Florida Courier Publisher Charles W. Cherry II writes about a fact-finding trip to Ghana with his brother Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, where an oil discovery is expected to spark additional economic growth in one of Africa’s most stable countries.

BY CHARLES W. CHERRY II
FLORIDA COURIER

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Click here for Part 2

Click here for Part 3

Saturday, April 16, 2011 - Day 4

Our hostess in Ghana, Judith Aidoo, has pushed us at a blistering pace since we arrived in Ghana just 72 hours ago. As I reviewed the daily notes and pictures I took of this trip to date, what stood out was the amount of ground we’d covered and the industries we’d had a chance to review: mass communications, investment banking, personal finance, and oil and gas.

We’d also gotten a chance to experience Ghanaian cultural activity up close and personal at the Artist Alliance Gallery fundraiser and reception (I wrote about it in Part 2), a fashion show at a German cultural center, and an old-fashioned house party (in Part 3). Consequently, we all decided to sleep in on Saturday morning.

Front and center

The breakfast table of Kweku Fleming, an American expatriate and Judith’s tenant, was to again take front and center for the early part of the day. "Chef," Kweku’s private cook, did his usual thing with fresh fruits and juices, herbs and potatoes.

Accra is an active city. At 4 a.m., people start coming in from its outskirts into the city center, even on Saturdays. So "sleeping in" meant that by 9:15 a.m., we were to be at the breakfast table.

In keeping with Kweku’s "United Nations" theme of breaking bread with an eclectic mix of interesting people, this morning there was Toni Manison, an American expatriate singer/entertainer from Los Angeles; two twenty-something female tenants who rented rooms from Kweku, Victoria Okoye, whose Nigerian parents live in America, and Beija Eltmali, a Moroccan sister who lives in Paris; another young woman, Crystal Svanikier, who publishes a well-designed magazine in Accra called "Dust;" Judith, Kweku, Glenn and me.

Many similarities

Toni’s typical of the Black Americans we were to meet here who leverage their personal strengths and skills and, to a certain extent, are able to hustle, reinvent themselves, and make a living. She’s been in Ghana since the late 1990s and is one of the American entertainers of choice here. She’s run nightclubs and makes her money singing and entertaining at clubs and at private parties of Ghana’s monied elite. Toni say she’s "keeping jazz alive" in Ghana.

Victoria, Beija and Crystal were also typical of some of the twenty-something recent college and university grads we met here: well-spoken and well-traveled. All three had been to multiple stops in Africa, Europe and America, had varied work experiences – and really thought nothing of it. They keep up with world events and are enjoying Accra, which seems to be a stop along the way to bigger and better things for them.

In fact, Victoria and Beija came to Accra because it was becoming known worldwide as a "happening" place (my word, not theirs.) They mentioned a few places that their age set frequented. I made a note to peep into the clubs and see how younger folks party before we leave.

Constructive criticism

After breakfast, Glenn and I had a long conversation with Crystal. Judith had made her aware that we owned newspapers, so were asked to critically evaluate Dust, a free local magazine that Crystal’s company designed, produced and distributed.

Crystal says Dust is meant to be "a platform for creativity and social discussion" among Ghanaians. Glenn gave her suggestions about making more money by getting more advertisers and sponsorships. I evaluated the content, story selection and graphic design and found just a few tweaks that could be made. Otherwise, it was well-written and well-edited, with very few typos, and the stories were in "standard’’ English rather than the mangled, wordy, somewhat formal British style of writing I had seen in most of the country’s newspapers.

Before we made this trip, I signed up for daily Google alerts that would flag stories on the Internet that were written about Ghana. Some of them indicated that there was strain of sexual repression and conservatism – and a certain amount of sexual hypocrisy – in the country’s culture. Whether it was always there, or whether it has come in with the wave of Christian fundamentalism (complete with Ghanaian televangelists and megachurches) is a question I’ll have to research.

Whispering campaign

Anyway, seems that Crystal ran afoul of fundamentalist Christians in Ghana who didn’t like a Dust columnist/blogger who wrote openly and candidly about sexual relationships in Ghana, particularly premarital and extramarital sex, domestic violence, homosexuality, and condom use with regard to HIV/AIDS prevention.

A whispering campaign started against Dust. Some advertisers didn’t renew ad campaigns and receptive prospective clients didn’t return phone calls, to Crystal’s puzzlement. She checked some sources and found out that the "sex column," as her opponents called it, was the source of the sudden chilliness.

She asked Glenn and I what we would do under such circumstances.

Glenn’s response was instantaneous. "Dump the column," he said. His thinking was that a new publication couldn’t afford to allow controversial content to drive advertisers away.

A ‘workaround’

My response was more nuanced. I suggested taking the column out of the magazine and putting in on the Dust website in a way that online readers would have to "opt in" with the understanding that were entering a part of the website that contained adult content. You combat hypocrisy and repression with truth and openness.

