Keta Reveries
Introduction
I have always known there was something
in me seeking for a way to express itself. I sought through manifold ways to let it find expression. It found expression in
short meaningful bursts of deep thought meant to serve a good end. But what I wanted to express was not the limited witticisms
of wise men, inasmuch as that has its purpose and found ready ears.
I hungered for the unceasing outpouring
of creativity, oozing like honey from a freshly toasted honeycomb, filling the air with its sweet aroma and tingling the taste
buds with its pure sweetness. Like the honey in your mouth, I wanted the extemporaneous out flowing of words that painted
a diverse landscape on the blank whiteness of the mind, bringing form to life and instigating evocative expression of appreciative
joy to the giver of all things.
The years of dried desert mind state,
were tormenting times spent in the heat of a search of relieve for solace. The solace of the outpouring of the great opening
of the sky of words that will rain down inconsolably, quenching the terrible drought of the years of starved deprivation.
Bringing to bloom memory’s seeds of unheralded beauty in the forlornness of wilder regions of scraggy desert landscape.
Like Job in his scabby dejected gown
of ashes, I acknowledged the architect of thought and infinite continuum in diverse creation. I kow-towed and knocked on the
doors of righteousness in my smutty dejection. The mighty doors opened unto me and opened the closed doors of my heart, letting
gush forth the panoply of expressive desirous outpourings of unhindered, unrealised thoughts.
The justified deceptiveness of empty
wilfulness parading as shaded versions of deepened seriousness, with a scowl and a frown. We flaunt our talented frivolity,
padded by time and a meaningless search for realisation, as monumental achievements of great effort. Parading down the avenues
of sunlit glory...
With monumental effort I sought and
continue to seek for resolution in fulfilment, to put to rest simmering embers of hope’s fire lighted in times unrecollected
and in being set to light have denied me the warmth of comfortable embrace.
The awakening to reality of dissolving
landscapes of hope, where the shifting land under feet, dissolving dreams in the blinding light of the waking day. The pain
of waking to painful reality, clouds minds that need to think clearly to dance with the rapidly evolving non-discernible reality.
II
The midday sun beats down in blinding
sheets of melting swaths of heat. The treeless streets of the city send back wavering radiated heat waves up, caught in between
are the few walking outside in this intolerable heat. The sweat streams down faces flushed a darkened blackness by the boiling
blood of overheated skins. The gravelled asphalt is softened, and at places looked like the inside of a well-used frying pan.
The sand at the edge of the streets, have gone beyond oily dirt to a sort of silvery bleachedness. Up and down the street,
in the distance the illusion of pools of water hovering over these frying streets, created a sort of distraction, where each
observer worked their lucid imaginations into some ambiguous image as they, patiently and with that quietude that the hot
noonday evoked, listlessly sat through the afternoon.
In our house, grandpa's whitewashed
pride, in the women's quarter under the widespread 'agbo' tree it was a cool, breezy, refreshing; a gentle breeziness of defined
cool in the beating tropical heat that lulls one to a gentle state of sated pleasantness after heavy carbohydrate laden afternoon
meal.
From some room in the large house, faint
notes of ‘pachanga’ music seeping from an old radio diffusion box accentuate balmy, breezy calmness in the heat
of the afternoon sun. The music strangely evokes distant images of sun bleached islands where the serenity of lonely sadness
that laced these notes gives one an impression of deep loneliness, a longing for something undefined that transports itself
into the voices of the singers.
I
was just a child, loving every moment of it. My grandma, Dada, was a bosomy mamma, a huge bundle of loving joy, who was an
assurance of loving-kindness. She was an assuredness of a loving presence that was so reassuring that I never really missed
my mother. I knew that I had a mother somewhere but grandma was all that mattered. In later years when I was removed to live
with my mother, I never quite lost the deeply ingrained attachment to grandma. She haunted my dreams so intensely in the years
after I moved to stay with my mother, and many years after her death, reoccurring images of her blanketing evoked a sense
of serene love that from another I could never experience. Grandma was unique.
It took many years to eject my dream
man from the graveyard of the past in a wrenching effort of great spiritual self will. But that was still years ahead, this
afternoon, as she fried and tossed sugared flour balls called locally 'botokui'. With practised hands she expertly hoisted
balls of flour that she fried to be sold.
