MUST URBANISATION KILL OFF OUR OLD AND INFIRM?

It was 4:30am on a Sunday and I was already on my way to the Central District of Accra. It was one of those mornings where the destination was out of the city and it was imperative that I set off early since I had to return the same day.
I expected to find our city still asleep but I was proven wrong. As at 5am, Tema Station was already bustling with activity; traders had begun laying out their wares, trotro ‘mates’ were hustling for passengers and the street preacher was in full swing winning souls for the Lord. As I walked on I saw an old man sweeping the streets, then came along an old lady (a porter) carrying a load appearing to be heavier than herself with a grim look of despair on her face.
Those images clouded my thoughts throughout my journey and made me really sad. Unfortunately, such sights are not a rarity in this city of ours. These days it’s not uncommon to find old men and women hustling in the city to make ends meet when they should be in the comforts of their homes resting their tired bones in the company of their grandchildren. You will find them hawking in the streets, serving as headporters and street sweepers, for some of whom the streets have even become home.
As I journeyed on I wondered, where are their extended families?

Of course, some of them had the opportunity to make provisions for old age yet failed to do so. Others failed to maintain good relationships with their extended families, hence no one would want to have anything to do with them. Yet I can’t help asking: are our old folks in the streets really there as a result of failing to plan for old age? Or struggling as a result of the break-down in the support our extended family system used to provide due to urbanization?

Aging as we already know is part of the continuum of life – just as a baby matures into a child, then into adulthood so must he or she become old. Decades back, the old and infirm would be in homes spending time with their grandchildren while sharing the responsibility of nurturing and imparting knowledge to the younger generation. Those were the times when three or four generations of families lived in the same compound or village.
In those days the extended family system was strong where everyone felt obligated to support every family member including the aged. As cities started booming with economic activities leaving parts of our rural areas severely underdeveloped with high levels of poverty, so have we seen increases in the rural-urban migration; people from all walks of our rural areas are heading towards our busy cities or abroad in search of opportunities, leaving behind the aged to cater for themselves where they occasionally visit them or send them remittances.

Due to the challenges and high costs of living in our urban cities, some of these migrants are unable to sustain themselves adequately enough, much less send remittances to their folks back in the rural areas. The economic strains they face make them now live individualistic lives neglecting the needs of these old people who are now forced to leave the comforts of their ‘laid –back – taking – care – of –grandchildren – life’ to full time workers in our urban cities doing menial jobs for survival.

This is a worrying trend and we really need to take proactive steps to address it. There should be no way for us to have the aged in our society wallowing in misery as I keep seeing in our streets. Even if we can no longer maintain our old extended family system which used to provide these support, our emerging trends of living should be able to find ways to address this. I really hope our social service workers are taking note of this issue and will rise up to the task.

Life, as I see it, has culminating stages where endings have a way of shaping the meaning of wholes; the meaning we attribute to old age shapes the very meaning of the entire human life-cycle.

UNTIL I WAS RUDELY INTERRUPTED

MEAT.
Those four letter words describing the flesh of animals that, with the exception of the few vegetarians among us, we love to eat. We Ghanaians simply love our meat. I’m yet to attend an event or a household where it is absent on the menu. We love our mutton, chicken, beef and pork and usually buy them from our butchers in the local markets. However, has anyone spared the thought of wondering where these animals come from, how they are slaughtered, handled and transported to our markets for consumption?

I had quite a shock one morning on my way to work. As usual I had grabbed
a window seat as it gave me the chance to enjoy the “scenery” and get lost
in thoughts only to be rudely interrupted at the sight of three young me killing a goat just behind the wall of a park near an open gutter. Close to them was an open fire made with scrap tyre which I believe was meant for singeing the goat. To say I was horrified would be an understatement. Back in the day I could care less as I never really liked goats for their strong smell and irrationally thought their meat would also not be that great until six years ago; therefore if I’m to keep enjoying my goat khebab I need to be conscious as to how it’s been handled. Hey, that meat could end up at my favorite khebab hangout you know?