Ghana’s HIV/AIDS rate is elevated, as it is in many African nations and in Black America. Does the refusal to openly discuss hot-button sexual issues like homosexuality, adultery and premarital sex in conjunction with "safer sex" practices drive the unsafe sexual behavior underground? I think the "sex column" would be a great tool to open up discussion and raise the consciousness of the people. But that consciousness-raising should not at the expense of a young publishing company still in its early days.

We wished Crystal good luck and made plans for the rest of our day. (You can see my video interview of her at www.flcourier.com.)

Funeral rites

While Glenn took an afternoon nap, Judith and I changed clothes and jumped into a taxi for the 20-minute ride to the home of the mother of one of her former classmates. The mother had died a year earlier and the family was observing the first anniversary of her death by placing a headstone at the cemetery and conducting a first-anniversary memorial service.

We arrived at the family’s home, where Judith was heartily greeted by her friend, a classmate from Ghana’s renowned Wesley Girls’ School, and many of their schoolmates who stopped by to express condolences.

(Think of Wesley Girls as a Ghanaian high school version of all-Black, all-female Spelman College – but on academic steroids. The school has a pipeline into America’s finest colleges and universities. Judith herself is a graduate of Rutgers University and Harvard Law School; she graduated from Harvard years before Barack Obama. Many of her schoolmates are now heads of government departments, judges, investment bankers, heads of law firms, etc., in Ghana.)

From what I’ve seen thus far, it seems that class mobility is more directly tied to education here. There’s a more direct financial benefit to educational achievements and upward financial mobility than there is in America – at least for Black Americans. Also, as in Judith’s case, going to the "right’’ high school(s) in Ghana can get you lifetime connections in Ghana that a Black American going to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc., could only dream of in America.

The other thing I noticed is that historically Black colleges and universities are not on this top group’s radar screens. Though the founder of modern Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, graduated from historically Black Lincoln University in Lincoln, Pa. (where he became a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity), the kids from these families set their sights on Ivy League schools, America’s top colleges and universities, and on the best British universities.

I was told that three generations of Ghanaian students have proven that they can perform academically anywhere around the world, so it gives today’s student from Ghana a tremendous advantage over, say, an American kid from a public high school.

‘Gone so soon’

Death seems to be a natural part of life to Ghanaians, but the culture goes all-out for funeral rites, which stretch over weeks or months. People spend thousands of dollars for large post-funeral repasts and "parties’’ celebrating the deceased person’s life and transition. Banks and insurance companies here advertise funeral loans. Casket makers advertise openly, and in the outskirts of town, you’ll occasionally pass by an open casket on display on the side of the road.

You’ll also see large color posters pasted on walls or on cars – and occasional street billboards – announcing that some poor soul has "GONE TO GLORY," or is "GONE SO SOON" with a large picture of the person, their age at death, and a list of their accomplishments and surviving family members.

Open mouth, insert foot

One of the sisters in the bereaved family is a judge here in Ghana. Judith introduced me as an American lawyer. We made small talk about the legal system in Ghana and her duties as a judge.

I have an opinion about everything, but generally, I keep my opinions to myself when I’m in someone else’s country – and particularly in someone else’s home.

Usually I’ll ask questions rather than make some of the bold, opinioned statements I’d instantly make in America.

I don’t want to fit the international stereotypic profile of Americans as loud, brash, and unthinkingly opinionated. So I don’t know what possessed me to harshly criticize the Ghanaian legal system to a judge who works in it.

"Given Ghana’s knowledge of its own history and its worldwide reputation for protecting its indigenous culture, I’m shocked to see that folks in the legal system still wear those ridiculous British white barrister wigs. They look crazy on Africans," I opined. "Why don’t barristers wear native Ghanaian formal attire?"

She glared at me icily. "It’s the price you pay for being in the legal system here," she explained. "And if the wig bothers you, you shouldn’t be a judge." End of conversation.

The house belonged to the judge’s late mother. Later as I scanned the pictures on the wall, I saw a formal portrait of the judge wearing a "ridiculous" barrister’s wig herself. Judith was gracious enough not to say anything as I picked my face up off the floor.

Cutting her eyes

Coincidentally, the judge’s son was celebrating his 18th birthday. The family gathered to sing "Happy Birthday" (interestingly enough not the Stevie Wonder version, but the regular English version), cut the cake, and passed it around. The birthday boy’s sister – a U.S. university graduate who is getting a master’s in finance from a London economics school – was about to dig into her slice when I saw the judge cut her eyes at her esteemed daughter.

I got the meaning immediately. "This man is a guest. You better NOT eat that cake first! You have better home training than that!" Within about two seconds of that silent transmission from mom, the daughter stopped with her forkful of cake suspended in the air, put it down, and meekly served me first.

