Toilets of shame! (Part II)

 

By Solomon Mensah

Caution: The content of this article could be nauseating to the reader!

Fighting the stench

In Sunyani, I met a toilet attendant who doubles as the cleaner in one of the toilets I visited. For the sake of anonymity, I will call him Papa Asare. Bare handedly, he held a short broom in the right hand tightly like a relay baton. I gawked at him as he picked the half-worn-out baskets that had toilet papers in them one after the other and poured the contents into a bigger basket.

The 52 year old man stamps his right leg on the piled toilet papers to suppress it from falling from the basket. While I struggled to take a breath, he did the sweeping seemingly happily without a nose mask. “I would have wished wearing a nose mask and gloves to work but I have never been given any,” he told me.  

Papa Asare hints that cleaners use DDT and other chemicals to wash the toilet seats. “These chemicals kill the houseflies and other animals that are in the toilets,” he noted. However, “It is not all the time that the caretakers of the toilet supply us the DDT. Therefore, what we often use is just ordinary water.”

The flies, as I spoke with him, hovered all over. A user of any of the public toilets performs another function in addition to easing him/herself. “For the user of the public toilet, he or she has to fan away the houseflies incessantly,” he admitted.

Another toilet attendant, a woman, whom I will name as Ama Kwakyewaa, told me that “The Sunyani Municipal Assemblies’ Health Inspectorate Team occasionally comes to inspect the toilet. But the sad thing is that when they come, they stand meters away and write their report. It was on only one occasion that I saw them enter this toilet to inspect,” she said.

Mr. Simon Opoku, the Municipal Environmental Health Officer-Sunyani, however, debunks the assertion that his men do not enter the toilets during their inspections. “I enter the male section of the toilets but not that of the females’ since I am a male,” he said. On the provision of gloves, nose and mouth masks for the toilet cleaners, he admits that some of the private operators who partly manage these facilities with the assembly fail to resource their cleaners with such gears.

He said that the standard of the public toilets in the Sunyani Municipality is average and that they are not to perfection. Answering my question as to whether he will use these toilets himself, he gave a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ reply. “Yes, if the standard of the toilet is good and vice versa,” he observed. Attempt to reach the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to as well react to the standard of public toilets went futile.

Contracting diseases

Dr. Ohene Adu is a private medical doctor in Sunyani. He tells me there are a number of diseases that one is likely to contract from the public toilet. “Candidiasis (in women), urinary tract infection (in both men and women) and diarrhea are some of the diseases one could contract on an untidy toilet,” he said.

Considering the filthy nature of our public toilets, a user is prone to contracting any of such diseases.

Public toilet in the news

On Adom FM’s News (17^th August, 2013 and 19^th August, 2013 respectively), it was reported that at Aseseso (Akuapem South) in the Eastern Region, both men and women use the same column of a public toilet due to malfunction of the female section and at Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region, a public toilet overflowed. Just close to the Amasaman’s overflowing toilet, the report said, sat a school and food vendors.

The Foot Soldiers’ factor

The public toilets, unlike the days of old, are now jointly managed by the various assemblies together with private individuals. According to Mr. Simon Opoku, the assembly used to advertise to the general public for interested persons to sign a contract to run the facility with the assembly.

He, however, said that for the past two to three regimes (governments), the laid down procedure in getting private individuals for the joint management of the toilets has changed. “Now, foot soldiers will seize the toilet and give it to their own men to partner the assembly in the toilet’s management,” he noted.

Looking beyond the toilet seizures, no decent word can be used to describe any of the toilets the foot soldiers fight over. “With the present system of foot soldiers taking captive of the toilets, the assembly can only query them of the poor state of the toilets but rather cannot take the ‘ownership’ from them,” says Mr. Opoku.

Where does the money go?

Averagely, the public toilet user pays 20 pesewas to access the toilet. The following table analyzes the income such toilets owners receive. The table uses two hundred (200) users of a toilet to calculate its proceeds in a day, month and year. Assuming every user visits the toilet once in a day.