We,
the children all sat in the bleached grainy sand of the seashore that we carted to fill the compound every now and then. On
one of those sand carting occasions, when the sea erosion was a real threat, and the city council had forbidden sand carting
from the beach which was right behind our grandpa's mansion, in the early evening, among the ruins of the broken houses that
the sea had with unrelenting ferocity brought down, as we dug and piled the sand into our trays and bowls, none of us, neither
the children nor the maids saw the huge wave that had crested the high sand ridge and bore down with awesome onrush towards
us, one moment we were chatting with childhood abandon, the next moment we scattered and being borne seaward in the huge backwash
of the wave, in that short period, I was rolled and tumbled with a tremendous force towards the huge broiling Atlantic, that
at this time had become a torment on the collective mentality of our town. As a child I had no concept of death, yet, I knew
that this was a short ride with no pleasant ending, the water and the sand filled my mouth and nose, and all of a sudden,
I found myself beached between the feet of Georgina, the oldest maid in the house, she scooped me up and, after a quick check,
the frightened haggle of wetted children minus their trays raced home through the southern gate that opened on to the beach.
Now,
the white sand offered an idyllic pleasant contrast under the huge tree and we all dug in with our feet as the talk jumped
from one gossip to another. Georgina always had a collection of the latest 'tap side gossip’ and she was as usual availing
herself of her most current take on the latest gossip. Though grandma, always preached against gossiping, the stories that
came in through Georgina were often so interest grabbing, that she will often pretend, that it was not a gossip and pass the
occasional comment with the wisdom of age. This day, the girls at the tap had gotten hold of a story that eventually formed
the lyrics of the local 'borborbor' group that thrived on casting social insinuation through recreational songs, sang to deceptively
catchy rhythms. The story as retold, was that early in the morning a child wrapped in swaddling clothes had been abandoned
on the steps of the local catholic church, the only problem was that the child was a half caste. Without pointing fingers
at any one in particular the song went:
'Let the child stay with the fathers
The fathers are quite good with babes'-
The story drew some laughs and fairly
lengthy discussions in this very Methodist household.
There was always a floating population
of occupants of this house, people came and people went, there were two types of people passing through. There were the house
helps and there were the outsiders who travelled from far away places for a weekend visit. Mainly from the capital. These
included our parents. Their coming was always anticipated with great excitement, our parents were all highly placed individuals
in the far away capital city, they had all been educated abroad and were the pride and joy of Grandma.
There was my mother a police officer
in a male dominated world; her visits were less frequent when compared to my cousins’ fathers, both of whom worked in
the bank. Uncle Francis was the funny one; he had an unending accumulation of jokes and interesting stories that his ever-ready
audience of kids and adults never tired of hearing. There was the more cosmopolitan Uncle Richard, the architect who was a
sleek brother with a dangerously funny side, he had spent well over fifteen years accumulating diplomas in former communist
Eastern Europe and Dutch Universities, and he was also an accomplished journalist. Then there was Efo Kofi, the army corporal
who made sergeant before retiring, he laughed at everything and made a joke out of everything. His only problem was that he
holds an unyielding belief that his father tried to make him crazy, and anytime the two of them came together there was certainly
to be some fireworks, of course he was known to have tried “abomsam tama” the bad weed that was reputed to get
into the head of smokers, the local euphemism evokes its negative destructive potency. Uncle Prince the eldest of the group
was a serious man with a high position as the chief accountant of a big state owned fishing company. After twenty years in
Britain, he had his peculiarities. He had style and dash accentuated no doubt by his ever-shiny Mercedes 120, back at the
turn of the 60’s that shiny black car cut quite an impression. He drove at great speed, a man on the move in a nation
poised for growth. We dubbed that shiny Mercedes 'shon-shoni-kel-keli' “the shiny, shiny brilliance”.
There
are two sureties of their visits, we the kids get to get two and half penny pieces and rush to 'Otiokpla's; the Togolese shop
keeper with a funny name to stuff up on sweetened, carbonated, mineral water and corn bread. The second was that they always
had to have a family squabble of some sort before returning back to their city bases.
There was Papas portion of the mansion
that was fully cemented out front. The broad stretch of front yard with its flowers was reminiscent of an Italian palazzo
set on this Western Africa coast. That cemented courtyard had well laid flower beds set along the walls and had a raised a
porch that stretched the better half of 100 metres, opposite the house at the other end of this vast cemented courtyard was
the water tank, that stored rain water, before the house was connected to the public tap system this tank held enough rain
water to provide the household with water year round. The house itself rose loftily, as though with a dignified sense of arrogant
disdain in its haughty whiteness. It exuded a certain reflection of its imperious owner.
