Ghanaian in Brazil: Restless in Rio

(Part 1)

By B A Harrison (Mrs.)

Ghana’s Vice-President John Mahama is visiting Brazil, one of the countries closest to Africa in many ways, especially geographically and historically. What should he expect? What should Ghanaian’s expect from his trip? Well, I have just (last week) returned from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I hope Mr. Mahama gets to speak with the two youngish Ghanaian brothers I saw hustling and selling on one of the prominent streets of Rio. I had a nice two-week working trip. But I was restless in Rio. Now, I am praying – even hoping – that the same restlessness afflicts the honourable Vice-President of Ghana, as he visits Brazil.

The restlessness I am wishing on Mr. John Mahama is not the negative one. In fact, I wish Ghana’s second most powerful citizen no ill at all. I actually like the man and wish him well. The restlessness I am referring to is a positive one. It manifests itself, during my travels, in the emergence of a lot of questions in my mind, as I admire the better developments, lives and advances in the place I am visiting. It’s a syndrome I would call, the why-not-in-Ghana? syndrome.

This syndrome makes you imagine – by some Hollywood magic - being able to shrink a beautiful seven-star beachfront hotel into a matchbox that you could carry in your pocket or luggage to Accra and then ‘un-shrink’ or unveil on Labadi beach. This is a syndrome that can deny you the simple pleasures of fully enjoying sandy beaches, beautiful architecture, great beachfront developments, nice pot-hole-less six-lane highways, and much more. This restlessness, at least for now, has nothing to do with the heavy rains and massive flooding that would claim the lives of scores of people days after I left the city. But before talking about being a restless Ghanaian in Rio, let’s have a few basic facts Brazil (or BraSil, as the citizens call or write it.)

Brazil has the second largest black (or African-origined) population in the world – after Nigeria, that is. Certainly, it has the largest black population in the Americas. The facts say that of Brazil’s 190 million plus population, more than half classify themselves as black. That’s more than 90 million black people in Brazil today!

The historical facts will also tell you that Portuguese slave merchants and traders – over many decades – bought more than five million African slaves – mainly from West Africa - to transport to Brazil. More than two million perished on the way. Yes, two million African brothers and sisters perished on the journey to Brazil alone. How did we let this happen? Have we learned anything at all? Are we learning anything at all? Or are we repeating the same mistakes that the forefathers made? Yorubas (of present-day Nigeria) were definitely among the slaves and I had goosebumps when I attended an evening cultural performance in Rio and heard them singing about “Olorun” and “Baba Oluwa”.

Brazil was the last colony in the Americas to declare an end to slavery – in 1888. It is also widely acknowledged that Brazilians cherish their diversity and widespread racial mix, where you will find an easy mixing of the races. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (or Lula, as everyone, including one of his greatest admirers, President Obama, knows him) is one of the most popular leaders in the world. During his two-term presidency – which ends next year - he has genuinely achieved a lot with his left-wing Workers Party to bridge the terrible gap between the rich and the poor in Brazil. His popularity ratings are very high and some have already started tipping him to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

As for Brazil and soccer and Pele, we’ll need another article to explore that, especially since I’ve heard and read many Ghanaian soccer pundits claim that the Black Stars are the Brazil of Africa. I wonder what happens if the Black Stars should end up playing Brazil in the final game of the World Cup in South Africa. Just hold the thought as I return to my restlessness in Rio.

Rio de Janeiro – or the River of January – is a city with a wrong name. A wrong name because the Portuguese explorers who arrived there (in January 1502 ) mistook the Atlantic Ocean - that has worked its way fairly deep into the land and created some beautiful bays – to be the mouth of a river. But the “mistaken name” has not stopped Rio becoming one of the most beautiful cities in the world. This city was Brazil’s capital until 1960 when the capital was moved to Brasilia – more to the centre of the country. And Rio is expected to be the host city for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.

I was walking on Rio’s famous Copacabana beach when it dawned on me that the beautiful white sand under my feet was no better than the clean, yellowish (or even golden) one I grew up with in Keta. What is definitely better is the cleanliness and maintenance of the place, with no sewage or human waste coming into the sea nearby. Definitely nobody was using the beach as a toilet. The syndrome prompts me top wonder: Why have we – Ghanaians –still not managed to stop people defecating on the beach, from Axim and Half-Assini in the west to Aflao and Keta in the east?

Honourable John Mahama needs to take just about two hours to visit the Copacabana. I spent about 90- minutes walking from part of Copacabana to another beautiful beach nearby in Ipanema. I would recommend a morning jog or walk around 6 am. This is a good time for the restlessness in Rio syndrome to work its greatest magic. To get a good image of this place – as a Ghanaian – just imagine a beautiful four-kilometre stretch of clean and fresh beachfront, starting from around the Castle at Osu through La Palm Beach through to Teshie-Nungua. Well, that would be longer than four kilometres! All along this beach is a nice lay-out of white sand – about a soccer-field wide – stretching from the sea water to the highway that runs alongside. This is a really nice six-lane highway with an extra sizeable lane for cycles and pedestrians only.

