the district to grow then will now solicit for more money to expand the road? I really don’t get it Kpakpo.

Well, I messed up your sister’s phone and I have to fix it especially since I was the one to cause it in the first place. I put the data on her android phone off and somehow somebody messed up the unlock pattern and I’m supposed to use my email to sign in. Now how do I do that with the data off and the wifi too? I’m so confused.

Interestingly the phone repair shop is still closed. They are still not back from the holidays and shop still has Christmas decorations and curtains over it’s doors. Whilst I was waiting for them to maybe show up, the number of people who showed up asking me if the shop was going to open, as if I worked there or because I stayed there too long to look like a staff member, was overwhelming.

This people up here don’t really chase money the way people do in the south leaving home to work at the crack of dawn and even sleeping over in the shop so the shop will open early to sell, even if nine times out of ten, nobody shows up that early in the morning.

Oh Kpakpo! Business is back and booming. Took a walk through the market and there are only a few shops that are not open. After staying here for a while, I think I now know almost very corner of the market and I can find anything I want within the hour. You know I could never do that with any of the markets in Accra especially Makola though I know how to find my way around there.

Today I went looking for a wholesale shop for cosmetics and toiletries. So I got some roll on, an aftershave and some deodorants for me and her and at wholesale prices too. There were even some items that weren’t in the major supermarkets I went to afterwards and those that were in stock in the supermarkets were sometimes as high as seventy percent more expensive,

Good bargains today if you ask me.

Chale! This is the new year oh and we have to look sharp. Today I noticed that it looked like there was shortage of fuel. I wonder if it was due to the filling stations hoarding fuel in lieu of the projected increase in fuel prices or anything else.

Whatever happened to your ‘oga at the top’ when he went to fete the children of the richest people in the world. Didn’t he meet their parents to ask them to sort us out with a few million gallons of crude whilst we still try to get on our feet.

Or he rather went to shoot his loudmouth and show off his better half’s ‘ikebe’ much to the chagrin of the lascivious desert dwellers with more money than the sand under their feet.

Kpakpo, as for me, it’s the new year and I’m waiting to hear him say he has changed gears into another drive instead of the demonstrations he is so noted for.

Whilst we are on the subject Kpakpo, where is the Bearded Mayor? He has been quiet this Yuletide. What has he said about the demolition dents at that faraway place in Accra?

Nii Kpakpo, it is true I don’t listen to news that much since I came over to the savannah but I hear good stories on the radio so I just downloaded TuneIn Radio so any time I feel like I can keep up.

I have realised I miss the Weekend City Show of my roommate and your bald pot bellied cousin which joyfully satirises weekly events in the city to the enjoyment of his listeners.

The download was also necessitated by the realization that I didn’t even know the Commonwealth Torch was in town and that my most favourite artiste currently ‘Shaaiitta Whyaairrraaay’ carried it in my own old homestead Chorkor.

Oh man! We have finally ‘entered the net’ and people ‘like our tin’.
Shatta Movement for life.
SM4Lyf!

Nii Kpakpo it is very likely that I might take another social media break until I get a new gadget. You know the tab I’m using is ‘la borro’ and the owner wants his gadget back. Well I hoped I could loan purchase it but alas, that’s not possible especially since you and I both know that money paid in bits and pieces in this land of our death is not utilised to the fullest as the holder of the money will desire it to be used.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson, we are in the new year and to God be the glory. Let us keep spreading the word that Ghana is not poor. We can make it out of our current situation via a renewal of individual minds.

When I hear people calling on government to intervene in one thing or the other I get sad because who is the government if it isn’t the ordinary Ghanaian citizen who created the mess in the first place. If we prevent the mess, we won’t have to call for help and then get disappointed if it doesn’t come.

Kpakpo, we also do not have to sit down and wait for the policy makers to bail us out. Through cooperation with each other, we can make giant strides in progress. It’s for this reason that I’m glad some of you are into relevant radio so you can spread the word quicker and on a broader scale.

Let’s keep working for Ghana because this is the land of our birth, and our death too.

Keep keeping well until next time.

Your Cousin in Law,
Savannah Boy

Heading South

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

The weather in the savannah has been hot and dry lately and as usual I have been inundated with all sort of sicknesses especially as regards to respiration. My allergies have been acting up mainly because of the many dusty roads in the savannah.