Unit cost	Day (1)	Week (7)	Month (30)	Year (12months)
0.20p	200x20	40x7	280x4wks	1120x12
Total	GHc40.00	GHc280.00	GHc1,120.00	GHc13,440.00

Proposed fiscal analysis of sanitary income of a toilet from its 200 people (users).

The million dollar question now to ask is where do these monies go???

Mr. Simon Opoku says the owners pay 40 to 60 Ghana Cedis to the assembly in a month. He is hopeful that with the Sunyani Municipal Assembly’s newly drafted policy to police the private ownership of public toilets and the effort of his office, cleanliness would be restored to such toilets. Until then, users of the public toilet like Derrick and Juliet will have to battle the filth and stench.

The Writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist and a Cultural Activist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

 

 

Toilets of shame! (Part I)

 

By Solomon Mensah

Caution: The content of this article could be nauseating to the reader!

Filth in Darkness 

The Sun seems breathing fire. From where it hangs in the sky to where the descendants of Adam tread on Earth, one wonders why its heat is so severe. Derrick Fosu, a 27 year old teacher, is seen with his forehead dotted with beads of sweat. He trudges out of a public place of convenience here at New Town, a suburb of Sunyani.

The toilet stands close to the Methodist Junior High School. Observing it from afar, it promises to have had a good architectural look of its frontal view. A dwarfish wall of pillars and mesh in shambles stand on the edges of both the male and female entrances of the toilet. The wall protrudes to form a square-like shape to enclose the forecourt. Upon entering the forecourt, a wooden structure (on the left) which has never ‘tasted’ paint sits like a bull frog in a swamp. In the tattered and tilted kiosk which could perfectly be described as a hen coop sits the toilet’s attendant, an old man. He munches some groundnuts.

“I bought my paper of which one cost 20 pesewas. Its size is a little bigger than a class one pupil’s A1 exercise book. Walking down the defaced concrete ‘red carpet’ pavement to enter the toilet, one is greeted by a very pungent smell like that of an expired egg,” Derrick says.

He says that he started wearing glasses (lens) far back in 2002, then a Junior High School student. “But even with my glasses on, I get lost into an impenetrable darkness whenever I enter this toilet.”

Boakyewaa Juliet, a 37 year old trader, will not pass by upon seeing me interview Derrick. She says when one enters the facility in question, the first half of a minute, one stands still like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s statue at the Independence Square due to the darkness in it.

Derrick says that on his first day of patronizing the facility, he had to draw back into the day’s light to switch on a ‘flashlight application’ he had on his phone. “This was just about 30 seconds after entering. Slowly lifting one leg after the other, I finally found what my eyes told me was a clean seat to squat on.

“Minutes later I realized that my feet sat in a pool of maggots. The maggots were as innumerable as one couldn’t imagine such that if you threw a grain of sand onto them, it would not find a way to fall onto the cemented floor,” he told me.

Derrick and Juliet’s concerns represent the sentiments shared by both the young and elderly who are the patrons of these public toilets. Boakyewaa tells me that aside the toilet, the only option for easing oneself is the ‘wrap and throw’ method. “You do it in a polythene bag and throw it away. But I feel guilty doing that so this toilet is my last resort.” 

The state of others

At Penkwasi- another suburb of Sunyani- the filth that adorns public toilets is not any different. Few meters away from the Highstreet JHS sits two toilets. By just filing pass one of them (KVIP), one stands the chance of being heartlessly ‘perfumed’ without paying a pesewa. This particular toilet has lately seen a little improvement. Visiting it this time, it has new aluminum roofing and seemingly whitewashed.

Martha Adjei who just got out of the toilet shared the ordeal patrons of the toilet go through. “One has to squint off the pots of urine and battle houseflies,” she said. Upon entering the toilet, pockets of urine that stand in holes in front of the squatting-seats send one squinting. At New Dormaa, Zongo, Area II, and Area III among many other suburbs of Sunyani, the state of our public toilets is the same.

