There is a saying that if poverty sends you on an errand it gives you no options. The earlier you put on your tattered sandals and trek through the warped clefts of life the slighter your miseries. With regards to Zoe Clark an English lady from Lincolnshire it was love not poverty that sent her across the English Channel to the shrub lands of Accra in search of her absentee Romeo. Love was beckoning and the soul desires fulfilments.

Zoe is a gifted Science student in an elite university in Lincolnshire. She had met Kuma a Ghanaian postgraduate engineering student at a local pub a couple of months earlier. She was smitten by his debonair looks and melted into his arms. Kuma was equally enthralled by Zoe’s adorable looks and her flowing blond hair. Her curves got Kuma drooling. They had chitchat over wine and that began their amorous journey. At the peak of their romance Kuma returned to Ghana to attend to some family needs. The plan was Kuma will return to the UK when everything was sorted.

There is no place like home. Though Kuma had long sorted out his errands in Ghana he tarried on. The warmth of Accra and the sweet scents from the smelly drains became barriers. Discarding such nostalgic elements for a freezing Lincolnshire weather was a bitter pill to ingest. The moon rose and set and Zoe tarried for the return of her loved one. In the meantime her Romeo was lost in the dense woods of Africa and lazing in the tenderness of the sun.

Zoe could linger no more and soon was on her way to Ghana in search of her delinquent love. She waved goodbye to her family as she entered the KLM flight at the Humberside Airport and before long was scaling the skies to the unknown. The fears of what awaits her at Kotoka Airport kept gnawing at the back of her head. This was the first time she was going on such a perilous exploits. Half her problem would have been curtailed if her flight had been a direct one. She had to make a transit at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.

All these fears were soon to vanish when she walked into the waiting arms of Kuma at Kotoka. He was at the airport with a retinue of agbadza dancers scuffling their feet to rhythms of ancient drums. Soulful Anlo kete songs reverberated in the air at the precincts of Kotoka to herald the arrival of the loved one.

Whiles in Ghana Zoe was taken aback by the display of love and warmth by Ghanaians. In spite of despair from long years of destitution as a result of looting by some elite few people still exude love. They radiate love that flowed from the heart and makes the sojourner feel welcomed. She loved Ghanaian dishes like ‘red–red’, kenkey and fish, fufu, akpele etc. Her favourite Ghanaian dissert was kelewele.

She visited the sapphire beaches littered along the coast of Accra and had good sun bath. She drove through plush areas of Cantonments, Airport Residential Area etc. She noticed a sharp contrast when she passed through splattered slums of Nima and Mamobi. Semi naked children burrowing through infected drains and forlorn looks on faces of their hapless mums who gave up on life years ago. In the interim MPs grabbed $50.000 to buy luxury cars and some other thugs looting the national coffers dry to feed their opulent life style in presidential palaces. A visit to the Slave Castles

After having adequate tour of the city of Accra, Zoe decided to explore Ghana. Apart from visiting her in-laws in the village her next point of call was Cape Coast. She visited the slave dungeons, transit points for our ill-fated ancestors. Out of greed and sheer wickedness we sold our valiant folks into slavery and left behind the imbeciles to plough the land. Cutting down the rainforest for farm produce is not a feat for frail men so we can hardly feed our famished selves.

We mortgaged our folks with high IQs to the Americas. Our Astronauts, Scientists, Inventors, Engineers etc were exchanged for dressing mirrors, kegs of gun powder and packets of sardine. We were left with imbeciles who begat more imbeciles. So in the 21st century we still use sticks to cultivate the land and use the same to harvest our cocoa. We pound fufu with wood and stick instead of portable robotic machines.

Zoe passed through Kwame Nkrumah circle and witnessed the lawless nature of the trotro drivers plying the road. Errant drivers who have no regard for traffic regulations and create chaos on their trail. The roads are worlds in which they reign supreme. Other road users must be bullied and cut into shreds.

The bullying at Kwame Nkrumah circle epitomises the broader lunacy engulfing the entire African continent. Bullies and brutes often govern the hapless people. These brutes tussle their way through, maiming any one standing in their path. It doesn’t matter if they are imbeciles. The brutes in Guinea, Sudan, Zimbabwe etc bulling their way to the top and maiming many in the process. Yet they have no clues to the intricacies of managing the economy of a country.

One thing that caught the attention of Zoe was the presence of AK47 gun wielding police men on our streets. She was so terrified of the sight of scrawny cops slinging guns on frail shoulders in every corner. It was a bit eerie for her seeing police barriers on all the major roads leading to Accra. Barriers patrolled by armed cops who extort money from armed hoodlums and wave them through to go on their robbing sprees.

The absence of street lights in most part of city was a bit of a worry to Zoe. This is aggravated by the presence of open drains. Companies that construct such drains will be breaching Health and Safety laws in other countries. The opposite is true in Ghana. According to Zoe she almost walked into an open drain at Teshie Nugua after a night out. She got out of a taxi oblivious of the danger lurking around in the dark. She was walking straight into the drain when she was pulled from behind by the tender arms of Kuma.

On the whole Zoe loved Ghana and will be glad of another birth. A self rebirth that makes the spirit realise African is not jungle where natives ‘monkey’ around on tall mahogany trees. Some few months after her return from Ghana, Zoe went on a trip to another African country in the East. Her conclusion was Ghanaians are more affable, adorable and loving people.

Francis Kwaku Egu, UK

Kwakuhull@yahoo.com