The road to my office is under cinstruction and it is no help at all since by the time I get to work I’m so much covered in dust I look like a ‘dustkimo’ – a dust Eskimo. Obviously I’m not the only one feeling it but in my situation I’m the only one with the dust allergies. The other day I sat in a taxi that I believe would have been better off if I had walked along the road.

Chale! I felt how much the Jews must have suffered in the holocaust when they were gassed. The dust engulfed the car and it felt like the exhaust had also been turned into the car because it was a mixture of dust end fuel fumes. The worst was that the backseat windows will not roll down.

And whee. I opened the door to get a direct dusty air (trust me, it was the lesser of two evils) the driver screamed at me in dagbani. Not that I cared very much because I didn’t understand what he was saying but he looked rather cross.

Kpakpo, there several events that I have missed being up in the savannah. I live up here now but I even missed BarCamp Tamale, a meeting of ThinkTanks to move Ghana foward. I was down south attending my father in law’s, your uncle’s, birthday party. You didn’t show up.

Last year I missed what I consider as Ghana’s greatest music festival Indie Fuse Indie Fuseand this year I don’t intend to make the same mistake. Hearing about the artistes and their music via the social media grapevine was too much for me to bear. Especially the updates on Facebook not to mention the live commentary on twitter via various tweets that had me tagged in them.

Not this time. No lose guard!

Nii Kpakpo I have also missed several gatherings of the best social group in the universe – a group of dummiesdummies who transcend backgrounds and professions to just be who they best can be. This group has in recent times taken on a philanthropic cloak and is giving back to the community through several outlined projects.

Recently schools have been identified and books donated to augment the education of the Ghanaian youth at all levels both junior high and senior high. Apart from it being fun in the build up to these events, it has also been fun seeing how happy people are to help out with contributions both fiscal and material to the success of these projects. And I have missed it all.

I have missed the gathering of dummies even if they have to promote a business venture of a member or show support at an outdooring or wedding ceremony.

So I am heading down South to your Bearded Mayor choked city to attend a book launch by an inspiring friend and mentor, Nana Awere Damoah. The book is title is I Speak of Ghana and the reviews so far are rave. I’m privileged to be a distributor up north and I happen to think it’s a must read book for every Ghanaian and for everybody who wants to come to Ghana, it should serve as a guide book next to the Briandts Guide.

Kpakpo I’m not missing the book launch and the gathering of the dummies. Since Nana Awere is the founder of the group, it is obvious that the function will be like a homecoming event for all present past and future dummies. It will be pretty good to see old faces and ferment some new social contacts to be stored up for use some day. After all we live in an era of connectivity and one has to be connected to survive.

Well, I’m on a bus and I’m heading south. Like Sun Wu kong and his ‘pishang’ in Journey To The journey to The WestWest, I’m heading south to have some fun.

And it’s about time too because I get to leave the heat of the savannah to rhat cold rains of the south. I get to take a break fro my anti hystermine pills because of the incessant dust and settle for the cool stale air of the capital city.

Trust me, it’s the lesser of two evils.

Nii Kpakpo Thompson, you didn’t tell me you were on leave but I found out when one of my dummy friends has transferred from the gold land leaving his fufu abode to come to the capital city of traffic and rice.

Well I wish him well too. When we are moving out, he is moving in and I’m glad he’s having fun so far.

Enjoy your leave Nii and be good. Take a well deserved rest and reply my letters.

Till then, it’s still me

Your Cousin in Law
Savannah Boy

My Week

Dear Nii Kpakpo,

It’s been a very fortuitous week with me feeling kinda out of sorts. It’s one of those feelings you get where you more or less say ‘fuck all’ and the rest of the world can go hang. Yessir! I know you understand that feeling because you had to go through the same thing when rumors went around about you and all those girls. Hmmm! Matter oh!

Well, so I did not feel like going to work on Monday so did not go. Fell conveniently into my tradition of Lazy Mondays. You know I have always loved Mondays because they are days that if I can help it I do not do anything – not even get out of the house. This is albeit the fact that Mondays could be the busiest days at work especially just coming out of the weekend.

Kpakpo I did not go on Tuesday either because that was the day your sister sent me on that errand and the guy supposed to pick me up didn’t show to take me to work whilst I waited for him at another friends place. When I called the office they said we were supposed to be present at one of our colleague’s mother’s funeral. Most of the office had already left so there was no point going in at all.