AMA’s tomb in the Capital City 

I did not limit my search for a clean public toilet only to Sunyani. In the heart of Ghana’s capital city, Accra, is a toilet that I refer to as a tomb. It is situated some few meters from Maame Dorkono’s Obra Spot. The Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s (AMA) toilet at the 37-Labadi Lorry Station is given a good painting on its outer look. It has both urinal and toilet in one hall. I paid 20 pesewas to urinate.

In the toilet, one of three ceiling fans meticulously rotates to drive away the unbearable breeze. On the doors of the toilet’s cubicles is the inscription; “Please do not stand on the pot. Sit on it.” Such give the impression that the AMA, by the standard of this particular toilet, is poised to uplift the face of public toilets. However, this one, like the others, is bedeviled with uncleanliness.

The water closet and urine sink are turning brownish in colour. The former is in such a bad state that users of the facility hide in squatting on it instead of sitting; which the toilet attendants seriously abhor. The flashing system of the WC has as well collapsed. One has to fetch water from a tank placed outside the facility when flashing. The stench here, probably because of the chemical used in cleaning the toilet, is disgusting. “Its condition, if not for the pressing need to attend to nature’s call, I will never enter,” a user told me.    

On my tour of public toilets, I have come to one of the sanity-crippled toilets here at Labadi, a suburb of Accra. This toilet sits opposite to the Omanye Art Gallery, on the Labadi Beach road. I have bought my paper of which one cost 20 pesewas. Looking at the filthy nature of the water closet, most users buy two papers costing them 40 pesewas.

Adjetey, a user tells me, “We divide one of the papers into two so as to spread them on the edges (mouth) of the pot. I once vomited upon entering the toilet because of the nauseating scent.” He says that in the rainy season, maggots climb up to the mouth of the pots and it is very worrying.

At La Maami, close to the Fraga Oil at the lorry station, another toilet announces its presence by its stench. In front of this toilet, food vendors compete for space as they mount their stands to sell to their prospective consumers.

Watch this space for Part II soon.

The Writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist and a Cultural Activist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

What Car Does Adwoa Safo Cruise?

By Solomon Mensah

Apostle, His car & Adwoa

Once upon a time, in the annals of a third year teacher trainee, a thrilling conversation ensued between him and his pupils. Out of tension, a ‘gbaa alert’ was recorded when a supervisory team that had visited his school told him to teach for marks,

Tr: Children, what is holding me? (He held a tin of milk)

Pupils: (Dead silence)

Tr: Oh childrens! What is holding me?

Pupils: (Dead silence)

Tr: This a ‘mlik konko.’ Say mlik konko!

Pupils: Mlik konko!

The above is a tip of fun we had back at the Berekum College of Education. Akokora Wee (our Compound Overseer) would share jokes while he loaded us (greenhorns) like camels with workloads. In the colleges, I guess, are where all the world’s jokes are hatched. So when the CO himself had shared a joke, who were you to say tweaaa and stand still as a statue into whose face the artiste has moulded defiance? Ajala (comic exclamation)!

Today while I reminisce and laugh with you over the ‘mlik konko,’ let’s ask Madam Adwoa Safo (daughter of Kantanka and Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya, Greater Accra Region) the teacher’s simple question. Sister Adwoa, what car’s key is holding you?

I first wrote about Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo, taking Ghana’s industrialization to a higher level, during my first days at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. I had before then watched his thrilling innovations on the screens of my television.  Gently wave your hand in front of a television set and it switches on/off! That was amazingly superfluous. The )nantefo) and )bremp)n (cars) among others beat my imaginations as well.

The question that many Ghanaians kept quizzing themselves with upon seeing such innovations was whether what the Star of Africa manufactured was indeed made in Ghana. With the passage of time, one has come to accept that whatever we heard or saw about the Apostle is nothing but the truth. Ghana like Adom TV; ‘y3 w) adze a oye.’ Sad enough, however, our ‘adze a oye’ is being left to the dustbins as successive governments have paid little attention to helping the Apostle establish a strong brand of manufacturing plant in Ghana.

Aside the great number of innovations that are being launched by Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo (Kantanka) every year, his single effort to develop Ghana through his God given talent has been inadequate. This should tell any discerning mind that the Apostle’s mission is not a one man demonstration. All hands must be on deck.

