Would you run barefooted in the rain?

Magical things happen the moment you become human. You breath, you cry, you laugh, you love, you sweat, and you remain in motion. But while in motion, it’s important to periodically pause to smell the roses in the midst of experiencing the thorns of life, the heart-warming loving, the rib-cracking laughter, and the heart-breaking crying.

Life is too short. Don’t just sit around waiting for someone – anyone, especially when you know in your heart and out of experience that the person might not show up. In the same vein, because life is too short, don’t just sit around doing nothing – nothing, just laying about with all hope lost. Get up and do something – anything, so that life does not pass you by. Life, this life, is not a dress rehearsal. This is it!

Ask yourself, ‘What can make you run in the rain when thunder is booming and lightning is threatening?’ If you figure it out, just do that thing. Also, ask yourself another enduring question: ‘What makes you come alive?’ If you figure it out, just do that thing. Ghana needs people who have come alive. Whatever makes you so restless and passionate to get up and run through the rain are the things you can dare yourself to do which in your normal comfort zone, you’ll never attempt.

The driver s of life are those things that make you come alive, that fires up passion so great within you that you’re ready to do things considered a little stupid. When that thing fires you up, all you do is to get up to move and to act. It is when you’re fired up that you’re able to reach beyond yourself with a determination to dare yourself, to succeed, and to live. This principle applies to careers, education, and believing in something or someone. Life’s journey unfolds when you invest into life with energy, attention and passion.

This passing year 2010, you might have heard of people who died suddenly for unexplainable reasons and you’ve wondered – eh, why! Two days before Christmas, a five year-old boy died in his sleep after a short illness. My heart broke. You might have seen in the newspaper obituary pages deaths of people of varied ages – the young and the old. Death is no respecter of persons, and of ages. When the death bell tolls, it welcomes all. Life can get shorter than we think.

I hold this strong belief that the cemetery is filled with graves of people who did not live out their lives to the fullest. As plans were being made, as disappointments were being endured, as dreams were being suspended, as loves were being rejected, as hearts were being broken – the death bell tolled and snatched the unsuspecting. That is just the way of life – not a dress rehearsal.

This passing year, you might have made plans and nurtured good intentions which fell in thorns by the stony roadsides of life. As a result, your year did not unfold as you envisioned. You did not unravel. The year 2010 passed you by and now that it’s over, you might be wondering – ‘Where did my life go?’ So would you dare to run barefooted in the rain in 2011 in a grand cross-over effort to dare yourself to do more?

Some of us simply live on the veranda of life. These are the balcony people – easily forgotten by those at the high table in the main hall. The balcony people, those in the porches and backyards, are easily exposed to the vagaries of the weather – rain, wind and the hot tropical sunshine. Many a time, the journey from the veranda to the living room can be so tough. The escape route from the veranda to a better place might be to simply jump into the hard-hitting tropical rain, barefooted and run, hoping against hope.

Life can be likened to the familiar comfort of sitting in an old couch with the springs collapsing and the stuffing sticking out. For some of us, although that old couch gets us nowhere, yet, we remain stuck to its old comfort. But there comes a time when we must throw away the old couch and dare ourselves to try other things with a firm conviction that life is short.

Life can also be likened to an old pillow. Some pillows are so tired and stinky, harbouring the germs, the dirt and the drooling of the ages. Although familiar, they must be thrown away because of over-usage that has rendered it unhealthy, flat and hardened with the stuffiness long gone.

The old couch and old pillow hold both good and bad memories. There is safety in the familiar, yet a fully lived life must go beyond the old couch and the old pillow. For some of us, including me, abandoning old pillows and old couches might be the only way to have a jump-start on life and by that, launch successful reversals to old familiar habits and appearances of quitting on life, quitting on love, quitting on hope, and quitting on dreams.

Yes, running barefooted in the rain exposes you to the vagaries of the elements, unprotected and leaving you next to nature. You might step on a nail and the tropical rainfall would beat you mercilessly, while the thunder and lightning threaten. But at the end of it all, you can shrug off the rain water, dry yourself up, and move on to newer and probably, better things. Then, someday, because you dared to confront life, you would celebrate the rain.

The lyrics of one songster, Aaron Tippin, goes: ‘Let's love like there's no tomorrow. Live for every moment. Laugh at least a little every day. It’s impossible to say if we’ll see the sunrise in the morning.’ How so true these precepts! These lyrics present three powerful principles to live by. They are: love, laughter and living in the moment.

Living in the moment, in the now, is so difficult because some of us spend excessive amount of time dwelling on yesterday’s pains and hurts and disappointments while the present moment with its possibilities passes by, never to return. We forget that what we always have for sure is now. We’re not guaranteed the next moment, the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year, the next decade.

When you love someone, enjoy the heart journey. We’re not guaranteed life to see the sunrise or the rainfall the day after today. And laughter makes life easier because if you don’t laugh, you would cry about the downs of life. Despite the storms of life, a healthy sense of humour brightens the dark corners.

My dear reader, I wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year. As for me, myself and I, we might set out to learn to dance ‘agbadza’ in 2011! Watch out! I might break-out dancing perfect ‘agbadza’ at a location near you sometime on the journey of 2011. On your part, find something challenging, fun and extraordinary to do in 2011 – something that is definitely outside your comfort zone – because whatever makes you come alive is what will drive you to run in the rain, barefooted.

Trivialities are breaking our backs

The mass media are guilty of propagating trivialities in our national discourse. But our leadership, also known as the political elite, are guiltier of pushing trivialities into our national discourse. The followership, also known as Ghanaians, especially the category known as foot soldiers, serial callers and their cousins the social commentators, are also very guilty of giving out little-thought-out, sensational, trivial, sound-bite, chest-clearing commentaries into FM radio space.

Trivialities are unimportant, inconsequential, insignificant, frivolous, marginal, petty, slight, minor, trifling and negligible issues/things. But considering our current state of national funk and under-development, our needs and our thoughts and our focus must be top-heavy on things that are critical, very important, necessary, vital, essential, crucial, decisive, strategic, as well as urgent and of the essence.

Come along with me for an eye-popping eavesdropping session on conversations in Ghana, a country that God in His own wisdom and kindness has chosen to bless and maybe, just maybe, make great and strong. Be a fly on the wall, but don’t sit still. Periodically, shine your eyes like flies do with their ‘forearms’. Have you watched flies lately? They are fascinating. Listen in below.

Honourable Avleh: “How dare anyone give us larger than life Honourable parliamentarians grades? We would stop any journalist who tries to touch us even if he/she is from the New York Times, Financial Times, BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera. We are powerful and would stretch forth our long hands into the world to teach journalists a big lesson. If anyone touches us, we would explode to boiling point, with temper tantrums and egos flying very high. Do they know who we are?”

Eva Amponsah: “Oil will come soon. Then, all of Ghana’s problems will be solved. But have you heard the latest news? The President returned to Ghana so Dr Grace Bediako, the female statistics ‘whiz kid’, can personally count him. Wow! How nice! This country is really getting somewhere. Ghana is better. Join me to sing the Better Ghana Agenda mantra. La lala lala. See? It’s a cure-all for our ills.”

Kofi Zuzulibubu: “I say Taflatse taflatse ten times to crude oil. Let’s just go shopping with the crude oil money. Let’s spread our country’s wealth. Let’s shop until we drop. A little from China. A little from India. A little from Korea (South, that is). Sorry, we already have the STX housing ‘deal’ with Korea so we’ve already shopped out and dropped on hard floors of Korean corridors with land, access roads, bla bla bla all free of charge!”

Naa Amakey: “But this flood in the north! His Very Excellency Mills has not gone there yet. But who cares! During the former Very Excellency President Kufuor’s time, he too did not visit the north during the flood. So it’s a one-one draw! Kufuor had an accident. Rawlings had an accident too. Or, he didn’t?”

Musah Alhassan: “Our Mother the Madam should become the President of Ghana. Look at Madam Rawlings. So gorgeous! Even her head gear alone can solve all of Ghana’s problems. Our Father the Founder ruled for only nineteen and a half years. We need more. We no go sit down. We shall fight until our Mother takes over the throne.”

Nyarkoa: “Our Presidential Palace should not be called Jubilee House. Flagstaff House is better. We should make the residents of the capital city of the American state of Arizona jubilant by naming our ‘state house’ after their city. Do you know that most North American residents on the East and West Coast know next to nothing about Arizona let alone its capital city Flagstaff? So we should glorify Flagstaff.”

Kwaku Ofori: “Our two leading political parties, the NDC and NPP, are very much like the Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko. They are our political Hearts and Kotoko. Rivalry between them is stiff and ruthless, but fun. Eh, so when are they going to settle down to the real and urgent task of nation-building?”

Paulina Bansah: “Our big men are buying state lands left right and centre. Some of them are knuckle-headed, with stomachs like that of pregnant women, with heads as ugly as dry coconuts. When would they ever learn that Ghana belongs to all of us? Greedy Bastards! Na who born dog?”

Teacher Appa: “I’m an opinion leader of foot soldiers. It’s true that some bands of young men could on any day sweep through town to ‘seize’ public toilets and lock out a government office. But it’s a legitimate thing to do. Our party is in power. After all, the NPP people did it to us, so this is our turn. The toilets belong to us. We would show them power.”

And so goes our trivialities-charged national discourse, day in and day out. No inventive solutions are in sight for our myriad national problems. These trivial issues are bruising our sense of focus. Our distractions are too numerous to create the kind of space that can change the circumstances of our dear country. More often than not, year in and year out, one party in and one party out, it feels as if Ghana is a directionless ship that floats on a vast ocean.

