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13.10.2020 Feature Article

The Burial Ground

The Burial Ground
13.10.2020 LISTEN

I am not surprised that the late Prof. Kofi Awoonor wrote such a beautiful poem titled "Rediscovery" just to talk about death. But his is our homeland that we continue to take for granted.

A few meters from the Savietula curve into the heartland of Aŋlɔ, one can count cemeteries in chains. The big and small. Those the size of a standard football pitch and those of the size of a tennis court. The ones that come in pairs and the lonely single graves in need of company.

You can see graves that wish to kiss to street and those that simply wish to stay away from the driver's eyes. And this I understand is our destiny as long as we come here as mortals.

But can't we find another way around this situation, before it gets to a point where the only reason why we visit our homeland is because we cannot trust the cemeteries in the cities to keep our dead safe?

The part that gets me confused the more is even if a person lived all his life abroad and never found reason to put a block upon the other in the quest to develop this very place called Aŋlɔ, we still find reason to bring the good for nothing corpse to be buried in this land to occupy useful space.

If whilst they were alive they didn't love to stay in this place, why do we think that in death they would comfortable stay at such same place?

I once heard a story about how a road project at Aflao had to be halted for so long because the community claimed that expanding the road would encroach an old grave yard. When I heard this story, I was quite young and so I thought the fight was because they feared that the ghost of the dead would cause havoc to drivers. But growing up I have come to realize that we simply just love the dead.

Then I recently read an argument from a city dweller who attempted to make the point that the call for the Volta region to be developed by Voltaians who live outside the region was out of place because everywhere is home. I agree! But if it is the case that everywhere is home why then should the corpse of such people be conveyed all the way to the Volta region when they had actually died at a place they call home and therefore could be buried there too?

A few months ago I was going through a page on social media and came across a flier of a young girl who had died in Ashaiman. Her funeral was to be done at Kedzi where the waste would be laid. However, when it came to choosing a venue for the church service and thanks giving they preferred a place in Ashaiman. And this was the breaking point for me. Is Aŋlɔ the land of funerals and the dead only?

Look, the sea is eating up our coast. And that appears to be one of the reasons why some people think they cannot put up an investment in this place. Therefore when they win a price to build a hospital with a research facility they build it elsewhere, when we vote for our own and they are to supervise the national coffers they leave their homeland with 3% and share the rest out there.

These people do not believe that donating a bag of cement for a continuing sea defence project could save our coast over their lifetime, and even build us a palm island as can be found in Dubai, yet, they believe that the land is a safe place to preserve the memorial of their parents, grandparents and loved ones.

The gravestones I count from anyanui through ʋuti, Woe, Tegbi, Busco junction to Kedzi alone can serve a massive purpose on our shore defending the land from the sea whilst we bury our dead in the now organic burial pods and turn our dead into plants and our graveyards into beautiful botanical gardens.

If they couldn't offer the land anything whilst they were alive let us at least convert their grave stones into sea defence walls and plant a tree on their decomposing cadaver.

I rest my thought!

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