So would it not have been a great move Adwoa Safo cruising one of her father’s cars? I have of late given myself a title; A Cultural Activist. I believe in the culture (way of life) of Africa/Africans that would help our continent move from zero to hero and from hero to legend. It is in this light that I am madly crazy to see your father ‘grow’ to the status of a world icon. It is said that when a dog bites a man is not news but when man bites a dog, becomes a big news. As it stands, my influence in the society goes not beyond my family and few friends who would ‘follow’ me upon seeing my report in the media. But let Adwoa Safo cough and it would become news to our tingling ears. This is to say that as a cultural activist dying to see our land develop through what we have, even if I have the purchasing power to choose and cruise one of the wonder cars, the crowd I would pull for people to think Kantanka wouldn’t be as massive as you would do.

“Kantanka in parliament,” “Adwoa Safo on mission drive Kantanka,” “Kantanka surpasses all innovations- Adwoa Safo” are but some of the headlines I have craved to see on the front pages of our newspapers. Unfortunately, I have not yet come across such headlines in the media. I guess you have not realized that aside being a woman, your presence in Ghana’s parliament add up to the power you carry?

Tell the bus driver to stop for you to offload the content of your bladder and you would see the rest of the passengers following suit. Many a time in life, we need someone who is courageous and self-determined to start that which we even fear to mention its name. If is it the rest of your cohorts in parliament and other influential public figures that have a dwindling faith in your father’s dream, rise up to prove them wrong.

Historically, the man who came from beyond the boiling sea to rule us did not only chain our hands but he as well tried chaining our minds. From 1927 to 1934, Dr. Ephraim Amu was employed as a music teacher at the Akropong Presbyterian Training College (APTC). The father of Ghanaian art music was, however, faced with a tough opposition at the APTC for advocating for the wearing of, what the whites called, ‘native cloth’ to preach. I believe that some orders from above are coiling our leaders into their shells from making made-in-Ghana a reality. But we must today tell the world that we are using what we have first before anything else. Kudos to great men like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings for spearheading the wearing of Northern Ghana’s smock. Today, the smock is selling well on the market.

Going by this suggestion, the Kantanka brand would be well embraced by Ghanaians and the world at large. But Madam Lawyer, if you already cruise a Kantanka made vehicle, I would plead your court to pardon me of contempt. However, if it happens that you have abandoned your own and sought comfort-cruise-asylum in what the Whiteman has manufactured, then you have done a disservice to the Apostle.

Together, we can help cup our hands to shelter the flame of the oil lamp lighted by the Star of Africa from the blowing wind.

The writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist and a Cultural Activist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

Skype: solomensah123

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Day BBC Went Silent!

By Solomon Mensah

Komla Dumor

It was the 18^th day of January, 2014. I had closed from church and sought asylum in a friend’s house from the torrential beatings of the burning sun. For about an hour I sat and chatted with her (no fringe intentions), she burst in with a message someone had sent her on WhatsApp.

“A friend tells me Komla Dumor is dead,” she said to me. What? Fumbling as though I was teargased, I struggled to locate myself upon hearing this. I was lost; probably in my mind. I tell you, the name ‘Komla Dumor’ (KD) by then kept bouncing in my mind left right center. Who could that be? A minister, pastor or …?

I just didn’t want to hear that the man I have loved and longed to be where he used to be was no more. Indeed, after witnessing death taken captive of my parents within a period of two years, I always shrink in size hearing death as with an old woman’s uneasiness when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

Quickly, I called Manasseh Azure Awuni of Joy FM (a close friend of KD) to ascertain the accuracy of Komla Dumor’s reported death. “That is what people have been calling me to confirm. Let me make some calls to verify,” the boy from Bongo told me. Ending the call on this note, I had a little hope that after all, no one has confirmed it yet.

All this while, as I always do when following a story, I kept my eyes glued to the websites of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Joy FM, Citi FM among others and on Facebook and Twitter. But there was no confirmed news on KD. So from where was such a devastating message/rumor coming? I quivered and shivered, and stuck my hands in between my thighs. “Solo, you are too emotional,” Foriwaa (my friend) said to me. “This man is one of my great mentors in journalism,” I replied.

