voitures, zems, and taxis

accra, ghana

a most unusual experience
imagine my surprise. having just crossed the border from togo into ghana, i was approached by a few men asking me if i was going to accra. yes, i was. they not only quoted me a reasonable price, but they led me to a station wagon. i don't recall the make or model, but the vehicle had a fender and a bumper, all of its interior upholstery intact, and (what!) a functioning seat belt. i stepped into this strange, otherworldly vehicle (first worldly) and it departed (promptly) with five passengers in a car designed to hold five people. it also, strangely enough, had petrol already in the tank. things went from wacky to outright bizarre when the driver played good music (marley, but not legend-cliche stuff) at a reasonable volume.

scars and stories
upon my return, you may notice a circular discoloration on the back of my right calf. this stems from an injury sustained a few weeks ago when i stepped off a moped and burned myself on the exhaust pipe. painful? yes. threatening? not. the incident will hereafter be referred to as a motorcycle accident since the definition applies, if only technically.

lome
though i only passed through for a half-teaspoon's worth of kilometers, props must be given to lome, the capital of togo. while so many cities choose to ignore their birthright and neglect their seafront, obscuring it behind massive port facilities, exorbitant mansions, or decrepit architecture vaguely reminiscent of past glory days, lome has an amply wide beach and welcomes its seafront. while i don't know what lurks on the other side of that coastal road, behind those interdit uriner warnings (which the populace seems to ignore), i can say that the morsel i saw was laudable.

americana
at a stop for petrol in eastern ghana, i took a stretch to hear american country music coming from a nearby radio. perhaps i'm a little homesick, as my mind raced with ideas: you know, for all our differences, we are all americans. just because i may not live in places where this music is appreciated, doesn't mean that we all salute the same flag, speak the same language, and take pride in an amazing history.
then a second country song came on the radio, and i thought to myself: damn, this music sucks!

jokes that are probably not that funny, but i made them up so offer me some leniency
how many peace corps volunteers does it take to change a light bulb? three. one to change it, and two to refer to the activity as c.a.l.b.

why did the peace corps volunteer cross the road? t.g.t.t.o.s., that is, unless they were medvac'd before their cos.

[okay, okay, enough already. i kid the peace corps cause i care (they do some amazing work).]

if all dogs go to heaven, most peugeots end up in west africa.

a mother is worried about the employment destiny of her child, so she puts a series of objects on the dining room table and leaves home for the day. on one corner of the table she puts a stack of money, thinking that if it is gone upon her return, it signifies that her son will become a greedy man.
on another part of the table she leaves a stack of official papers with a rubber stamp and ink pad, reasoning that if that is gone, her son will become a bureaucrat who forces others to fill out redundant forms that he will them overzealously stamp.
on yet another part of the table she leaves some bedroom slippers and a bucket of greasy, fried doughballs with the idea that if they are gone, her son will become insufferably lazy.
a long day passes. she returns home to find that not only is the money gone, but so are all the official forms and the rubber stamp, as well as the slippers and all the fried food. overwhelmed, she screams to the heavens 'oh no! he's going to become a togolese border guard!'