Unfortunately, in the above made-up but close to real life loose train of thought from our national air space; there is not one word of science; not one sentence of technological advancement; not a cough about our sewage system; not a sneeze about solar energy considering our God-given gift of over-abundant sunshine; not an itch about poverty considering the number of our people who go to bed hungry; and not an urgent bowl movement over the fact that the number of young people who sell made-in-anywhere products by roadsides have increased.

We are fast becoming a nation of trivialities and the two leading political parties, the NDC and the largest opposition recently-ruling NPP give the appearance of being champions of trivialities.

How do we move this nation forward when we don’t seem to have focus? How does a country yank millions of its people out of desperate stinking poverty when what is constantly on its radar is talk about who is insulting whom from the vast repertoire of insults and sound-alike insults?

How does Ghana “Roll back malaria” so that none of its children die before their fifth birthdays? When do our leaders focus on the nation’s development when even those in quasi-political office desire and at times, demand to be called Honourable to their ego-filled personhood?

Arrogance is weighty. Back-breaking arrogance is crushingly painful. When impudence joins forces with arrogance, the outcome is grand haughtiness. So it is that public pronouncements from some functionaries of the NPP during their term in office, and now of some office holders of the ruling NDC render the two parties as champions of trivialities.

The current environment is intolerable – unless you turn off your radio and shut off the mass media, and completely tune off the petty ranting and tantrums of grownups.

The cautionary tale of Jenkins Scott

No condition is permanent. You may be up today but down tomorrow. Or, you may be down now wondering when it would be your turn and then one day, unexpectedly, your dim light begins to shine and you begin a joyous journey up.

Ups are sweet places; high-flying and eagle-like on strong wings, floating in the skies. But lows! Who wants the lows! But even though we don’t desire lows so zoom our prayers on the highs, there comes a time when the lows descend on us with reckless abandon. Some lows can be too low for words to describe. So when I came across the story of Jenkins Scott in the Liberian media, it got my full attention. He went from a very high-high to a very low-low.

The story of Major Jenkins Scott is such a powerful cautionary tale with layers upon layers of lessons for all. Folks who are on their lows can learn useful lessons from Jenkins Scott on how not to behave if they’re ever graced with the chance to rise above their current funky stations in life. People who are currently on their way up in society would learn to pause to smell the roses. Those who are currently on the highs in life would need to do a whole lot of pausing to reflect.

Who is Major Scott?”

He was powerful; a lawyer who became the Minister of Justice of Liberia after the People’s Redemption Council (PRC) of Samuel Doe successfully overthrew the True Whig Party in a bloody military coup d’état on 12th April, 1980. Stories about Jenkins Scott are legend and grim. Yes, he was hailed by some but many saw him as the devil incarnate – wicked, ruthless, callous and a champion of excesses of atrocities including alleged and unspeakable bloody murderous human rights abuses like mutilations.

He is also accused of being one of the central characters who planted the seeds that led to the bloody civil wars in Liberia. Jenkins Scott was Justice Minister when opposition figure, now President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was thrown into prison. Several journalists were also imprisoned without trial as ‘enemies of the state’ during the lawless and brutish Doe regime.

Scott was feared, as such people are feared. It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A man I spoke to described Major Scott as follows; ‘Just the mention of his name brought fear.’ So the Minister of Justice had a reputation for abusing justice.

Ghanaians alive and politically conscious in the 1980’s can relate to this story of fear of leaders. At the mention of some names, at the sight of a soldier with a gun, knees wobbled and hearts palpitated; even manhood feminized. Ghanaians suffered their own atrocities in the 1980s. The West African region was heated up by adventurist soldiers who toyed away with the lives and fate of their citizenry. That was the era of Major Scott in Liberia.

But on Saturday, November 6, a reporter of one of Liberia’s leading newspapers, the New Democrat, discovered Major Scott asleep in a pile of garbage in the neighbourhood of the Temple of Justice, the magnificent building in Monrovia that houses the Supreme Court. He was hungry, thirsty and dirty. The irony is that one of the most powerful ministers of justice ended up in a pile of ‘bola’ at the justice ministry – his former empire. What a cruel joke life can play on the unsuspecting!

Photographs of Scott I’ve seen dated as recently as 2008 depict him as doing well. One of them even carries a caption quoting him as saying, ‘I want to be Liberia’s Ambassador to The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.’ The details of what happened in the two-year period from ‘I want to be Ambassador’ to I’m laying in a pile of garbage, hungry, thirsty and dirty is at best, murky and eye-popping. Probably, something mental was already simmering inside of him all along from the effects of war.

Beyond morality, beyond thoughts of ‘it serves him right’, there are lessons for a county like Ghana that has not been to war. The hard frightening fact is that a war might be waged for a short period but the spill-over of war could take generations to cure and clean up. Seven years after the two senseless civil wars, one can visibly see the scars of war in Liberia on buildings with glaring bullet holes. Some of these buildings seem to stare at you and whisper, “We were victims too! We have bullet holes to show for the merciless pounding.”

The bullet holes in some buildings have been patched. Yet, when you look closely beneath the patchwork of cement, you can still see the scars left behind. If walls made of concrete still bear witness to war, what about the scars left behind in people’s hearts and minds?

Enters the results of research:

The results of two separate studies of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) conducted in Liberia by Harvard University in 2008 and 2010 will make your blood freeze about the long-term effects of war. Here are two key conclusions. (1) People exposed to extreme violence suffer mental disorders later in life. (2) Liberians who were exposed to sexual violence (rape) during the war suffer more mental health disorders after the war than those who were not.

Here are some mind-numbing statistics. In the 2008 study of an adult household-based population, 40 percent of respondents were found to have symptoms of major depressive disorder, 44 percent with symptoms of PTSD, and eight percent were found to suffer from social dysfunction. Of those studied, 33 percent had served time with fighting forces. The results of the studies suggest that sexual violence impacted on both males and females during the Liberian civil wars.

One of the studies found that villages that had experienced greater suffering from the war had a higher prevalence of PTSD than villages that did not suffer much during the war. The researchers found that surprisingly, individuals who were not even combatants of the war because they were very young at the time, also showed high prevalence of PTSD.

The physical wars have ended but the psychological war endures – in the mind. War is traumatic both physically and mentally – what is known as psycho-social trauma. The 14 year civil wars spanned the period between 1989 and 1997 and 2003 to 2004. Jenkins Scott was at the centre of the violent regime. Who knows what he did? Who knows what he witnessed? Who knows what he ‘directed’ to be done and watched as they were being done? A lot must be stuck in his mushy tissue – the brain.

So key questions being asked in Liberia include: “Is Jenkins Scott crazy?” Why did he end up in a garbage pile at his former empire office?

So what for Ghana?

Speak peace to Ghana. If during the 2012 ‘Crude Oil” Elections, naughty blood-thirsty loud-mouthed low-cost individuals run their stinky mouths on radio stations beating war drums, bragging that if their political party does not win, they will burn Ghana and let the blood flow, yell into their ear drums, “Tofiakwa, NO WAR FOR GHANA!”

Thinking Hutzpah over coastal West Africa

What is a Promised Land? Who promises what to whom? Does luck have a place in a promise? Or is it just like beauty that resides only in the eyes of the beholder? When and how does one get to know for sure that something he/she has is a promise? How does one handle a promise once it has been identified as such?

What makes a piece of land, or vast stretches of it, worthy to be considered a promise? Is it the quality of the land that makes the owners think that they have been blessed? Can one get something out of nothing? Or, get nothing out of something? The land of Israel is unlike ours – dry and stony, yet it is considered a treasure. These thoughts flooded my mind while I gazed at the land from an Air Nigeria (formerly Virgin Nigeria) flight from Kotoka to Liberia’s Robertsville International Airport.

Flying over Accra on a cloudless day is too revealing. It becomes obvious beyond all reasonable doubt that our capital city has over-grown and does not make sense. Something is happening to Accra. A nameless, formless, shapeless, unrecognizable and cacophonous something is happening to the town of my birth!

Accra spills over from east to west; from north to south. It is bursting at the seams. It is as if most of the villages and towns of Ghana have packed baggage and garbage, re-located to, and congregated in Accra for a big conference that has no end date. It’s an open-to-all sort of conference so all are welcome. Accra seems to be saying to Ghana – ‘Bring me all your mansions, your shacks, your hamlets, your poor, your funk, and I’ll give thee rest.’

Apart from some pockets of well-laid out areas, the aerial view of Accra, what you see from above the ground while airborne -- is as chaotic as what you see when on land. The nature of growth of this city is crying for structure, for order, and definitely for a whole lot of planning. Where are the elders of the town of my birth?

As the Air Nigeria flight, which is fast losing its virginity, continued the journey westward over Cote d’Ivoire, the beauty of the land became striking. Vast stretches of green upon green land hit me. It spelt agriculture. It gave the impression of a ‘food basket.’ The masculinity of the lush green forest, entangled with the femininity of its softness, took my breath away and made me feel that God’s glorious hands are in this.

The knowledge that the land is not only fertile but also endowed with varied mineral resources made me smile. Large meandering rivers, brown in colour, dirtied from misuse and abuse, gorgeously snake through the land on their uneventful journey to pour it all out into the mighty Atlantic Ocean. It’s the same ocean that ferried millions of unwilling children of West Africa into dehumanizing slavery to toil to advance other people’s civilization whilst ours remains stuck in underdevelopment funk.

But then quickly, the sense of recent history dawns and the reality struck -- this is no food basket at all. This is a jungle; a jungle in which poverty hugs with thorns. A jungle in which atrocities occur! A jungle in which some of the inhabitants are stuck in hopelessness! A jungle that is gifted with so much that is yet to be explored for the benefit of the majority of its people. Still, a jungle! The regional land of my birth.

Soon, the flight began the descent into Liberia – more land with lush green forest; a country in which it rains ‘by heart’. It is as if one can plant the eye of a fish and it would germinate! But the reality hovers below the clouds -- that this country is bruised; it went through two senseless, destructive civil wars that lasted fourteen years.

