Genital Shrinkage

Since you are taking the time to read this, you are obviously a discerning and well-read individual. Or maybe you go scouring the internet for mentions of genitals. Either way, this story should be of interest.

It is Ghana in the dark days of the 1980’s. The political climate is twisted, the dress code ugly and the music made by cheap synthesized effects. Flt Lt. ‘J.J.’ Rawlings is wearing his signature aviator shades in Osu Castle, the seat of the President of the Republic of Ghana. His brand of military dictatorship is creaking and the IMF is called in to wreak their usual havoc. Cocoa prices were down. Bribery and corruption was up.

About this time an odd rumour broke in Accra. A woman was accused of causing her lover’s genitals to shrink, just by touching him. Reflective of the angry anarchy of the times, a group of unemployed men assembled and strung the accused up. The mob rides once more.

The papers were full of it. Nobody seemed to question that the dude’s thing had shrank, only that the frenzied masses were a bit out of order tackling it themselves. Suddenly the whole country is awash with rumours of similar happenings. Emasculated men pointed an accusatory digit at their wives, best friends, people they touched on the tro-tro, children etc etc. A frightened and similarly diminished mob would then do the dirty work. Hundreds were attacked in the months that followed, many of them seriously hurt and even killed. And why didn’t the authorities intervene? Because they were AWOL basically. In other words, the whole thing blew seriously out of hand.

Eventually, things calmed down. People started to get more savvy and would verify the accusatory man’s claim by stripping him naked in the street. Funnily enough, this also worked to reduce the number of accusations. It is now just a strange footnote in the history of this fine country, but one that reminds us once again how precious a man’s family jewels can be. Especially when, due to the effects of mass unemployment and widespread poverty, there’s no other way he can prove to himself that he is a man.

Number leakages

In the dark days at the end of the last millennium, the UK sought to cheer itself up by instituting nationwide government-sponsored gambling in the form of the national lottery, or lotto, or bingo, or whatever the f*ck it’s these days. As you might be able to tell, I have always held a dim view of this tax on the poor, stupid or desperate. In Ghana the situation is not much different, except, happily enough for the exchequer, there’s a lot more poverty and desperation to feed on here, although on the stupidity aspect, I think we can say it’s about a draw.

The form that a national lottery takes is, like most things, reflective of the national character. In the UK, we laud the winners and make celebrities of them, building them up and up whilst waiting hungrily for their downfall. In Ghana, the lottery is shrouded in secrecy, rumour and arcane ritual. Every week a kind of newspaper is printed with every set of winning numbers since the ‘70s. Looking at this thing is like staring into the mind of Stephen Hawking doing sudoku. Thousands of numbers stare back at you daring you to work out a pattern. And that is what so many in this time-rich country do. You will see them, head hunched over the pages, eyes scrambling across the page, palms feverishly gripping the paper till the cheap ink runs.

Some weeks, the rumour of a certain already-picked number spreads through the country. This is called a leakage, as though the numbers are a closely guarded government secret, and because this cuts your odds down the tickets fly out of the stalls that week. To explain, the Ghana lottery works by punting on 6 numbers out of a possible 99, making the usual odds of you winning similar to betting on Jamie Carragher to be the season's top striker. (To all grownups who don't obsess about football, these odds are rather slim). So, to get one number free is quite a bonus. This happened the other week and several people told me about how much they were going to win and what they were going to do with the proceeds. Not to spoil the happy ending with the truth or anything, but suffice it to say there were no Humvees bumping along the Humjibrean mean streets the next week.

Coke is it!

It’s always interesting to compare two country’s reactions to a scandal that reflects upon both. From what I gather, the arrest and hearing of the two British schoolgirls caught smuggling cocaine has been treated with the usual condescending concern for human rights abroad back in good old blighty. The red top rags have been full of vitriolic editorials spouting thinly disguised racist commentary and chest-beating defence of these two little Howard Marks wannabes. It’s all standard fare for what is rightly known as the silly season on Fleet Street. Since most of the politicians are on some junket holiday in Tuscany or the Barbados, it’s left to stories about flesh-eating diseases, vicious dogs and those bloody Europeans to fill column inches and stoke the national ire.

Here in Ghana, the reaction has been a little less excited. We’ve been subjected to months of a cocaine saga involving a stash of missing snowy white powder evidence, some red-faced coppers and a cover-up that is creeping steadily up the Police Force. People in these parts are getting quite jaded you could say. With this new story breaking, it seems increasingly obvious that Ghana is part of a latter-day Atlantic trade triangle involving Columbian farmers, Ghanaian or, as it now seems, British mules and Cockney ad exec cokehead doorknobs. I’m not one for editorializing as you know, but suffice to say, I’m not sure who I pity more.