Review: Children of the Street
Jun. 4th, 2017 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI found a mystery book set in Ghana at my library and I enjoyed it and have since started looking for other books in the series. The book is Kwei Quartey's Children of the Street (An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery, #2) (2011) and it is set in Accra, Ghana's capital city.
Summary
Detective investigates murder of a street child with the help of a reporter, a serial killer specialist, some children's shelter workers, and more. Working against him are his rage against rapists, his marijuana addiction, and the lethal illness of his only child. We also meet several street children, making money how they can, forming groups to protect themselves, etc. There was no way to guess the murderer, and there were so many bad guys, but I still enjoyed the book. And the last paragraphs made me laugh. His wife shrieks, they hug. In the back seat, their son explains to his friend, "They're like that sometimes. You just have to be patient and wait for them to stop." "Oh, okay," Sly said.
One character invents "wisdom cookies," like fortune cookies, but inside is a proverb. Apparently there is a huge book full of Ghanaian proverbs.
On Ghana
Accra, has very polluted slums where the rivers flow like sludge. One is called Agbogbloshie (fun to guess how to say). Even in the richer parts, the electricity goes out when it storms.
"Dawson and Christine had decided to have kenkey with fish .... They went traditional, using their fingers to eat from one large common bowl. It was a social and intimate way to take a meal, even more fitting by lantern light." Google tells me that kenkey is fermented/sourdough corn dumplings. "The Ga, Accra's original people, had a legendary love of kenkey, but Dawson was half Ewe and half Fante. Nevertheless, he was fluent in Ga, as well as Ewe, Fante, and Twi [not to mention English], which took care of most of the lower half of Ghana. He had only a rudimentary knowledge of Hausa, one of the major languages spoken in the north."
Another interesting quote: "Then, nine months ago, wonderful news had arrived. The GPS [Ghana Police Service] announced an official policy that it would pay all medical and surgical fees for its employees and their dependents. ... But then reality struck like a sledgehammer. It turned out that the GPS would not prepay employees' medical or surgical expenses under any circumstances of illness, major or minor. All payments would be strictly on a reimbursement basis." The opposite of insurance--you only get help when you don't need it.
I didn't notice the glossary in the back until I was done. By the time I had finished the book, familiar words included:
* Ashawo - sex worker
* ewurade - an exclamation, "My god!"
* kayaye - woman from northern Ghana who makes a living transporting things on her head, head porter
* cedi - monetary unit of Ghana, worth about a dollar
* pesewa - 1/100 cedi (coin)
* tro-tro - minibus.
They also use "massa" as a word for sir when talking to higher ups, but it doesn't have the bad connotations you'd expect. And they seem to use the word "please" sort of like "sir," and not just when they're requesting something.
Related web pages
I decided to learn more about tro-tro's.
* Susan Blausten's Report from the Field: The Tro-Tro--An Essential Mode of Transport in Accra, Ghana (9/29/2010) - This is a fun blog post with some pictures. Tro-tros are the mostly widely used form of transportation in Accra. They have both a driver and a mate--the mate collects the fare and communicates the destination, usually in one of the local languages, but also using signs, such as a circle for the Circle route.
"If I’m lucky, I won’t wait too long before a bus heading toward my destination arrives. Now the challenge lies in competing with other would-be passengers for a spot in the minibus. Boarding can require physically competing with others to land a seat (usually just a healthy amount of nudging, but during peak travel times, competition can be more fierce). ... On some occasions, young, able-bodied people will even enter the vehicle through one of its windows to circumvent the queue at the door."
Tro-tros are privately run--the mate tries to fill it before leaving a stop, so there are no schedules. The vans are old and rickety.
* GhanaWeb's TroTro: Transport for the People by the People has 17 pictures, most accompanied by interesting facts about tro-tros. For example: "The origins of the name Tro-Tro is that Ga language word "tro," which means three pence (pence being the penny coins used during Ghana's colonial days). In the colonial days, the mass transit vehicle charged passengers three pence per trip, and thus were referred to as "tro-tros," and the name have struck ever since."