Some things – like getting sliced up by mom’s eyes without a spoken word – must be universal – at least among the sons and daughters of Africa, wherever we may be around the world.

‘At all levels’

As Judith and I got ready to depart, we bumped into another one of her friends who was a lawyer specializing in Ghanaian business transactions. (I decided to keep all opinions to myself and just ask questions.) One thing she stressed was the concept of "due diligence," which is legal jargon for "do your homework" before making business decisions. That’s something I was to hear often and consistently during this trip.

"You must do due diligence at all levels," she told me, especially when any transaction involves land use or ownership. "You must ask questions and accept nothing at face value." I made a mental note to myself to find a basic textbook on the Ghanaian legal system so that I could get to understand whether basic legal fundamentals were similar to what I see in Florida.

After a couple of hours, Judith and I traveled back to her place in an Acura SUV driven by a "Wesley Girls" husband. I noticed that it was a standard/manual shift in which the driver has to physically change gears, in contrast to the automatic transmission that’s in 99 percent of American cars.

Why was that? The brother told me that in Ghana, you’d have to pay a premium of about $5,000 for an automatic transmission in a vehicle. That explained why the taxis – many of which would be considered "hoopties" in the states, but were lovingly washed (using a gallon or less of water) by their owners – were almost always a manual shift vehicle.

Where to go?

After arriving back to the Aidoo compound, we had some discussions on how we would partake of Ghana’s nightlife. We found out there was an open-air concert featuring Bibi Tanga and the Selenites, an up-and coming international jazz quintet.

The band is an eclectic mix featuring Bibi Tanga, a Central African Republic native who grew up between Africa and France, as electric bassist and lead singer. (Think of American bass player Larry Graham, but with a different voice.) Other members include Arthur Simonini on violin and keyboards, Rico Kerridge on guitar, Arnaud Biscay on drums and producer/collaborator "Le Professeur Inlassable" (meaning: "The Tireless Professor") on turntables.

The venue itself was a typical outdoor amphitheatre setup with a permanent stage. It was cool, maybe 75 degrees, and a relatively mosquito-free environment, with only a full moon and the stage lighting cutting through the city’s darkness.

The racially mixed audience was appreciative, and this concert and the Day Two fashion show were the largest number of White people we’ve seen in one place as of yet. (There were isolated "White people!" sightings, but only as drops of white milk in a sea of chocolate navigating through some of the "better’’ neighborhoods and in the central city).

I don’t like classifying music, but it had elements of ’70s bass-driven funk, Afrobeat, smooth jazz, and hip-hop. It would fit right in at any American jazz festival, including South Florida’s own Jazz in the Gardens. Every once in a while the beat would hit somebody who would dance in the aisles.

‘A way out of hell’

As the concert ended, Setou, a brother from Chicago, engaged me in conversation. (See his interview online at www.flcourier. com.) He said he came to Ghana seven years ago to find "a way out of hell."

Growing up in America, he said he was "psychologically conditioned to fear the police." He was a special ed teacher who said he started coming to Ghana "for therapy" since 1991. (His therapeutic alternative, he said, was to smoke the same weed many of his students were smoking.) He "escaped’’ to Ghana to deal with what he called the "menticide" of Black America’s middle class.

"Black America is on the edge of the cliff...some don’t want to stay in that dilemma and we jump out," he said.

He jumped to Ghana.

"Where can a black spot hide on a white sheet? We are obsessed with being peaceful...The only place you can hide is within yourself. And we (Black Americans) are hiding here...and it’s better here than it can ever be over there (in America)."

His message to Black Americans: Start demanding accountability from American leadership, including Barack Obama, whom he called a "Band-aid" for what ails America.

‘You don’t know me’

After the interview, Setou asked me who hosted me in Ghana; I introduced him to Judith, mentioning she had a Ghanaian father and African-American mother. Within 60 seconds, he proceeded to tell her about herself and he "knew her" and her hard-nosed, African-American womanly attitude, which meant that she wasn’t at peace with herself.

"Excuse me. Do I know you, sir? Because you certainly don’t know me," she said sharply, before verbally launching into him and eventually forcing him to walk away after about 90 seconds of the time she started "reading" him. In retrospect, I should have jumped in and took up for Judith. But I was shocked that the conversation even took place. At the end, we piled back into Kweku’s car for the trip back to the Aidoo compound.

Adult beverages taste even better when they are purchased duty-free, at a fraction of the normal cost. A bottle of Jack Daniels I bought on the long Delta flight here, flavored with a touch of Coca-Cola, took the edge off Judith’s anger, and the incident was soon forgotten. We toasted another interesting day in Accra and talked about the experience to date into the early morning hours.

 

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

Click here for Part 3

 

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