Grandpa like many great men was slight
of build but had an impressive presence, as though ego made up for what nature in stature denied him. He was a slightly built
man of impeccable taste in everything. As a head teacher he had a lot of teacher’s note lying around his office, and
I often wondered whether he artistically drew each letter of his stylistically moderated flowing handwriting. To us children,
he was a distant cold and feared disciplinarian. His quarters had floors so well polished that they reflected your face in
the highly polished terra cotta smoothness of its flooring.
The hall of grandpa’s great house
was a special room tastefully and artistically decorated with huge solid armchairs always sleeved with white cushion covers.
But it was the wall of the hall that was enthralling, the story had it that it was painted by “Teremtere”;' a
local painter who painted only at night, when it is said, that working under the inspiration of mermaids, he daubed paint
on the walls with his hands in consistent patterns of unimaginable beauty, a rare presentation of truly inspired creativity.
Our grandparents were serious Christians,
but in a town by the seaside it was impossible to stifle the imaginative indulgence in improbabilities, the human story making
instinct flowered in all kinds of old recycled myths and ever newer inspired inventive ones. Thus, it was that among we the
children, Kwaku was believed to have a friend among the dwarfs, the mythical little men who were reputed to capture men and
take them far to the islands in the lagoon and tutor them in healing practices and herbs. Such stories were ever prevalent,
but one never really had the opportunity to meet anyone who had gone through the experience. Though the storyteller always
knew of a friend or a relation who knows somebody who knows one such person. Kwaku had an artistic bent and very early began
showing great athletic abilities.
I
never quite fathomed what led to this conclusion but he showed incredible talent in art and was a fast runner who captured
the glow of public approval early in his youth as a sprinter. By the time he was sixteen, by which time he earned the nickname
'bullet', he was virtually unbeatable in his races, we all expected great things of him, but he fell into bad company, which
was not so difficult to do when you were in a mixed secondary, brimming full with teen hormones and seeking to show you were
one “tough cookie”. He took to smoking the 'devil's weed' and lost purpose and direction in the haze of youthful
immaturity. The bad habit quickly found other mates of socially unapproved behaviour, later when he got dismissed in form
three, he never got his act together and made another try. He took over his mother's stall at the second hand market and became
fairly popular in the vicinity. The second-hand market was a festering den of social aberrant, it was the middle step on the
way to worthless self-destruction. There are those who time and circumstances have denied the opportunity to maximise their
potentials and their contribution to society, there is that sad beginning that with focused determination become the ethos
of human achievement against the odds.
There are others who being offered the
opportunity refuse to recognise their unique blessing and utilise the advantageous foothold to get a firmer grip in life,
these are the tragic failures, who by their own desires and indiscipline bring pain to many.
The second hand market was a cross-road,
the junction where the undisciplined sunk into wasteful vice (like the opium dens of the darker side of the world), the leeway
exploited by the unjustly denied to claim a hold unto meaningful existence, for the former it was a joyride of death, for
the latter it a fastidious perseverance at commerce and a hard climb to financial independence. Everyone hoped and prayed,
but he became a monstrous junkie. Kwaku's mother, Uncle Francis’s wife was called 'Mamma' by everyone, she was a hardworking
trader who became a fairly successful trader in the second hand clothes market and sought to provide a comfortable life for
her four boys. It was rumoured her marriage to Uncle Francis did not quite meet the approval of the family, since it was said
there was a curse in the woman's family, but in retrospect, neither did the marriages of any of my uncles meet approval and
acceptance among all the family members, there was always some lurking reason why a particular man or woman was not the best
choice.
It thus did not come as much of a surprise
that with all that antagonism, all of my uncles had to marry more than once. Kwaku was the father's first born, the father
Uncle Francis was a colourful maverick, a man who after five additional children and a 24 year stretch living in a bachelor's
pad, would come home after a good evening at the disco, from his job as an accountant at a bank, waking the children scattered
in various stages of sleep and teach them the intricate moves of the latest disco steps. When Kwakutse, Kwaku’s younger
brother demonstrates one of these late night dance lesson sessions when he thought them the basketball dance, there is hardly
a straight face left around.
Lincoln was the third boy on Uncle Francis’s
side, then came Tito, who passed away while still young. Kwakutse was also called Churchill, while Kwaku's christian name
was Kennedy. He had a way with naming his children, avid reader that he was, I often thought that he relived these great men
in his children none of whom lived to their namesakes greatness. Lincoln stayed with the divorced mother till she died in
penury, then soon after was poisoned, dying an unfulfilled life of pain and disappointment, that took him from his father's
bachelor pad to the mother's faltering second marriage, her long struggle with a foot abscess and a sad lonely death.
