In 1976, JK Mensah, a master panel beater, rented a plot of land at the top end of the Nima highway

Maamobi (A01) and the adjacent travel package Accra suburb of Nima are slums : the standard of construction is poor, sanitation is poor and water supply is at best intermittent. Yet these areas serve a useful purpose , offering migrants from Ghana s rural areas and elsewhere in West Africa relatively low rent accommodation (typically chamber and hall ) not far from places of work.
In 1976, JK Mensah, travel package a master panel beater, rented a plot of land at the top end of the Nima highway and put up a signboard reading JK Mensah Auto Engineering Works. The population of Accra was then about 750,000. Mensah invited travel package several car maintenance specialists to join him. Each of these masters employed apprentices. Mensah married one of his, Sister Esi, who in the course of time became a Master Panel Beater in her own right. The Mensahs subsequently emigrated to Germany, where they still live. The landlord travel package later reclaimed the front strip of the plot and constructed travel package a row of stores, which he let to dealers in electrical goods, cement and yoghurt (A03). A narrow passage provides the only access to the yard behind (A04). JK Mensah s sign is no more, but the successors of the original masters continue to operate in the tiny, congested, ungated yard behind the stores (A02 p.32, seen from the unfinished three-storey
There are eleven masters, three auto mechanics , an auto electrician , a panel beater and gas welder, a blacksmith and electric arc welder, an upholsterer, a sprayer, and brake band and car air conditioning specialists. Their ramshackle offices and stores travel package line one side of the yard, offering the only shelter when it rains. The ground is unpaved, its surface irregular. They have a washroom but have to use a public toilet down the street. Each of the eleven co-tenants pays rent of about USD35 per month. When business is good, there isn t enough space in the yard for all the cars. Late arrivals wait their turn in the street outside. The landlord forbids this, but in between rent collection days he is an infrequent visitor.
Emeka Okafor is an entrepreneur and venture catalyst who lives in New York City.He is the curator of Maker Faire Africa .He was the director for TED Global 2007 that took place in Arusha,Tanzania.In addition he is a member of the TED fellowship team .His interests include sustainable technologies in the developing world and paradigm breaking technologies in general. His blog, Timbuktu Chronicles seeks to spur dialogue in areas of entrepreneurship, technology and the scientific method as it impacts Africa. Timbuktu is a city unsullied by the worship of idols...a refuge of scholarly and righteous folk, a haunt of saints and ascetics, and a meeting place of caravans and boats -Al-Sa Di