Hair
Abidjan ranks the third least safe city in the world, after Baghdad and N’Djamena, according to a shoddy survey by a consulting group that obviously has never set foot in this country. How they come to...
View ArticleRumors of lightning bolts and human blood
Ivory Coast held parliamentary elections yesterday. We might imagine people were keen to cast their vote after having witnessed ex-president Gbagbo’s dogged sabotaging of the 2010 presidential...
View ArticleOne more note on the West African sex trade
Stories about prostitutes are a staple of West African newspapers, and I tend to believe they tell us more about what it means to live in poverty than statistics ever can. As a newly arrived...
View ArticleSix years without a job
“They say: when life is tough, it’s the tough ones who survive. I’m trying. But I can’t help thinking: why did my life turn out like this? I haven’t always been good, good, good. But even if I had to...
View ArticleMerry Christmas
Hand-delivered at the doorstep: a bottle of Moet & Chandon and a bowl of chocolates. With compliments from the presidency's communication department. Ivory Coast finally has a president who has...
View ArticleNew army, same violent behavior
A trader was shot at point blank range at a checkpoint manned by FRCI soldiers in eastern Ivory Coast. Days earlier, FRCI soldiers melted plastic bags over the naked backs of four men who stood accused...
View ArticleLooking for paradise
After driving hundreds of kilometers on empty roads past square brick farmers’ houses and green savannah filled with thorny shrubs as far as the eye could see, the road went up through glorious...
View ArticleGetting to know Accra
After almost four months in Accra, I can confidently state that Ghana isn’t the ‘Africa-for-beginners’ it’s made out to be by flippant expats whose stately townhouse or furnished luxury apartment has...
View ArticleClassifieds
PUBLIC NOTICE A NEWLY established church needs financial help for Gods Evangelism project to save lost/perishing souls. 024-0081848.STUDENT visa guaranteed to Cyprus, Malaysia, Holland ... etc....
View ArticleUnbridled fecundity
Ghana's politicians receive praise for respecting the rules of democracy, that is, for not overtly rigging elections or clinging to power indefinitely. Campaigning for the December elections began soon...
View ArticleThings I miss
A blue sky. It's been dirty grey and oppressively overcast since I began working in Ghana four months ago. I had to go to London, of all places, to see this. I felt an odd sense of freedom looking up...
View ArticleMoses Gets Married
In the jumble of identical roadside shops and wind-blown gas stations that constitute a typical Accra suburb, it wasn’t easy to find the turn-off. But when we finally spotted Beach Road, the directions...
View ArticleDriving
Dark clouds gathered in the eastern town of Ho last week, threatening to unleash a thunderstorm on a ruling party rally. A tempestuous wind blew them onward, and the rain came later, but when it...
View ArticleGold mining in Ghana
When I researched a story about the sudden, and as yet unexplained, influx of thousands of illegal Chinese in Ghana’s gold regions, I was invited to visit a long-established gold mine in the west of...
View ArticleFindings 3
Street traders selling scarves, key rings, vuvuzela's and other paraphernalia emblazoned with the faces of political leaders say business is booming ahead of presidential elections next week. Eleven...
View ArticleWhite saviors, and black ones
This is one of the most depressing aspects of Accra: billboards and posters that promise redemption from clean-shaven pastors smiling benignly at the downtrodden flocks. All-night prayer events are...
View ArticleArticle 5
The funeral of John Atta Mills -- who, in keeping with a tested African tradition, had been trying to hide the gravity of his illness before he died -- propelled vice-president John Mahama into the...
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