KUMASI, Ghana—Last week you may have noticed some fairly lacklustre photos of people carrying things upon their heads. It may surprise you to know there are also people here who have entire little stores that they carry on their heads.
Why no photos? No consent. Why no consent? After some shifty-eyed glances from several of my friends, Ama told me, "they think you will send the pictures back to your town to laugh at us and call us black monkeys."
"Oh", said I, feeling rather ashamed. My friend Marion chimed in, "Your people always come to the coast, snap a few photos of half-dressed children climbing coconut trees and go home saying, 'This is Africa.'"
It is probable, readers, be you black, white or otherwise that—like so many others who learn about Africa from TV—you think everyone here is poor and covered in flies. Au contraire, there are way too many rich people here. Crazy rich, dripping with richness, and they are living an opulent and charmed life in a tropical paradise. Sounds rough huh?
You volunteer type eco-tourists will not run into these people. They don't need your help and don't find your ripped jeans, greasy hair or sweaty upper lip appealing. In fact, they are tired of the sloppy looking white tourists, "slumming" in their country.
It has become such a problem that Ghana Tourism's website spends three paragraphs on dress code, asserting, "It is considered disrespectful to attend … functions in dirty, crumpled clothes." And continues, "…in our society we expect that you exhibit an acceptable standard of dressing and decorum."
One woman told me a nice white guy came to her church. "You should have seen the clothes, horrible. Our pastor sewed something for him;" her eyes filled with pity. He told them he thought Africa was full of wild animals and dirt, so he didn't pack anything nice. Again, I feel ashamed.
Primitive? Think Again!
It may surprise you to know that during the 100 years war, when Europe was a bloody, fragmented quagmire, West Africa had a flourishing kingdom the size of Europe with a single king. It is rumoured that royals here had chunks of gold big enough to tether horses to. They had salt and diamonds also. They are an ancient world power. Didn't know? Shame on you. Go find out who Cheikh Anta-Diop is.
This kingdom was called Ghana, and it is the kingdom the tiny country of Ghana is named after. Modern Ghana is a rich country.
In modern Ghana the biggest monarch, the owner of Kumasi (Ghana's second-largest city) is called the Asantehene. He's rich like an oil sheikh and has the Queen of England's phone number on speed dial (can't blame him, she's got a room full of Ghanaian gold that's rightfully his). Anyway, he's loaded, and if you are related to him, or he likes you, you can get rich too. I'm going to try for an interview, but don't hold your breath.
Besides royalty, expatriate Ghanaians return home with huge piles of money to retire in their 14-bedroom mansions with terracotta roofs. These people drive either the latest Mercedes, Range Rover, or Toyota SUV. The Accra road highway here in Kumasi is clogged with brand new, sparklingly clean SUVs. And gas isn't any cheaper here.
Politicians in Ghana live just below royalty. It seems like even the lowliest minister can get a police escort for his seven-SUV entourage to go to the corner store. They are perennially blocking traffic on the highway as they whiz by, lights flashing and sirens blaring. It is not uncommon for a minister to have more than seven cars, I'm told, and all of them SUVs because they are provided with a government gas chit. Rumour has it that a minister here can get paid as much as $5000 a month.
Are You a Minister or a Minister?
A couple of weeks ago I went to a place where us wealthy folks meet up—the gas station. At gas stations you can buy luxury items like butter and Canadian chocolate (which is why I was there). Only those who own cars can afford the expensive items sold in the Shell "shop." Weird huh? Anyhow, I digress.
So a man comes to the register with a wrinkled envelope filled with stacks of money still wrapped in the little paper band from the bank. So I glibly say, "Are you a minister?" as he peels off a few bills from the stack.
"Do you mean a minister of God?" is his reply. Of course, I realise, there are only two groups I can think of walking around Ghana with huge wads of cash, government officials and clergy.
Indeed, churches here are mercenary in there thirst for funds. Charismatic preachers calling themselves "prophets" rake in huge profits, and no one seems to expect Christ-like penury. It would be undignified. It is grist for another article, it has become so outrageous.
Business is booming here, too, in part because people are desperate for good stuff to buy. It seems besides items made locally for your average Joe, and the very poorest grade of Chinese exports, little else is available in Kumasi. People want the finest and can afford it. They're just tired of travelling abroad twice a year to get it. If you bring something good in you can sell it for a healthy profit.
Mixed-Income Housing
Yes, we in Kumasi have our Beverly Hills-type neighbourhoods with big mansions on giant lots, but that's not the usual way of things. People buy plots of land from the local chief and build. This results in the rich and poor living side by side.
You will see the same dull concrete fence surrounding each lot, but when you open the gate you may be met with a field full of cassava and a tiny unpainted boy's quarters, or a double lot with a giant mansion and five Mercedes parked on the cobblestone walkway the house boy is carefully digging weeds out of with a cutlass.
The fact of the matter is, 10 years ago the mansion was a boy's quarters and a cassava farm manned by the poor relatives of the plot owner. The plot owner—who was abroad in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, Canada or wherever—was sending money back via Western Union to build on the plot.
By the time the giant house was built, most of the cassava was gone and the plot owner would come home with a pocket full of money once a year to add the finishing touches and get the brand new Mercedes SUV out of the Tema shipping yard.
This creates a nice blend to our little suburban neighbourhood, with the poorer constituents providing goods and services to the more affluent. But it goes both ways. We recently had no running water for several months in our neighbourhood. No problem for us richies—we all have wells.
My neighbour Isaac, returning here to retire after over 40 years abroad, started selling water at four cents a bucket from his well. He drives a brand new Mercedes SUV, but charging for water seems to give him something to do all day—collect coins.
Stay tuned for next week! I'm not done on this topic. We'll go deeper into the lifestyles of Kumasi's rich and famous!
Canadian Epoch Times correspondent Zoë Ackah is spending a year in rural Ghana. This story is part of a series in which Zoe shares her culture shock and her thoughts on life in one of West Africa's more prosperous nations. See the "Related Stories" links above for more articles in this series.