MY GRANDMOTHER’S ANTACID I have had on occasion wondered when a hurricane will be named atinga or a typhoon, mawutor. When will we get a cyclone agyeman? But then again why compete for names of destructive geographical phenomena. Noteworthy though is El Nino who has myriad adverse effects on rainfall and many other such geographical matters and has also tried thereby to muddle my memory. So please pardon me if I am a little off my seasons. September used to be groundnut harvest time. Everyone looked forward to that month for there were fresh ground nuts aplenty to be instantly enjoyed. From uprooting through plucking to drying and storage. When I was a sapling, this season invariably caught me in my village- long vacation, it was called. It was general harvest time, starting from early millet in July through the groundnut September to the late millet October/November. At the onset of the harvest season, my dearly missed grandmother Nnana would equip herself with mahogany bark syrup. She guarded the receptacle with almost religious verve as we the young ones were known to pour out the potion, upon sight. It was meant, it was an all-round effective antacid for all stomachaches especially those closely related to over indulgence in early millet or groundnut. It was vilely putrid with a fetid odour. And I dare say that my grandma administered it with joy, evidenced by her smile and the twinkle in her otherwise tired eyes. So I ate the fresh groundnuts in large doses and grudgingly swallowed the inevitable syrup afterwards. One would have thought that the inevitability of the vile concoction would have steered me off the fresh groundnuts but alas, here was I naively expecting to talk my way out. I never once escaped the dose. And today I am grateful. All those sure stomachaches and constipations would surely have cost me my already tenuous health. Today, 2014, am told there is no groundnut harvest as there was no early millet gathering, all thanks to us, human beings who have so exploited mother earth that she is fatigued and thus confused. And in our usual escapist attitude we blame El Nino. Yet Ghana today is heavily constipated. With new causes; - Insidious individualism has made the extended family system a thing of the past. - Materialism has consumed our society and we all stop at NOTHING to become wealthy. - “Fellow feeling” is a very endangered species. - Respect for each other is now considered antiquated. - Corruption is a pandemic and its traces are in every facet or life. - Religion is business, raking in millions, selling salvation, promising a heavenly hereafter and paying no tax. - Education has become a joke and even “betittled” folk have problems with “is” and “are”. - The environment is daily being pillaged, mining, logging, fishing all take their toll and no one bothers to care. Ghana is constipated! -Morality has been thrown to the dogs. Nothing is sacred anymore. - Chieftaincy has been compromised. - Religious leaders have become morally bankrupt. -Political leaders have stopped leading. -The Academia has sold their birthright. Money, profit, wealth, kickbacks, dividends, percentages, honoraria, per Diems, seed, allowances, cuts, allocations-the new stomachache, the new constipation. If we don’t want an explosion of the Ghanaian stomach, we have to have a collective enema or at least my grandmother’s antacid. And when we are purged, we start to take in love, morality, accountability, justice, fairness, equitable distribution of national cake, respect for each other, environmental responsibility, restoration of the place and face of religion, etc. ONLY THEN CAN WE EVENTUALLY HAVE HOPE.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:22:02 +0000
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