007 James Bond and night-life [1]

Two things lamentably absent in the life of Ghanaians are nightlife and vacationing. And believe me it is all due, in part or whole, to something called "poverty". Poverty spawns its own christening, but it has no surname. Incidentally, it has a first-cousin called "penury" which has a more dangerous curriculum vitae (CV). It is equivalent to death.

Kofi Owuo alias Death-By-Poverty is one man who declared open-air over a decade ago that there is dignity in poverty, whereupon I decided to stay clear of him.

I have always said that I've no fear for the atomic bomb. I have no fear for social and political upheavals. What I fear is poverty. It is the most dehumanising of society's ills. It is the most crippling and well-nigh, the most unrelenting. It is a crime against humanity!

In Ghana, if you happen to be critically ill and do not have money for treatment, start writing your will. Of course, that will depend on if you have any property for grabs. Many have died not from their sicknesses but from lack of money to cure themselves. Money cannot buy life, but to a great extent, it has prevented death in many instances.

Talking about Ghanaians not enjoying nightlife may not be solely due to the average person not being able to afford it. But going out requires company to make it interesting - hanging out with your wife and kids; or a girlfriend and her friend(s); your colleagues, some of whom might join the train to free-load. It takes some level of funding to make it really enjoyable if not freaky.

Coming to think of it, Ghana should have been the country where night-life would have been well appreciated because of the peaceful nature of the people, their hospitality and the relatively low crime-rate. But night-life exists for only a few. The rest can only wind up into bed and see if their wives are ready to be mounted. The result is over-population.

The dance-bands of the yester-years when the likes of Faisal Helwani were promoting live band extravaganzas are no more. We used to have Pat Thomas and the Sweet Beans (remember their romantic smash hit 'I Need You'), Wantu Wazuri, Gyedu Blay Ambolley and the Steneboofs, the Sweet Talks and the rest.

I still have fond memories of drummers like J.Y. Torty and Willie Pee. At the time, it was okay hearing the likes of Michael Jackson and John Travolta on air, but the real thrill was in seeing your fellow Ghanaman on the bass or rhythm guitar, cranking away, assaulting the midnight air with Bob Marley's 'No woman no cry."

You saw your next-door neighbour, Koo Pia, rattling on the conga and you told yourself, "That's the spirit, man! That's the spirit!"

Night-life was employment in itself. Idle youth learnt how to play the guitar, drums, the conga, maracas and keyboards. Bands were making money and those who dedicated themselves to studying one instrument or the other were readily employed. One band needed vocalists to sing highlife, reggae, funk and soca.

Many learnt to play the horn, saxophone, flute and trombone. Even some earned employment as hangers-on or follow-backs. They carried and arranged the instruments and were sent to buy bitters (peters), waakye, tuo-zaafi and ice-water for the hungry bandsmen.

Needless to say, the breweries and distilleries were in good business, Night-life goes with 'booze and without' alcohol nothing much could be achieved on the dance floor. Some people started with local stuff (akpet) to charge-up, and ended up with endless bottles of beer. By the time the dance was over, they became walking breweries in their own right. Some of them found their way home; others ended up in the gutters! The following morning, they continued from where they left off, but not without a large dose of mashed kenkey.

Night-life also provided employment for nubile young ladies who wanted to sell part of their female dignity before getting married one day. In those days, there was no campaign against cigarette smoking or passive smoking. Tusker, the cheapest jot was on the lips of sex-workers who were gaudily and skimpily dressed. No one thought about HIV/AIDS. Prostitutes worried about pregnancy and gonorrhea which could be cured by togamyccin.

Check it out when the young men landed on the dance floor with their trouser-bars indicating their level of trendiness or civilisation. Any bar measuring less than 26 was considered colonial. Any bar less than 15 was regarded as "gunpoint" and a sin. In the Ga Language it was known as tunaabu.

Fashion at the time was such that any gunpoint that was indeed tunabulic attracted boos and jeers. Tragically, even dogs in the streets started barking at men who wore "gunpoint." The dogs knew the difference.

To go with Bar-30inch trousers were pairs of shoes called 'guarantee". It was the male version of high-heels and the taller the better. It suited very short people because it upgraded them to medium height.

I remember when I went to Secondary Form-One, bedecked in Bar-30 and a 5-inch pair of guaranteed shoes; the seniors thought I was the toughest guy in town and bullied me, probably more than all my mates. What even annoyed them was what I wrote on my chop box - "007 James Bond."

Within 15 minutes of landing on the campus, news had circulated than James Bond had arrived, dressed to kill. I was described as the toughest, most stylish, most daring Form One cracker from the harbour city, Tema, landing with a "pistol" in my waistband. I was quite celebrated but suffered for if up till today, many of my mates call me 007 or simply 7.

Those who go to school today don't know what we met in the Dodowa Forest. To start with, it was hell!

Credit: Merari Alomele/The Spectator [Email merarix2001@yahoo.co,uk_ Website: www.merarialomele.com . ]

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