Dropping The  'Shit'

After a long period away I was totally amazed at what I saw - it was a complete deviation from what I saw growing up as a boy and what we've been used to. The beach was very neat. Not even the popular pure water sachet found virtually everywhere in the capital, Accra , found this beach habitable.

The only dirt you could find was the marks left by the waves that were carried ashore. For the very first time in years, I bathed the sands like water because I knew I didn't risk exhuming an old or a freshly buried 'shit' from the soil. I gave a gasp and told myself this was more than what I read and expected about the best beaches in Dubai. The beautiful scenery romantically reacting with the breeze kept me imprisoned in the grasps of the sand for hours before I finally made my way home.

That night, I couldn't forget about my new found love. I kept dreaming about having another time with her - to lie on her and feel her touch all over my fragile skin. Unlike Oliver Twist, I didn't only ask for more; I went for more the following morning. There I found the secret to my Love's beauty and class - her servants were busily adorning her with her alluring beauty. She winked at me from afar and her glamourous body instantly charmed every fibre of my body; my bone marrows were not left out - I could feel my libido level rising exponentially and I knew we would have a great time together all day long; and yes, we did! I was marveled at her transformation because knowing her from my childhood, she was never a sight to behold. I therefore approached the servants who were doing that wonderful work on her, and they told me they were ZOIL and ZOOMLION workers if my memories serves me right.

Hmmmm, these are all histories now. I can't say same of my beloved anymore - all I have left is memories. As I visited my beloved yesterday, the very person who has stolen my heart a year ago, was not the glamourous, beautiful and neat woman I used to know. My sweetheart, the beach, has become a disgusting sight. So I decided to pay another visit to her today, and as I write this, my heart is broken because the beautiful beach I once fell in love with has deteriorated to its previous state. Needless to say, it's even worse.

Now, everything is clear to me - her servants are no more. The ZOIL and the ZOOMLION workers who used to clean the coast of the village of my birth, Agavedzi, and its neighbouring towns have laid down their tools. Why? Exactly the question I asked the folks in town and the answer they gave was not something unusual - it's something we are used to as a nation. Good things never last in this country! We will do everything to promote corruption (the best way we fight this damning thing called corruption is to talk about it for a couple of days and that will be enough), but to promote the good, we will do everything to sabotage it. I was told this people would work unpaid, sometimes up to six months and when the assembly decided to pay them, it would give them only part of their salary arrears. These people kept cleaning the beaches regardless, with the hope that one day, their arrears would be paid and their stipend released at the end of every month. But alas! What else is there to do when hope is replaced with frustration, and trust with distrust? This is how this beautiful initiative ended and my beloved is no more a thing to long after- her body is now covered in filth, that notwishstanding, she's suffocating from the 'shits' the people keep downloading on her every passing minute.

Yesterday, as we stood on the shore to observe one of the beauties of nature, the sea, we were taken aback by what we saw. Not that what we saw was new to me (I used to transact that business some years back) but we were shocked at how they proudly ignored our presence and went on to do their own thing. One by one they came, lowered their trousers, shorts, skirts or cloth; depending on their sex, age and what they were wearing. How fast they walked to the beach and how hastily they lowered their attires depended on how impromptu and aggressive the call from nature was - you can judge from the nature and quantity of what they'd downloaded and from the relief on their faces after they had heeded to the call of nature.

The men were not shy away by the two beautiful ladies that had sandwiched me; neither were the ladies turned away by my presence. Well, it is said that when nature calls, you wouldn't care who watches. One would have thought these people after openly defecating under our watch would have shown a little bit of shyness, but they simply didn't care. For as long as we stood there, the beach had always received one messenger or the other, delivering that special message they had received from nature in different shades and styles - the popular styles on display were the 'drop and go' style, the 'doggie' style, the 'monkey' style, 'antelope' and the 'apaakye' style and it seemed some were even stammerers so they couldn't download their messages early. Different sizes and shapes of 'Kweku and Mansa Manus' were on display too. One after the other they came as if they were in an early morning queue at one of the public toilets yards in Accra, only that in their case, the queue was imaginary.