Throughout the less than two hour flight, thoughts of hutzpah flooded my mind. If only hutzpah could be sprinkled from an airplane over coastal West Africa! If only everyone would swallow a little bit of hutzpah! If only I could find my own hutzpah! The thoughts of hutzpah gave me flashbacks.

About fifteen years ago during life’s journey, my deputy at work was an American woman of Jewish descent named Stephanie. One day, she said something to me that was at once disturbing, yet thought-provoking. She remarked, ‘Doris, you have everything you need to achieve greatness, with the exception of one key ingredient.’ The remark startled me. In my taken-aback mode, I asked her, ‘What do you mean?’ Her response was prompt and matter-of-factly; in just one word – ‘Hutzpah!’ I retorted, ‘W-H-A-T?

I swallowed my pride and hurt to engage in a deep but confusing conversation about ‘hutzpah’ (also spelt chutzpah or huspa). Stephanie’s grandmother was a Jewish girl who survived Hitler’s Holocaust in Poland and migrated to the USA. Over six million Jews perished at the mercilessly cruel hands of Hitler and his Nazi associates in a grand effort to wipe them out of the face of the earth. Yet, they continue to endure – and to thrive.

The story of the success of the Jews is not talked about much. Some explain it away from only a Biblical point of view – that God blessed them. But there is something I wish I could put hands on about why the Jews have been successful throughout history whilst Africa fails? Dear reader, if you have this knowledge, please share it with us. ‘Hutzpah’?

So it was that a granddaughter of a holocaust survivor (1938-1945), my assistant at work, had observed me for a little over a year and her bold verdict was that I needed hutzpah to crank up my life! She explained that there is no English word that can fully define this thing called hutzpah, a Yiddish word, and a vernacular of the Hebrew language. The closest English words are guts, courage, bravery and audacity. But the unique characteristic of hutzpah is that it is not given. It can only come from the depths of one’s own insides.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe the importance of marshalling ‘hutzpah’ to pull off challenging tasks. There are certain tasks that can be accomplished in a casual mode by putting in average effort. But it requires a lot of hutzpah to solve really challenging, stubborn and difficult tasks, and hard-crusted problems – like ours.

Hutzpah does not come easily. It can only be marshalled with resilience and a determination to think and believe ‘Yes, I can’ even when you know that you can’t. When all the evidence suggests that you can’t accomplish a certain feat, when all odds seem to go against you, that is when a still small voice lying dormant from the depth of your being, should whisper to you, ‘Yes, you can!’

As hutzpah thoughts enveloped me, I wondered when West Africa would marshal its hutzpah and yank itself out of under-development funk. But selfishly, I wondered when I would finally find my own hutzpah. Perhaps, I would find it in Liberia. And with those thoughts, I got off the plane to head toward rainy Monrovia.

dorisdartey@gmail.com
+233208286817

The Kerosene Seller’s Profits

Trading fascinates me. Since the days of ‘control prices’ in the PNDC era when Ghanaians spotted the “Rawlings Chain” (a reference to extreme weight loss that was characterised by protruding collar bones – caused by nation-wide famine and other funky under-developmental matters), a time when traders were whipped in public for hoarding and/or selling above government fixed prices, I’ve tried to glean into trading at any opportunity. I once ventured – to manufacture and sell corn dough to boldly confront my own Rawlings Chains.

Shortage of LPG has caused me to fight the temptation of going so close to nature by reverting to firewood or charcoal for cooking. Currently, I’ve settled for kerosene. Initially, I could just take a gallon to a ‘petrol station’ to buy kerosene. No more! For two months, petrol station attendants tell me, “Madam, these days we don’t get kerosene oh.” What am I to do?

But the nagging question is – how come no one is talking about the shortage of kerosene in Ghana? Oh, I know why! It’s because kerosene is the ‘oil’ of the poor. Without kerosene, those who have not been connected to the electricity ‘grid’ are left gyrating in the dark. With the shortage of kerosene, ‘control price’ has gone to the dogs, the full venom of capitalism has taken over as retailers boldly stare at kerosene with austere tactics.

Profit margins:

The last time I bought a gallon-full of kerosene at a petrol station, I paid four Ghana cedis and fifty pesewas. But in these austere days, I buy kerosene from my neighbourhood neck-of-the-woods umpteenth-level retail kiosk.

Here is a report of my first experience. With privilege and naiveté smeared all over my aging black little face, I told Auntie Akosua (not her real name) that I would buy a gallon of kerosene. She responded crisply, “It is not sold in gallons.” I saw a litre-sized plastic bottle and requested for that quantity. Again, she told me that it was not sold in litters but in a small sized Coca Cola bottle. A blessed Coca Cola bottle promptly appeared.

The fascinating and painstaking four-step process of retailing began as kerosene was poured first from the retailer’s gallon into the litre bottle and then into the Coca Cola bottle before the almighty kerosene found its way into my own gallon.

In all, it took thirteen rounds of the Coca Cola bottle to fill up my gallon. At 80 pesewas a bottle, a gallon-full of kerosene at my neighbourhood retail sells at GhC10.40, a whopping profit of GhC5.90. Auntie Akosua had nothing to do with kerosene manufacturing yet, she can make more than a 100 percent profit at a go. Not bad for petty trading!

In the entire chain of manufacturing, distribution and retailing of kerosene, neighbourhood retailers on the end of the chain make the most profit. In the “Rawlings Chain” era, this woman would have been a frigid eye-popping candidate for public flogging on a hard bench.

But, na who cause am? She didn’t create the shortages. If privileged little me, in a car, can’t find kerosene to buy, who is anyone to judge this retailer for her profit after she has gone through the trauma of rain and biting tropical sunshine and endless queuing to buy kerosene? The law of supply and demand wins, always!

As I watched the kerosene seller at her retailing best, it made perfect sense to me why it appears that every second or third person in Ghana is a trader of some sort; why kiosks and unsightly tables have taken over our roadsides. Indeed, the profit of retailing explains our kiosk/container culture.

While pondering over the issue of profit, I caught myself thinking of a career change or a career addition – to retail something, anything. Watch out!

This story is not just about kerosene and the profit retailers make. It’s a profile of what the shortage of gas is doing. The frustrations we are going through just to make fire to cook is unacceptable. Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention, so people who had adopted LPG as a result of a national campaign to promote its use are reverting to whatever alternative comes to them easily even if the method is closer to the Stone Age.

My guess is that the price of charcoal and firewood has also gone up. But worse of all, my fear is that more trees are being felled; more forest cover is being lost. Is anyone responsible for making the logical connection between the shortage of LPG and loss of forest cover in our country? Is anyone watching out for our forests? Who and where are the elders of this town?

Or, are we waiting for the time when as a country, we would be producing our own gas from our emerging crude oil status to ensure that LPG shortages would be a thing of the past, that is – if we don’t end up torching/flaring the gas at sea, like our neighbour Nigeria does with reckless abandon?

‘The gods must be crazy’

Oh, the Coca Cola bottle! The inventor of that bottle could never have known the unintended consequences and uses of his/her invention. It has been used for things holy and unholy depending on one’s circumstances and ingenuity.

That bottle is hard and shapely therefore easy to grab and hold. It has reuse capacity beyond measure because it is tough to crack. You can drop and pick it up without a grain of worry. Oh, the indefatigable Coca Cola bottle! It’s therefore not surprising that it features in the story of kerosene retail in Ghana.

Watching kerosene retail reminded me of a movie classic I’ve watched several times since it came out in the 1980s. Set in South Africa and Botswana, it’s an adventure comedy entitled, “The gods must be crazy.” If you’ve not watched it, find the three-part pirated version that are still available on street-side retail by our hardworking youth who are toiling their lives away as petty traders in the merciless tropical heat.

“The gods must be crazy” features the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. It’s one of those timeless movies that can make you laugh with tears streaming down your face while you suffer rib-cage cracking pains. But you must first get over all feelings of racial pride that might make you feel insulted as a Blackman and an African and get in the way of pure entertainment.

The storyline in brief. A Coca Cola bottle was thrown down from a helicopter over the Kalahari Desert. A Bushman finds it and takes it home. The family did not know what it was but in no time, they individually and collectively found critical uses for the strange bottle – for grinding and for pounding and for any number of varied household chores. Soon, the bottle was in such hot demand that it became the source of family feuds in a place where conflicts were unknown before.

As the Coca Cola bottle enters the fray in kerosene retail, one can only ask a simple and innocent question: Are the gods crazy in our own neck of the woods?

A Census of our ‘Bonsai Trees’: 66 Percent Increase

Has the number of young people who sell odds and ends on our streets increased? The answer is yes, yes, yes, yes! I know so, for sure! How do I know? Periodically, I count. Let’s just call it The Watchwoman Youth Hawkers Census. On Tuesday, 19th October, I hired two research assistants (Cecilia Geraldo and Darkoa Ofori-Yirenkyi) and chauffeur drove them on two road corridors of Accra to conduct a quick head count of the young people who are in motion, hawking odd products.

The results are shocking. These are the raw figures from the count. From 9am to seven minutes after 10 in the morning – a little over one hour – we counted a total of 813 people in motion, selling. Thirteen months ago on 23rd September 2009, when I first counted street youth hawkers between the same 9 and 10 am, the number stood at 489. The last time I did The Watchwoman Youth Hawkers Census was on 14th December, 2009. On that day, the number had increased to 638 from the September count. But this week, on 19th October, the quick count produced a whopping number of 813.

Percentages make interesting analysis. From September 2009 to December 2009, the increase was 30.47 percent. The figures from December 2009 to October 2010 showed an increase of 27.43 percent. The annual figure from September 2009 to October 2010 reflects a percentage increase of 66.26 percent. I acknowledge that my research assistants might have made some unintentional errors so let’s take these figures as approximations. We could approximate the annual increase at 60 percent or cut it lower to 50 percent which is still a supra-high annual increase of young people who hawk odd products on two street corridors of Accra, the capital city of 53 year-old Ghana. Chew on this.

