Road Accidents

When you are travelling in Ghana pray that you are never involved in an accident, lots of deaths happen on the roads, the chances that you will are pretty high as they drive like lunatics, I witnessed a shocking incident, on the way to the Kumasi central market, I saw a little crowd was forming then I saw a motor bike lying a few feet away, a man was lying on the ground motionless, people from the crowd were poking and prodding the poor guy as if to see if he was still alive, others were shaking his arms, someone will lift his leg up and let it drop and someone was turning his head right then left, it was surreal, almost like a pack of hyenas feasting on a carcass, except of course they weren’t eating him, I must add before you get any funny ideas, but you know what I mean, they must have been doing this for nearly an hour before he was bundled into a taxi, I remember thinking, don’t they know that every second counts for someone in that condition and the time wasted could have killed him or the mishandling could cripple or even kill him?

I wondered how many people have died needlessly, then I thought, what was the alternative? We live in a country where there is no adequate ambulance service, if any, so he is left to the kindness of strangers who don’t know what to do, just doing the best they can to save him, unfortunately the same people could kill him without knowing, and some strangers are not so kind they are only there to see what they can steal from him I was told, the dangers are that whatever money you may have on you may be stolen, and the doctors won't treat you without money, so you may have money sitting at home or the bank but could be left to die for the lack of funds at your time of need and that really terrified me, its all well and good if you die instantly, what bothered me was being critically injured and not getting proper care.

We live in a country where there are no ambulances or trained professionals to deal with accidents, yet we have politicians driving around in expensive cars.

We could buy ambulances with the money the government spend on expensive cars for their own use.
Ghanaians really need to speak up because it is costing them their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Talking of speaking up, Ghanaians will be travelling on a mini bus packed to the hilt and the driver will be driving like a maniac, clearly playing with their lives and nobody feels they have the right to tell the driver to drive carefully or slow down, to Ghanaians I say this “it is YOUR life nobody has the right to play with it so please SPEAK UP! if you think your life is being threatened by a reckless driver! If they don’t listen, get off the bus!. If everybody does that they will soon learn to respect lives, because it will send a clear message to them that your lives are precious to you and refuse to let any fool toy with it, one more thing, if somebody is brave enough to stand up to them, the rest of you should back him or her up! Don’t just sit there and make them feel like they are a nuisance because this “too know” could be saving your LIFE. (Ghanaians call anybody who expresses his concerns and stands up for his/her rights, “too know”) a lot of people keep quiet for fear of being branded “too know”. A “know it all” to you.

As I mentioned earlier I read a lot of expat blogs before going to Ghana, I remember a comment made that I found to be very true, “I am not a Christian but I ever since I have been in Ghana I have been praying constantly, I pray when I get into a taxi and thank God when I reach my destination in one piece.” She was absolutely right, getting into a taxi is like playing a Russian roulette, but that is a whole new blog. You have to pray.

Plastic Bags

This is a serious problem looming in Ghana and Africa as a whole, I am not sure if the Authorities are aware of the negative impact that these bags have on the environment, if they are, they are certainly not tackling it with the urgency it requires, in a few years time, our lands will be become barren due to buried plastic bags, they can take up to 1000 years to decompose, as they decompose, they break into tiny pieces and leach toxic chemicals into soils, lakes, rivers, and oceans, the bags itself also poses a threat to inhabitants of the ocean, lakes and rivers, if ingested the animals can choke to death, (thanks wikipedia for the science bit. You didn’t think I was that clever did you?), at the moment the plastic bags are buried in every inch on the ground with bits sticking out, if you look at huge gaps left by erosion you can see how deep they are buried. What impact will it have on our health and well being, our economy our future? our children’s future?

We used leaves and paper to wrap food years ago, maybe we should revert to that as we are clearly not ready to follow the developed world in terms of plastic bag use, that is one of our issues we like to copy the Western world, but they have their infrastructures in place to tackle problem whiles we don’t, in the western world, plastic bags are recycled, individuals take responsibility of placing rubbish in the bins provided, household rubbish are divided into different bins for recycling purposes, even so it is still a problem for the developed world let alone us, until Ghanaians are educated to take personal responsibility for discarding rubbish in an appropriate manner, I strongly suggest we go back to using leaves and paper, at least they will decompose in the ground as that is where we insist on placing our rubbish.

