Rare Species Inhabiting Ghana

It’s 6:00 am on a working day. You are standing at a bus stop lost in thoughts while waiting for the next available trotro. Out of nowhere comes a huge blob of spittle that lands almost on your shoes. You look up in horror ready to vent and launch an attack on that uncouth culprit. Relax my friend; you just encountered one of the rare species of human spitting cobras inhabiting Ghana.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, gives me great consternation than encountering a human spitting cobra. I am still trying to understand why some Ghanaians spit about indiscriminately; probably it’s a cultural attitude that can best be explained by a sociologist. I used to think it was something that only less educated folks, market women and fishmongers engaged in. Or a thing people who chewed dental sponges/sticks did as it made them salivate a lot. Apparently these categories of people were not the only culprits of this offense as you would find smartly dressed men and women letting out streams of spittle out of windows of a troskis. How disgusting!

As one walks through most public places in Accra he or she can be promised of a visual assault of the different colors, shapes and consistency of sputum dotting sidewalks, pavements and walkways. These culprits from men, women to children engage in this disgusting act shamelessly without regard for the people around. So bad is this practice that hospitals have not been spared either. Owing to this, University of Ghana Hospital has a sign in English and other local languages prohibiting people from spitting on their premises, which of course have fallen on deaf ears.

Considering the fact that some diseases are communicable through droplets infection in sputum this widespread practice is very detrimental to our health. One sure way of riding this city and country of such a despicable habit is for municipal and city authorities to spot-fine offenders; who knows, it might generate more revenue to support our falling cedi and ailing economy. Now that is homegrown solution right there... Oh snap! 

Knowing how things work in these parts looks like a spot fine (enforced to the latter) would only happen in my dream.