My Child Slaves.

Despite what the I.O.M. says, my subjects are in slavery and it is very real in the Volta Region of Ghana. My story will be posted in a couple weeks.

A Gentleman and a Dandy: An Ode to Belton Martle Mickle.

A haiku:
You never would sashay.
Diseases, you and Graham said.
Sad water packets.



(pictured: Belton when he subsisted alone on french-fries from the Labone Coffee Shop)

Sometimes there are mornings with croissants and coffee.

I've been going on-and-off for breakfast into Osu, the tourist neighborhood of Accra, for quiet some time now. Just getting a pastry and a milky drip espresso coffee makes my early mornings. There's the cafe above Koala--the genius tourist grocery store owned by some profiteer Lebanese--that has some fancy Turkish coffee and a wax pirate. The pirate was purchased because it was "very European" as one ex-pat Arab told me. Then there's always the Osu food court; a sad, sad place that covers the "Inn" market, with three restaurants and a cafe entitled, "Creamy Inn", "Pizza Inn", and "Chicken Inn". These pricey cafe places are all fine and dandy, but nothing really does beats the $.10 street tea with sugar and condensed milk in the early hours.

picture: "Ebrone girl, Can you take my picture? My picture?"--Bread girl at the "Inn".

They're of the travelin' kind.

1. Rhema, Rolloooooo, and Todd walking around Labone, Accra.
2. Ms Sarah L. eating some fried rice and whatever she had at Tip Top Chinese Restaurant.
3. Rhema sucking on sashay of purified water at Papa Ja's.

Rastas and the Akuma Village

We arrive at Papa Ja's Akuma Village, a.k.a. The Rising Phoenix, and smoke a fat joint while watching the sea at dusk. This was two days ago. The little hotel, which originally opened in '97 by an ebrone (white man) couple, was taken over by Ja and his meditative Rasta crew last year. The 6-room bungalow nests on a cliff over the Gulf and is home to torn-up drum boys and young travelers, as well as the construction crew that's putting together a stage. As Papa says, "We're building a real chill place." I'm sure it will be. Every cell of Papa is just sweet, untarnished ass. There's no electricity really, though most places in Accra lack electricity every other day from the rationing. It's located on High Street, coincidentally, near the Presidential Memorial.

Ghana

The month has past. I am alone in Ghana. No more bitching from NYU kiddies, no more of Tante Marie's "discount Pan-African" foods from the meal plan that gave me the shits. It's just T'wat (Todd Watson), Rollo Romig, Sarah Lynch, and Rhema and me, and the sea, and a bunch of Ghanians, and Lebanese, and Hustlers and Hoes, which are the only women of color who really are at bars here. Accra, Ghana's capital on the sea, is, well, Accra. It smells like defecation--literally. I would parallel living here to jumping in a hot Port-a-Potty that is rolling down a pothole-ridden street on an incline. But it's simply the best. There is this endless energy in the streets. The people are marvelous and the diversity is second to none in Ghana. And the humor here is endless. So, hence begins my near month long journal of Accra and West Africa, sans NYU.

The City Reliquary

Ah, yes the City Reliquary is quaint, alright, but it is also relatively charming to look at and informative. From the chipped stones collected from buildings of New York past to the displays of Statue of Liberty memorabilia, like a beer bottle with our little lady in it, this small storefront historical society off the Lorimer “L” is worth checking out. Although the non-for-profit is only open on the weekends, it's a pretty fantastic place. Local neighbor volunteers run the 370 Metropolitan Avenue stop and are surprisingly pleasant to chat with. Somehow the year-old-museum, which originally was located in a smaller venue on Grand Street, managed to get its civic minded hands on the old sign from the dearly missed 2nd Avenue Deli. The piece of Lower East Side lore now hangs in the back room parallel to a projected film screen. Dave, a young worker at the museum, said a local by chance caught construction workers removing the sign and held on to it. But besides the reminder of the once delicious matzo ball soup, a fairly interesting Bicycle-centric gallery showing there currently entitled "Bicycle Fetish". Check it out.