A 'bleeding' Slum Community : Hope Beyond Hope

general view of chemu sea

Few meters away from the final stop at Chemuenaa, a fishing community in chorkor, it was evident that sanitation conditions around here was on the low. But the gentle breeze that greeted us aboard the twenty year-old rickety Troski, compensated for the situation.

How serious the community folk took fishing and fish-mongering was overwhelming.We could remotely smell stale fish odour from where we were seated, the next lane behind the "mate".

Jemima had to conduct some interviews for a project she was working on, but could not speak Ga, which is the local language of the people. So I escorted her to assist her do the interviews, since I could put a few ga words together to make a complete thought better than she could.

It was Wednesday afternoon , approaching the sea shore, there were many children and adults doing any, two or all of swimming, fishing, crab-hunting, defecating, washing and playing football, synonymous with holiday beach scenes.

docked canoes at the shore

A few steps away from the shore, up a hill were wooden structures which served as abode for the fisher folks and their dependents.Tired parents laid on benches while their children played in the sea.

Jemima is shocked by what she sees. Children as young as four year olds are busily swimming and hunting crabs and fish. But I tell her it's normal in areas like these, speaking from experiences I had had growing up in Labadi.

Sowah is seen keenly observing a phenomenon while about fifteen meters into the sea away from the shore. Kotey, his five year old younger brother was playing with about eight fishes his brother had caught with his hook and line in a blue plastic bowl. Sowah was watching closely to see if his bait had caught a fish.

[Boy, boy, Jemima calls out to Kotey who comes to tell us that Sowah was actually fishing.] We told him we were explorers who wanted to know how the fishing experience was,and life at the sea shore.

[Sowah smiles at us and begins to speak with us. He is a class five pupil whose English speaking ability was not as terrible as the few guys we had spoken to earlier. He tells us he comes occasionally to catch fish with his hook and line after school for use in the kitchen for food.]

[He is enthused about the numbers he had caught that day. He offers to teach us how but Jemima would not even go close to the sea.]

During the time of our conversation with Sowah, I noticed their parents were watching with keen interest from a distance, perhaps threatened by our presence.

[Alex is a seventeen year old boy who quit school while in class four.] He had to drop out to help his father fish and his mother monger the fish his father harvested. Alex and his family are able to make 400 cedis on a good day from fish sales. It appears Alex is a local champion here, [all the kids gather around us, while we are speaking with him.]

Asked whether he would like to go back to school, he responded in the negative. He wants to be a "fisherman"in future.

Francis is fifteen, and also a crew member of the young fishing clique here. For him, aside fishing, he would like to be a mason or a drivers' mate. He has not been to the classroom before and holds no ambition for schooling.

Though pathetic, these children, male and female find ways to entertain themselves in this community. They are excited about playing football among themselves and swimming.

More worrying was the conditions around the shore. [Just about a yard away from the shore,young and Older men are seen comfortably defecating along the sea.They are unfazed by our constant spying and would not even cover their "valuables".]

some residents defecating @ the shore

As the sea water occasionally waved towards the shore, it washed into it all the excreta the area folk left along the shore.

[Heaps of refuse stand in front of the wooden structures on a hill, while liquid waste drains from the heap into the sea.]

[We see some stray pigs having a good bathe as well together with the children. Close to the long heaps of refuse are half-destroyed pig Stys from which dark liquid and solid waste are seen trickling slowly into the sea.]

The challenges of those living here at chemuenaa are a multiplicity of issues. Mr. Mensah just returned from easing himself at the shore, and [tells us there is no public toilet facility around here, so whenever those living here felt like attending nature's call,the closest is the shore.]

[He doesn't find anything strange about it, partly because it has become their way of life.]

At the sea shore, a group of pregnant female inhabitants led by Maa Korkor are having their monthly spiritual fortification. Every month, pregnant women go to the shore and undertake this activity. Turn after turn, each pregnant woman is asked to roll back up, front up, very close to the sea, to cover a certain length of space, under the guidance of Maa KorKor.

pregnant women @ the fortification

This, I gather from some residents is done to keep the babies in their right places and to as well create that bond among the mothers, babies and the gods. A group of ten females are having this session at the time of my visit. What ran through my mind spontaneously was whether this act was medically advisable.

How would pregnant women roll on their protruding bellies? What would be the long term ramifications of the act on the women and their health?

Elsewhere tired Nii, one of the many fisher folk who went fishing earlier on this holiday, is seen lying at the shore. It might have been a really hectic trip. As if the conditions here are not bad enough, livestock being reared by dwellers move into the sea and wash themselves. Some pigs, I spotted had just finished splashing the sea water over themselves and were scavenging through the heap of refuse, just on the side of the sea.

Insanitary conditions @ the shore

tired fisherman,Nii takes a nap

According to residents, the community lacks a public toilet. All attempts to contact the municipal assembly of the area, residents tell me have over the years proven futile. Just as the typical politician, the municipal chief executive only comes to solicit votes from the slumdwellers only when elections beckon.................

The facility which serves the need of the people is located far off the sea shore, hence those living close by are unable to have access. They lament this has left them with very little by way of choices. An uncomfortable scenario of fisher folk running about 200 meters from the shore to the public toilet is a lot of work, and dwellers are not ready to suffer such torture, while their best bet is as free a range as the sea shore.

As a result, all the inhabitants defecate by the sea, and whenever the waves roared up shore, it was sure to sweep away remnants of the fecal matter in their huge numbers, some solid, others watery, into the sea. A situation which poses serious long term health risks to these same people who use the water for their routine activities. No wonder this community records high cases of cholera.

Leaving the community,I saw an information van.The announcement bellowing from the speakers of the information van, was that, the next two days after my visit, there was going to be a massive community-wide clean-up exercise, to rid the area off some of the filth accumulated in the slum.

information van @ chemueenaa

While walking ahead still along the shore, Jemima lost the sole of her high heels, we called Nii to help us locate a provision shop, where she bought a pair of "aka me last" flip flop, and decided that we had had enough of the tour.

Meandering through the crevices and corners corners, we made for the roadside.

We left chorkor chemuenaa with a lot of emotions. Life has not been as easy for people living here like it has for some of us in the cleaner, more planned settlements, with if not all, a large chunk of social amenities at our disposal.

Education for instance is more of a luxury for people here than a necessity in the face of growing advancement in technology.

All we could do was to lament what the future looks like for the children here, and what the future of the community itself is ????????

Kingsley Komla Adomah
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