It is so amazing to watch someone buy a sachet of water "pure water" is what they call it, (it is anything but pure, but that is another topic entirely) drink it and the next thing you hear is “chaw” pronounced “chao” that is noise the sachet makes when it is hits on the ground, (because they are seldom empty when they are dumped) yea just like that without a blinking an eye, these days there are a few bins scattered across the cities, even if they are standing next to a bin they will still throw it on the ground, so strange.

I was at a funeral in a village, it was a huge outside space with chairs placed in a semi circle with a dancing area in the middle, then all of a sudden I heard chaw, then another chaw, followed by more chaws (yea, yea , iiit iiis thee sounnnd the waater saachet makes when iiit hiits thee grounnd, we get it)I didn’t know what was going on, then it hit me, not the water sachet silly, I realized what was going on! somebody has given them "pure water", and as if on cue they were throwing the empty (well not completely empty otherwise they wont be making the “chaw”sound will they?) sachet in the dancing area, you get my drift? Come!...come closer..., I will let you in a little secret, sshh! I think they like the sound it makes when it hits the ground whiles there is still water in it, he hehee…) I was stunned, I sat there in disbelief, the thing is when something like this happens, you are on your own, because all the people around you do not see anything wrong, they think there is something wrong with you for thinking there is something wrong. Did you get that? read it again if you didn’t, to them it is normal, they look at you in a funny way if you react differently, so I just act normal, whiles inside I will be screaming hhmmggg!! DON'T DO THAT!

Littering is a huge problem in Ghana, we need a better trash collection infrastructure.

There is a company that is supposed to be cleaning the country but that is a joke, I saw road sweepers pushing their rubbish cart half asleep, not once did I see them stop to pick up rubbish, oh and believe me if I say there was a lot.

Kumasi was the worst, the rubbish that has been swept had been left in big heaps along the streets in city centre, unbelievable! the suburbs are buried under black plastic bags.

The black plastic bags are particularly an eye sore they are everywhere, it is horrible, our lovely beaches are littered with plastic bags, the whole country will soon be buried under plastic bags, if we are not careful.

Forget about Alien invasion, start worrying about the Plastic Bag Invasion (PBI) with its poison gradually seeping into our our soil, rivers , ocean, gradually getting into our food chain into our drinking water and into our bodies, ugh! I shudder to think what it will do to us in years to come.

In this day and age thanks to the Internet and television the whole world is just a click away, most Ghanaians have access to information, oh you will be surprised just how much information they have access to, they know about things happening in the world that you don’t even know about, even those who live it the remote parts, they are particularly interested in the Western world and like to copy the western way of doing things, so why cant we copy the one thing that in my opinion will no doubt have the biggest impact on our future which is how they dispose of their rubbish, and individually committing to making our country clean as our future and our children’s future depends on it?

Could it be that the politicians in their polished chauffeured cars travel to and from work via the posh part of the country and seldom visits these areas, therefore have no idea what is going on?, surely they see the black plastic bags? I don’t think there is any part of the country that has not been invaded by the plastic bags albeit the posh parts get swept daily.

This is our country and our future, we must as a nation do something about it and not rely on the government because we all know that they are more interested in being powerful than actually using that power to get things done.

I have surprised myself about how calmly I have written this, reading this, you wouldn't know this is the one thing I am most passionate about would you? you would think it is the Armed Robbers or the Midnight preachers, but you will be wrong, if I can do just one thing for my country it will be the proper disposal of plastic bags, because it is the one thing that has the potential to devastate our future but also very easy to rectify. Firstly, ban the damned thing, well not me personally, I don't have the power to do that, will have to persuade those who have the power, I am sensing this will be the hardest, reintroduce the use of paper or introduce paper bags, secondly educate the masses of the importance of disposing rubbish, especially plastic bags safely harder still but it can be done, thirdly, clear the whole country of it and recycle or find the best way to safely get rid of it, I know it is not as simple as that but it will be a start.

There is still more to come I have to give it to you in small doses because believe you me it it hard to swallow, come back again for the next dose. In the mean time please feel free to leave a comment.

If however you are reading this and you think you can help Ghana with our Plastic Bag Invasion problem please get in touch with me and lets get Operation Plastic Bag Invasion moving, thank you.

