"El Beardo" Hisham screamed. "How are you doing man?" he asks as he sits in the front seat and turns to look at his driver for a response.
Business has been good since the middle-aged Ga man switched from waiting dining tables to manning a Bolt in Accra. No, better than good. He gets to choose his hours and earns almost three times what Hisham used to pay him (tips included) at The Eatery.
"I'm doing well" Akwete responds. He is by now used to receiving ride requests from his former colleagues who still continue to tease him for always being so dapper in looks and manners. Even Hisham, the accountant at the Eatery, who never used to glance in his direction let alone talk to him, is no exception. Akwete gloats in his new found "visibility" and accelerates towards Hisham's destination.
Akwete is fascinated by the clients Bolt sends his way and the conversations he is able to hold with them, he tells Hisham. They are usually foreigners who know no local languages and he enjoys introducing them to a few local phrases. He knows, he says, that the good reviews he receives from riders is due to his safe driving habits, his photographic memory of all the routes in the city and also his command of the English language.
"Your referral commissions will be ready by next week" Hisham says as Akwete breaks to a stop on Dakar street, East Legon. "Wow... looking forward to getting paid. Thanks and have a nice day" Akwete responds as he swipes on his phone to end the trip and swipes again to accept an incoming request. He loves this ride-sharing technology. Just a swipe on his phone and not only does he know where to go pick his next passenger but said passenger also instantly knows a blue Chevrolet Spark with license plate number GG 3962-18 will arrive for her in six minutes. Not only is he getting good fares on these rides but through conversations with his riders he is occasionally able to recommend cafes and restaurants in the city and earns commissions for his referrals.
As he exits Dakar St. he can't help but recall his trip to Dakar, Senegal last September. Dakar for him was a lesson in what would have been his socioeconomic situation in Ghana if he was not literate in English or the local lingua franca. In Dakar where he was neither literate in French nor Wolof he found his social life very limited. Where once his illiteracy in any of those two languages was disclosed his class position was assumed to be way down the ladder until his Ghanaian identity and with that his literacy in another European language is brought up to save his fate. He knew it would take very hard work at mastering the colonial but now official European language to be able to engage with a certain section of Dakaroi whom he knew held economic power. At worst he'd have to quickly grok conversational Wolof if he was to stand any chance of earning a livelihood there.
Akwete rolls his Chevrolet to a stop in front of a modernist-style apartment inside the Airport Residential Area where he finds his client, Sihle, already out on the street waiting for him. She must be in a hurry to be already out in the sun, he thinks to himself. The right door at the back opens and in enters a black woman wearing African print with her hair wrapped in cloth, who shuts the door as she gets comfortable in her seat and says in an unmistakably South African accent "Ooooh we thank God for air conditioning. We must dodge traffic please...I'm already late for a meeting". "I got you", Akwete quickly responds, pleased with himself that his AC was on and working to his and her satisfaction. He gave her another look through his mirrors and saw she wore on her dress a work badge on which he could only make out the words "writer", "activist" and "political analyst".
Play me some music. Something you Ghanaians love listening to. Akwete indulges her and plays a CD he already has in his player which he thinks perfect for the occasion but then Sihle's response isn't what he expects at all. What genre of music is this and who is the singer? Shocked Akwete retorts "Are you not South African?" Sihle responds in the affirmative to which Akwete quickly adds "and you don't know Lucky Dube? you don't know Reggae?". Nope! Neither. "Wow, well Lucky Dube though South African is very popular in Ghana. So popular I assumed every South African must know him" I see. I'm Zulu. Grew up in Cape Town and lived in Jo'berg and I have never heard of him or listened to any reggae. "A black South African... Wow" continues Akwete shaking his head to which Sihle burst out a loud laugh. What's popular in South Africa is House music and more recently Amapiano, she says. I can't wait to tell friends back home there's a South African artist so popular in Ghana we all don't know about!
They arrive at Labone Coffee Shop, her stop. Akwete feels obliged to let her know Lucky Dube died in October 2007, a blow to musicians and music lovers all over Ghana and the world. He resists the urge to tell her any of that. It wouldn't be worth it, he thinks, for Black African though she is, her world is different from his. Sihle is already out of the car and he is still in the parking lot waiting for his next ride request. The whole episode with Sihle is stuck on his mind and amuses him. The Lucky Dube phenomenon, it turns out, is some sort of Ghanaian musical experience a black South African would know nothing about? Like a local language he'll have to translate to the likes of Sihle? Unbelievable. Wasn't it just last week when another South African... Sisonke... couldn't contain herself in his car just because she discovered he didn't know Muhammad Ali?
The request he is waiting for arrives as beeps on his phone. All the rides he is on after Sihle are all within a few meter radius from Coffee Shop. Around half past noon he gets a request that will take him out of the loop in Labone to Osu. The rider's name is Joy and her destination is set to Republic Bar. On his way to pick her up his attention is drawn to a lady on the side of the street waving him to stop. It turns out its his friend Ana who happens to be heading in the same direction and so offers her a ride. On their way Akwete narrates the incident with Sihle to his friend whose attention seems to be more concentrated on her phone. Listen Akwete, Ana finally says looking up, I arrived in Ghana after a childhood in Ghanaian communities in London & Hamburg. Imagine my surprise when I discovered not everyone here knows Ebo Taylor.
When Akwete picks Joy up he is stunned by what his sight is taking in. She hops into the front seat, takes off her headphones and says hello to him. He is not sure about her accent so he asks "Where are you from?". Born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia. It was then that he knew he wasn't driving the actress his sister is star struck by. But then what a good copy of Jennifer Hudson or Jennifer Hudson a good copy of... he thinks to himself. He asks her what brings her to Ghana (visiting her Aunty), What she likes about his country (the beach), What she struggles with here so far (spicy food). Remembering that she had headphones on earlier he asks what she's been listening to. Oh I was listening to a long time favorite, good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar. "Who is Kendrick Lamar?" Akwete begins to regret the words as soon as he had spat them out. Joy rolls her eyes at him and asks if he's just kidding. From there she begins to sound like Sisonke who was shocked he didn't know the New World, disappointed he wasn't as much a citizen of "Online", and thought they could be friends but no.
Akwete, certainly displeased at another African calling him out on his ignorance of American popular culture, just drives on without uttering a single word. The episode with Sihle made him realize he had to forgive Sisonke and now Joy. Didn't he also react to Sihle with the same incredulous frustration that the Senegalese, unable to stand his incomprehension of basic French, meted out to him? Didn't English speakers like him deceived into a perceived universality of the language ask "How do you not speak any English?". So yes he can take the heat from the likes of Sisonke and Joy who think he should at least speak some basic black American politics and culture. Joy drops off at the Bar and Akwete feels he's had enough for the day. He puts off his phone and sets the destination in his mind to La... to home.