Unfortunately what I witnessed was not an isolated practice as it’s common to see livestock being slaughtered and prepared for market at the Korle Gonno beach close to James Town. Others are slaughtered in places that are not fit to be called abattoirs. After slaughtering and dressing the meat they are conveyed in the boots of taxis or backs of pickups and sent directly to markets. These butchers handle their meat without wearing gloves, masks, hair nets or protective clothes which defies almost all of our food safety codes thus making these meats unwholesome. It cannot be overemphasized the health implication of eating unwholesome meat as this makes us susceptible to contracting bacterial diseases such as Salmonellosis, Tuberculosis, Brucellosis and Anthrax; and paratisc diseases such as Taeniasis.

In 1996 the Accra abattoir, located at Tema Community 20 off the end of the Accra-Tema Motorway, was built for butchers to have livestock slaughtered under hygienic conditions. This was a very novel idea as it would ensure that meat sent to our local markets were of the highest quality and wholesome for human consumption. The butchers however claiming the abattoir was far from town refused to patronize the place making it run at a loss and at a point the facility had to be shut down. Additionally, another reason for the butchers boycotting the facility was for the fact that the animals were inspected for their health statuses and other diseases before being slaughtered hence any livestock found to be unhealthy was killed and their meat destroyed which displeased the butchers very much as it counted as a loss in revenue to them. The fact that some still refuse to use the place indicates there’s a high chance people in our city are consuming unwholesome meat and I believe our authorities are aware of that. What exactly is the Accra Metropolitan Assembly doing about this? When are they going to put in significant efforts to prevent unauthorized meat houses from operating? Are we waiting for a major food poisoning disaster to happen so as to set up committees to investigate and make “recommendations” when livestock are being slaughtered with impunity in any open area all over the city daily?

Thankfully, we’ve come this far without any major health issues as some of our supermarkets and a few reputable meat shops are alleviating my fears by doing the right thing but for how long are we going to ride on the wings of luck? It’s about time our city authorities stop sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and really crack down on those abattoirs who disregard safety regulations before the worst hit us.

For now, I will be enjoying the “scenery” from my window seat, daydreaming about my next khebab bite until I’m jolted back to reality.

THE BUFFET - A TRICK OR TREAT?

Growing up I always looked forward to family parties with mixed feelings of immense happiness and a bit of sadness; joy because I got to see cousins and other family relations but sadness because it meant lots of work ahead in preparation. Back in the day hiring the services of caterers was not very common as it was seen as a thing for the affluent; regular households on the other hand would depend on men to slaughter the goats or sheep, women preparing the dishes with children washing the pots, plates and running errands.

Whereas we the youngsters did not get a proportionate amount of food as compared to the amount of work we did hey, there was less to complain about as we had fun catching up with cousins and the rest of the family. Back then the grownups ate in the ceramic or glass plates while the kids ate in the plastic plates. In families where the budget was tight, the “important guests” ate in the glass or ceramic plates while the “regular guests” ate in the plastic plates. Also, there was little room for guests who wanted to pack extras home – unless they did not mind inquiring stares from others while pouring it into a polythene bag.

In the mid-1990s however, there was an explosion of polystyrene foam boxes also known as “take away packs” or “to go boxes” as others called them. It got its name because guests at parties were no longer worried about being able to finish their food or not; they had the flexible option of just covering whatever was left in the box to send home and also avoid being starred at for packing extras. It also meant less dishes to be washed (quite a relieve for those of us who had to wash stacks of plates at the end of the merry making).

In recent times the number of catering businesses have increased exponentially and are also more affordable, which has resulted in an increasing number of households hiring their services hence less cooking at homes for parties. Some caterers even offer additional services of arranging chairs and tables meaning people can now host parties without lifting a finger for preparation. It has also increased the number of buffet parties (not that buffets never existed; it was more common among the rich). Caterers usually serve with the buffet style because it is easier contrary to the old time-consuming method of dishing out the food in the plate, placing every single plate on a tray to serve every single guest.

