Village boy Impressions

I am but a pin in this strangling place; A manic world drowning in sensual excess. Yonder lies only shameless opulence, And here, shameful squalor and discontent Where cats eat mice and cheese  And the mice must eat other mice. Each day I jostle with the thousands  In the sweltering noon sun at Nima With hands and breast,  I must heave and cleave, The foundation of new mansions at Ashongman Must push and pull truck and cart Through Kantamanto and Mallam Atta And nudge my way through the  madding crowds At Ashaiman and Agbogbloshie  Till I hear the clink of copper in my pocket  Or see the precious red paper at hand To buy only stale bread and pure water, Pay one macho man to ease myself, And another one to wash, And the rest to an indolent landlord  at Sodom and Gomorrah Whose only estate is the half-rotten kiosk Where at the coming of darkness With my legs as heavy as lead, My muscles sickly with fatigue And all my joints disjointed, I...

I walk my beat in cities and markets— under the perspiring sun. From Tamale to Kejetia , Techiman to Takoradi — Accra my home base: Nima , Mallam Atta , Agbogbloshie , Makola — Everywhere, I am there. Head pan in hand.   I thread markets and bus stations. From six to six—rain or shine— Carrying other people’s loads. Who pick their way behind me, daintily, watching, anxious, while I shout and nudge through the crowds, lest I be lost with their goods. And when I arrive— they begrudge me my wage.   Foxes have holes. Birds have nests. But I— a daughter, a mother— have none. I make my bed in borrowed spaces, where weary pillows give no rest, and sleep eludes me. I am prey to mosquitoes and all blood-sucking creatures . Unscrupulous men lurk in the dark to plunder both my purse and womanhood, and leave me a mother with a double load, if not worse.   Shop-owners scowl at me. Drivers curse me. Shoppers call me what they please— until they need my head to carry what they will ...