We were returning home in the car of dad’s friend who had done a lot in the background to make our admission into the new school a success. While the two engaged in chit-chat, I surveyed the neighborhood in which the school was situated.

Burma Camp. The name of the vicinity. Soldiers lived there.

An untarred road divided the school and some bungalows for army officers. Behind the bungalows were bushes. Further behind the bushes some magnificent buildings. One looked like a church. Very beautiful.

Once in a while, a plane was seen either landing or taking off. Seems this place wasn’t far from an airport. One plane was grey, unusually huge and made a lot of noise as it touched down.

Under a tree some metres from the school wall were some rickety buses. Probably used in conveying students. Some of the drivers reclined lazily on bent tree trunks and branches. Others slept in the buses.

Because it was the back-to-school season, a number of women sold exercise books, pens, and other stationery on little tables and stalls around the school. A group of students gathered around one vendor who sold something in a huge gourd, each child eager to get some of it before it ran out. Now, the seller stopped serving and was resolving  some differences between two children.

“The Airforce Base is over there.” Dad’s friend pointed while driving, returning to an ongoing conversation about an incident at church the other day.

This neighborhood was different from the rest of Ghana. The discipline of the Ghanaian Army showed in the neatness of the streets. Here, no one erected shops anywhere they liked. There were places for everything : markets, schools, parks, farms, residential houses, restaurants, offices, airforce bases, training camps, supply depots.

No street hawkers. The edges of the pavements bordering the road were painted white. I wondered why the rest of the country couldn’t be like that.

As we exited Burma Camp, there was a checkpoint were soldiers inspected vehicles entering and leaving. The officer who stopped us glanced at everyone in the car before he waved us on.

And as we headed back to our neighborhood La, I squinted my eyes to read a sign I missed while we were on our way to the school :

You’re entering Burma Camp. Speed limit 40km/h.