Thursday of last week I returned home from work by taxi and pulled up to the gate to my house. As we pulled to a stop I noticed that across the street, in front of another house’s gate, stood a group of school children still in their uniforms. The uniforms are brown bottoms—shorts for boys and bibbed overall-style dresses for girls—and light yellow collared tops for all. I recognized most of them from the neighborhood. There were about seven of them, and I’d say they ranged in age from six to ten. All bunched up together, they seemed poised like a group of carolers waiting for someone to answer the door.

Sure enough, as soon as got out of the taxi, they began chanting and pumping their fists: “Serious! Serious! Serious! Serious!” (Ghanaians say it SEER-yus.) It wasn’t my first time being chanted at here, but in past instances the cry has been “Obruni!” (oh-BROO-ni), and it has always seemed better not to encourage it by reacting. But my interest was piqued; why was I “serious”? As I fumbled with the key in the gate I weighed my options.

I turned to them and said loudly across the road, “Hey! Who is Serious?”

“You! You are Serious!”

“I thought I was Jake. Why am I Serious?”

One of the older girls broke away from the group and ran across the street towards me, beaming a wide smile. She came to face me, stood up straight, and hollered: “Cause you’re a ‘ARDWORKIN man!”

At this punchline, she and the rest of the group burst into rollicking laughter. The others cascaded across the street and crowded around for high-fives and a couple minutes of general merriment. It was, without a doubt, the best I’ve felt in weeks.

Lest anyone think I am acquiring a devoted fan club here, I will note that nothing like this had occurred before or has occurred since. It was, as far as I can tell, a one-time thrill. I still have no idea why they were all assembled there in front of the neighbor’s gate on that Thursday afternoon, looking as if they were anxiously awaiting my arrival. In fact, I don’t even know whether or not they were making fun of me. I can only guess from their giddiness that, at the time, I was a goofy and incongruous neighborhood character who needed to be addressed. Whatever the motivation, the encounter made me feel light as a balloon. I’ll take a Ghanaian under-13 cheering section any day of the week.

Also from the sublime/ridiculous file: On Tuesday’s ride home from work Oti saved a kitten and nearly killed a tro-tro full of people. We were driving down a narrow section of High St (the main road) that runs through South Osu, a dense town area. Like most improved roads in Accra, this one is bordered on both sides by open cement sewers about 1.5’ wide and 2’ deep. It was nearly 7:00, and completely dark. The dim headlights of Oti’s Opel Astra illuminate only a few feet in front of the car, so even at a modest 25mph objects in the road ahead seem to materialize out of thin air.

One such object was a little grey-and-black striped kitten that appeared in our path, scurrying across the road from left to right with back bowed in a moving crouch. Oti let out a muffled Oooh! and, eyes on the cat, swerved to the left so we could straddle it between the tires. When we swerved I looked up and my eyes met the headlights of an oncoming tro-tro rambling down the road as only a tro-tro can. To help you appreciate the way these vehicles move, the way they rattle and bounce and list to one side, the baldness of their tires, their utter ricketiness, I will try to post a video soon. It suffices for now to say that it’s not the kind of vehicle into whose path you’d want to swerve.

But swerve we did, and the tro-tro responded with its own evasive maneuver. With the agility of a three-legged cow it lurched to the side and teetered on the edge of the sewer, its topheavy bulk leaning precariously over the ditch, until in an instant we passed each other and it lurched back towards the center of the road. As we continued driving in opposite directions, Oti and I could not help but hear the fading spasm of yelling and the wheezing honk of the tro-tro’s overused horn, which was quickly drowned out by the rattling of our own vehicle. The whole event lasted maybe four seconds.

Oti ensured the incident’s induction into the Hall of Absurdity with his elegantly ambiguous summary: “Oh! We didn’t hit it!”