A Piece O’ My Mind: The play, the turf and monkeys

If you lost your father early in life, the early morning rain will drench you. If you lost your mother early in life, you’d suffer thirst and hunger…

These are the only lines of the first ‘borborbor’ song I learnt those days in Wedome (Mid-Volta), that I still remember. Well, it’s not as if I could ever sing the entire song back then though. But this evening, as I sojourn in the far away kraals of Zulu township, events in the happy-home motherland brought the lyrics of this song into crystal sharp perspective.

The thing about the happy-home motherland is that we thrive on scandal. We wake up every morning sniffing around for the next big one. If it happened the night before, we are sure to hear in on 6 am news. If we don’t, we can bet, it will only be a matter of time….What is sure is that by the time the newspapers go to bed, we manage to churn out at least one juicy scandal. By all means, we won’t go to bed without one.

So, when I graduated from college and wanted to travel to ‘Obimanso’ (abroad)to study some more books, I needed money, plenty of money. The grandson of a poor Anlo fisherman; there was no way I was going to be able to raise that amount, not even if I sold my grandpa’s fishing nets.

So, I went scholarship hunting. I tried everywhere in this town, no dice. I was told of a secretariat that had some money and was dishing it out to poor fellas like me. I took my application there; ‘nobody look am sef’. I contacted a former education minister who was BIIIIIIIIIIG man in another Obimanso at the time. He pointed me towards the Otumfuour Educational Fund. I told him my surname won’t make the cut. He said I should try, anyway. I did. ‘They no mind me sef.’ I went searching till I found one; in Obimanso.

But today, in the happy-home motherland, the scholarship is going everywhere, anywhere and to anyone who has power and or influence. Even sitting Members of Parliament, people who aside from their juicy paychecks, retire on even fatter pay cheques every four years, only to resume a few days on; have become poor and needy.

They cannot afford to pay for their schooling. As such, me, the grandson of a poor Anlo fisherman, who was denied same, my taxes have become the fallback plans for the affluent, and people who claim they were in this business of politics to serve us.

And not only themselves, their children too. These people who said they were self-made and did not need our money for anything; that they were doing us a favour by serving us? These same people? hmm!!

Efo Jehoshaphat

Hatorgodo via Atsiavi