Hawkers and Multitasking

I am fascinated by the intersection of shopping and commuting that is everywhere in Accra. Yes, the roads are lined with vendors with their mostly stable booths, each specializing in something: drinks, tinned goods or beans and grains; cold goods; vegetables or fruits (sometimes so specialized as to stock only cabbage or avocado or pineapples or plantains); shoes; bedroom furniture, bricks, car stuff (somewhat incongruously, there are huge displays of covers that envelop the whole car, no doubt part of the losing battle against the red dust of Accra). To purchase something from one of the booth vendors, it is easy enough to pull over, onto the shoulder if there is one, or simply block traffic and elicit a cacophony of honking horns and the shouts of taxi drivers and the passengers in the crowded tro-tros, run up to the proprietor and effect a fast transaction. In and out probably 2 minutes.

The other intersection of shopping and travelling is found on the streets themselves. Hawkers are found in every direction, fanning out from an intersection or junction or even in the middle of the ubiquitous construction sites which cause traffic to grind to a halt. These hawkers are not at the side of the road. Sometimes they are on the medians separating lanes, more commonly they wander through the traffic between the moving cars. The best place seems to be between the two northbound/southbound/whichever direction, lanes, ones going in the same direction, that is. Then the hawkers have twice the opportunity to sell their wares, compared to those that stay more safely on the median or on the side of the road. The hawkers are male and female and range in age from young – maybe 11 or 12 – to adults, mostly in their 20s and early 30s I’d guess, but some much older hawkers are also evident from time to time. At least half of those I’ve seen do not wear shoes, a scary thought on pavement or concrete sitting all day everyday under the burning sun. The men mostly turn themselves into ambulatory display racks with items hanging off them in every direction, looped around their necks, hanging down their backs and swinging from their long arms. Except for those who sell lottery tickets or newspapers: their wares seem more controlled, smaller, less like they’ve exploded from the body in all directions. The women, and some of the men, carry their wares balanced on their heads, weaving in and out of the traffic, graceful and unperturbed. Nothing every falls off. None of the towers of goods seems to totter or swerve. Some of the women balance towers of items that are at least two feet high, not tall bins filled with things but rather towers of small items stacked somehow more securely than seems possible. The women walk as they would have in the villages of the past, tall, with perfectly straight backs and exuding utter confidence. But it isn’t only the hawkers who carry on their heads: I’ve seen housewives carrying the laundry home in this way too. There is such elegance and gracefulness involved in this dance of incredible balance: it is easy to understand why the colonialists romanticized what is, at its most fundamental, a form of human labour.

The hawkers walk up and down between the cars, looking inside, calling out their wares. It is easy enough in the slow traffic of Accra to call someone over and dig out a cedi or two and buy something, anything, well, truth to tell, everything. It seems that one could almost do a household’s marketing from the back seat of a taxi, en route to and from work. So, I’ve decided to see if this is true. What follows is a list of what the hawkers offered as I came home from work. Note: the goods are only from the street hawkers and do not include the even greater diversity offered by the booth merchants. And the list is necessarily incomplete: I don’t always know or recognize what is for sale and can’t gawk too long or I’ll have to buy something. So, here goes: remember, each individual item (unless otherwise noted) has a specific hawker (the lottery guy doesn’t sell newspapers). Items are grouped roughly by type for the reader’s convenience.

– lottery tickets, newspapers, magazines, Barney the dragon children’s books, phonecards for pay-as -you- go cellphones, DVDs (mostly recent Hollywood releases, probably pirated), CDs, poster size maps of Africa and Ghana, evangelical/religious books, crucifixes

– car floor mats, steering wheel covers, cell phone chargers for car lighters, superglue

– toilet paper, kleenex, rolls of elastic bandages, make-up & nail polish, toiletries & similar drug store items like aspirin. In this case, the hawker had a variety of items it a tower on his head that must have been two feet tall. How did he even know what he had?

– tea towels, bath towels, table clothes, hangers, sheets (assume with pillow cases), strange bedspreads (wall hangings?) that appear to be giant velvet animals, plastic Tupperware style containers

– Coke,& Sprite & local soft drinks, yogurt drinks (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry), hot chocolate mix, sachets of water (the kind Ghanians drink by foreigners shouldn’t; not in bottles but in plastic bubbles)

– plantains, bananas, pineapples, yellow apples, corn (on the cob), sugar cane, loaves of bread, pita bread

– bofru (sp?), a mix of corn meal cooked in a banana leaf, donuts, crackers, roasted nuts, banana chips, popcorn, donuts (more about those another time), cookies & biscuits (homemade & packaged), chocolate (in this heat?), Mentos & various mints & gum

– T-shirts, stockings, shoes (adult & children), sandals, jewellery, children’s clothing, scarves, flip flops (yes, I know, there’s a whole flip flop theme going on), wallets (leather), briefcases, baby bibs, shoe polish & brushes

– exercise equipment, soccer balls, stuffed animal backpacks (bears & raccoons), luggage, beachballs

– black and gold carved side tables, electrical cords, international converters for plugs, regular light bulbs, strobe-style lights to hook up to a music system, wall clocks in various styles, pictures (large for living room walls), electric fans

So, my highly unscientific survey suggests that a house could be partially furnished, dinner made, everyone clothed and entertained all from the back seat of a taxi: multitasking at its best..... but pity the poor hawker who makes it all happen.