Logging in to Facebook, I saw a post of Manasseh; “BBC News is still silent. I called Komla Dumor’s UK number and I am told I should leave a message because the person I am calling cannot answer. Can his family members help us?”

When I saw this, I had lost hope and words. All I could say was ‘Oh Mamamia!’ But still the BBC was damn silent. What was happening? Minutes later, I read a post of Samson Lardy Ayenini of Joy FM on Facebook. He was bold to somehow confirm the news. There and then, a friend in Accra wrote on WhatsApp that Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Joy FM and Citi FM had confirmed it. ‘Yesu! Agye g)n.’

… And the rest is history. Komla Dumor is gone. Could you believe this? The day the monkey is destined to die, our elders say, all the trees in the forest get slippery. Indeed, the heart of KD had become too slippery to gently stay in his chest. So sad!

Reading tributes that are being poured on him, I get realized that life is too short. Has it not been ‘eat’ that is within ‘DeatH,’ I would have canceled it out of my dictionary. Was Shakespeare not right when he said that death is a fearful thing? But what can we say again, he is gone. Although he left us at a tender age- at the peak of his career- he left behind a good number of virtues that when the young (and even the old) tap, they would be the young suckers that would replace mother banana. KD inspired the black race and proved to the world that the blackman is as capable as the men who reside beyond the boiling sea.

I’m short of words but before I shut down my laptop, I would like to encourage us to let KD’s life overshadow his death. For it is said that the robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

Would you mind sharing with me how you received the news of KD’s death? Aha, did you also notice that the BBC delayed in breaking the news? Was it a case of professionalism? I still don’t get it.

The writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

Their gods, our wives

By Solomon Mensah & Mavis Boamah

 

“When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

That is what the legendary wizard of literature, Chinua Achebe, tells us in his renowned novel Things Fall Apart. Indeed, if the end of the year (2013) had brought my childhood friend, who now seeks academic asylum in the Whiteman’s land home, it was never the case that he could not have seen the end of the year at that vast lands that lay beyond the boiling sea. It was, however, a way of gathering together with family and friends here under the scorching sun.

Whenever we meet, we do not merely talk of the fact that we are growing old but of the responsibilities that come with ageing as well. We are nearing thirty and marriage - like the suffering that knocks at one’s door, when you tell it there is no seat for him, tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool - stares at our faces. If you had ever seen a sanitary inspector fixedly looking at the bottom of a barrel filled with water, you would understand what I mean here. Family and friends are asking ‘when are you marrying?’

But aside the azonto-weddings that today’s Ghanaian woman is eager to embroil around her neck, a number of factors push young men like me and my friend to coil into our shells. The young Ghanaian woman (some) longing to be a white African- bleaching, shaving of eyebrow, enlongating their nails, lips painting and devastating enough, the wearing of wigs. I hear common Cocoa Butter cream has recently turned a black woman into an oyibo.

Unlike cunning Kwaku Ananse who would carry all the world’s wisdom on his protruding belly, I would like to zoom in on only one of the aforementioned factors by carrying it at my back for discussion. Ladies, kindly relax and read; I have no intention of “al-shababing” you with verbal bullets.

Tell me, why do you wear wigs? How do you feel in it? Do you have any idea how you look like when in it? Well, some look nice on some heads. But as to whether it fits your head or not, wigs have some serious spiritual backgrounds that I think if you had known, you would have discarded it to the dustbin.

This is what the 020/0244 pastors won’t tell you. They are in for your money and not your salvation. Why not put aside the “I am highly favoured” mentality and follow the subsequent lines in sober reflections. Come on!

Looking through historical window, records have it that by 1580, syphilis – a sexually transmitted disease – had become one of the worst epidemics to strike Europe. William Clowes, an English Surgeon, described the number of syphilis patients who clogged London’s hospitals as “infinite multitude.” It is recorded that without antibiotics by then, victims of the disease suffered; nasty rashes, blindness, open sores, and hair loss.