Uncle Prince met Esi while studying
and working in the London of the early fifties and early sixties. There were always the little stories that were barely told
above whisper level "one day Uncle Prince caught Esi in some sort of affair with a neighbour..." By the time he came back
after almost decades in Britain, he was a different man from the young man whose trip abroad on a UAC (Unite African Company)
scholarship, obtained for his flair and brilliancy in accounting, while working in the local UAC depot at Keta, enabled the
grand old man, his father, the respected head teacher to make his first trip to the capital city of Accra.
Papa had over the years carried on a
successful import trade with British concerns without finding it necessary to make a trip to the capital. For over five hundred
years, since the first European touched Africa’s shores, the ships had docked at the old harbour at Keta and done their
business. Uncle Prince being the first born of an ambitious father who had broken the cords with what he considered unpolished
traditional ways to pursue education to the highest level feasible then; a graduate of the missionary teacher's training college
at Dzodze, he did not have an easy childhood. He was constantly being moved from one place to another and spent considerable
time in-between relations on the father and mother side.
My grandma, his mother, told of a story
of which left lasting impression of the worst realisation of separation anxiety, a phenomenon that a mother suffers when separated
from the first born child. Uncle Prince had been staying with the mother's sister at Agbozume, north east of the great Avu
lagoon, where the earth was a salt tinged grey. On a surprise visit, she enquired about the whereabouts of the son from the
sister caretaker. She indicated that he had gone to the latrine outside the house walls. In grandma's own words, "something
in me pushed me to go and look for my son, as I went towards the pit latrine, I kept calling, Prince, Prince, there was no
response forthcoming, when I was real close to the pit latrine, which was nothing more than a deep hole with some planks laid
across, to enable a foothold which one straddles while letting go of the 'cargo' of human waste. I could barely decipher some
muffled cries emanating from within the dark interior of the palm fronds that shaded this frightening toilet. My steps quickened
as I moved in, only to see my dear son cowering at the far end of the pit, apparently afraid of stepping across the chasm
bridged by the frail planks. I stretched out my arms and, even, I started crying myself, imagining all sorts of horrors of
the little boy falling and drowning in that bubbly living wriggly mess of foul waste. When I got him out of their, I took
him along with me to Dzodze, I just could not countenance the thought of him going back there alone." The narration of this
story always brought tears to the eyes of my grandma, a sensitive and feeling soul.
Though I have often wondered what of
other children and those other times when a grandma's timely arrival did not avert an eminent disaster, but these thoughts,
I kept to myself, knowing that in many ways tragedy occasions the mundane in fairly unpredictable ways. Uncle Prince is a
man whose demeanour commanded instant respect. He was of that special breed that even covered in the dirt, grit and mire of
desperate want somehow, without uttering a word commanded attention, a second glance and an uninvited salute from strangers.
As he stood in full western attire a single breasted Saville Row suit, brown croc shoes, beside his waxed and polished Mercedes
Benz, he was just “the man” who in turning to look towards his air-conditioned bungalow in the new housing estate
in this incredibly beautiful new industrial city on the West Coast of Africa, was had arrived. He was in a parochial way,
a sign of the times, he was an African in transition, transiting from unsophisticated childhood of a small coastal town, caught
up in the sweep of colonialism and its transformation and after a long stay abroad, he stood unbeknownst to him at the time
at the threshold of traumatic and life changing experiences. Yet for the time being, he privately savoured the material trappings
of cultured and civilised African maleness.
In
a way he was a man caught between states, he was way out of the world view of the lesser mortals who abound in his society,
yet he could not quite find it within himself to find personal equivocation with the moulders of the definers of modernity,
civility, in its totality. Twenty years in England has opened his eyes to a reality that he dared not reflect on, for it was
frightening in its intensity. That he came out of it all a courtly and dignified master of his will, attested to his humanity
and acceptance of the self as a variety in God's diversity in creativity. The memories rolled like storm across the blue background
of the skies above.
Grandma had a stall at the local market
the main centre of economic activities in the area. On market days that occurred every four days, the maids carried all her
wares of rubber bowls and assorted commodities to her stall. There she traded and after school we all rush to her stall where
we received tid bits like furred black berries, 'kokandas' which is groundnut in hardened sugar syrup was a favourite. Sometimes
we helped by carrying trays of wares through the huge market shouting 'here comes the little boy with the best sponges in
the market' the market women will laugh and ask' so how much are the best sponges selling for?' and often make a purchase.