Chale! The people I live in my house with have also taken a ‘fuck all’ attitude but they forget that you can’t have the same attitude with yor benefactor. Me I’m just seeing how far they will go wi thst attitude and I will take the necessary measures and I hope it’s not too drastic be air so far the actions that are presenting themselves to me are truly ‘fuck all’. This mood is not good for me or anybody around me and I better jump out of it quick.

Thursday was my girlfriend’s birthday and she was so busy I could not even have time to tease her that she was getting old by the days and weeks. But when she became available she said that she was always available. What is it with folk who don’t seem to understand that being available for another person means being there when they need you and not later.

Anyway one of my friends was in town organizing a conference and since all work and no play makes Dr Dan a dull man it was fun sitting down to cold drinks and useless banter about anything and everything.

Nii Kpakpo, it is only in these parts that you can still find Club Shandy. Remember that drink Club Shandy aka Boso3. When I first came here and I found it I was in partial shock. My first thought and constant thoughts still is it wonder if there is another factory or subsidiary of the brewery producing just that particular drink for these parts. And there are some pubs here who serve it cold at any time of the day even when there are no lights.

The boys were pleasantly surprised as everybody is when I show them that Club Shandy Bosoe still exists and in honour of the memories I still haven’t seen anybody drink less than 2 bottles a night when they go out.

Every night after the conference the boys came out and we stayed till after midnight then all went back to work the next day waiting for the day to end so we could sit again at night.

But the most memorable one was on Friday night. We all could not wait to do the all night that nobody wanted to talk about but knew it was gonna happen. The conference had ended and after writing the reports and finishing up administrative stuff, boys stepped out around 11pm. Like Monday and Tuesday I didn’t go to work on Friday either and as such I needed the action, which proved to be worth it.

The plan was that there will be no sleep until the flight back to Accra in the morning and indeed there was no sleep. By e time I got to location boys had already downed first and second round of beers. Needed to catch up and yeah I caught up by talking to the girls present.

Another thing I have noticed Kpakpo is that being a Gemini my flirting skills are at their peak and thus I must say myself I have become almost irresistible. Coupled with the fuck all attitude I think it makes for a deadly cocktail.

Papa Nii, talking of cocktails, we decided to go pub hopping and then went to a latest discovery I have made here. It is a pretty quaint pub owned by a pretty damsel who used to do cocktails as a hobby until she decided to make it into a business. She runs her own Deme’s Pub and Bar here. Imagine the kind of conversation we had when we were talking about her and my hobby of cocktail mixing. Suffice it to say that there were no holds barred with insinuations and we have become fast friends afterwards.

Oh yes! It was truly fun spending time at her pub and being as pretty as she is she engaged the boys to their every need. Yes you heard me, every need. That is to say every need within her means as a pub owner and graceful hostess.

The cocktails flowed.

With the cocktails enamoured and as foundation, now it was time to go dancing. The decision of the location was left to the girls since it is an unwritten code that when the girls have fun, we the guys too will invariably have fun too.

There were very funny incidents in the club. I haven’t been clubbing anywhere in a long time and these incidents kinda took me by surprise. In this era of internet and social media women still come to the club and when you want to dance with them they shy away. Ghanaian women are still giving the old look you up and down before even talking to you. Haven’t they learnt that appearances are nowadays usually deceptive.

But interestingly even if that was the case the guys they end up mingling with don’t look any better with sagging pants with underpants sticking out. Usually when it happened to me in Accra I just took out my card, put it in the girl’s hand and walked away. The thing is that even though the appearance is nothing to write home about, the portfolio piques the interest of the girl and now she wants to be friends but by then I have lost interest too. At least not for the night at the club but maybe later. Have made some interesting friends that way.

After the dancing and the boys went back to their hotel to freshen up for their plane ride back to Accra, I went off home to prepare for keep fit and then join the boys for basketball at the polytechnic courts. From there it was to the market and then off to sleep finally.

Nii Kpakpo, it’s really been a fortuitous week like I said and I know after reading this you can see that too. I miss the action in Accra and it’s getting boring here with my kinda crowd not around. However I chose this life, different from the one in Accra, and I should stick to it.

I know that group of dummies I am a part of are doing another philanthropic presentation somewhere in Vakpo in the Volta region. They are presenting literature books to the secondary school. Much as I wish I could be there I can not.

Well, when you get into town, since you will probably be on holiday, you won’t have any work holding you down and as such I don’t think we will bother that much with sleep.

Just get here.

Till later then, any3mi!

Have a lovely weekend.

Your Cousin in law
Savannah Boy.