Talking about Accra, the peak hour for a public toilet business is the early hours of the morning. One can find a host of people in very long queues waiting for their turns to enter the delivery hole. In fact, watching the patrons of these public toilets can get your ribs cracking up - as you watch the speed at which people rush from their houses only to meet such long queues, their disappointing faces, the different body movement of people in an attempt to prevent the 'shit' from dropping involuntarily and the show casing of their anger at the delay of their predecessors in delivering their own messages is something you can't afford but laugh at. As a young guy, I oneday delayed in answering Her call, so nature decided to humiliate me.

I rushed to a public toilet behind the Abeka-market during its peak hour. It seemed everybody was busily guarding their 'anus-valves' so they couldn't notice my plight. There his attention was drawn to me; the man behind me alerted the people to give me a free pass only after he noticed something dripping down my thighs with an equally 'killer' fragrance. Hmmmm, people will always ignore your plights until you are humiliated by it. I learnt this lesson (the hard way) early in life: 'when nature calls you better be running, never give an excuse.'

Enough of the Accra talks, back to my village folks. We realised they never saw anything wrong with open defecation. This perception was even deepened when one of the men after settling his discourse with nature accosted me and told me to ask the ladies with me to stop putting their legs in the waves that were carried ashore - he didn't see anything wrong with his act but found everything wrong with ours.

I once asked a couple of people why they won't use the public toilets instead of destroying the beauty of the beach. Most of them asked me why they should risk smelling unpalatable odour from a public toilet when they can equally enjoy some fresh air on the comfort of the beach. I smiled as I remembered the ordeal I once went through in one of the K.V.I.Ps in town. I was busily downloading my thing when I was suddenly awakened from the mixed sensation the hot-pepperlike-fluidic-'shit' was taking my tummy and anus through by the sound of the footstep of another victim of nature who had rushed into the 'base' as if being chased by the ghosts of his former girlfriends. Immediately the footsteps stopped, he began downloading

The sound of his download was in three phases - pentecostal, helicopter and siren sounds. Pentecostal because it sounded like an all night prayer section organised by the church of pentecost in an attempt to break every curse on their lives; helicopter because the whole building was shaking and siren because it could be heard from afar. As if these were not enough, this man gave about 30 seconds continuous sound of the engine of a toyata tundra car. I couldn't hold myself anymore, I laughed hysterically and was joined by the man on another hole. There it dawned on our visitor that (like the liverpool fans might say) he wasn't alone. And to punish us for laughing at him, this man began to release a gas that choked us. I want to believe he had eaten a slightly 'spoilt' red-red with a rotten egg and some kenkey with a very hot pepper the day before, he might have had a bottle of an expired fresh yogurt for dessert. So I don't blame the people who go with the free range theory, but certainly, not at the expense of our beaches.

It's not only my village that suffers this fate - this is currently the state of most of the beaches in the Ketu-South municipality. Ghana knows us for being the 'world bank' for the ruling Party; however, the story that's never told is we are also the 'shit bank' and that the tidal waves have destroyed and continues to destroy lives and properties.

As I write this, the tides are rising. I decided to take a walk along the beach earlier, my heart was broken and I tried so hard to hold my tears upon seeing how the waves have destroyed most of the magnificient houses I used to know way back. The vast lands on which we used to play football and other childhood games were eaten up by the sea -in fact, the sea is just about 20-40 metres away from some houses. The villagers have their hearts in their mouths.

The people of Agavedzi, Blekusu, Adina, Horvi, Amutinu, Adafienu, Denu and its environs and parts of the Keta municipality have their hearts in their mouths - they are being displaced, their houses and properties are mercilessly being washed away by the sea and the government is playing politics with the sea-defence project it promised the indigenes of her so called world-bank. And should this bank be left to be robbed by the sea, I hope, no, I seriously pray, that the waves wash away the UMBRELLA as well, and that my people 'wise-up' and utilise their second expertise - a power which they themselves are oblivious of - changing this place from the world-bank and make it a 'shit-bank' of this ruling party!

God bless our homeland Ghana.

Authour: Elorm Hermann

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