The evenings were spent round the coal
pot where after the evening meal of soup and maize and cassava pudding, we would often fall asleep, cuddling round Grandma
floating into dreamland as she related one of her stories, punctuated with songs. Of her many stories, there was one that
made a deep so deep an impression, that to this day I can recall the story and its songs with a clarity that is benumbing,
I virtually visualise Grandma's visage, voice songs and tears, as caught in the emotion of the story she relates with verve
the story of the drunkard 'Gbonkude' who lived in a little village where every new moon a sacrifice of a virgin had to be
made to the god of the village. It so happened that 'Gbonkude' became bethrothed to a beautiful young maiden. Just about the
time he became betrothed to this beautiful maiden, the god expresses a desire to have the same young maiden’s heart
for its sacrifice. The drunkard 'Gbonkude' unaware that his beautiful young maiden was a meal for the god, had set out to
tap palm wine deep in the forest, he had been gone for three days, the palm trees had been felled, and the sweet frothing
wine was irresistible, he worked hard and drank hard. On the fourth day, the executioners set out under the orders of the
priest to capture the young maiden. There was preparation underfoot for a great sacrifice. The man who was to protect the
maiden was far away in the jungle, expiated on palm wine. When the executioners came to the cottage where the maiden and 'Gbonkude'
lived, they found an easy prey, who was tussled and bundled, crying softly to the shrine of the god. She was left tied to
a tree to awaiting the eventuality of the night. She was sad, lonely and left without a protector in the midst of great wickedness.
She quietly sobbed, recalling how she felt defenceless when being betrothed to a man every one knew was a drunkard, albeit
a hard working drunkard. She could not protest against her parent's decision then and felt helpless against her imminent,
untimely death. She broke into a song, her voice high, lilting and clear, was gentle dew that sobbed its sorrows unto a hapless
village. Her song was:-
"Gbonkude,
Gbonkude, when I told you a drunken man cannot maintain a good homestead, you never believed or listened to me- Now, here
I am, a worthless sacrifice, because you were not home to defend me. Because you were not home to defend me, I am about to
be sacrificed to a tree”
The
whole atmosphere absorbed her sorrow and the birds in the trees sang a chorus to her sad melody. A little bird up in the high
branches took her song far into the jungle and sang it to 'Gbonkude'. Hapless 'Gbonkude' drunk and drowsy, heard the sweet
song of deep sadness sang to his name, suddenly he jolted awake, apprehensive and aware that a great and tragic event was
about to take place, because he had failed his husbandly role. He rose in anger and shame, slung his hunting bag on his shoulders,
tossed aware the 'wine tasting' calabash and advanced towards the village, every time the bird chirped the song, he run ever
faster. He began to recall his struggle to obtain the hands of the maiden in desperation, the beauty of youthful radiance
that lightened the face of his young betrothed. By the time he dashed into the outskirts of the village, it was already dark,
the moon was a huge, white ashy ball in the sky, its brightness cast sad shade that intensified the quietness, he rushed towards
the shrine, now he could hear the young maidens voice floating gently, tiredly through the quiet night. He roared forth, "Dearest,
dearest, I am coming, I am coming, Gbonkude is not one to fail in his duties." As he entered the village square the executioners
were leading his 'dearest' towards the execution block. The blood of warriors past, the ancestral heritage rushed to his chest,
there was only one thing on his mind, to free his young maiden from the grasp of cruelty, the fight for justice prevailed
over the machinations of evil, he grasp the tender hands of a tired maiden and walked into the appreciation embrace of the
villagers. From that day there never was another sacrifice, neither did 'Gbonkude' become so inebriated so as to forget his
husbandly responsibilities.
The story telling often assumed an elaborate
schooling process, where children are tutored on when the songs are introduced, who sings what part etc. When Grandma's sister,
“Danga Agbozumetor” who in those days an elegant, trim woman, visited, she never forgot to tote along bundles
of the special, locally baked, starch biscuit, heavily sweetened, that was a favourite among we children. It was during one
of those evening meals, while we were sitting round the low wooden tables eating from the same bowl, the childhood favourite
of 'akple and fetridetsi' maize pudding and okro sauce, as it often did happen, a fight broke out over who will have what
piece of meat. It was one of those irrelevant childhood nuisances that were commonplace among the five children who we were.
The raucous noise floated and disturbed the serenity of Papa who was reclining in his 'akpasa' the wooden rocking chair that
he favoured. He was in the forecourt, separated from the female quarters where we were eating. He was intolerant of noise
and at that time of the evening when he was deep in a contemplative mood over his fast diminishing eyesight, the iridescent
noise of children shouting and bellowing stung him like a bee, he rose in his irritation and before we scattered from the
descending walking stick that he was brandishing furiously, as his approach virtually went unnoticed, the sudden move tilted
the stools and his bad eye sight not permitting he dove headlong into the steamy pudding and the platter of soup.