Summary
Detective investigates murder of a street child with the help of a reporter, a serial killer specialist, some children's shelter workers, and more. Working against him are his rage against rapists, his marijuana addiction, and the lethal illness of his only child. We also meet several street children, making money how they can, forming groups to protect themselves, etc. There was no way to guess the murderer, and there were so many bad guys, but I still enjoyed the book. And the last paragraphs made me laugh. His wife shrieks, they hug. In the back seat, their son explains to his friend, "They're like that sometimes. You just have to be patient and wait for them to stop." "Oh, okay," Sly said.
One character invents "wisdom cookies," like fortune cookies, but inside is a proverb. Apparently there is a huge book full of Ghanaian proverbs.
On Ghana
Accra, has very polluted slums where the rivers flow like sludge. One is called Agbogbloshie (fun to guess how to say). Even in the richer parts, the electricity goes out when it storms.
"Dawson and Christine had decided to have kenkey with fish .... They went traditional, using their fingers to eat from one large common bowl. It was a social and intimate way to take a meal, even more fitting by lantern light." Google tells me that kenkey is fermented/sourdough corn dumplings. "The Ga, Accra's original people, had a legendary love of kenkey, but Dawson was half Ewe and half Fante. Nevertheless, he was fluent in Ga, as well as Ewe, Fante, and Twi [not to mention English], which took care of most of the lower half of Ghana. He had only a rudimentary knowledge of Hausa, one of the major languages spoken in the north."
Another interesting quote: "Then, nine months ago, wonderful news had arrived. The GPS [Ghana Police Service] announced an official policy that it would pay all medical and surgical fees for its employees and their dependents. ... But then reality struck like a sledgehammer. It turned out that the GPS would not prepay employees' medical or surgical expenses under any circumstances of illness, major or minor. All payments would be strictly on a reimbursement basis." The opposite of insurance--you only get help when you don't need it.
I didn't notice the glossary in the back until I was done. By the time I had finished the book, familiar words included:
* Ashawo - sex worker
* ewurade - an exclamation, "My god!"
* kayaye - woman from northern Ghana who makes a living transporting things on her head, head porter
* cedi - monetary unit of Ghana, worth about a dollar
* pesewa - 1/100 cedi (coin)
* tro-tro - minibus.
They also use "massa" as a word for sir when talking to higher ups, but it doesn't have the bad connotations you'd expect. And they seem to use the word "please" sort of like "sir," and not just when they're requesting something.
Related web pages
I decided to learn more about tro-tro's.
* Susan Blausten's Report from the Field: The Tro-Tro--An Essential Mode of Transport in Accra, Ghana (9/29/2010) - This is a fun blog post with some pictures. Tro-tros are the mostly widely used form of transportation in Accra. They have both a driver and a mate--the mate collects the fare and communicates the destination, usually in one of the local languages, but also using signs, such as a circle for the Circle route.
"If I’m lucky, I won’t wait too long before a bus heading toward my destination arrives. Now the challenge lies in competing with other would-be passengers for a spot in the minibus. Boarding can require physically competing with others to land a seat (usually just a healthy amount of nudging, but during peak travel times, competition can be more fierce). ... On some occasions, young, able-bodied people will even enter the vehicle through one of its windows to circumvent the queue at the door."
Tro-tros are privately run--the mate tries to fill it before leaving a stop, so there are no schedules. The vans are old and rickety.
* GhanaWeb's TroTro: Transport for the People by the People has 17 pictures, most accompanied by interesting facts about tro-tros. For example: "The origins of the name Tro-Tro is that Ga language word "tro," which means three pence (pence being the penny coins used during Ghana's colonial days). In the colonial days, the mass transit vehicle charged passengers three pence per trip, and thus were referred to as "tro-tros," and the name have struck ever since."