STROKE OF MY PEN: MY NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN

"Guess what, I wish to plant to some vegetables in front of my house". "Ah! the goats will finish it, the children around will spoil it". "I will try it".

This would have been the confrontation my neighbour would have encountered if she had shared her idea of constructing a garden in front of her house.

My residence is right opposite where my neighbour's garden and house is located.

When she begun, a friend who also lives in the neighbourhood calls her "Best Farmer." A few rains came, and she consistently watered her garden each morning.

While she worked in the garden every morning, passers by looked on with such contempt. I believe some may ask if my neighbour did not have any work doing.

Now the garden looks beautiful with the vegetables doing so well each day.

Why all these narration?
Sometimes, an attempt to be innovative and create something out of nothing is usually met with negative response.

These responses are sometimes true. This depends on one's beliefs and the environment one finds himself or herself.

Life is not fair. One has to challenge the status quo to cause others to believe in themselves.

In Ghana now, unemployment has been the banner most graduates hold after school. Others think of traveling outside the country like a classmate of mine.

I don't disagree with traveling outside to go get a few degrees and bag a PhD.

What makes it wrong is leaving all the opportunities around and traveling outside to wash the dishes of restaurant for one foreign currency or the other.

As graduates are churned out of schools each year graduate unemployment will keep on rising.

Jobs will be difficult to get. Looking for a job itself is a task on its own.

In such situations it is worth it if an individual thinks hard to find solutions to the problem he or she finds around.

There has been one misconception which our parents created. Good jobs await you after school. Graduates come out and find out that education does not guarantee us good jobs. Disillusioned. Disenchanted. The graduates become frustrated.

Education rather enlightens and teaches us how to solve the situations we find ourselves in.

An attempt to create something out of nothing is not a day's journey. As a boy, I had to hawk and sell stones to enable me pay my fees.I identified that people who will build houses will need stones. I identified also that if I cracked the stones and sold them I would pay my school fees on time. It worked.

After some time, I decided to hawk with rock burns. I took the rock burns and sold them for profit. I did this from form one to form three in the junior high school.

I grew up challenging the status quo and going through school. This usually surprise all and sundry who knew me when I was a boy.

Sometimes I had survived through life as a result of the benevolence of my uncles, friends and teachers who saw the perseverance in me.

There is nothing wrong with receiving favours from people. However, it is wrong to expect sympathy from people at the least difficulty one encounters. It is also wrong to depend on people all the time.

Yes. Self-esteem, not self arrogance nor undermining others. It is good for one to uphold his or her self-esteem by working hard to change his situation without depending on others.

All human beings have been created equal. However, we have all been blessed with different capabilities and abilities.

No one can be someone. That is why Dede Ayew and Jordan Ayew or Kimathi Rawlings and his sisters or Dr. Francis Nkrumah and his siblings can't be like their fathers .

They may do things like their fathers but can not be their fathers in any way.

Innovation comes out as a result of looking around one's immediate environment or setting and look out for solutions to the problems that confront the environment.

It is also a step taken or an initiative to change society and better the lives of a group of people who are confronted with one problem or the other.

This is achieved through hard work and persistence.

Back to my neighbour and her garden. My neighbour has not exhibited a sense of innovation but also generosity. Yes generosity.

She is seen allowing other neighbours who did not partake in her hardwork to harvest the vegetables in the garden. At other times she harvests the leaves for her neighbours who ask for the vegetables.

To my neighbour, all the toil do not matter once she puts a smile on the face of other neighbours who ask her for the vegetables.

Well she has fulfilled the popular saying among my friends and me "sharing is caring and caring is loving and loving is Godliness." This strategy of sharing helps to gain favour from those we live with. It further strengthens good relationship among neighbours. This is my view. It is subject to any dissenting view.

My neighbour's garden is not a big one. It has a local vegetables such as 'ademe' 'alefu' tomato, pepper and bitter leaves. It is not the garden that has ignited the urge to write this article but the initiative to turn around a piece of plot into a productive piece of plot is enough reason for this article.Well small things don't matter to some people but it matters to me.

As I write this article two of my friends laughed at me for trying to make this obvious effort too great.

But wait a minute- people grow up and change from the ideals and values which they were taught when they were growing up. The individual tends to see those ideals and values as outmoded or punitive.

All said and done, the old adage "the devil findeth work for the idle hand" should guide us when we are faced with the opportunity to change our society when it seems as if there is nothing to be done.

It is worth it to get involved in one profitable venture or the other. It is most fulfilling if our attempt to impact on society does not infringe upon the moral, social, educational and religious rights of any individual.

Alex is a freelance journalist who is interested in write ups about the day to day activities of people and the rural folk.