Lord of the Land
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), Unknown, 34 days ago
Our landlord is a big man in every sense of the word. Tall, wide and imposing, he struts confidently around with the figure of a mighty bull put out to pasture. His long flowing robes mark him out as a proud Muslim and his short, neat and greying hair lend him a respectable look above the build of a bully. His low commanding voice comes from deceptively full and floppy lips. His eyes are steely and firm.“You can help me get a visa to the UK,” he ordered. I wasn’t sure if he was joking.“Well, I don’t really know the procedure...”“You write a letter saying that I will visit your parents,” he smiled like a shark.“Why do you want to go there?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation onto safer ground. “The weather is very cold at this time of year.”“Oh, I won’t go there to work. I will only go to visit for two weeks and I will stay indoors. I am a businessman, an entrepreneur – I have investments back here that I must watch over. I know that the British only let Africans into your country to work hard so that you people can relax but I just want to go to visit.”“British people work hard,” I countered, thinking about how I’d spent two hours that morning reading in bed.The big man let out a loud dismissive sound from the back of his throat– something between a shout and laugh. “You people don’t work. You people don’t farm.”“We have farmers! They work hard! Everyone must work hard in Britain.”He waved his hand casually and smiled smugly.“I have an uncle who is a doctor and stays in the UK. He has been there for a long time. He is married. He has children who have grown up there. London... somewhere... is it SW something?...”“That’s nice,” I said, still somewhat pissed off at his dismissal of Britain’s work ethic. “I suppose he has to work hard as a doctor.”He stuck his hands deep into the ample pockets of his robe and shrugged dismissively.“But he is rich I think. You know, you people earn pounds. Would a doctor be rich in your country?”It was my turn to shrug. I supposed so. They won’t be hungry, I told him.“But he doesn’t help his family back here in Africa,” the landlord shouted. “He has forgotten us. People living in that place should be helping us Africans. I tell him that he should build a house here in Bolga – maybe even two or three. I am a contractor. I build houses. I can build him anice house. He can rent it out. I can organise that for him. He would even make more money.”We were stood in the front garden of the house. At the landlord’s insistence, three skinny men were cutting, hacking, clearing and burning the vegetation that I had allowed to build up. Their short and underfed bodies were nonetheless wiry and strong. Their little muscles rippled under their dark, tight skin. They didn’t speak a word of English and the landlord kept barking at them in Guruni, walking around and jabbing his finger at the work still to be done. His bulk was easily larger than the combined size of the three busy workers.“How old are you?” he asked.“I am thirty in a couple of weeks.”“And look at these men,” the landlord smiled craftily, perhaps accusingly. “They are fifty something but they are stronger than you. Look at them work.” I looked.How did this fat man get such moral authority? Just by being an African? I wasn’t enjoying this conversation at all.“Maybe I am lazy,” I responded, smiling, intending the comment as a joke.“You people are lazy,” the contractor nodded, seriously, his floppy lips curled into a sneer. “Why don’t you find some small money and pay a labourer to clear all this for you every week?”“I can do it myself,” I said, flustered at being accused of laziness, annoyed at how he hadn’t (perhaps deliberately)picked up on the ‘joke’ but also thinking about how long I’d been putting the job off. Laura had been bugging me about clearing the drains for months.“You need to find ten cedis (£4.70) to give these people,” he told me in his direct, brutish style.“You know,” I told him casually, fishing ten cedis out of my pocket. “VSO give me ten cedis every day.”I was glad he looked shocked.“Really? 300 a month? But they pay for your lights... your electricity... your fuel... food...”“No, they just pay you for the house rent. Everything else must come from the ten cedis.”“But they get their money from the British government. The British government has money. They should give you more. You could make more money back in the UK?”“I haven’t come here to make money.” He looked even more confused. Then his eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe me. I could read his face. He thought I was telling him this as a lie to try and get out of paying for things. In his eyes, I am a lazy man – a European living the good life on theback of struggling Africans, himself included.He took a fat wad of notes from his deep pockets and counted out a further twenty cedis to add to my ten, holding them up to make a point of how generous he is and promising to pass the money on to the workers. He led the small men out of the gate and ordered them to load his pick-up truck with the excess cement. He stood over them, monitoring their work. Then he drove off.The three skinny workers came back to pick up their bicycles. They grinned at me, bowed slightly and shook my hand although they couldn’t speak any English. One of them had taken a plastic bag filled with old copies of New Scientist and Veterinary Record magazines out of our dustbin and into his saddle bag. I asked him what he wanted them for but he just smiled, nodded and bowed slightly. I asked him if he wanted to read them andhe again smiled, nodded and bowed slightly.I miss being ordinary. I miss representing no one but myself. I miss being able to go about my day to day life without having every action interpreted through the prisms of race, history and money.I miss being home.