Running in Ghana?

Well, I have to admit, I had planned on it...

Read on for a Canadian intern's excellent account of his run through Accra.
According to Sonjel (a true Beninese/Beninoit AND my running buddy - sigh) it is a very accurate account of West Africa!

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(I received this by e-mail, so I am hoping it's not a big deal to post it...)

RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME

It's hard to be healthy in Ghana. All the food is fried. I've had fried rice and fried chicken 179 straight days. Beer is cheaper than water and a menthol cigarette is a disturbingly refreshing break from Accra's air pollution. And it's hot here. Most days it's an effort just to move. But to avoid becoming a bloated Brando, a crazy Kurtz in the African heat, some evenings I try to run.

I find jogging is tough enough on the golden sunlit sea-wall of my hometown of Vancouver (recently voted the UN's most liveable city in the world) but 12,000 km away in Accra (just a 45 minute flight from Lagos, Nigeria, the most unliveable city) it's almost nonsensical. I look forward to my evening run about as much as cerebral malaria or a tall glass of local tap water.

Human race conditions here are not ideal. Metro TV's weather report: sun with sunny breaks, high of 35, low of 34, possibility of perspiration - 98%. You can often taste the air, flavoured by exhaust that spews from the swarms of tro-tros and taxis that rule Accra's streets. The gas/electric hybrid car is still science fiction, as are apparently traffic rules and garbage cans.

As the sun's power dims and the sky turns the colour of roasted marshmallow (the air smells like the charred stick), I hit the street. A white guy alone in this neighbourhood turns heads, but a white guy jogging is pure entertainment. People stare incredulously before flashing big chiclet teeth smiles. Wide-eyed children scramble into the street chirping "Obruni! Obruni!" - my daily reminder that yes, I am a 'white person from the horizon'.

Today I wear a 'Tim Horton's' t-shirt that I found in the Makola Market. Makola is Accra's West Edmonton Mall without the mall. Wind through a labyrinth of streets and stalls and stands and you'll find 10 city blocks of used North American clothes that the locals call obruni wayoo – 'the skins of dead white people'. By the tags still pinned on much of the merchandise, people must think Value Village is a dangerous place to live. I jog past an old woman in an orange Hooter's shirt selling bananas and pineapple chunks.

Running here only makes sense if 1) you're insane (The Adabraka Psychiatric Hospital is just around the corner). 2) dodging taxis. 3) training for football/boxing. Sometimes I wear the jersey of Ghana's national football heroes, the Black Stars. Sometimes I throw air punches at the guys on the street, Ali style - a Great White Hope training for my own personal Rumble in the Jungle.

There's always action on the gritty side-streets. Barefoot kids boot soccer balls. Greasy guys work on their cars. Shopkeepers tend stalls specializing in everything from belts to fish to cel phones. God is the silent partner in most business here. Lord Provides Fast Food. By His
Grace Radiator Repair. Jesus' Finger Furniture. He's also apparently the #1 co-pilot. Devotional slogans brand back windows of taxis and tro-tros. Road to Heaven. Man Proposes God Disposes. Pray Until Something Happens. It's as though everyone is trying to remind the Big Guy that Ghana is here.

I run past people that he seems to have forgotten. A man with elephantiasis (a condition I've only seen on Ripley's Believe It or Not) lugs his heavy legs over the curb. Women draped in babies beg for food. Young boys lead their blind grandfathers through lines of stopped traffic, knocking on windows for change.

I keep running.

I run past scruffled chickens, a clueless herd of goats, urban cows. I am bombarded by smell and sound - kebabs roast on hot coals, smoked fish, diesel fuel. Taxis constantly fight for attention with their horns. Drinking spots blast Kenny Rogers or hip-life music through blown-out
speakers. (Note to Bono: If you really want to effect change in Africa, tour with Lionel Richie or Celine Dion...)

I run past the corner where I was mugged by guys with machetes (gotta run faster); past the bus-stop where an old guy got stung to death by bees (shoulda run faster). Local-boy-done-good Kofi Annan smiles peacefully down at me from a big U.N. billboard. A Rolls-Royce with Nigerian plates glides by. So does a legless man on a skateboard wearing flip-flops on his hands.

But run too fast and it's easy to run past the beauty. I hang a right down Swamp Groove Avenue, turning where Pojo the painter is making a portrait of his mother for his father. A group of taxi drivers take a break to joke and chatter and over bottles of Guinness. A dozen seamstresses transform vibrant cloth into shirts and suits.

I'm almost home. Africa is pumping through my blood and I can easily see how it gets into the blood of others. Here you can't help but understand what it means to be human. Every day you are reminded you are part of the race; an endurance test, where emotions and experiences are amplified by the scorching African sun and cranked out over a blown speaker.

And tonight I feel lucky to have had the choice to run into it, while many here dream of running away.

-- Jeff Topham