Long hair was a trendy status symbol in the society. With those who had the ‘Lord to be their barber,’ battling baldness was as painful as though been told to squeeze water out of a rock. The syphilis epidemic, partly, fueled the surge in wig making. Historians referred to wig made for the bald as a shameful necessity. You see, the craze to have hair on one’s head did not start with Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney.

Away from the syphilis canker, at age 17, Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), the King of France sprung on his feet with the agility of a leopard and commanded 48 wig makers to save his image. What image? The desire to maintain his hair on his head. Five years later, the King of England, Charles II, is also reported to have emulated Louis’ hair restoration. Kings Abr3!

… And the history of wigs continues unabated. In this 21^st century, I am yet to spot a descendant of Eve who is growing bald. I think finding a naturally-bald-woman would be as scarce as meeting a lady in her prime. Perhaps such a lady might be suffering from such hair loss related sicknesses. So again, women why do you wear wigs? Mavis Boamah is a level 200 student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. She finds out.

I am taking a stroll through one of the principal streets of Accra. Here at one shoulder of the street, pedestrian malls stand like bull frogs in a swamp. Solomon, feet are stepping on feet and heads knocking heads as passers struggle their way through this chocked lane.

On my immediate left is a metallic store, a little bigger than the size of a lotto kiosk, filled to the brim with cosmetics. In the store are mannequins head-geared in wigs and weaves

Women, old and young, either troop in and out of the store or steal a glance at the mannequins on tenterhooks. Felicity is a 25 year old woman. I ask her why the craze for wigs; “Well for me, it adds up to my beauty. Whether it’s the bride or the corpse in wig, the product electrifies their beauty.”

For Rita Adutwumwaa and her friend Abigail, both nurses, “wearing of wigs does not only save one’s hair from breaking off but it cuts down the cost of going to the salon every week.” From what I have gathered so far, Solomon, wigs are but just another twist of fashion.

Alright Mavis, thank you.

It comes in different forms with various names. The human hair such as the Brazilian hair and other many synthetic ones; the wig caps and the hair braids. But from where do we get these wigs? Sources such as (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhzyAKAtbU4) affirm how human hairs are sacrificed to gods at Hindu temples, India. These hairs are later packaged to countries such as ours for sale to our women whom we take for wives. The most dangerous thing in relation to the sale of these hairs is that, most of the worshippers who donated their hairs to their gods do not know that their religious leaders later sell them out.

India is not the only country noted for either sacrificing human hair to gods or selling such hairs. In many other countries including Peru, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB-eOprpq-M), one’s hair could be sold in other to afford a bowl of meal.

Mavis, owing to this, whenever I see a lady in wig; whether human hair or synthetic, I jerk my head sharply like an animal that has sniffed death in the air. Perhaps, the only thing that attracts men like me is the wiggling of our ladies’ buttocks like worms in skin tights- Parental Guide (PG).

Mavis, I guess you know that both the Bible and the Quran speak against one adding artificial hair to their natural hair? Please don’t ask for quotations. Let me sound here like muffled drums before your fellows twist my head for me to see my heels.

But as it stands now, if I do not meet such Indian women with long natural hairs, then I may be compelled to marry one of their “gods.”

 

Solomon Mensah is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist and Mavis Boamah, a Student-Journalist at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ).

Writers’ emails: nehusthan4@yahoo.com & boamahmavis@ymail.com

Exposed: Andy Dosty’s Voodoo!