Lights Off

No you are not in prison or army training, you are in Ghana, constant power cuts is the norm we have the akosombo hydro electric plant, apparently we supply electricity to other countries so how come we cant power our small country? http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-747988.0.html here is an excerpt from the article if you cant be bothered to follow the link, "Speaking at the ceremony during which an agreement to that effect was signed in Lome, Togo, the Managing Director of the ECG, Mr Anthony Gyampo, reiterated that the ECG had enough power to supply to households in Ghana and put the country’s power penetration at 70 per cent. " RUBBISH! the people of Ghana will beg to differ. Yes we have powered the rich and powerful's households, we have some left so lets sell it to our neighbouring countries and forget about the rest of the Ghanaian population THAT is what it sounds to me!

Does the Government actually know the true cost of these so called lights off in terms of revenue? the cost to businesses? not to mention how it affects the quality of life of the average Ghanaian, how much food go waste in a country where making ends meet is such a struggle imagine a situation where a family's whole week's food ends up in the bin because of power cuts? credit goes to my beloved fellow Ghanaians one has to love them for their longsuffering, they take it all in their stride, they have resigned themselves to the fact that there is nothing they can do about it, the only time they say anything about it is the whole neighbourhood goes OHHHHHH!!!! in unison when the lights go off, and EEEEHHHHH!!!!! in union celebration when the power comes back, this happens every single time.

Taxis

Yea I know I said this topic requires a whole new blog, but I will touch on it a little, cant help myself, what baffles me is that, we are not allowed to import cars over ten years into Ghana, eh? Have you seen the state of the taxis?, the best way to describe them is scrap metals with engines, but that would be an insult to scrap metal, because they are not even fit for the scrap heap, they are death traps,

It is very bad, you have to see it to appreciate just how bad it is, I once opened a taxi door and the handle came off in my hand I was horrified, yet the government will not allow us to import cars over ten years, if you do, the clearing charges will be astronomical.
I've heard horror stories of Ghanians being asked to pay unbealievable sums of money, if they are unable to pay, their vehicles are sold very cheaply to the officials, it beggers belief. It is very disheartening.
Am I the only one who thinks that it will be better for the government to waive the charges like they do in Togo, to allow us to import ten year old cars to replace the death traps? It doesn’t make sense to me at all that our roads are filled with dangerouse metals running around putting peoples lives at risk, what possible explanation could there be to justify that? If someone has a resonable explanation why that is I would love to hear it.  Below is a picture of the seat of a taxi, and this is not the worst, I rest my case.

Midnight Preachers

Ghana is a very Religious country, mainly Islam, Christian and Hindu, but somehow the Christians think it is their God given right to shove their beliefs into everybody else's throat, they are everywhere, when you are traveling on the buses there they are preaching very loudly and if you are unfortunate to be having a migraine attack at that particular moment then you are in for a very long hot ride, which is exactly what happened to me, after a long wait in the scorching sun the bus eventually arrived, with a sigh of relief I boarded the bus amid all the pulling, pushing and shoving and took my seat.

By this time I was sporting a massive headache, just as I was settling in comfortably to nurse my headache a man stood up and demanded our attention and started preaching, as if by design guess where he was standing? yea right next to me, luckily I had been warned never to question these people because to everybody else they are men of God, they have the licence to do whatever they want. anybody who dare to question them is branded a witch and may be beating or even killed, so I bit my tongue very hard and endured nearly one and half hours of this imposed preaching, when he had finished he asked for money, all the passengers happily obliged except me, I was fuming, how dare he get on the bus to do his business at my expense? the lack of respect for other peoples boundaries is unbelievable.

What takes the biscuit is the midnight preaching yes midnight preaching, I went to visit family in Kumasi and was woken up in the middle of the night by a loud music and somebody speaking through a loudspeaker, a loud speaker in the middle of the night? surprised, I sat up to listen and realised somebody was conducting a church service, I was furious how can one person decide to wake up a whole neighbourhood and force them to listen to the loud music and chanting e bababababa e bababababba e bababbabbabbaba e bababababba not a single meaningful or intelligible word was spoken just the loud music and endless e babababbabababa what I really didn't get was the fact that this was coming from a building, those who chose to worship at that particular hour were there in the building, therefore there was no need for the loud speaker, why doesn't he speak to those who were awake and right there with him why involve those who were sleeping in their home? when God created the world he created day and night, day for worshiping and night for sleeping you idiot!! those who are not in the church obviously chose to sleep so why wake them up? it went on till about 5 a.m, needless to say I could not sleep a wink that night, I just felt sorry for those who had to go to work in the morning.

