By: Julian Bessinger<\/p>\n
ELMINA, Ghana \u2014The waves at Elmina\u2019s Coconut Grove Resort beach crash over a field of rocks before making it to the shore. Usually a wave will barely lap the end of the tide line, but sometimes a wave will break high over the rocks, and come rushing over the length of the entire beach, sweeping up the wares from the tarps on the sand that merchants sell from. There\u2019s a moment of alarm where the sellers and the buyers alike frantically collect the bits of colorful product from the surf before the beach is once again restored to a calm impasse.
\nThis is the domain of Kwesi Leroy, an artist and beach salesman who has frequented this particular spot for over twenty years. He has a proud affability about him, as if he has heard that the small twisted bronze figures he makes are strikingly beautiful so many times that he doesn\u2019t need to hear it confirmed again to know.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s my grandpa\u2019s art,\u201d he says, gesturing at the little army of dancing men, and singing women. Although he doesn\u2019t look more than thirty, he adds that he has been making and selling the figures for over twenty years now. \u201cI can\u2019t quite keep track.\u201d He also has a variety of other wares for sale, including the ubiquitous sewn bracelets that salesmen customize for customers all over Ghana.
\nKwesi trades with the tourists who visit the resort so often that he can recognize repeat customers. \u201cNew York University comes each year,\u201d he said, they will be back again next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Julian Bessinger ELMINA, Ghana \u2014The waves at Elmina\u2019s Coconut Grove Resort beach crash over a field of rocks before making it to the shore. Usually a wave will barely lap the end of the tide line, but sometimes a wave will break high over the rocks, and come rushing over the length of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":954,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}