The Pursuit of Dog-Walking Nirvana
Oh, pick up a pew, sit yourselves down, grab yourself a beer or a glass of wine, because this could take some time... Like most things do here in Zimbabwe. Time moves like molasses here; people move like molasses. Even the animals we see scurrying across Harare's streets take their sweet time. I guess I shouldn't refer to it as 'scurrying' per se, as that intimates that they are actually moving at some rushed pace. No, they lope. That's it: they lope across the street. There is basically no point of rushing here, because you will end up meeting a roadblock (literal and/or metaphorical one) around the next corner, so just start off slow, and finish slow. In a way its uncannily like Ghana (our first African home) in that regard.
Actually, there are many parallels between Zimbabwe and Ghana, not surprisingly. For example, they are both countries in the continent of Africa....they both gained independence from England (albeit one in 1957 and the other in 1980...)... both have a visceral loathing for homosexuality... both are uber-religious countries... and both make a simple undertaking like walking a dog everything BUT simple.
Let's take Accra. A city of just about 2 million people spanning over 200 square kilometers; and almost no pavements/sidewalks to speak of (well, back in 2007 that is, as they were building many as we left and surely must have at least 7 of them by now...). And to make matters worse, most decrepit cars on the road are driven by seemingly half-blind Ghanaians oblivious to you walking along the side of the road. And to make matters even more dire, all roads have open air sewers with glow-in-the-dark effluent (with the half-life of plutonium) spewing down them [the photo above left was supposed to provide a pictorial depiction of the state of the streets in Accra, but I am sure you, like me, are thrown off by the mention of 'wippers' and thinking how wonderful it is that 'God First' mechanics provide 'Golf opening' as a service...]. Then you have the incessant hissing from taxi drivers who clearly don't understand the concept of 'walking your dog' as they persistently insist on taking you where you want to go! Invariably we had to put grown Ghanaian men at ease after they cowered and jumped back at the sight of our two cute puppies. Literally we would see young strapping Ghanaian men shielding themselves from our dogs with the bodies of their 'friends'!
But you may ask yourself why don't we just walk the dogs in the park, off the streets?! That would be a simple solution... which unfortunately is not possible in Accra.... because there are no parks. No public (or seemingly private for that matter) green spaces to walk around. You would think a city of 200 square kilometers would have a smattering of public parks, with a few quaint park benches and a pedestrian thoroughfare of some sort to saunter down on sleepy days... but that would be way too much to ask for. It was nigh on impossible to find any green spaces to walk our Nana and Chale. It might have been easier to find the lost jungle city of Vilcabamba or the City of Atlantis...
And so we had to find alternatives, and ended up walking along the gauntlet that are the streets of Accra, dodging chickens, dogs, goats, scrawny cats, scaredy-cats, etc. Often we ended up doing laps around the outside of the walls of the US Embassy, home to probably one of the few contiguous stretches of green grass in the city (and thankfully a stone's throw away from our house at the time). Well, there was another grassy area that might be said to resemble an actual park. Its name - the Children's Park - would give you good reason to believe it was indeed a park... However, on further inspection, the walled and gated park - replete with mini train track - was almost always empty, not to mention closed, and so seemed to be a lost cause. But one day there was a glimmer of hope: activity! Albeit a funeral, an ubiquitous event on any given weekend day in Accra. And so we managed to walk around unimpeded for a full 20 minutes (once the funeral had run its course that is!). Wonderful! Blissful! But when we went the next weekend, we were told it was closed i.e. the caretaker was sleeping. Then when he came to, we were told we needed to book the park... 'To walk our dogs for 20 minutes?!' we exclaimed. 'Yes please, you can do it during weekdays at the Ministry of Sports and Youth just down the street.' Us: 'Just to walk our dogs?!' Man: 'Yes please.' 'But, its Saturday anyway,' we retorted incredulously. This was met with a totally and utterly blank, vacuous expression. Exasperated, we walked down a nearby dirt road just to give the dogs some exercise.