I am sure the "man of God" went to bed after collecting his money whiles his poor sheep had to go to work. When I asked about it the next morning I was told that they have to put up with, I asked WHY? "because if you complain you will be branded a witch and you could end up killed so everybody keeps quiet and live with it" (that is how I knew to shut up on the bus)

To someone who has lived in the UK all my adult life this is VERY strange but to them it is normal,

for the benefit of those readers who don't know what the fuss is about, I live in a country where it is against the law to sound your car horn between 7am -10 pm, disturbing the peace is against the law, people respect and obey this law, it is unthinkable that someone will wake up a whole neighbourhood using a loudspeaker or whatever in the middle of the night, his feet wont touch the ground, and nobody will give a damn in whose name he was doing it.

The most annoying part is, it is just a business like any other business in Ghana they are there to make money it is the easiest and quickest way to make money and they are springing up everywhere, questions for Ghanaians; If a koko (porridge) seller came to your door in the middle of the night banging on her koko pot with her metal spoon would you tolerate her? or any trader for that matter shouting about their ware in the middle of the night, how long are we going to let them stamp on our liberties in the name of God? what happened to Freedom of Worship? shouldn't we be able to choose where and when we listen to Gods Words?

Why don't the other religions do the same? because there is no money to be made by individuals in Islam, Hindu etc, it is just the Christian churches, it is SHAMEFUL! The majority of them are nothing but crooks who take advantage of vulnerable people, but it is ok because they are doing it in the name of God? right? When will Ghanaians open their eyes to see right through these wolves?

STC

The State Transport corporation used to be the most safest and comfortable way to travel but like everything else this has deteriorated to such a shameful level it is unrecognisable, the staff are rude, I decided to take it to kumasi as I thought it was still the best way to travel, I went to the station, bought my ticket and was handed a tag for my luggage, I sat down to wait for the next bus.

I looked on as other people came to do the same, then I saw a lady seriously inspecting her luggage tag, I thought surely they cant make a mistake with that?, they take your name and issue you with a ticket and a luggage tag with your name on it how hard can that be? I looked at mine to make sure and lo and behold my luggage tag had someone else's name on it ( no I am not kidding!) I went back to the lady who sold me the ticked and said " you have given me somebody’s luggage tag" she said, somebody cancelled their ticked so I sold it to you" so why didn’t you change the name on the tag? I asked, "It will be fine" she said, no it will not!, I retorted, my ticket has my name the tag has a different name, the drivers compare the name on the  receipt with  name on the tag at the end of the journey to release your luggage to you, so I would have had a hard time convincing the driver that the luggage belonged to me, and this lady was aware of this procedure so why she thought I was dumb enough to buy that nonsense I don’t know, as usual I was very annoyed  with their incompetence, and boy did I make my annoyance known, I gave the ticket and the tag back to her ( well sort of threw it really) and demanded in no uncertain terms for a new ticket and a tag with my name on it!, I was already annoyed with her half asleep attitude on my arrival so when she also thought it was ok to give me a luggage tag that had somebody else's name because she could not be bothered to change it, that really did it for me, to her credit she was very apologetic and very professional about it, but somehow the porter thought I was being unreasonable and threatened to stop me from boarding the bus! He will what? yes that is exactly what I said, What has it got to do with him? Did I speak to him? No.

He became very abusive, all his colleagues were asking him to stop behaving like an idiot but did he listen? no! to cut a long story short he did not know what hit him.

I got on the bus all fired up, took up my seat, and settled for the long bumpy ride, I watched as people
boarded and looked for their seat and sat down, then I noticed that the exit door was piled to the hilt with luggage, so was the gang way, what to do, what to do, I fretted and twiddled with my fingers because I knew whatever I say will be met with cold animosity, unfortunately I am not one to keep my mouth shut, the reason is I will feel very stupid if I dont speak up and something goes wrong, I will not be able to forgive myself, I will forever be thinking to myself why didnt I say something? and what if the damage could not be reversed? I prefer to speak up.
I called out to the driver and said, do you realize that it is a safety hazard to block the exit door and the gang way? he looked at as if he has seen a alien, eventualy he said " it is fine" "what do you mean its fine? God forbid if there was a accident we will not be able to use the exit, so tell me why you think it is fine?" I asked, he just ignored me, anybody who knows me well will tell you that is the worse thing you can do to me, again I was forced to raise my voice, did not get a single support from the passengers so eventually I gave up, it is either you get off the bus or shut up. I am ashamed to say I shut up I was too hot and bothered to get off and wait for another bus. I vowed never to travel on
STC again.