Could it be that some or most of those who came to Accra last December to sell stuff did not return to their hometowns after Christmas, and have stayed on to add to the December 2009 number? Another Christmas is around the corner. Without a doubt, more young people would troupe down in search of ‘greener pastures’. Some or most of the new entrants might never return to what they call home but end up on the streets as petty traders.

The results of this week’s count must be troubling to every Ghanaian, especially the belly-full political elite who don’t seem to get it that our country has challenging and urgent problems that are screaming for solution. Whilst we remain captivated by NPP and NDC politics, playing referee to their petty and inconsequential details, the number of young people who sell by our roadsides are doubling. One day, we’ll wake up to find out that they’ve completely overtaken our roads.

A legitimate question: Were all these young people counted in the just-ended census? Was it even possible to have counted them all? They live in all sorts of unholy corners of our cities and big towns. Some of them take turns just to sleep. Some of them make love and babies in their corners. Without a doubt, counting all of them would be an enumerator’s nightmare.

There is also the sticky matter of the “Ground Zero” of youth street hawkers in Accra – between the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Obetsebi Lamptey Circle. These are two of the Big Six – the Founding Fathers of Ghana. During their days, they could not have envisaged a time when the parts of Accra that bear their names would become the headquarters of youth street hawkers.

The phrase “Ground Zero” gained notoriety on September 11, 2000 when a bunch of terrorists hijacked two commercial airplanes and flew them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Ground zero is the nonsense point; the lowest of what is so painful, so bad and so ugly. My experience of counting hawkers at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle is that it’s a nightmarish exercise. There are too many of them and in the struggle to sell, some weave their way dangerously between vehicles. My research assistants always struggle to count them with any precision.

The story of youth hawkers is a major chapter of Ghana’s story. In these days when it is flattering to talk about branding Ghana, it should also be important to emphasize the chapter of young people who are hawkers as a career choice. What would these young people become five, ten, fifteen or twenty years from now? They can’t be ‘professional hawkers’ forever! At some point, they must settle down for their real careers. What would it be? What skill sets would they transfer to the life careers in a ‘Better Ghana’ in a ‘middle income economy’? Entrepreneurs?

On Tuesday when we were conducting the count, one incident that seemed like a footnote to the exercise was the sight of a very tall gorgeous man who was also walking the street. Clearly, ‘his thing had come.’ He was talking to himself. He looked disheveled. He would be someone’s heartthrob. Someone’s darling. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father. Someone’s uncle. But now, his ‘thing has come’ and he was alone, on his own, at a loss, walking the streets. Just wait until a vehicle knocks him dead! ‘Loved ones’ will have a grand funeral – God willing.

The wares for sale:

The types of products sold by the roadside vary, depending on the time of the year or what has been shipped in from China and the likes. There was the usual PK/Chewing Gum, toffees, doughnuts, yoghurt, pawpaw slices, soft drinks, plantain chips, toothpaste and the likes.

Compared to the previous times I’ve conducted this count, during this week’s count, only a few people were selling ‘pure water.’ I don’t know what explains it. The number of people selling telephone ‘scratch cards’ appears to have increased. Oh, so the telephone companies are taking advantage of our idle youth? Without a doubt, there are plusses and minuses to this development. Job creation?

Deep Thoughts:

Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank fame, once said to the Indian Parliament: “Poor people are like bonsai trees. When anyone plants the best seed from the tallest tree in a tiny flower pot, he will get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed planted, only the soil-base that was given it was inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people.”

We have various categories of our own ‘bonsai trees’ in Ghana. The increasing army of children and young adults who hawk an array of odd products on the streets of Ghana are our ‘bonsai trees’. As is said in computer parlance, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Since we are not investing in young people who, by no fault of theirs, were not given birth to by the privileged, we are setting them up for failure. We will get out of them in future what we are planting in them today.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the youth who have by default, taken to street hawking. They are our ‘internally displaced persons’ who hover around looking for opportunities, any opportunities! It’s amazing that we don’t have more armed robbery than we have today. It’s also amazing that these young people continue to smile.

Baah-Wiredu Revisited

In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself among pockets of people who bring up Baah-Wiredu’s name. These people just worked with him yet, two years after his death, they still share fond memories of their boss. They are not his relatives. They are not NPP or NDC functionaries. They are just ordinary Ghanaian civil servants who worked with Baah-Wiredu. He was just their boss.

People’s memories of Baah-Wiredu are vivid. The stories are vibrant, riveting and incredible. Even if you did not know him, the stories people share about their experiences with him give you the impression that he was a unique individual. Unfortunately, it is typical to find bosses who have huge chips on their shoulders. Positions of power easily transform some ordinary mortals into monsters who whip up fear in their subordinates.

But two years after Baah-Wiredu’s death, his subordinates still refer to him as “a simple man”, “an action man”, “an ordinary man”, “a playful man”, “a humble man”, “approachable” – among many other charming descriptions. One person said, “He used to walk to our office every morning to greet us.” A lady said, “‘He called every woman ‘Maame’ because he maintained that every woman is his mother so deserves to be respected.” Another person said: “During lunch time, he would often join the drivers in their room to watch them play draft.”

When you listen to the post-death Baah-Wiredu stories from ordinary workers, it becomes obvious that the man had something unique and enchanting going in the realm of practical leadership qualities. Whatever he did – his style, his personal relationship with people, his simplicity – worked very well and embossed a positive impression on the hearts and minds of the lives his path crossed during his passage through this earth.
How many of our leaders, especially the political elite, are leaving such fond memories through their daily interactions with their staff? Is pomposity reigning supreme among some? Are workers in Ghana getting positive experiences with their bosses? Are some bosses depressing their staff to the point of making the workplace a site of terror?
Specifically, are drivers too low for a minister of state to genuinely descend to their level by visiting them in their room to have a conversation as he/she watches them play a casual game of draft? The work space of the drivers as well as that of others at the lower strata provides much opportunity for bonding and for listening to them. But of course, some politicians would be so pumped up with pride that they would easily forget their recent past of funk.
It is probably not surprising that soon after his death, the Ghana Journalists Association instituted the “Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu award for the best in Business, Finance and Economic Reporting” in its annual award cycle.
My only personal encounter with the man:

I met him only once so whenever I come across anyone who goes on and on about Baah-Wiredu, I recall my only encounter with him. It happened a few months before his death. I had been gifted ten young women between the ages of eight and twelve to mentor. After a couple of meetings with them, I asked them to choose a place for us to visit as a group where they would meet women who are doing a lot with their lives. They expressed an interest to meet female parliamentarians.

So promptly, I contacted Akua Sena Dansoa, now Minister of Youth and Sports, with a request for her to arrange for some of the women in parliament to meet my girls. The day came and we arrived at Parliament House for an all-girls’ time out in the corridors of power. As we sat in a corner in the lobby area engaged in a heart-warming conversation with three women parliamentarians, Baah-Wiredu walked toward us and asked what we were doing. To our surprise, he joined us, sitting on the edge of a couch, with his files stuck under his armpit.

Meanwhile, during the one hour or so we spent there, several parliamentarians walked by but not a single one spoke to us – they just rushed on, busy in their worlds as if we were invisible. But Baah-Wiredu sat with us throughout, the only male among fourteen females, observing us but not contributing to our conversation. He was like a flower in a vase, present, yet absent. It was an odd moment and it left an unexplained impression on my mind. Who is this man? I filed away the question.

When the news of his death broke, and over the past two years as I continue to come across people who knew him and who continue to speak on and on about how unique he was, the answer to my unanswered question -- who is this man – is being answered over and over again.

Low-cost hospitals:

The week after Baah-Wiredu’s death, I wrote in this column that I wish he had been an advocate of whatever disease he died of, and had used his powerful position and privileged voice to push for our health-care delivery system to enhance treatment for that disease. Fact: Our country needs disease advocates. We keep too many diseases as personal secrets. And.......we love deaths and funerals......too much!

Our hospitals are low-cost – ill equipped to take care of us. Ghana has the potential to become the hub for medical tourism in the West African sub-region. Yet, we don’t pay attention to our hospitals. They remain gaping death traps, waiting for us to show up just to shock us out of existence.

It is troubling that our elite go abroad when they are diagnosed with ‘sophisticated’ diseases. Periodically, news break that a ‘big name’ person has died ‘abroad’ while going for medical treatment. Our beloved Courage Quashiegah and Hawa Yakubu are just two of such sad deaths that occurred ‘abroad’. Their deaths are loud admissions that the movers and shakers of Ghana do not trust their lives to our hospitals. They know that they know that they know that our hospitals are horribly low-cost.

If they do not want to be caught dead at a polyclinic, or at a higher level – the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, then why don’t our leaders make fixing our hospitals a high national priority matter? Why is the focus misplaced on a ‘paracetamol’ National Health Insurance Scheme? What is the point in gaining political credit for promoting a once in a life-time payment for health insurance just so when we get sick, we would end up on a floor of a low-cost hospital? Is this not a misplaced priority at a sorry height?

How about using the money that would accrue from health insurance premiums, plus just a fraction of the unknown amount of money that is regularly pumped into Ghana from ‘development partners,’ to provide at least one first-class hospital in each region? Not a ‘polyclinic’ but a real hospital with qualified and well-paid medical doctors, nurses and pharmacists, plus the needed state-of-the-art equipment that works. A hospital where high premium is placed on human dignity, not the mortuary; where we can all go when a disease strikes so that no elite would need to fly off to South Africa, India, Israel, USA, Canada or London for ‘treatment.’
dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com

If only walls could speak in Liberia!

