Baatsona Files #1- Real

Relocating to Tema a few months ago has proven to me that as much as I loved travelling, often as travelers we don’t get to see the real nature of a place until we reside there. Ghana is the realest place I have ever lived. By real, I mean it is so visceral, vivacious and unrelenting. There is never a dull moment here and never before have I felt so connected and disconnected from humanity.

I could go on about the beauty and the flaws of Ghana but it is not my intent to critize the world of Ghanaians. I am merely a Ghanaian born Third Culture Kid who has returned home as the Sankofa tells us to. The Baatsona Files will document my stay and adventures here.

Real, is awaking up to news that someone you know has been summoned to the Police station because of their habitation in a Kiosk. For those of you who are new to the world of Kiosks, I am not talking about those cute designer booths you find in shopping malls around the world. The Kiosks here are like mini shipping containers. They are used for stores, salons, groceries, cement depots and most of all as a home. These tin cans are homes to entire families and communities in the absence of affordable housing. It is cheaper to rent or buy a Kiosk than to purchase land and build a concrete home. Whilst this may seem harmless because they are essentially accommodation, they often exist in areas without sanitation, toilettes and running water for the inhabitants. So it isn’t uncommon to watch someone bath out of a bucket next to an open gutter whilst another individual takes his morning poop or pee a few feet away.

Real is knowing that the someone whose home you just described will be taken away because the Kiosk, they have been inhabiting and paying rent for has been deemed illegal since it is squatting on someone’s land. The middle man who rented out the kiosk is long gone and has moved on to his next scam at the expense of another unsuspecting person.

Real is finding out that the nasty accident you drove by hours ago involved a relative of someone you know. That relative has since been found paralysed with no hopes of walking again.

Real is arguing with the Tok Tok garbage man on the dusty road in front of your house as he causes a scene all the while claiming he is not ignorant. Ghetto behavior is universal.

Real is kicking out the street prostitute which a tenant left behind because he didn’t want to pay her after she had to endure his nasty ass. Oh and by the way, this same nasty ass man also ran off without paying the remainder of his bill.

Real is the tropics. There are critters here that are down right scary and dangerous. Millipedes, Centipedes, Guinea worms, over grown daddy long legs…. Need I say more?

Real is figuring out that your birth country is extremely rich in resources but most of it has been pillaged by previous colonizers and new ones.

Real is sitting by the seaside and realizing that not a single wave comes in without a heap of plastic trash in it. Why don’t we recycle more? Doesn’t Sweden want to buy our waste to make renewable energy? And speaking of trash, why can’t I sip my Shandy in peace without smelling the contents of someone else’s ass flow through an open gutter and into the sea? Seriously why?

Real is slavery and the effects of it on the motherland and the diaspora. It is cruel to recognize faces you have seen thousands of miles away and realize that their families were kidnapped from the land you reside in by colonizers who have never paid their dues. And no Kanye, slavery isn’t a state a mind only. Take a visit to the west coast and see the legacy which lives on centuries later.

Real is watching men and women use skin bleaching creams because their blackness has been so ostracized and hated. They believe they are beautiful but they have really turned themselves into an unnatural shade of red.

Real is poverty charity. Yes, you know the scores of outsiders who come here on the premise of helping a poor country but instead become predators in the same society they claimed to help. Take a trip to any seaside town and see the number of interracial children running around with barely legal mothers. The foreign fathers are long gone and shall never return to said town again.

Real is wanting to stay and learn about this mysterious country because it intrigues you daily despite kicking your ass. Real is falling in love with your place of birth.