For months an army of architects and planners had been busy hiding the squalor of the teeming (pop. 200,000) British Gold Coast city of Accra behind a glittering façade of chrome-plated supermodernity. In the last-minute bustle, newly imported foreign taxicabs tangled endlessly with native "mammy wagons" crammed with the smiling denizens of the back country come to town to see the show. Everybody stared proudly at the vistas of the future on every side:a new pagodalike Statehouse, an ornate new bank building, a government-run, air-conditioned hotel, and a great new department...
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