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?