Without any warning or idea how, we suddenly ended up in the middle of an archaic horse track/hippodrome! It was as if we stumbled into the set of a Mad Max film. Wild, feral horses were dotted along the sandy, unkempt track, some eating trash on the clumps of grass that grew errantly throughout the track, while others deftly navigated around piles of burning trash. Yet another bedraggled, rabid-looking horse was neighing wildly and closing in on us as we walked along the track with our dogs in tow, passing the grandstand with laundry drying on the railings. A shadow descended over us suddenly: it was being cast by the small and ill-functioning cement factory located slap-bang in the middle of the racecourse!! Then again, maybe it was a glue factory...
Suffice to say, the racecourse did not become our dog walking go-to locale. But those geography-inclined peeps will note that Ghana was once known as the 'Gold Coast' and as the name suggests, has a coastline! And you geography buffs will also know that Accra itself is on the coast. And so there must be kilometer upon kilometer of long flour-like sandy beaches to walk our dogs along... Alas, Accra's coast is not dissimilar to those aforementioned open sewers... ok, slight exaggeration (us Bonnardeauxs are known for embellishment...) but being mostly communally owned, the beaches are neither developed nor kept clean for tourism purposes. Far from it. Much like in rural Ghana, it wouldn't be uncommon to have to slalom your way around piles of shit on the beaches, of the human and animal variety. And if one was courageous enough, you could attempt to swim in the water, but would invariably be thwarted by the schools of carrier bags and shoals of plastic debris that littered the tepid waters.
But there was a beach (best to describe it as patches of sand in amongst rocky coves) we found across the street from some military barracks on the outskirts of town that had slightly less garbage in the water, no people or animals, and no obvious faecal matter. But unbeknownst to us the first time we visited, the land just adjacent to the beach is part of the military barracks and is actually a shooting range! And a functioning shooting range. And so on days when the military is out shooting a red 'flag' (read: rag) would be flying high (read: just slightly above the long grass) on a flagpole (read: stick). Rewind 30 years and we would have been witnesses to the execution of military officials and ex-heads of state during the J.J. Rawling years... Hence the lack of people along that part of the coast. Aha! Oh well, as long as we heeded the low-tech red-flag warning (and didn't set foot on a Delorean to be transported back to 1978) we were ok. Who would have thought that Jillian, as part of her work with the US Embassy in Accra back in 2007, crossed paths with J.J. Rawlings. She had to accompany members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus to his residence (he was then part of the opposition), and upon arrival he complimented Jillian on her lovely and full eyebrows!!
Anyway, back to the much more scintillating subject of dog walking... Once in Accra we thought we had hit the jackpot when we heard that the site of the old zoo was a good place to walk the dogs. Once we found it up a dirt road in the Achimota area, we were met by a makeshift barrier and guard hut. We enquired as to the zoo site and was told that we could not go in as it is now the construction site for the presidents new palace. If that didn't dissuade us, he then mentioned that although most animals were moved to the Kumasi Zoo, there were still some feral camels roaming about, not to mention some other random animals.... I don't remember what those were as I think I was already reversing and halfway down the dirt track by the time he listed them. But further north we did once or twice take advantage of the Aburi Botanical Gardens, fully equipped with a relic helicopter. Yep..
In retrospect, in all fairness Harare is not half as bad. Granted we have resorted to taking our dog Akila (and Liati and Lucia) for walks around the state-owned Agricultural Research Trust land just north of the city. But its a perfectly nice and safe spot. On many occasions we have paid the nominal entrance fee to walk in Harare's own National Botanical Gardens. Now, the name belies the state of the land inside the fence, although you can just make out the more exotic species of tree and plant in amongst the undergrowth (more like overgrowth). One day, to get a better vantage point, we climbed up a small wooded hill only to find we were walking amongst old deserted military bunkers each equipped with ancient looking anti-aircraft guns. So, THAT'S why they call that area Gunhill.... (State House, Mugabe's official state residence, is just on the other side of the hill actually...). We had done what the former US Ambassador, Christopher Dell, had also inadvertently done 8 years prior: stumble into a highly restricted military zone. In his case he was swiftly surrounded and arrested by a special presidential security unit as a result of his blunder. In our case we were lucky enough to just walk down the other side of the hill (and in so doing pass a poorly placed 'Security Zone. Please Do Not Enter' sign!) and proceed with our morning walk without any further incident. But supposedly there once were scrawled messages on rocks on the way up warning people to "save your life - do not come up here"!