^{By Solomon Mensah}

Andy Dosty

^{My thinking became painful. As painful as what the bell feels when its testicle is pricked against its walls. “W’asom y3 wod3,” I guess you want to know why? Well, it all happened at a library in Accra.}

^{I had gone there to study but, frankly, I didn’t even know that I went there with handouts. For close to five minutes, she moved in and out of the library as if she had lost something valuable. Whenever she entered, something tickled my medulla oblongata (reminds me of Bukum Banku). Something that pushed me within to say ‘wow.’ If there is any word stronger than ‘beautiful,’ please write it here ……. for me so I use to describe her to you.}

^{Her firm inviting breasts dangled left then to right, like the way a bush sways in a torrential storm, in her brownish loose gown that marched her skin complexion. For all this while of stealing glances at this lady who had placed her books adjacent to my studying desk, I tell you, I had forgotten all my Bible quotations. Not even, John 11:35; “Jesus wept” came to mind.}

^{I took my phone, plugged in earphone and turned the radio on to run away from this temptation. I moved from one radio station to the other in search of good music. Hypnotized by what I heard along the movement through the stations, I doubted my ears. A jingle of one of Ghana’s all-time best disc jockeys, Andy Dosty, had been played.}

^{Andy Dosty, we know trades his profession in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, therefore hearing him on an Accra based radio station made me quizzed myself with questions. Is he on a visit to say ‘hi’ to his Accra based-fans? The questions kept hovering around me.}

^{I gathered later that he is now working with Multimedia Broadcasting Company’s Hitz FM (103.9). That’s another good move.}

^{Andy, on that fateful day of my library ordeal, it was you who saved me from the hands of that charming looking young woman. I buried my head in my palm with my eyes shut and gently nodded my head like an agama lizard as I listened to the songs you played.}

^{Our elders caution us not to call the forest that shelters us, a jungle. I have for long being listening to you. From your days in the Garden City on Otec FM, Angel FM till your present day Hitz FM and I can never rubbish your finger prowess. Yeah, not even in the time that your music playing has been of enormous benefit to me.}

^{Andy, when, where and how did you learn your disc jockeying? You must be grateful to whoever taught you. From the era of cassette, where a DJ would wind it with his finger to get the track he wants to play to smashing it in the palm, through to the present day compact disc and the use of computer has been great.}

^{But aside all these milestone of your achievements, why a voodoo? Has your heart palpitated as if a set of abadza drums were mounted on your chest? Well, I think in our modern Ghana, one doing business or intending to pull crowd needs ‘this’ or ‘that’ to succeed. What do you think?}

^{Steuart Henderson Britt says it best that doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. The voodoo I speak of is not that of Kyeiwaa’s in a Kumawood Movie but of what Henderson speaks of. Advertising one’s self/business.}

^{Of late, social media has become so importantly relevant that one doing away with it renders one’s life ineffective like clapping with one hand. One of my brothers, knew nothing about computers nor the modern trend of communication before he left the shores of Ghana to the Whiteman’s land, Today, he worries me with Skype, Facebook, Whatsapp and the like. He has become so good at social media that he at times updates me on the happenings around the world.}

^{Andy Dosty, like Printex- ‘maaso m3hy3 bi,’ is not left out of the web of social media. Ever since we became friends on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, I have followed every single post of his like the way a vulture traces after a carcass. Andy would post a question on Facebook prior to the start of his show on Hitz FM and there he goes actively interacting with his listeners.}

^{“I bought a refrigerator for my wife for the sale of ‘pure water.’ Each time I pick one to drink, she strangles me to pay for it. I want to take my fridge away, after all I pay for all the utility bills. What do you think?” Such is one of his ‘voodoos’ dated December 12, 2013, and this attracted 94 Comments, 38 Likes.}

^{With 21K likes on his fan page and actively engaging them is something good to write home about. I have always lambasted the National Service Scheme (NSS) for being communication crippled. Ask the NSS why one, for instance, has to travel all the way from Accra to Sunyani just to register to be a service person? Can this not be done by just click of a mouse? Recently, I received a barrage of text messages from candidates (NSS personnel) vying for various positions. They were telling me to vote for them. But frankly, I did not partake in their election; how can I vote for someone I never know?}

^{Had the NSS been a bit inclined with social media, pictures and short details of the candidates could have been posted on Facebook- categorized into regions. Are we waiting on President Mahama or Nana Addo to do this for us?}

^{Companies and organizations like VRA/ECG, Ghana Water, GTV, GCB and the likes should take a cue from the man with magical fingers. But you, my reader, are you utilizing the social media?}

