To the lighthouse

A big storm last night and more rain today, which interrupted one of the Theatre for a Change group’s amazing outdoor performance this afternoon. The overnight rain initially makes things much cooler, but then the sun comes out and the air becomes dank and heavy. Everything smells more after a rain storm – of fish, fruit, mud, drains, trees and a thousand other things.

As I left the house I started sneezing uncontrollably – a bad sign because James Town, where I was headed, is one of the dustiest, saltiest places around. Sometimes just sitting in the Community Theatre Centre makes my eyes water and my nose tickle. I took some clarityn, blew my nose noisily and hopped onto a rusty tro-tro headed toward Tema Station.

At Tema I stumbled smiling through a thousand people selling water, tomatoes, plantain chips, socks, cooking utensils, oranges, soap dishes, sugar cane. I could have got another tro-tro to James Town but they’re rebuilding the road and the traffic is so bad that it’s quicker to walk.

It takes me ten minutes to get to the outskirts of James Town and this morning at least fifteen people said good morning to me as I wandered in. A girl, no more than eleven years old, with hundreds of sachets of water balanced on a tray on my head. An old man in traditional clothes and no front teeth. A group of twelve women dressed for a funeral crammed into the back of an open topped van. One asked me for money, for my name, my phone number; the others roared with laughter and slapped her hard on her back.

The road in James Town is currently a rubble strip waiting for new tarmac. Instead of cars there are hundreds of kids, like flocks of birds, chasing footballs, nattering away while they wee into open drains - masters of multi-tasking. There are women carrying vegetables, workmen digging holes, teenagers on bikes. The community has temporary ownership of a road once dominated by the noise and fumes of buses and taxis. It will not feel like the same place when they come back again.

As I walked into James Town today, past the forts where slaves were once kept, past the pale blue lighthouse, hundreds of kids stared at me, grabbed my hands, shouted “howareyou!” again and again. Some asked for money or a drink, others – the older ones – strolled beside me, wanting to know where I’m from and whether I know Chelsea and Michael Essien.

At the Community Theatre it was performance day and I walked with Enoch and Esther to a market road in the centre of James Town. The performers, wearing nervous expressions and yellow TfaC t-shirts, started to sing and dance in a circle – drawing an audience of curious kids and their wary parents. Two men nearby were practicing their boxing, with one glove between them. An old woman fried fish nearby.





During the confident, entertaining performance – a story about teenage pregnancy - I started to wonder how people would react if this happened in London. The overwhelming response today was positive: kids giggled, teenagers stared, the grown ups watched attentively. Every time a cart needed to come past we all had to press ourselves against the side of the road: once it went by the play started again. Then just as the piece finished the dark clouds came back. There was no time to replay the piece, to discuss the issues or start a ‘touch-tag’ session where the audience are invited to participate onstage. Fat, hot raindrops sent everyone scrambling for cover.

And so once again we stood, waiting for the rain to pass, for the sun to come back, for the familiar smell of mud and drains, trees and fruit. We waited for the music to start again in the tiny bars, for the streets to fill again – today with people, tomorrow with a mass of moving metal and grinding engines.

As the clouds started to disappear I walked back down the half finished road. I walked past soggy funeral parties, abandoned football games and improbably huge puddles. Back past the forts and back past the lighthouse, where I saw three tiny bums shitting by the sea front, their owners staring at the horizon, chatting contentedly.

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