The ZRP (the Zimbabwe Republic Police) are a funny lot. One doesn't know whether to laugh at them, or fear them. You hear stories where people did not stop at the random and numerous roadblocks only to be shot right on the spot. But then a year or so ago I saw a combi (ramshackle commuter minibus packed with what seemed like the full cast of the Cosby Show x 5) reverse away from a police-manned roadblock along a service road with a policeman running in hot pursuit! You see, ZRP are functioning on a shoestring budget (as is most of the civil government) and so do not have funding for cars, let alone fuel. And so, as was the case with a friend of ours just two days ago, when you need their assistance you have to fetch the policemen from the local police station yourself! In this case our friend noticed a man using counterfeit $100 bills at his newly opened bar and so brought the police over, had them apprehend the culprit and then drove the whole posse back to the police station! Absurd but true.
Come to think of it, the ZRP are much like Harare's clowns: I catch myself in a state of befuddlement, wondering whether to sob uncontrollably at the sight of them or pee my pants laughing! I am by no means racist, or wanting to sound racist in any way BUT black clowns are downright creepy. Mostly its to do with the grey ashen look they have (as cheap white face paint on black skin just doesn't work. Maybe they need to start with two layers of primer...). But they have mastered the art of children's face painting; I'll give them that. All they need now is to master the art of talking to the children without sounding like Chuckie from Child's Play; as if they want to chop their heads off in the process ("Come here BOY, I'll PAINT YOUR FACE!!" Cue: maniacal laughter... WaaHAAAhhaa!!!. Cue: sweet four-year old boy rendered into a ball of inconsolable sobs cowering back to his mother) and they would be a real hit. And don't get me started on black Santas... however, black Jesus... well, THAT's another story worthy of its on blog. Or at the very least its own paragraph. And I have outstayed my welcome here this time around, so will keep Black Jesus in my pocket for later...(is that sacrilegious?!)
Actually, there are many parallels between Zimbabwe and Ghana, not surprisingly. For example, they are both countries in the continent of Africa....they both gained independence from England (albeit one in 1957 and the other in 1980...)... both have a visceral loathing for homosexuality... both are uber-religious countries... and both make a simple undertaking like walking a dog everything BUT simple.
But you may ask yourself why don't we just walk the dogs in the park, off the streets?! That would be a simple solution... which unfortunately is not possible in Accra.... because there are no parks. No public (or seemingly private for that matter) green spaces to walk around. You would think a city of 200 square kilometers would have a smattering of public parks, with a few quaint park benches and a pedestrian thoroughfare of some sort to saunter down on sleepy days... but that would be way too much to ask for. It was nigh on impossible to find any green spaces to walk our Nana and Chale. It might have been easier to find the lost jungle city of Vilcabamba or the City of Atlantis...
And so we had to find alternatives, and ended up walking along the gauntlet that are the streets of Accra, dodging chickens, dogs, goats, scrawny cats, scaredy-cats, etc. Often we ended up doing laps around the outside of the walls of the US Embassy, home to probably one of the few contiguous stretches of green grass in the city (and thankfully a stone's throw away from our house at the time). Well, there was another grassy area that might be said to resemble an actual park. Its name - the Children's Park - would give you good reason to believe it was indeed a park... However, on further inspection, the walled and gated park - replete with mini train track - was almost always empty, not to mention closed, and so seemed to be a lost cause. But one day there was a glimmer of hope: activity! Albeit a funeral, an ubiquitous event on any given weekend day in Accra. And so we managed to walk around unimpeded for a full 20 minutes (once the funeral had run its course that is!). Wonderful! Blissful! But when we went the next weekend, we were told it was closed i.e. the caretaker was sleeping. Then when he came to, we were told we needed to book the park... 'To walk our dogs for 20 minutes?!' we exclaimed. 'Yes please, you can do it during weekdays at the Ministry of Sports and Youth just down the street.' Us: 'Just to walk our dogs?!' Man: 'Yes please.' 'But, its Saturday anyway,' we retorted incredulously. This was met with a totally and utterly blank, vacuous expression. Exasperated, we walked down a nearby dirt road just to give the dogs some exercise.