On the other hand it seems the buffet method of serving has exposed the fact that one can never know the depth of a person’s stomach until you look at their plates at the end of a buffet table. The plates look like pancakes at the beginning of the line but end up looking like Mount Kilimanjaro at the end… okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration but you pretty much get the picture. The unfortunate thing about such people sometimes is that they are not able to finish their food which could have served someone else, such wastage! Of course it’s a buffet hence varieties of dishes are served for your indulgence but there exist a thin line between eating till satisfaction and plain gluttony. Being considerate should make any host look forward to inviting you to future events because you are a courteous guest as compared to being blacklisted for gluttony. I leave you off with a Bible quotation from Proverbs 23:1-3 that says “When you sit down to eat with someone important, keep in mind who he is. If you have a big appetite, restrain yourself. Don’t be greedy for the fine food he serves; he might be trying to trick you.”

 

 

 

FROM FARMS TO BUILDINGS - THE HARMATTAN OUR SCAPEGOAT

As a child harmattan wasn’t my favorite time of the year. Dry nose, cracked lips, unrelenting scorching sun, very cold nights and the list goes on. Today I actually look forward to that season, especially the cold nights; but the harmattan of before is not the same today. My lips are hardly cracked, the nights are hardly ever cold and Accra no longer experiences the mini ‘London’ effect, contending instead with an ever scorching sun. Unfortunately, we still have the rampant bush fires especially in the Northern parts of the country where the harmattan is more severe.
Never a day went by in those days without the horrifying reports of bush fires destroying acres of crops, homes and the loss of lives. These bush fires usually start as a result of farmers leaving fires unattended, hunters trying to smoke out grass-cutters and inadvertently letting the fire get out of hand or a smoker carelessly disposing off a cigarette butt. Those frequent bush fires destroyed farms which sometimes contributed to the perennial food shortages the country faced between April and July.
Unlike previous years however, the recent harmattan has brought in its wake a different kind of “bush fire”- markets, factories and shops are now being razed down more frequently during this season. Is the harmattan now directing its wrath to our buildings instead of farms? Which is not to say fires raging through our farms is a better option.

If I correctly recall, the Swedru branch of Melcolm was the first casualty this season followed by the Kumasi market and later the producers of our Leyland Paint, the BBC Industrials Company Ghana. In all those disasters our ever faithful Fire Service was present to perform their task which was followed by the all too familiar complaints of them not arriving quickly enough with adequate water to quench the raging fire – as if the personnel of the Fire Service were the cause of the fire to begin with (hey, hold your horses, we all know our fire services have their own inefficiencies we cannot finish tackling on this space, but we can all agree they did not start those disasters, right?).
Safety issues have been taken for granted for far too long in our country. Why should places holding large quantities of combustible products be so lax with fire safety? This is not the first time any of our markets including the Kumasi one had been razed down with fire yet all we do when these disasters occur is to form fancy committees to come up with recommendations to abate them. It’s not as if we do not know how these fires start; they usually happen as a result of faulty electrical wiring which overload the electrical system. Furthermore vantage points for firefighting are overcrowded with illegal structures thus making it difficult for the fire men to reach the sources quickly enough to mitigate the damages. For how long are we going to endure these disasters before we learn our lessons? I can bet on my very last pesewa that none of the major markets in this country have fire extinguishers after all the fires they’ve had but can only hope that our shopping malls or better structured shops have them at least.
Much as it’s important for our fire service personnel be adequately prepared for these disasters, it will be in everyone’s interest if every citizen adopts a proactive attitude towards safety issues. We cannot afford to have these senseless fires raging on. But while at it, can someone plead with the Sun to have some mercy? . . . Please?