As you walk from the sea, on the sand and cross this highway, you come to these beautiful 10-storey, 20-storey, or maybe 30-storey high-rise hotels, restaurants, hostels, bars, shops and apartments. During a bus tour, I overheard a Nigerian brother in the seat behind say to the sister beside him, “Ah ah, this is not possible in Lagos. now. How are the people going to carry water to the top floors?” Behind the beachfront hotels of the Copacabana are more beautiful structures and buildings, arranged in a well-planned manner, with no open sewers or gutters, as we see in Accra. The pavements have cobbled stones covering them, instead of the concrete slabs I’ve seen in some American cities. The syndrome is prompting me to wonder about the underground sewage system that works in this place. What would it take to have this in every Ghanaian city, town or village?

The place looks tidy, inviting, and refreshing. As I walked along the beachfront in the morning, I saw all manner of people in various states of, what I would describe in my “Ghanaian thinking and perception” as “undress”. Women of all ages are wearing only “underwear” and “bodice” and walking freely with much abandon, not caring a hoot about whether they are fat, tanned, beautiful or ugly. Men of all ages, but mainly middle aged, are wearing just their “supporters” or “piotoes” and freely – even shamelessly - parading their “public opinions” and “spare tyres”. I was the most “highly dressed” person on this beach, in my track suit and t-shirt with sneakers. “My sister, hmmm, the things my eyes see, my mouth no go fit talk!”

It is mesmerizing to be on Copacabana beach. I don’t think I was seeing it as heaven. But it was nice, fresh and inviting. And I should just be relaxing and soaking it all in. But for the why-not-in-Ghana syndrome. So, why was I restless in Rio?

I was restless in Rio because, for every step I took on that beautiful beach I simply couldn’t stop wondering why we don’t yet have a development of this quality and magnitude on the beaches of Ghana. Brazil is naturally endowed with a lot land and many resources. But so too is Ghana. Until a few years ago Brazil was largely considered a developing country. But, not any more. Now it is mentioned among the new/emerging economies or BRIC countries – that’s Brazil, Russia, India and China. So with a South-South mind-set I am thinking – there on the Copacabana beach – that what Brazil can do Ghana can do! And even do better, if we work harder, with greater purpose and urgency.

Was I envious? Maybe, but in a positive way. What would it take for us in Ghana to have a beachfront that rivals the Copacabana of Rio de Janeiro? Would it have to take private investors? Could Ghanaians generate the resources in Ghana to do it? Operation self-reliance!? What should the government do to attract the money or foreign investment that could turn Labadi beach into the Copacabana of Africa, in the shortest possible time? Did I say the shortest possible time? Well, you’ll have to forgive the Nkrumah-thinking in me.

I am restless in Rio because I am debating within myself what price we may have to pay to accomplish this rapid development. And I can hear – in my head – the argument of many about the need to protect our Ghanaian decency and culture and avoid the “decadence” that accompanies the tourism that comes with the beachfront developments I am desperate to have dotting the Ghanaian coastline. Did I see prostitution along the Copacabana? You bet, I did. And this made me even more restless in Rio, because the men I watched hooking up with the prostitutes were black brothers from the US. You have to wonder sometimes what it really takes, for a man to cross that crucial line, to pay for casual sex with a woman, who is being “used” or “abused” by so many others, and who potentially carries some deadly diseases. I think about the sisters and wives back in the US who could unwittingly become victims of the recklessness – not restlessness – of some brothers in Rio. This is another matter deserving a separate article, so I digress.

Rio de Janeiro – or at least the part I am referring to here – works pretty well. And the Copacabana is brimming with wealth. Mind you, I also had an opportunity to visit the famous favelas or slums of Rio. I saw things that reminded me easily of certain parts of Nima in Accra. (But again, I digress and this must be the subject of another article.) So, my questions and wondering continue: If they can build this in Brazil, why can’t we do the same in Ghana? What would it take for us – within the shortest possible time – to build the Copacabana in Ghana?

I hope these are some of the questions that plague Mr. Mahama during his Brazilian trip. May they cause him some of the restlessness I enjoyed and endured in Rio. I hope the Vice-President doesn’t settle down to enjoy the Copacabana too much. May his enjoyment come from admiring the place and finding some ways or schemes to bring such job-creating developments to the shores of Ghana. Maybe, Mr. Mahama – like me – would be seriously imagining how to get six-lane highways to the Ghanaian beachfront and beyond. Maybe, he would be wondering how to shrink these wonderful high-rise developments into his pocket – like a match-box – in order to unveil or “unshrink” them on his return to Ghana. Maybe, as he walks safely in this part of town he would come across the two Ghanaian brothers I met on my last evening in Rio- Obeng Kufuor and Kwabena - who were displaying the enterprising attitude and energy that could well help us create Copacabana on Labadi or Cape Coast Beach. They were selling some shining wrist watches on makeshift tables on the popular Avenida Nossa Senhora street, during the evening rush hour. “Ei! Here too Ghanaman dey?” (More about them in Part II.) Their incredible stories and lessons of hustling, fortitude, optimism and bravery could inform the honourable Vice-President about what we need to do ourselves in Ghana quickly, to achieve the development and advancements we so desperately desire in our beloved country. By applying these lessons, our restlessness in Rio would not be in vain.

End of Part I