Without any warning or idea how, we suddenly ended up in the middle of an archaic horse track/hippodrome! It was as if we stumbled into the set of a Mad Max film. Wild, feral horses were dotted along the sandy, unkempt track, some eating trash on the clumps of grass that grew errantly throughout the track, while others deftly navigated around piles of burning trash. Yet another bedraggled, rabid-looking horse was neighing wildly and closing in on us as we walked along the track with our dogs in tow, passing the grandstand with laundry drying on the railings. A shadow descended over us suddenly: it was being cast by the small and ill-functioning cement factory located slap-bang in the middle of the racecourse!! Then again, maybe it was a glue factory...Suffice to say, the racecourse did not become our dog walking go-to locale. But those geography-inclined peeps will note that Ghana was once known as the 'Gold Coast' and as the name suggests, has a coastline! And you geography buffs will also know that Accra itself is on the coast. And so there must be kilometer upon kilometer of long flour-like sandy beaches to walk our dogs along... Alas, Accra's coast is not dissimilar to those aforementioned open sewers... ok, slight exaggeration (us Bonnardeauxs are known for embellishment...) but being mostly communally owned, the beaches are neither developed nor kept clean for tourism purposes. Far from it. Much like in rural Ghana, it wouldn't be uncommon to have to slalom your way around piles of shit on the beaches, of the human and animal variety. And if one was courageous enough, you could attempt to swim in the water, but would invariably be thwarted by the schools of carrier bags and shoals of plastic debris that littered the tepid waters.
But there was a beach (best to describe it as patches of sand in amongst rocky coves) we found across the street from some military barracks on the outskirts of town that had slightly less garbage in the water, no people or animals, and no obvious faecal matter. But unbeknownst to us the first time we visited, the land just adjacent to the beach is part of the military barracks and is actually a shooting range! And a functioning shooting range. And so on days when the military is out shooting a red 'flag' (read: rag) would be flying high (read: just slightly above the long grass) on a flagpole (read: stick). Rewind 30 years and we would have been witnesses to the execution of military officials and ex-heads of state during the J.J. Rawling years... Hence the lack of people along that part of the coast. Aha! Oh well, as long as we heeded the low-tech red-flag warning (and didn't set foot on a Delorean to be transported back to 1978) we were ok. Who would have thought that Jillian, as part of her work with the US Embassy in Accra back in 2007, crossed paths with J.J. Rawlings. She had to accompany members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus to his residence (he was then part of the opposition), and upon arrival he complimented Jillian on her lovely and full eyebrows!!
Anyway, back to the much more scintillating subject of dog walking... Once in Accra we thought we had hit the jackpot when we heard that the site of the old zoo was a good place to walk the dogs. Once we found it up a dirt road in the Achimota area, we were met by a makeshift barrier and guard hut. We enquired as to the zoo site and was told that we could not go in as it is now the construction site for the presidents new palace. If that didn't dissuade us, he then mentioned that although most animals were moved to the Kumasi Zoo, there were still some feral camels roaming about, not to mention some other random animals.... I don't remember what those were as I think I was already reversing and halfway down the dirt track by the time he listed them. But further north we did once or twice take advantage of the Aburi Botanical Gardens, fully equipped with a relic helicopter. Yep..
Come to think of it, the ZRP are much like Harare's clowns: I catch myself in a state of befuddlement, wondering whether to sob uncontrollably at the sight of them or pee my pants laughing! I am by no means racist, or wanting to sound racist in any way BUT black clowns are downright creepy. Mostly its to do with the grey ashen look they have (as cheap white face paint on black skin just doesn't work. Maybe they need to start with two layers of primer...). But they have mastered the art of children's face painting; I'll give them that. All they need now is to master the art of talking to the children without sounding like Chuckie from Child's Play; as if they want to chop their heads off in the process ("Come here BOY, I'll PAINT YOUR FACE!!" Cue: maniacal laughter... WaaHAAAhhaa!!!. Cue: sweet four-year old boy rendered into a ball of inconsolable sobs cowering back to his mother) and they would be a real hit. And don't get me started on black Santas... however, black Jesus... well, THAT's another story worthy of its on blog. Or at the very least its own paragraph. And I have outstayed my welcome here this time around, so will keep Black Jesus in my pocket for later...(is that sacrilegious?!)
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