A Stranger In My Own Country

I have been to Ghana recently and would like to share my experiences with you, after living in Britain for nearly 20 years I decided that I have had enough and so I went to Ghana for a 4week break, now if you are an African and have not been in your country this long you know what I am talking about here, it is not just a matter of throwing a couple of clothing into a bag and heading off, this require careful planning and at least six months preparation which consist of  shopping for presents for all the immediate and extended family, you know the ones I mean your mother's brother's wife's uncle, they all have to be included because as soon as you touch down, the earth sends messages to everybody who is related to anybody who is related to you and "woe betide you" (this is a phrase my Aunt frequently used when I was a child, I don't to this day understand what it actually means but I am quoting it nonetheless) if you forget that lady who used to sew your Grandma's kaba like a hundred years ago, then you will have to improvise and somehow come up with a present and pretend it was especially bought with her in mind. I think it means that something bad will happen to you if you don't, the" woe betide you".

If you have been burning the candle at both ends, you have not been eating properly or taking good care of yourself then this is the time to start doing so, as people in Ghana have their own idea of how somebody who lives in "aburokyere" twi for (overseas) should look like in terms of skin texture nails and hair, if you don't fit into that category then it will be like na wei na yese ote  aburokyire yi?  (so this person lives overseas?) also your clothes should reflect the same.

Anyway so after all that organization, preparation and a couple of thousands of pounds out of pocket I boarded my plane with great anticipation, as you know Ghana is fast becoming an international ( whatever that word means) country with people from all over the world either immigrating to or visiting, I met some very interesting people on the plane, one in particular, a young lady from Egypt who surprised me by speaking twi, she told me her family live in Ghana and she spends all her holidays in Ghana as she was at university in Egypt, I had done some research on Ghana as would someone from another country prior to visiting,  I have become  so accustomed to the British way of life to the point  where I had to read a lot of British Expat blogs about how they cope with life in Ghana to help me to know what to expect, I know, sad but true, so speaking to someone in person was even better, she knew more about my country than I did, talk about being a stranger in your own country, so I was very excited if all these people are happy to be going to my country then it must be good right? wrong!

I do not aim to trash my own country but one must be realistic, come on, this country has been going on for years and I was sad to see that it is still the same if not worse, when other countries are moving forward (contrary to what some political party's motto infer,) we are in fact moving backwards, when I was a kid we used to have running water in Kumasi  in the 1970s I don't remember having to  go to fetch water and we had the occasional light offs, but now? and to make matters even worse we now have Armed Robbers, what in the name of God is going on in this country? why have we allowed foreigners in our country to terrorize our people and introduce such atrocities to our young men?
When I say foreigners I mean a small number of Nigerians and people from other African countries,  they are the ones giving the others a bad name because I know for a fact the the vast majority of foreigners live by our laws and are peaceful.

I remember there was a time when our young men travelled to other African countries to try and better themselves as these countries were better off than ours, I have heard stories of how hard these young men worked and the treatment that was meted out to them, they never enjoyed any freedom  that is now being enjoyed by these foreigners in our country some were killed in the most horrific ways, but instead we let these people abuse our hospitality and terrorize our people? we used to be able to sleep with our doors open or outside, I know the whole world has changed and we have to lock our doors now, but surely behind locked doors we should feel secure? people who have worked hard to better themselves now have no peace in their own homes because of fear of being killed or raped by armed robbers, this has only recently been imported from Nigeria and we must stop them before they get completely out of hand.

I am proud to be a Ghanaian, we are recognized globally for our hospitality, hard work, kindness and generosity why should we tolerate people who come to our country to abuse our generosity and ruin our reputation? because theirs  is ruined the world over? WE MUST LAY DOWN THE LAW! live according to our laws or LEAVE!!

 I am by no means trying to instigate violence or unrest (I am a strong believer in equality and tolerance but I hate it when people take advantage) but meekly giving our country  and our freedom away to Armed Robbers  is just like going back over about a hundred years  ago with the absence of Yaa Asentewaa.                                         

                                                             

Enough of my rambling about Armed Robbers, lets move on.