Shopping For A Ghana Christmas: Matters Arising

The season of madness is upon us again. Yes, ‘bronya’ is here, evoking many chilldhood memories back home of jolloff with chicken, cake, fanta, special clothes and endless nativity plays. Already, many Ghanaians abroad have booked their flights home to be a part of the festivities there. During this season, London, Paris, and Chicago, with their freezing streets, do not quite hold the same appeal as say, Anomabu, Wenchi, or Keta, with their brass bands, fancy dress and street music.

Looking at the astronomical ticket prices, you would be forgiven for assuming the flights are for business class travel to the moon, rather than our own beloved Kotoka Airport. And yet even at these crazy prices, those that have ‘wings’ to fly home are doing so in their numbers. Trying to get a seat for travel from London after 10th December is nigh impossible, in spite of the number and frequency of flights to Ghana every week. A friend of mine travelling from London in mid-December last year could only find a seat on Royal Air Maroc, with stopovers at Casablanca, Nouackchott and Abidjan before finally winging it into Accra-an excruciatingly long, uneventful ‘Trotro Airways’ trip. He paid over £700 for the privelage, and complained that due to the ‘Islamic Factor’), he could not even get any brandy to calm his frayed nerves during the flight. He needed a full day to recover. Now, some people like to plan ahead and buy their chirstmas ticket somewhere in February or March. And the conventional wisdom is that you don’t travel home empty handed, especially at Christmas. How can you ignore ‘bronya adze’? Some people will buy a portmanteau and start shopping in bits and pieces when their eagle eyes spot a closing down sale here or there- a cloth this week for Auntie Bea, a headscarf next week for Mama Akos, etc. This way, the pain is not very badly felt because your presents accumulate slowly and you don’t realise you have spent a lot of money when it’s time to snap the suticase shut and head for Heathrow, JFK or Schipol. Others, like this writer, tend to leave things till the last minute. They with a few dys to go, panic sets in and they start running around flailing like headless chickens and trying to do a thousand things at once in preparation for the trip, causing severe haemorraging in their bank accounts.

And even making for Ghana International Airways’ rather generous 46 kg weight limit, many travellers manage to exceed this and turn up at London’s Gatwick Airport hauling really obese pieces of luggage that clearly weigh far in excess of their alloowance. But can you blame them? It is quite amusing to watch travellers spreadeagle their suitcases on the airport floor as they frantically attempt emergency surgery to divest their luggage of the excess weight after they have been told they will have to pay princely sums to have the whole lot sent on the flight. Now, dear reader, shopping for a trip home is one of the most delicate tasks that could create a lot of headaches if not handled with first rate diplomatic skills. Of course it is near sucidal to ask the folks back home to let you know what they want- the list will stretch all the way to Jerusalem Gates and back and will give you a massive heart attack. You have to decide what to buy. But how do you decide who in your family gets a watch and who gets a pair of shoes without stoking resentment?

It is usually helpful to group your would-be beneficiaries: immediate family; extended family; close friends; friends and acquaintances-and then decide how much to spend per head in each group. But then even that presents headaches. If you are unfortunate enough to have six aunts, four uncles and twelve cousins ( all close to you-or so they claim) then it is hard to buy something for one and ignore the rest. How do you know your concubine does not have the same type and colour of the shoe you have spent good money on for her? Experienced traveller-shoppers will tell you for instance that if you are going home and you buy a cloth each for your wife and sister, it is not wise to buy the same design, and definitely hazardous to let either of them see what you have bought for the other.

It can be painful when a present is not well-received. Your offer of two t-shirts and a pair of jeans to a friend/relative might be unappreciated, whether for its perceived low quality or for the fact that you did not bring him/her the latest mobile phone and designer eau de toilette, among others. You may even get a cheeky ‘ Is this all you brought me?’ from your beneficiary. It takes the patience of Job to let this remark pass idly by, for you did not pluck these items from a wawa tree, neither can you afford a mobile phone and Dolce Gabbana EDT for everyone. Standard caustic retort for this remark: ‘Have you sent me anywhere? Or did you buy my ticket to go abroad?’ Swiftly you blacklist your friend and swear he will not even get a pen cap from you next time.

With friends, it is sometimes easier to take them out for drinks and/or a meal rather than buying presents for them. Apart from being cheaper, you at least avoid the problem of an unappreciated present and thereby preserve a friendship. Some friends would still be aggrieved at receiving nothing from you. Whether you bring them a present or not, some people will beseige you with all their problems and seek your money to resolve these. They can range from school fees to a need to pay off a water bill or a longstanding debt. Of course, the moment you arrive in town, friends and family will begin laying claim to your clothes, camera, jewellry, shoes and any other thing that you have brought, no matter what you have brought them. Some believe it is their God-given right to divest you of these when you are leaving Ghana-the idea, after all, is that you can replace them. As if the tree in your garden back in Europe, America or wherever you have come from is heaving with ripe, fat, juicy wads of money waiting to be plucked...

It is a golden rule of travelling home ( and a fact of life) that you can never satisfy everybody’s needs. Every first year economics student will tell you that on one hand people’s needs and wants are unlimited, whilst on the other, the resources to meet them are limited. Only Yesu Christo could break this rule by feeding five thousand people with his extremely limited resources of two pieces of fish and five loaves of bread. You the traveller will therefore have to decide who gets what, if anything, so go easy on the shopping-there is no point stressing yourself out. At the end of the day, if your have murdered your credit card and emptied your account to shop, it is your head that your bank manager will be seeking to chop off on your return if ( as is likely) your account is in glowing red.

In two weeks, I will flee the cold, dark, rainy streets of London to go home, rest my bones small and to enjoy bronya and some frothy ‘doka’ palm wine in peace. I have received requests from various fantasists for the following items among others: a laptop computer, a Nokia N95 mobile phone, a pair of Timberland Boots, a digital camera and an ipod. Of course, I have breezily ignored these requests and will get what I can afford. If my would-be beneficiaries don’t like them, I am sure they can jump into the fetid Korle Lagoon-it bothers me not. Life is complicated enough as it is, and I prefer to remain in my bank manager’s good books-literally speaking.

The writer is the author of Ghana At 50: A Trip Down Memory Lane, which was published in Accra in April 2007. by Woeli Publications.