Last night I walked out of my new cheapo apartment and there was nada in the way of streetlights. Just a mile of streetside hawkers using flaming pots to illuminate their wares. At the end of the mile was the mother of all chicken shacks, which advertised its location by throwing red, green and yellow Christmas lights on a tree: the only illuminate three story object on the horizon. If my camera had the capacity to shoot a decent picture at night, I would share.
After sundown, everyone is still remarkably friendly, and beggars are few. The only big downside is that Accra has enormous open gutters with sewage running through them. They’re everywhere, and they're easy tomiss at night. Some are one foot deep, some are four feet deep. There’s usually just a shallow puddle of ick at the bottom, but that’s more than enough to give off a stink, and to make drinking and walking hazardous. The expatriates I ate dinner with my first night here told me the horrible story of man who was both celebrating his birthday and having a going away party on the same night. In a drunken epiphany, the guy decided he wanted to run home and get a bottle of something. He didn’t see a gutter, fell into while running at full speed, and broke his arm, his collarbone, and was all covered in crap.
So I walk wary through the backstreets, looking for the Hotel David, which is supposed to give good dinner. At one point I hear what sounds like raucous church choir up the street, and squint my eyes to try and figure out the writing on the building that the noise is coming from.
“What are you looking for?” says a friendly voice. I don’t mean friendly friendly. I mean prostitute friendly. She’s got her hair up, her lip gloss on, her best off-the-shoulder shirt on.
“Just that noise up there. It sounds like a church service of some sort, and I was interested.”
“Where are you going?” Such a smile, you’d think it was genuine.
“I’m looking for the Hotel David. I’m eating dinner there.”
“I will walk with you. I saw you walking and I said ‘I like the way that man walks. I want to walk with him.’”
“Course ya did.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Ooh, America. Big, bad Americans.”
It goes on like this for the twenty minutes it takes me to find the hotel. Guys by the road yell at her in local language, and one man points at us and yells “Babylonia,” whatever that means. At the hotel door I tell her I’m going to eat now. Alone. Perfunctory thanks for the unsolicited non-optional company. Her lip gloss looks white and bad in the hotel’s lights, and she looks at me like a stiffed waitress. Always the guilt from the prostitutes. Cripes.
