Love/Hate Letters To Accra (Part 1)

Dear Accra,

I hate you. I love you. I hate that I love you.

Actually, I love that I hate you.

You make me feel small.

It is midday on a random Wednesday and I am stuck in traffic. Smoke and fumes hang thick and heavy in the air, in the sky, darkening the atmosphere even before the sun sets. The bus has been on Flagstaff Road for the past twenty minutes. Long enough that some guy at the back has passed a comment, he’s wondering if the president is in there right now.

“Imagine say Addo Dee dey shank for ein golden bathhouse rydee, as we dey die in this traffic?”

I don’t think that the president has actual golden water-closets, maybe they’re gold-plated. Probably. It’s the kind of ridiculous thing that wealth makes people do. All the same, someone catches the question, and what happens next is so predictable and unremarkable, I bet in this exact moment, a conversation eerily similar to this one is happening in another troski, not so far away from here. Don’t believe me? Sit in any form of public transport and mention the president’s name. Everyone and their mother has a story to tell about the not-so metaphorical elephant in the room.

I am not really thinking about Show Boy, I have bigger problems. Like the traffic. Like how I hate cars, and roads, and pedestrians. Like how the longer I stay in this bus, in this hot air, feeling the rivulets of sweat roll down my back, the more I want to claw out of my own skin. I’m scratching my wrists, I’m trying to remember the bullshit my therapist says about controlling your breathing, about anxiety, about regaining control of situations. It’s not working. Traveling on a road is the single most terrifying and insane thing mankind has ever done; there’s over a thousand people on this stretch of road alone, and you’re trusting that no one is falling asleep behind the wheel, or is intoxicated, or didn’t just receive shocking news that their spouse is dead, or literally just had a raptured aneurysm. It’s a testament to how invincible we, as a species, think we are. Or a testament of how foolish we are, determined to believe the worst possible outcome will not happen, not today, not to us. I think of the traffic, whether this ride will be over before I have an anxiety attack.

Accra, you make me feel small. You make me feel like a needle in a haystack, except this haystack is on fire some times, most of the time. You are a city with too many moving parts, sometimes it makes me feel like I’m stuck, trapped. That your skyscrapers are fences and cages. There are days I worry that you will swallow me whole. It’s easy to fade and disintegrate here, it feels like I could disappear in the middle of the day, on a bus, in the sweltering heat, in traffic on a Wednesday, and nobody would notice. Accra, you are infinitesimally larger than my problems and my anxieties.

I close my eyes, another thing my therapist thinks is a good idea. I scroll through the feed of my memories, hoping to click on anything soothing.

“You know, the traffic in this city is mad,” I’m telling him, leaning back in the sofa, mentioning my hatred for his city for what must be the nineteenth time in the ten minutes that we’ve been talking.

“I know,” he is rolling his eyes, “I live here.”

“I think you’re used to the crazy,” I’m not letting this point go. “It’s really crazy. Like, if you leave Cape Coast and drive for an hour and thirty minutes, you’re in the next region. You leave Accra and drive for an hour and thirty minutes? You’ve only managed to make it past two traffic lights or so.”

He is laughing, and I am mentally giving myself a pat on the back. I have made him laugh a total of ten times in the eleven minutes we’ve been talking. I think that laughter is the currency that determines the value of my affection. It doesn’t matter who or what or where, all that matters is that there is laughter. He has a strong earthquake of a laugh, one I am fond of the moment I hear it, and will continue to be for a long time to come.

He is getting to his feet, we’re going to get a late breakfast, and yes, there will be traffic on the way.

Walking towards the car, the heat is enough to drive anyone mad. The heat in Accra is alive, moving and breathing. It is an active oppressor, pulsing off passing cars, beating down on us from above, rising up from the burning hot pavement that burns the soles of your feet, no matter whether you’re in sandals or thick boots. We hurry into the car, and the AC is immediately turned on, mercifully. Immediately I’m asking, “can I please, please, control the music?”

He is rolling his eyes, again. “Fine. But if you play the Burna album one more time, I swear to God-”

The raspy, powerful, energetic sound of Burna Boy is filling the car before he can finish his statement, and I’m grinning, preparing to belt out the lyrics to words I have no idea of the meanings to.

There’s not much you can do when you’re stuck in traffic, and I’m not exactly the kind of girl you ignore. He is singing along now, because Burna Boy is not the kind of musician you ignore. We are both, terribly, off-key. We are both, also, laughing in between lyrics. The traffic eases up, we are speeding down some road I do not know, and yelling botched up lyrics at the top of our voices.

Accra, you make me feel small. Like I could be weightless, if I wanted to be. There is no place for anxieties when there is laughter bubbling in your chest and lyrics rolling of your lips. Accra, your skyscrapers make me feel like, I too, could touch the sky if I wanted to. There’s hundreds of thousands of people, living their lives and moving in this crazy city, and then there’s me, forgetting my worries in the passenger seat, Accra is a good place to forget, to leave all your worries behind.

Dear Reader,

I know, I know, I’ve made hating Accra my entire personality. So what?? I was born and raised in Cape Coast, and I am ever fond of my home. But I lived in Accra for the past crazy month, and I need to turn my sometimes fun, sometimes heinous, always crazy experiences into writing. Welcome to Love/Hate Letters to Accra. A series of letters to a city that I have an on-and-off relationship with. I hope seeing the city through my eyes is a refreshing experience x.