^{Lest I forget, Mr. Andrew Amoh (or you prefer I call you Andy Dosty?) aside teaching your students disc jockeying, do you as well teach them about the power of social media? Well, this has been a way of “exposing” you to the world.}

^{The writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance Journalist.}

^{Email:nehusthan4@yahoo.com}

^{Twitter: @Aniwaba}

                                                              ^{Facebook: Solomon Mensah}

 

How Kumawood Murders Twiglish

By Solomon Mensah

Kumawood Movie

They stood on the corridor of one of the lecture halls at the Ghana Institute of Journalism arguing. As usual, they would chat in groups with each group trying to outweigh the other with what they term “journalistic facts” whenever a lecture was delayed. Flinging words against themselves as though mangoes hitting at walls in a torrential storm, they debated on soccer once again.

Peeping through the louver blade-window, I could have tapped on their shoulders to tell them to reduce the decibels of their voices had it not been the green netting of the window. As a matter of fact, I would not have ‘given my ears’ to them but for the sake that Benedict, a sports pundit, was today talking of Ghana’s movie industry. It was like gaping at a vegetarian seen eating meat. Clad in a faded brown khaki trouser with a Polo shirt which suspended at the edges of his black belt, he argued on how Kumawood movies “murder” Twiglish- that is Twi and English languages.

Although what pertains in the movie industry is not his funeral, he argued sensibly on its issues. To him, one must appreciate how Agya Koo and his cohorts “redeemed” Ghanaians from the hands of Nigerian Movies. As well, the Kumawood’s ability to put smile and laughter on the faces of many Ghanaians is a plus to the Kumasi base movie stars since it is their area of specialisation. However, he thinks we all must help bale the waters of pitfalls of the industry before it gets to the kneel level. One of such pitfalls is how the industry wrongfully spells some words and makes grammatical mistakes in both Twi and English Languages.

From this day of their argument, I have observed with unflinching eyes glued to my Orion television set the preview of new movies. If I am to call a spade a spade and not a big spoon, the Kumawood Movie Industry is, gradually but steadily as the fire burning on a refuse, dragging the Akan Language specifically Twi into a slippery mud.

Make a time to sit behind your television set and in no time you will find yourself becoming an editor editing their erroneous movie titles. Lend me your ears and let me share with you a few of such mistakes that have crossed my mind of late.

“Awrehosem,” “Free education: ‘Yebe dii keke” and “Medo wiase” are some of the numerous blunders of spelling that characterise the said movie industry.

In the first movie title mentioned, “Awrehosem’ should have been spelt “Awer3hos3m.” In the second title, “Free education: ‘Y3b3 dii k3k3,” the ‘Free Education’ was correctly spelt but its prefix I guess spelling it was as hard as pulling a string of hair from the nostrils. It should have been spelt “Y3b3 dii k3k3.” Lastly, “Medo wiase” should also have been spelt “Med) wiase.”

Perhaps Kwame Dzokoto’s soothing voice that serves as a wrapper around these movies makes one forget to take a closer look at how the industry butchers the Twi Language.

Our elders say that if a man does not know where he is going, he should at least know where he is coming from. Ironically, one will not be an inch from the truth in saying that Kumawood cannot tell where it is coming from since it has lost on its own mother tongue.

In countries like Japan, China, and Germany, their mother tongues have been well institutionalised that one doing away with it becomes like trying to clap with one hand. Ghana has travelled far on the global landscape that we cannot keep fumbling with our own language. While the Whiteman is eager to learn how to say “Akwaaba” to add up to his already acquired tall list of vocabularies, we take for granted and undermine the need to learn that which belongs to us.

Funny enough, for the English Language that we have madly fell in love with; it seems we have also not taken time to learn it well. Again, take a closer look at some of the Kumawood movies and the translations from Twi to the English Language will blow your mind. The least said about it, the better.

It is about time we sat down to reflect on this issue and stop laughing over it for it is said that the death that will kill a man begins as an appetite.

The Writer works as a freelance journalist.

Email: mensahazure2@gmail.com

NB: “)” and ‘3” were used since the web text format does not have their corresponding Twi letters.