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!