Our Daily Bread

It was high noon and the sun was at its harshest. "Bad" time of day to
do outdoor photography? Maybe, maybe not, with my trusted assistant
with me, we headed towards the scrap market in Accra. This
"manufacturing" plant of scraps for the aluminium industry did not
have a "bad" time for working, In the heat, Baba Musa and his boys had
set a huge fire to burn of the rubber and other combustables which
hold any metal in them. With dexterity Baba Musa uses a rake to turn
over the fire and pull out the ones with the rubber melted off and his
"boys " squirt water on it to cool them off .They were happy to
tell me the process and "hell" they go through to have their
"heaven-sent" money. He had no one to blame for working in such a
harsh enviroment. When I asked him why no gloves or face mask to
protect himself, with a warm smile he said "God is the ultimate
protector". The final scrap buyer with merchant scale will determine
how much "heaven" Baba will have for his labour in the scorching sun
and the burning inferno. Welcome to  Agbogbloshie.

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The mouth filter

An okyeame or "linguist" in English, but an okyeame is much more than
a linguist. Communication with the King or with chiefs and fetish
priests will go through an okyeame. The Okyeame is deemed wise and
often uses proverbs to put across the message of the King. It is
believed if there is ever a "bad" message spoken by the king, the
Okyeame becomes the filter that refines the message and puts it across
the Kings audience in acceptable way. Always characterized by their
staffs which has totems of the King or clan which they represent.
Okyeame, the modern day P.R.O

"friendlies"

No one will agree to take off their shirt as an identification as the
opposing team. A pre match penalty shootout was undertaken and the
losing team took off their shirts to avoid a mixup in the "friendly"
match. The match was quite friendly but had some "hairy" moments.
Street football "British Jamestown" style

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"The Doctor"

The dry hazy skyline is the unmistakable presence of the Harmattan
season. The Harmattan is a dry and dusty West African trade wind. It
blows south from Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of
November and the middle of March. The rains cease and water bodies
experience a decline on their levels. However, the cool wind brings
relief from the oppressive heat, which is why the Harmattan has earned
the nickname "The Doctor". So when a couple of photographer friends
from the U.S and the U.K respectively joined us for a day’s photo
walk, water becomes the subject matter. Up the hills, we took a 10
minute walk down the valley to “photodocument” the “diminishing” river
(barely a stream now) water level. Interesting was the number of girls
going down for water and the arduous task of climbing back up. In all,
they still managed a smile for our cameras.

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Giving Blessings

As we celebrate the Christmas season, may we spare a thought for the
needy and under privileged who live amongst us. May your Christmas
have a reason to give. Happy holidays

Survivor

My name is Haruna Sumaila, and I love motor bikes. I am well known by
my biker peers as “Survivor”. My alias, “survivor” comes from my
cheating of death in various bike accidents. I have love for bikes as
far as I can remember; it started from bicycles and migrated to bikes
and in my thirteenth year as an avid biker. I have a 3 month old son
Abdul Majeed whom I pray become a better biker than I am
I have been in a series of accidents and the most serious one putting
me in a Coma for a couple of hours. I have been invited to ride in
Nigeria (Abuja and Kano) and look forward in riding for Ghana on the
world stage. In five years’ time, I foresee myself still riding and
being the world’s best biker. My story just begun

The “Gold” bearer

With extreme effort, he pulled his tricycle along towards the refuse
dumping area. The human scavengers watching from a distance made no
effort to help, why should they? Their energy will soon be channelled
into a fight amongst other scavenger s to pick the resalable
aluminium, plastic and the precious cooper wires from devices, which
may lie within refuse package. On site, he does not even have to off
load his own waste, the scavengers does it for him. With their bare
hands and short sticks, they pick up other bits better not spoken off.