War no good oh! Travel and see! Seven years after the war, pockets of houses in Monrovia still stare quietly as if they are itching to tell their stories of pain, of torture, of untold human cruelty, of abuse, and of neglect. But houses can’t speak. They simply stare, with their stories locked up firmly in the hard jaws of concrete. For several years, these houses bore witness to untold atrocities committed by human beings against human beings and of compatriots against compatriots to the point that victims became as guilty as victimizers.

I’m back in Liberia briefly. As the country’s flag depicts, Liberia is a lone star state – an obvious reference to its history of emancipation of freed black slaves from America, beginning in 1822. A lopsided liberation in which oppressed Black folks gained freedom from white oppressors and relocated to a habited land but pretended that it was empty; that they had discovered the land. And worse of all, that they, the new arrivals, were superior to the indigenous people.

The Liberian history holds eerie resemblance to the story of Christopher Columbus who claimed to have discovered America despite the presence of native Americans; with implied bogus claims of superiority of the white race.

Houses have caught my attention during this time here. As I take a close look at some buildings that are still in a sorry state of disrepair and depression, I can’t help but wonder how many of the occupants of these buildings died during the war. Could it be that their fortunes changed as a result of the war to such an extent that that they now cannot afford to renovate the buildings? What happened in these buildings – during the war?

How I hope that walls have mouths to speak! I would have asked several buildings scattered throughout Monrovia one big question: “What really went on during the wars?” Yes, several buildings seem to want to speak – to tell and retell stories of atrocities, of doom and gloom, of rapes and maiming and murders. But they can’t say a word; they just sit there, growing mouldy, with windows broken and walls pounded with bullets.

You might recall the Donald Rumsfeld Principle. Rumsfeld was the US Defence Secretary during George Bush Junior’s administration in the heat of the senseless Iraq war. In the now classic rhetorical play on words to justify the war, he said, “There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.” That statement appropriately describes the message of buildings that were victims of the war in Liberia. So I wanted to experience one of such buildings.

Inside a war-torn building:

This morning, just before I sat down to write this piece, I entered a typical war-torn building in the company of a taxi driver and a colleague because I could not dare to do so alone. Yes, I’m an ‘afraid woman’ of some sort. Yet, the curious part of me wanted to experience a moment in a war-punctured building, a building that was pestered with bullets during the war – that is, one or both of the two wars. I still feel the eerie weight of the building as I write.

The building I entered is by “Old Road”(pronounced as “Ol Row” by the locals), a major street in Monrovia. It is a part storey building. By all standards, it looked like a house that once belonged to a well-to-do family; a house that had seen real glory in times past – before the war. A house that was gorgeous – before the war. A house that commanded a presence – before the war. So clearly, the war changed everything. Now, the house is just the remnants of concrete that can tell the story – if they can at all, after the war!

During the time I spent in that building, I felt raw emotions of doom and gloom. The building had a spooky feel to it. The windows were smashed. The walls were mostly crumbled; what remains had so much greenish mould. Some doors had lost the look of having ever been doors. The roof was long gone – at least most of it. The staircase is half of its former glory. A few pieces of the wall still stood.

Numerous multi-sized bullet holes are very visible in walls. The bullet holes boldly scream fear into any onlooker. The dilapidated “Boys Quarters” nearby appeared to have some squatters. This is obvious from the sight of a few clothes hanging on a make-shift drying line.

As I walked inside and out, carefully stepping on what felt like sacred ground, a graveyard of some sort, questions rushed through my mind – fast and furious. What happened in this house? Who killed whom and by what gadget? Machete (a nice word for good old cutlass)? Stones? sticks? Sledge hammer?

For how long did the victims suffer? Was there any reason for the atrocities or it was just driven by the venom of drunken mob-like emotion? But the many salacious details are forever locked up in this house, and in many other houses throughout Liberia as well as other countries on our continent that ignored tolerance and went to war.

As I stare at the many abandoned buildings in this city, I can’t help but ponder: “What, if any, did Liberia benefit from the prolonged war?” Maybe, just maybe, Liberia has learned that war is unnecessary. But hopefully, that Ghana has also learned that it is critical to keep its status as the only country in the West African neighbourhood that has never gone on a full scale war; and that war is truly unnecessary.

But the good news is that Liberia is rebuilding. During my last trip here three months ago, some dilapidated buildings have since been fixed – painstakingly. But the truth remains that rebuilding is tougher that destruction. What is needed to destroy is a big boom! But it takes the meticulous laying of brick upon brick, plus mortar and a lot of sweaty labour to (re)build.

A Cautionary Tale for 2012 Elections:

As I look around Monrovia, I wish I had the resources to do a video documentary entitled, “The Scars of War.” With the video in hand, I would lobby GTV, TV3, Metro TV and other emerging TV stations in Ghana to show it every day from October 2012 until January 2013 – weeks before, during and after the elections. Civil Society – would you please take on this laudable project? Pictures, they say, are worth thousands of cash.

I don’t feel right about the 2012 elections because of the apparent polarization and acrimony in our political climate. Or, is it just me? Besides, the 2012 elections is about crude oil. We might as well call it what it is: “The Crude Oil Elections”. Here is why.

2015 will be the peak of the sucking of oil in commercial quantities from the Jubilee Fields. Therefore whoever wins the 2012 elections wins crude oil, big time! With greasy oil as a motivator, greed and foolishness can power the 2012 elections. And you know what greed can do! It can power even the most rational people into heights of irrationality, of desperation, of madness, and of many other indescribable things.

dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com

The Koko seller’s blessings

This is one of the favourite stories of my beloved sister and best friend, Kuokor (Mrs. Angelina Larbi). She tells and re-tells this story so many times that I must share it for all it’s worth. Sharing is good.

A woman makes and sells Koko (corn porridge) in front of her house every morning (Let’s just call her Sister Amerley – not her real name). She is a mother of four young boys (Let’s call them Kwame, George, Edmund and Paapa). At this point in the story, the husband (Mr Atta Mensah – not his real name), had moved out of the house, leaving the woman alone to toil to take care of herself and the four boys. So by all standards known – social, financial, religious, cultural, moral – Mr Mensah, popularly known as Kwame Papa -- is an irresponsible son-of-a-gun.


Despite her apparent emotional pains, Amerley‘s koko business flourished. In no time, a pot of koko was not enough for her customers. She increased it to two pots and the customers kept coming. She increased it to four pots but could not satisfy the demands of the neighbourhood koko market. Her koko was the talk of town and customers from far and wide gravitated and trouped to Amerley’s koko stand. The market forces were so strong that she had to add an evening session to the morning session.


Soon, she did not have enough hands to collect the money from her koko sales. With pocket strength comes increased taste. Amerley could now wear lace and take very good care of her four growing sons. Meanwhile, Mensah remained out of the picture. He was not reaching out to them; he was not visiting. He was an absentee father, if a father at all.


One evening, one of Amerley’s friends, Cecilia, stopped by for a gossipy conversation. She said to her, “Eh, Amerley, would you ever learn? You are allowing Kwame Papa to make a fool of you by not helping you raise these boys. Boys must be raised by their fathers. You must take them to him to teach him a lesson. You’re working too hard for nothing. When they become somebody in future, they’ll remember their father. Amerley, listen to me oh!”


Our single mother Amerley slept over this matter; she gave it a lot of deep thought. The verdict?


The friendly advice was superb. Kwame Papa must be taught an important lesson he will never forget. Cecilia is right; it’s a man who should raise boys. If she toils all by herself to raise the boys, one day when they become ‘somebody’, they would take care of their father in old age. Besides, the boys constituted a distraction in her koko business. If they moved to live with their father, she will have all more time to make and sell more koko. With that, her business would more than double. She’ll become really rich.


So one fine afternoon, in between the morning and evening koko sessions, Amerley packed the four boys and headed to the house of the absentee husband. She found him, unemployed and as broke as an unemployed can be; a church mouse of some sort. After exchanging a few jugular bouts of insults, she left the boys with their broke father and returned home. Days and weeks and months passed and she maintained her new status as a successful koko seller – without her children, with husband AWOL.


Blessings through toils


Then one day, a certain old man stopped by to buy koko. Before he departed, with lowered voice, he asked Amerley, “Where are my friends? I’ve not seen them around for some time now.” He was referring to the boys. She explained to the old man, with bitterness and vindictiveness, that she had sent them to live with their father because the man was cheating her, and not contributing anything for the upkeep of the boys. The old man responded in disappointment, “Oh, you took the boys away? Hmmm! We were blessing you because of the boys.” With this, the old man walked away, sullen.


Amerley was speechless. Blessing? What blessing? That night was a sleepless night filled with tossing and sweating. That night was a troubled night. That night was a night of deep reflection. That night, the pillow suffered with no side comfortable enough for her koko-charged problems.


She was being blessed because of the boys? Hmmmm! Then, it hit her. Since the departure of the boys, her business was not what it used to be. The koko glow was gone. The koko vibrancy was gone. The koko volume was gone. The koko queues were long gone. The koko money had definitely trimmed down. Now, one pot of koko took a long time to be sold. Life was not the same. Her busy days had come to an end. Idleness had set in.


So by day break, she had resolved to go to the ex-husband’s house to reclaim her four boys and bring them back to live with her. The next day, she set out at dawn. She arrived to find the children and their father in superb circumstances. The unemployed broke son of a gun Kwame Papa was now employed and doing very well. His circumstances had changed. The boys were in good stead in their new life. After the clumsy welcomes, Amerley announced the purpose of her visit: to take the boys away.


To this request, the man vehemently said no. He informed Amerley in clear and bold and uncertain terms that he can take care of them. No amount of loud pleas from Amerley would change Mensah’s mind. She appealed to a grown up from the neighbourhood to help plead on her behalf. But Kwame Papa maintained his defiant stand. After a few hours of pleading without success, Amerley returned home alone, without her four sons. Her koko business never returned to the peak production and sales. The descent in sales continued. The blessings had hugged Mr Mensah!