None of us children hung around to assess
the damage, we spent a long time outside the main gate in the outer yard until, in the quietude of the night when all had
gone to bed, we were quietly let in, and tiptoed across the vast forecourt with great trepidation. We needn’t have bothered
that evening, for in the early morning of the next day, we were summoned to the hall where we received an earful of reproach
from the old man on expected behaviour.
I remember vividly one hot afternoon,
when the heat draws a quietness that is intense, I found myself throwing spoons and enamel plates on the cement floor of the
kitchen, in the din of that irritating play that only a child can engage in, I completely forgot the 'no noise' rule, all
of a sudden a flash of white and then the lashes were raining down upon my back, until the sudden attack and the stinging
cane let burst forth a gush of watery relief. I never quite forgot that and I've never liked noisy environments since.
Grandpa had some friends that from our
child's eye were pretty oddballs, there was this one man who lived in a big house west of the little town, he entitled himself
chief Agorkoli, the name itself being an anomaly, since oral tradition had it that the real chief Agorkoli was a historically
a much hated chief whose wickedness in the mythical town of Notsie lying in the southern part of the Kingdom of Dahomey is
the historical beginning of the great migration of the Ewes, who set out from the depths of the Niger delta and later had
to migrate from Notsie when the strong arm tactics of the wicked Chief Agorkoli became simply unbearable. Yet, here in a traditional
Anlo town, was an old man who called himself Chief Agorkoli. He will often come to visit Grandpa wearing excessively large
knickers, sown in velvet material locally known as 'ago' and brilliant white tunics sown the traditional way, a round necked
light calico with three buttons, ending in a V-split in the neck region. The funny thing or more appropriately what was 'wacky'
about 'chief Agorkoli' was his belief, that he never tired of announcing, with relish, that the sea erosion could be stopped
by a certain short man, who is so wicked that he wouldn't give the key that closed the doors of the sea to the elders of the
town. To our ears, as children it was a fascinating story that there was a door to the huge expanse of roiling water outside
the walls and that that key was within easy reach. Each time he visited, he showed up, strategically to coincide with grandpa's
before dinner drink of a glass of schnapps, we waited for the key to the sea to be produced but it never was.
Many years after the sea took our house,
I will still return in my dreams to the shoreline of broken and breaking houses, devastated by a hungry and never satisfied
sea, that in the aftermaths of its rage, tantalisingly left a string of land between sea and lagoon, in the place where a
great town once was. I would dream walking the lanes of a town that has ceased to exist, looking for the man with the keys
to the sea. Sometimes my dreams would place me beneath the high, crumbling sand walls, right at the edge of the roaring and
dark sea, sometimes I would be swept by a strong tide into the cold waters, yet the key was never there to lock the sea from
eating away out little town.
One day at dusk, I had wandered out
of the house through the southern gate onto the shore, by this time the sea had established its purpose that Keta was no longer
going to exist, the shoreline was a litter of broken houses, houses that were once grandiose laid as pitiable piles of buried
cement blocks, their yellow, blue and white painted inner walls exposed to eyes that they were not intended for. The town's
people had turned down an offer years earlier by the government for a housing estate elsewhere, now they had only to watch
in dazed astonishment as there houses were irreplaceably destroyed. The slow intensity of the erosion was so concentrated
that it seemed the whole town was caught in a slow spiral that loosed the edges of individuality into a collective desperation
of quiet resignation. The strict authority of missionary upbringing was loosened as we the children watch our grandparents
collapse into stupefaction with their town. I went to the beach that evening and in a strange apprehension realised that there
seemed no other soul on the beach, suddenly, I saw the sea emptying into a whole about a mile offshore and in its place the
sand stretched for miles, and miles far into the horizon; as suddenly as it emptied, it all came pouring out again. The water
came back, roiling and splashing, all along this sandy coast where not even a single rock existed along the coastline.
Grandmother sometimes allowed us the
children to sit under her market stall in the Keta market. The market days were every four days, on the north side of the
market was the lagoon; a vast stretch of ancient sea, bearing boat loads of traders from Anyarko, Hatorgodo and the tens of
hundreds of tiny villages and hamlets lying on the other side of the Keta-Avu lagoon. I remembered the first time I sat with
grandma on the flat-bottomed boats that ply between Keta and Anyarko, it was to attend the burial services of my father's
father, he was virtual stranger to me, I remember only the haze of intense activity that occasioned the service, he was an
”Agbotadua” or captain, he had to be buried like a warrior, they brought out for that occasion the warrior's drum,
that unlike the normal drum that were beaten, was rubbed producing this vibrating hum of deep bass, the noise of that drum
was so deeply resonating and so intensely intruding that it was unnerving.
