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.