Enduring Questions:


Blessings? What blessings? Are there blessings in suffering? Does suffering build character? Where do blessings come from? Do blessings come from people? Do blessings come from thoughts? Do blessings come from things? Do blessings descend on us from the ‘universe’ and God – what/whoever you perceive it/Him to be?


Fathers stay out of the lives of their children for several reasons. Some men are just unapologetically irresponsible and behave like male animals who impregnate their females and move on, never thinking of the consequences of their conjugal groin acts. But some move away from their children because of fracas with their women.


What is wrong is wrong. Mr Mensah cheaply chickened out of the life of the family irresponsibly because he couldn’t stand the heat of being unemployed and broke. He was not man enough. Ego reigned supreme. Problems which we avoid have a way to bite us in dark and hidden places.


But Amerley, oh Amerley!! Did she over-react? Wasn’t it insensitive to have taken the four boys to an unemployed man? Was it more important to teach Mr Mensah a lesson (‘make him suffer’) or to lay the red carpet of love for her children since she was able because her koko business was thriving? Well, too many questions. Dear reader, pose your own questions and come up with answers if you’re able.

Charcoal, hand-washing and sticky matter of behaviour change

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water.” When I first came across this quotation that is attributed to Buddhist philosophy, I wondered why anyone in their right senses would chop wood and fetch water after becoming civilized. But in the matter of our national behavioural change interventions, we seem to be chopping wood and fetching water with reckless abandon.

How? By operating a development model that is characterized by making two steps forward, but three steps backwards. This is tantamount to “Moving forward in the right direction” then reversing backwards in the wrong direction but yet, pretend to be heading towards “A better Ghana”. The result is that we’ve become stuck at the funny intersection of underdevelopment. An examination of two grand behavioural change efforts speaks volumes.

Collectively as a country, we have spent hefty sums of money on public education campaigns to promote the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), and to wash hands with soap. But we’ve turned round to destroy the successes made by several national acts of omission and commission.

Lighting your fire:

Ghana’s forest – wake up, for we’re waging an attack on you, fast and furious. We’re lighting up the forest to cook food, just like our forebears did long ago. Why? The rampant gas shortages are pushing many to resort to the old ways – using charcoal and firewood although it offends rationality.

The LPG campaign succeeded – big time. Homes both rural and urban, rich and poor – adopted the LPG. Even chop bars adopted LPG. It was a text book case of adoption success, and Everett Rogers, the international guru of behavioural change communication campaigns would have smiled for Ghana. But now, he must be weeping in his grave for the shortage of LPG.

Who would have thought that when in the late 1980s or thereabouts this country embarked on a national campaign to discourage the use of firewood and charcoal and instead, promote the use of LPG to save our forests, over two decades later, we would turn round to hack away all the gains made by creating the perfect condition that will force us to revert to the use of firewood and charcoal? Something is happening that is beyond ridiculous.

In the past year or so, gas shortages appear to have come to stay. Let’s face it, gas cylinders are not easy and pretty things to shovel around. They’re bulky and they’re clumsy and they’re hard. Those who don’t own vehicles carry cylinders around town, clumsily positioned on their shoulders in search of gas. Some stay in queues at odd times, praying and pushing cylinders, waiting for their turn to fill up.

Getting people to change their attitudes and behaviours is one of the toughest things to accomplish. As a country, we have a multitude of areas that call for change. That is why it is more than sad to, by default, force the citizenry to revert to old practices which are detrimental to our environment, our very wellbeing and survival as a people. It is said that when the last tree dies, the people die. So, wither are we drifting as a nation on the firewood/charcoal front?

I’m currently in a confused state of – “How do I cook”? I switch over to a kerosene stove only to realize that buying kerosene, a bio-product of petroleum, is no walk in the park. So should I roll over to buy a coal pot and charcoal, and/or firewood – and by that, fetch wood in my 21st century civilization? Indeed, Buddhist monks must be having the last laugh.

Whoever is to blamed for the shortage of LPG should be charged for causing financial loss to the state. Specifically, the financial losses are threefold. (1). The cost of the successful campaign to effect behavioural change from charcoal and firewood to adopting LPG. (2). The loss of man/woman hours spent throughout Ghana in desperate search for LPG should be computed and added to the first loss. (3). We should also project the future money to be spent in another behavioural change campaign to get people to change again from charcoal and firewood back to LPG.

Hand-washing blues:

A second initiative to change behaviours on the national level is hand-washing campaigns. As far back as 2003, Ghana organized the first hand-washing with soap campaign with the slogan, “For truly clean hands, wash with soap.” It was touted as a successful intervention to teach and encourage people to wash their hands with soap and to make hand-washing second nature to Ghanaians – adult and children alike. The campaign won several awards. Since then, other mini campaigns have been organized on the national level as well as in specific regions or schools.

Just like the successful campaign to save our forests by promoting the use of LPG, we spent unknown but obscenely large amounts of money on hand-washing campaigns. Then, as usual, we slip into the nine-day wonder mode and park at dirty curbs. Meanwhile, hand-washing with soap is said to be the most effective vaccine against childhood infections. Not washing hands at all, or washing them improperly pose a health hazard; and it is uncivilized. But how do we wash our hands with soap without water?

The jury is out. Ours is a predominantly hand-shaking culture. We shake hands when we are happy, we shake hands when we are sad, we shake hands to welcome others, and we shake hands for no apparent reason at all. Refusing to shake hands with someone could bring down the wrath of the culture over the head of even the most innocent offenders. Enters the hands!

Caution! Whenever you see a hand coming towards you for a hand-shake, be kind to yourself by taking a moment to pause and wonder where that hand has been, what it has touched, what has touched it, what has blown over it, and where/what it has dug into. There are a thousand and one yucky possibilities.

Here are just a few innocent but disgusting watery sticky possibilities of entanglements prior to your most recent hand-shaking episodes. Pee (urine), poo (toilet), puke (vomit), wedgie-picking in between booty-crack (dross region), nose-picking/nose-digging, teeth-picking, eye-picking and ear-picking, body sores, as well as deep-scalp hair scratching with dandruff and stuff.

These are the hands you and I shake gleefully regularly without thinking a hoot about. Now what! After shaking the offensive hands, we move on to shake other hands to freely transfer unknown germs. Yet, hand-washing campaigns continue in the absence of water. By that, we learn and unlearn hand-washing behaviours all at once because of the lack of water, the main ingredient needed.

The water situation in the public space is worrying. Some public offices of government, corporations, banks, schools and churches might have ‘places of convenience’ which are nothing but places of inconvenience and horror where diseases are offered for free because of the lack of water. If you believe in prayer, send high your pleas that when you’re in public, nature does not call you.

Another Buddhist saying is: “The first thing to mind is your mind. The last thing to mind is your mind.” Where is your mind on hand-washing and LPG?

Jay Walking Pedestrians, watch the road!

Are you a Jay Walker? When was the last time you jay walked? But do you know who a jay walker is? Jay walking is defined as the “illegal, reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway....crossing between intersections outside a cross-walk marked or unmarked without yielding to drivers.” So the people you see walking into roads as if blind, some weaving their way with or without bicycles/motor as if they have magic powers to melt down metal, and others behaving as if they are invincible and nothing can ever harm them are all jay walkers.
Let’s face it, there are many jay walkers in Ghana – rural and urban, oblivious to dangers. Hawkers are the champions of the jay walking fraternity. They take the art to unimaginable heights.
I picked up some shocking statistics from the National Road safety Commission (NRSC) a few days ago. I must share this information with you so no blood would be on my hands. Information is meant to be shared for it to become knowledge that would – with all fingers crossed, result in people changing their attitudes and behaviours. Knowledge, they say, is power. Knowledge, I say, is freedom; it liberates. Without it, the bible says that the people perish. So don’t perish. Read on.
Who are these pedestrians?
Any careful observer to the madness on our roads could make some wild guesses about who is being knocked down by vehicles. But since as they say, ‘book no lie’, here are some shocking facts about pedestrian fatalities during the period 2001 to 2005. These figures represent fatalities and injuries on our roads recorded by the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service during that period.
Twenty three percent of road fatalities involving pedestrians are between the ages of six to 15, twelve percent are between ages 16 and 25, and eleven percent are between age 26 and 35. That implies that a total of forty six percent of people aged between six and 35 are being knocked down by vehicular traffic while using roads in Ghana in rural as well as urban parts of our beloved country.
These figures represent the gory heart-wrenching stories you hear which makes you feel that God is not looking out for some people. These are the fatalities which don’t make sense, which hurt so deeply at the core, which take a very long time to recover from. Some might even suspect that an aging poor female relative in the village – a witch, was behind it. Of course, such an accusation would not make logical sense. But in the period of hurt and pain, some people hurry to assign blame. The one area of blame that is not paid much attention to is the actual cause – lousy road crossing in the face of reckless driving.

The six to thirty-five age group represents the youthful, active, productive, vibrant people in any society. This is the time of growing up, the age where people learn about life and living, where they go to school and get an education to prepare themselves for life. This is the age of dreaming, of setting goals and making plans, the age of exploring the universe to see what lies ahead with eyes set on the future. After the teenage years, people begin to warm up for marriage, with reproduction in sight.
The early years are the time when parents invest in their children with hopes that they would become ‘somebody’ in future. So when these people lose their lives and never live their lives in full, their loss become a loss to society, and a pain to their families and loved ones. Some parents and loved ones never recover from the disappointment, the hurt, the pain, the loss.
From the statistics, it appears that after age 35, people begin to wise up. The pedestrian fatalities of the 36 to 45 age bracket is five percent, the 46 to 55 is four percent, the 56 to 65 is three percent while the over age 65 is one percent. Ideally, people should wise up or be taught to become wise users of roads much earlier in life to save everyone the unnecessary pain and suffering.
Children up to age five get killed too. That age group constitutes seven percent of pedestrian fatalities. These are our babies. This figure suggests that some parents are not taking good care of their children and expose them to fatal dangers. What recklessness! If parents would learn the right way of crossing or using roads, they can pass on useful lessons to their offspring. Otherwise, we would live with and entrench a vicious cycle of generation after generation who cross roads recklessly.
While we’re busy worrying about malaria, diarrheal, and exotic diseases like cancer, Herpertitis, H1N1 Flu, HIV and AIDS and yet-to-be named diseases which some of us can barely pronounce, vehicles are knocking us down; maiming some and killing some.