In those days there were a few boats
that had an outboard motor, but the majority used sails. Once in a while one heard about overloaded boats being swarmed and
going under, but the lagoon was generally benign and every four or five years over flooded, especially when there has been
heavy rains. Occasionally, there were severe droughts that dries up the waters of the lagoon, this had disastrous consequences,
since the fishing in the lagoon was an important economic activity for the people who lived around it. A son of the land who
completed engineering in colonial England, decided to breach the piece of land that separated the sea from the lagoon at Vodza
as an attempt to regulate the pumping of sea water into the lagoon, so as to regulate the water level in the lagoon to control
the seasonal water level fluctuation, the project was locally perceived as definitively great. Those were the days when communication
links enabled black and white television transmission and foreign newspapers to enable awareness that giant sea control projects
were mundane in Holland. In a way, the locals perceived this as an inspired engineering activity springing from a local mind.
The piece of land between the sea and lagoon was just that, a piece of sandbar, but solid and high enough to prevent the sea
from having free access into the lagoon. As the story goes, the tunnels were dug, the pumps installed and on an appointed,
when the project was to be declared open, the great man; that is the engineer, descended down to the mechanically sealed tunnel,
on the lagoon side, turned a switch and a great surge of sea water rushing through the pipes swallowed and drowned him. His
body, of course was never found, and the flow control loosing its proponent, initiator and executor came to an abrupt end.
In a seaside town, under siege from
sea erosion, water stories tend to assume unimaginable grotesque brilliance. As a growing child, any time I passed the lopsided
concrete culvert over that sand bar at Vodza, I've always wondered whether the story was true and if it was how come there
is nothing but a bi-coloured water height measuring pole stuck, a few metres away in the lagoon indicated any significant
engineering activity in that area. But Dr. Ayi's sea-lagoon project story, remained a popular lore.
Between two water masses people tended
to be identified as whether their residence was closer to the lagoon or the sea. So we had the “lagoon-siders”
or the “sea siders”. Grandpa, for instance had a 'girlfriend' on the lagoon side, but we lived on the seaside.
Grandpa's 'girlfriend' was a constant irritation to my Grandma, but for us children, since Grandpa had sired a son with the
lady, it afforded us the opportunity to have another place to go every now and then. On the lagoon side were several interesting
people;” Daa Congotor” for instance was so called because she had lived in the Republic of Congo for a while.
Where Congo was, we had no idea, but we sure knew it was nowhere in West Africa, where extensive trading gave several local
women identifiable accolades like, that's Mama Senegal, “Cameroontor”, or the one from Cameroon etc, then there
were the “Anagos” and Fulani's who came from Nigeria. Daa Congotor was a respected a woman until certain chain
of events caused such a great uproar in the town, that she was somehow tainted. It all started when “Lasbat”,
a diplomat who served abroad in, Brussels, it seemed, returned home and started behaving strangely, as it turned out he had
some mental problems or as some said was abusing 'egbe' or marijuana. Well, it was terrible as it was, but as his savings
dried up, some folks began spreading the world, that he had been seen carrying the tip latrine of Daa Congotor. The tip latrine,
was the general sanitary format in the days before flush toilets became vogue, and were later to be replaced by the ventilated
pit latrines, it was a simple arrangement where a wooden or cement seat was constructed over a bucket that holds waste, and
it lies at the back of every household. Every dawn non-local migrant workers from northern Togo discretely emptied these buckets.
It was therefore considered unacceptable that one should take advantage of a great local gone bad to obtain cheaper disposal
payments by giving such a job to Lasbat.
There was a day, when a great disturbance
erupted from the market area, it turned out that a load carrier who was supposed to carry a heavy sack of 'garri'; cassava
flour, the rough manioc flour, locally favoured for preparing meals, had instead of heading for the ware house where the good
was designated, seen running by the distraught owner of the 60 kilogram bag heading towards the lagoon. The owner concluded
that this was an act of theft and raised the alarm, 'thief, thief. . .' in a short while a mass of people were chasing after
the hapless fellow, who seeing the intensity of the chase and apparently frightened beyond his wits, headed into the waters
and kept going ever further from shore. The lagoon had a shallow bottom for hundreds of meters, and one could wade way in,
out of sight of the shore and still have one's head above the water. The crowd in pursuit wouldn't let up, neither will the
energised load-carrier stop either. Now then thing about “garri” was that it had a tendency to absorb water, expand
and become heavier. For some strange reason, the carrier wouldn't let go of the bag, neither will the shouting mass stop the
chase. On such a bright, hot market day it seemed only one party had to tire and give up.