The driving cooking pot: Place a pack of tin called a motor vehicle on a pot-hole human/coffin infested roads without shoulders; put an alcoholic behind the steering wheel. The roads have no lights, no road signs, no speed limit. The roads are poorly designed. Then take an over-sized wooden spoon. Stir the concoction in the pot vigorously. Increase the fire. Leave no stone or firewood unturned. Remove or give single-spine remuneration to police officers who are already spoilt beyond measure. What do you have? BOOM! Or, ten Booms at Okyereko Junction near Winneba....and other hot deadly spots on roads throughout Ghana.

Some road crossers are so tired that they float on the fringes of retardation or straightforward lunacy that renders them so tardy that even the most careful driver could push them into the sticky arms of their maker who might not even recognize them because they’ll arrive in a very confused state of restlessness and it would take weeks or months for their souls to even know that they have died (ahhhhh – what a winding sentence! But, you get the picture!)

Night time road crossing is the worst. Let’s face it. We are little black people. Most of us are not that tall. So having dark-complexioned people cross roads in the dark, on streets that are not lighted, with tired drivers behind the wheels is only an accident waiting to happen. But do these factors constitute accidents or incidents?
Redefinition of Accidents
An accident is a mishap, mistake and a misfortune that can be catastrophic. A collision, bump, crash is an accident. But how justifiable is a vehicular crash with a catastrophic outcome be considered an accident if drivers and pedestrians consistently act in careless manner knowing what the consequences could be? One could therefore say that most of our road traffic crashes are incidents and not accidents. You don’t have to be a Prophet of some sort to predict. Just from watching situations unravel on our roads, you could guess what can occur at any moment. So when they occur, how can they be described as accidents?

What’s the WIIFM factor in your life?

Is WIIFM a frog? No! Is WIIFM an exotic type of food? No! Is WIIFM the name of some god-forsaken bloke you would love to hate? No! Is WIIFM the name of a strange disease for which you need vaccination like the H1NI swine flu? No! Yet, WIIFM is everywhere you look. WIIFM has a life of its own. WIIFM can be your friend and your foe, all at once. It can make you or break you. If you ever lose sight of other people’s WIIFMs towards you, you’ll forever live to regret it.

So what is WIIFM, this fascinating phenomenon? It stands for What’s In It For Me? – which, in abbreviated form, is spelt WIIFM. But the pronunciation is w-i-f-e-m. You can only pronounce wifem well through a strategic landing, with a soft touch of the lower and upper lips. Suck in your tongue gently. Well, don’t bother to read this article if you can’t pronounce wifem. Now, say after me – wifem. Good effort. You are now allowed to read the following and to adopt this loaded word in your vocabulary.

WIIFM is an affirmation that the ‘me’ is king/queen. In most situations, self interest reigns supreme, proof-positive that we‘re born alone and we die alone. That’s why it’s a good strategy to figure out people’s WIIFMs when you’re dealing with them. The knowledge can give you a heads-up and position you properly for success in interpersonal/group encounters.

The cancer of WIIFM

Politicians have WIIFMs – a lot of it; promises galore; lie-lie. Voters have WIIFMs but believe politicians at their peril. Companies have WIIFMs. Customers have WIIFMs. Pastors have WIIFMs (shout Hallelujah!). Church-goers have WIIFMs (Oh Jesus, make us prosperous). Road contractors have WIIFMs too. Have you checked the potholes, man-holes and coffin-look-alikes on our roads lately? WIIFM eats away at our roads.

Doctors and nurses have WIIFMs too. Woe unto you if you or your loved one is sick and need the care of a doctor/nurse who is cloaked in WIIFM attire. Pray very hard or else, you go die oh! Diseases expose human frailties and vulnerabilities so we can’t afford to be at the mercy of the WIIFMs of medical personnel.

WIIFMs are like cancer that eats away at our national development. Corruption is the king of all our national WIIFMs. The self-interest that emanates from WIIFM nibbles away at our efforts to develop our beautiful country. Ours has become an ‘each-one-for-him/herself, God-for-us-all’ situation. For the most part, every one seeks after his/her interests – first and foremost. Our culture is supposed to be a collectivist culture where we care for each other. Yet, individualism has crept in and erected signposts.

Take the mobile phone companies for instance. They come up with all sorts of mind-blowing memorable lie-lie slogans to get our attention, then..... What’s the full truth in the assertions of “Everywhere you go”, “One Touch”, “What a wonderful world!”, “Great talk with value” and “It’s your time”?. I use Vodafone broadband to access the Internet. I pay my monthly bills but never get the service for a full month. If I’m lucky, it works for up to two weeks in a month. What kind of lie-lie corporate WIIFM is that?

When an organization is called a “Non-profit organization” (NGO), the name assumes that the entity and the people behind it intend to and want to do something good for society. Don’t be fooled because not all that glitters is gold. Always pause to think of the WIIFMs in the many NGOs (e.g. orphanages) you see around. Float in the wisdom of the late Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman’s famous saying, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” We all therefore have a responsibility to shine our eyes when things are presented to us, and pose critical WIIFM questions about even the noblest matters.

There are projects in this country which have suffered deadly injuries due to the WIIFM factor. Think of roads that are washed away after a single rainfall. Once upon a time, the Korle Lagoon Restoration Project was launched with lofty goals that included putting boats on the lagoon to overlook hotels. But today, the Korle Lagoon still smells into the highest heavens. It remains a stain on the conscience of Accra. How much money has been pumped into the project? Who benefited from WIIFMs?

Adopting the ‘What’s in it for me” approach to win people over is superb. WIIFM can be a strategy for attitudinal and behavioural change. Other people’s WIIFMs are their motivators. So when you want someone to do something for you, a good strategy is to move away from your own WIIFMs and consider what is in it for the other person in the encounter. It’s the equivalence of putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. Once you know the person’s WIIFM, you can then launch your tactics to get him to change his mind.

Thinking from a WIIFM vantage point does not have to take a lot of time. It’s a mindset and for some issues, can be done within a matter of seconds or minutes. But assessing the WIIFM for certain issues could entail a lot of thinking. There are WIIFMs in most situations. You just have to pause to think about it. Some WIIFMs are not that obvious and need to be given critical reflection.

Whenever I encounter wild and knuckle-headed taxi/trotro drivers on our roads who overtake ‘by-heart’ with the assumption that they permanently have a right of way, apart from gifting them an occasional insult or two, I wish they could consider some WIIFMs. If they do, they would realize that their wild inconsiderate selfish actions can lead to accidents that would waste their time and deprive them of the use of the vehicle and further deprive them of an income.

The big problem in living a life from a WIIFM vantage point is that you can easily become overly suspicious of people. It’s important to acknowledge that you have WIFIIMs because that awareness can wake you up to the type of self-centeredness and selfishness that are inimical to the common good.

The WatchWoman’s WIIFM

As I end this piece, I find myself wondering – what’s my own WIIFM factor in writing this column week after week? Confession: I get the unique opportunity to colonize you with my thoughts. How audacious! The fact is that I’m a restless soul who loves to write – my double trouble. I have set issues I’m very passionate about. So for me, it’s therapeutic to pour out my thoughts on a weekly basis. This is the kind of therapy that cures what may be an addiction to writing.

No matter my weekly circumstances – I write. I’ve written from a hospital bed. I’ve written when I could barely walk –after a surgery. I’ve written at airports and on airplanes. So I thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to benefit from my own WIIFM urges. I get so much from you than you can ever imagine.

But the question on the flipside is: What’s your own WIIFM for continuing to read this column?

Shelter in the city

In our marketplace of media agenda and focus, politics reigns supreme. This column maintains that if extraterrestrial beings should visit Ghana and review the content of our mass media, s/he would think that this country is populated by a bunch of happy-go-lucky belly-full people who have no cares in the world so can afford to remain enamoured with the ranting of polarised politicians, mostly of NDC/NPP colouring. But, the aliens’ perception would be so far removed from the truth.

Yes, there are several million dollar houses in Ghana and some houses are more magnificent than those of the rich and famous of Hollywood, California. But there is also agonizing homelessness that is not obvious to the uninitiated eyes. Enters Metro TV.

The winning entry for the 2009 Professor PAV Ansah Journalist of the Year at last weekend’s GJA Awards night told the hard ugly distressing truth of our situation. If you have not seen Samuel Agyeman’s award-winning Metro TV news feature, then you have missed out and allowed the media to consume you with inconsequential NPP/NDC hullaballoo empty noise that does not scratch the surface of the wretched aspects of our national human condition.

Teaser of “Shelter in the city”

It’s important for every Ghanaian to watch the three-part “Shelter in the city” and process it intensely because it’s more edifying than any Nigerian movie. What you get from watching “Shelter in the city” is a reality check of Ghana, which cannot be produced or reproduced in any movie. Samuel Agyeman and his team from Metro TV went through Accra at night to bear witness to the state of homelessness in the capital city of our 53 year-old country.

The rawness of the situation of homelessness and the wrongness of the human condition of the homeless is hard-hitting. When I watched the documentary, I jumped from my seat to give it a standing ovation.

Forget about any condemnation you might have heard about the sorry state of journalism in Ghana. This news feature would give you a flip-side opinion – that there are still journalists in Ghana who care and refuse to be obsessed by silly inconsequential issues that do not move our country forward.

Here is the GJA’s citation for the award. “The Ghana Journalists Association gives you the PROFESSOR PAV ANSAH JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR AWARD for your three-part documentary on shelter in Accra. You took the initiative to do a thorough story about an unconscionable aspect of our country, showing a large number of vulnerable people, including pregnant women and children, who sleep on the pavements and backyards of our capital city. Your story-telling ability is excellent. You looked at several angles of the issue and conducted follow-ups.

Your documentary was culturally strong because it cuts across ethnic groups without stereotyping. You sought for sources from policy makers, the scientific community, human rights experts, entrepreneurs in the sector, government, the United Nations, and the man in the street who are the victims who suffer indignity as a result of the pervasiveness of the this social problem.

You highlighted the housing deficit, which results in homelessness in Accra. Your effort involved risks in researching the story by going to several suburbs of the city at night. Your story ended with a strong appeal for problem solving from key stakeholders.”

Without a doubt, such an entry deserves to be associated with the name of PAV Ansah, that maverick of a journalist and communications professional, who although died too early before his time, left a permanent mark of courage and distinction.

The following are some teasers from “Shelter in the city,” a reality that is unimaginable to the privileged in Ghana. The Metro TV crew went out in the night to take a peek at the awful night-time in Accra to give a blow-by-blow account of the dreadful condition of homelessness. The story shows large packs of humanity stretching out in the open as if it is the most natural thing to do and the most normal place to sleep. The story depicts layers of atrocities including indignity, rape, child abuse, dire insecurity, and inhumanity.

A scene in “Shelter in the city” depicts a sleeping mother and baby with the baby suckling on the mother’s breast – on a pavement, in the open, in Accra. On nights when it rained, the battalion of pavement sleepers are seen scurrying through the rain to hide under anything that looks like shelter. Those who are unfortunate to find hiding places from the rain “managed” under plastic bags. This is a human rights story, a gender story, a national security story, and a poverty story.

“Shelter in the city” is a must see for policy makers to wake them up from slumber, for traditional leaders and family heads whose relatives continue to relocate from the rural areas to the cities in search of greener pastures; for Ghana’s filthily-rich whose philanthropic juices are not flowing – yet; for the private sector to awaken opportunities for corporate social responsibility; and for everyone with a heart still beating in the chest.

Enduring Questions:

Who keeps tract to record statistics of the number of people who sleep on pavements and live in kiosks and uncompleted houses throughout the country? Are our academics studying this growing phenomenon of homelessness to provide lessons for our country?

What is the long-term psychological impact on the children born on the pavements? Of course there is the issue of lost childhood. Where do these children go to school, if they do go to school? What is the corrosive effect on the psyche of the unfortunate individuals who live on the pot-hole ridden pavements and backyards of Ghana?

Whenever the AMA, and KMA and other metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies conduct demolition, decongestion and ‘abaee’ exercises, does anyone care about the humanity they chase out? Where are these people who live on the margins supposed to go? They are already here in the cities and they will stay. They want opportunities for an improved life just like those of us who are privileged.

We complain about the state of our sanitation. The many people who live on the margins generate waste. Where do they dump their trash? When nature calls them, where do they respond?

Pain in the heart:

One school of thought is that all these people should return to their hometowns where there are family homes. The weakness of this position is that cities everywhere are magnets and pull people toward them. The lure of city life, the bright lights and the open-ended promises scream out to the unsuspecting – “Come to me, come to me, and all your problems will be solved.” So they come, desperate, expectant with lush lusty dreams, unsuspecting of the challenges ahead and become destitute.

Next time it rains in the evening or at night, pause to think of the many people who sleep rough on the pavements and backyards of our cities and towns. These are our own army of homeless folks who have no privilege of shelter. This includes children, pregnant mothers, men, the youth, the old, and the mentally ill.

Paying homage to our mothers’ gardens

The more I grow up, the more I realize that I have vast knowledge gaps. Whenever I hear news stories about witchcraft, I become so puzzled and wonder what could be behind the perceived notoriety and overwhelming accusations of women as witches. It appears that women and children -- the most vulnerable in society --bear the brunt of these accusations, with some men occasionally grabbing some attention.
Enduring Questions:
There comes a time when one has to confront twisted logic. Doesn’t modernity conflict with witchcraft? Are there more witches than wizards – implying that witches are females and wizards belong to the male gender? At childhood, do girls show the potential for witchcraft more than boys? Is there something in the food girls eat and the drink girls drink while growing up, which invariably turns the female gender into witches as they age and evolve?
Or, could it be that estrogens, the dominant female hormone, generate and pump up witchcraft juices and characteristics? What is the science? Or, this matter belongs firmly only in the realm of spiritual logic? Has estrogens been responsible for the woes of women? But a deeper enduring question is: What is it about women growing old in our part of the world that qualifies them to be accused of witchcraft? We neglect the thorns and by that, the roses in our mothers’ gardens at our peril.
I’ve travelled the so-called ‘developed world’ quite a bit and this phenomenon is absent, or at least uncommon. So a further enduring question is – Could it be that women’s witchcraft in our part of the world is a product of a combination of factors including poverty, underdevelopment, illiteracy, ignorance and a general lack of civilization?
Realities like wanton want, painful and desperate poverty for which initiatives to eradicate or alleviate only scratch the surface, unexplainable diseases in the midst of an antiquated health care delivery system that is supported precariously by a ‘Paracetamol’ health insurance scheme, ignorance that is deeply steeped in oral tradition, vast non-literacy that is worsened by a lousy educational system, as well as many other funky realities do need scapegoats.
What better scapegoats-victims-culprits are more obvious and convenient than the dishevelled shrivelled aging poor old woman who is weather-beaten, sun-dried, poverty-trashed and living on the margins waiting for the end of her story! The thorns are left to burn!

But better still, could the women who are declared guilty of witchcraft be cases of unexpressed geniuses? Where are the sisters of our successful men? How many of them had equal opportunity to become what their male siblings became? Do successful men ever wonder what happened to the very intelligent girls they attended school with, especially those who excelled in class to the envy of the boys? Answer: some of them jumped onto mommy trucks, others hopped onto the husband trains, and others remained behind in one permutation or the other to become the women witches of today and tomorrow.
Many women throughout our beautiful country have suffered and continue to suffer in the claws of illiteracy and the jaws of ignorance at the altar of witchcraft accusations. A child suffers from the sickle cell disease and a grandmother is declared guilty. A child is knocked down by malaria and dies before age five and again, a woman stands caused. Some new-age spiritual churches help to entrench age-old cultural beliefs.
A snake chase did it!

Periodically, a writer goes naked before his/her readers. Confessions are said to be good for the soul. Self-disclosure can be at once disturbing and humbling. There is no rose without thorns!

When growing up in a village, I knew that my life should have a deeper meaning and purpose beyond the obvious. But how to make it happen only became clear to me one day during lunch time on my grandfather’s cocoa farm. You see, the cocoa farm was the place to go for a quick bite of something; of whatever and to return quickly to school. One hot tropical afternoon, a green thin snake chased me on the cocoa farm. That single experience gave me my marching orders: To study hard no matter what and get out to save myself from any other chase by a snake or the semblance or representative of a snake.

Books became my refuge. Books? What books? The leftovers, pieces of papers thrown about by customers of my ‘bofrot’ seller aunt provided my reading material. I went round to collect the pieces of papers, pieced them together to create my ‘library’, disregarding the missing pages. What a logical reaction to a snake chase!

Yes, for young readers, in those days, plastics had not made it into our national consciousness. We used paper and leaves, which decompose to become one with nature. These days, we use mostly non-biodegradable plastics, which might not decompose for hundreds of years, long after we the users have died and rotten away. Thorns galore!

In my current state of restlessness amidst aging, my love of/for literacy suggests to me that I would have, by default, been declared a witch by now, in the Year of Our Lord 2010, in some forgotten village if that thin green snake had not chased me into the warm arms of reading and writing and some arithmetic.

The roses in our grandmother’s gardens

It’s in order to pay homage to all the women who have lived miserable lives and even died after they’ve been accused of witchcraft without any proof whatsoever. To the women of old whose lives were interrupted so were unable to go yonder to live up to their full potential. To the women who are currently wasting away and withering like untended flowers in witches camps and church backyards. To the mothers, the grandmothers, the aunties, the grand-aunties who have been declared guilty of witchcraft just for being wise and opinionated.
We all – men and women alike, have mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers as well as aunties, grand-aunties who play mother to us; who give us love unconditionally – until we declare them witches for being wise women and by that single act, give thorns undue prominence over sweet-scented roses.
We should salute the many women who have been misunderstood; the geniuses who were unexplored, unfulfilled, unappreciated. Homage to the grand aunts and great grandmothers, who over the years, have died miserable deaths, have seen painful ends, dejected by loved ones shrouded under gloomy coats of witchcraft. How many women survive their gifts? How many shrink and belittle their aspirations by thinking small with as low expectations as possible?

Imagine if Ama Ata Aiddo had not gone to school! Imagine if Afua Sutherland had not learned to read and write! The beautiful poetry, the heart-warming plays and the gifts of prose would not have been born. Ghana would have been poorer.

Imagine if our token female representations – Akua Kuenehia, Joyce Aryee, Georgina Woode, Betty Mould-Idrisu, Nana Oye Lithur, Grace Bediako, Elizabeth Adjei, Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, Akua Dansoa, and the many women of distinction (sung and unsung) – had remained in the armpits of Ghana in some funky villages and not had the privilege of education. Just pause, and imagine! But Hallelujah, some roses are in bloom, regardless!