At about two p.m. a great mass chant
was heard on the horizon 'you've been caught today, there is no escape' when half an hour later the bedraggled mob came into
view, there ahead of this restless mass of angry crowd was the carrier straining under a water laden sack of “garri”
almost bursting at the seams. That man was the loneliest figure one could ever imagine, tense muscles, bunched muscles straining
under the heavy load, eyes distended and noses flaring. The bewildered man was at the head of the mob that hadn’t quite
decided to take law into their own hands. An elated flaring mass herding with a strange determined purposiveness the carrier
towards the police station.
The police had been alerted and were
on hand just to ensure that the situation did not get out of hand.
It all became clear that what started
out as a chase to catch a thief had become the town's people against the wiles and strength's of the load carrier. Yet again
there had been a mistake, investigations later revealed, the carrier was a new man in town, who spoke a different dialect
and had just been on the job only a day. He had interpreted the command 'take the load to the warehouse' to be 'take the load
to the boat' It was that simple, a misunderstanding but it ended up as a show of commitment, first of the loader who no matter
what, was not going to toss the load-off, and of the townspeople who were not going to let him getaway with it.
The town prided itself on its civility.
There was the park, called the Keta London park, with the water tower that held piped water, and beneath the water tower on
the other side of the wall fencing the park was the post office, a hundred meters to the left facing the sea was the police
station, to the right of the post office was the Fort Kristensen built by the Danes sometime in the mid 1500s
Grandma was a trader, she traded in
all kinds of things, one time she fried 'bofrot' or doughnuts, then another time she was selling rubber products, she bought
from CFAO at Accra and retailed at the Keta Market. Another time she will be frying 'atsomo' or biscuits or retailing tobacco
or snuff. She was always up to something. By the time we came around our parents, were all dwelling in the capital. One time
Grandma went on an extended trip to Accra, she was away for some weeks. It was during this trip that Grandpa fell in love
with Afiewor. Afiewor was strictly speaking, a distant cousin's of Grandpa's daughter, she was in her thirties, and had that
sombre, sharp fixedness of a dedicated nurse. While Grandma was away she ended up coming to cook for us the children and Grandpa.
It was during this time that in retrospect, it was suspected in some quarters that something might have happened between them.
In any case it was the case that Afiewor decided that in the course of time she will become not only a domestic assistance,
but the madam of the house, so she arrogated herself the right to sell some baskets of nuts and other brick-a-bracks that
were stored in one of the store rooms in the house. When eventually Grandma returned from her trip, she detected the disappearance
of some stored goods. It was not that these products were of any great importance, but when Afiewor was confronted over the
missing items, as Grandma reported it, her demeanour and highhanded, arrogant, behaviour gave her course to believe that something
was amiss. She confronted Grandpa, but in the typical male avoidance tactics, Grandpa took the offensive and made such a great
raucous that the matter ended up unresolved and unproven. But in retrospect we children wondered if it was altogether unlikely
that the nubile, well muscled, maiden, may not have gone astray or merely warmed an ageing gentleman.
Conclusion
Every place is a happenstance in passing,
being shaped by the events that revolve around its inhabitants. The little town by the sea is an eroding event that dwindles
in significance in the collective mind as the people who once lived there dwindle, diminishing in passage, like so many pebbles
dropped on the path of life and in time buried in the dust of passing time. The image it evokes is partially a picture painted
by the mind in reflective solemnity, slowly reviewing that which possibly was and in being re-awakened emerges as images filtered
through the distortion of the minds windows, reflected on decaying canvasses that hardly can depict a reality veracious.
Over time the people have becomes ghostly
shadows caught in the faint recollections of childhood memories filtered through maturities censored and weighted by life
experiences’ recalled capacity. In far off worlds far removed from event source, in settings incongruent with the slippage
of memories outpouring of fading images caught in the shadow of fading memories.
Bleached photographs of curtailed recollections
of fading relevance garbled in wobbly memory’s redress in a final spurt of enabling immortality to fragile strands of
looping life find resolute expression in these tales of life as it was. Vistas of fading lifetimes set against a background
of childhood innocence.
