I give thanks to my parents-in-law to have given me their only daughter to be my wife
“Go and fetch water,” said Mery Mensah sending her twelve year old daughter Alberta, one of five children and the only girl out into the nearby bush putting a silver bowl on her head with underneath a small cloth to make the carrying less painful for her. She knew she would come home soon as she always was a reliable child besides being so beautiful that young men of the village approached her on more than once occasions while she only had interest in school and worshiping GOD.
Asaman Kese was a small village with less than four hundred people, most of the Farmers and poorly educated as their tiny farms did not bring in enough harvest to pay for school fees in the nearby Government School not to mention a Private School only very few bigger Farmers were able to access.
Alberta Mensah looked at her mother promising to be back soon, put her black, simple shaped slippers over her big feet and walked out the house along a narrow path that lead out from the village. Along impressive Oil Palms, Mango trees, a few scattered Cashew Nut trees, wild grass and lilac coloured flowers she had to walk for half an hour while the sounds of sparrows where the only companion. Just five minutes out from the village she stopped at a water pump that stood on a small concrete platform before a hugh water reservoir that was dry empty.
The place was s bit bushy haven been taken over by nature once again after some years when they were able to use the pump and get their water easier, good and healthy water, not like from the small River in the bush they had to walk to for many hours a day as someone was not able to fetch enough to last the whole day for a family.
Looking up into the clear sky she saw a monkey jumping form one tree to the next avoiding contact with the ground not to be eaten by predators. Spiders had covered the water pump with their thin nets given the place a historic touch from better times past. She remembered well, five years ago an NGO from Holland came to them to install the water pump wanting to help the community out of poverty. Young enthusiastic Volunteers worked for over one week to make the water project happen and taught the Villagers how to maintain the place well. Years passed, the water pump broke down, no money available for repair, and so the spiders and wild plants took events unfolding by their horns and covered history up under grey and green shadows of their existence.
With regret and sadness did she continue her way through the bush remembering what her Pastor Prophet Emmanuel Badu Kobi once said in Church: “We Blacks have a big problem one of which is we have eventually some ideas, with no plan and vision we set up projects like the Cocoa Beans Silos in Tema that were never in use, a typical White Elephant of which we see in Africa so many, and that is when the problem sets in. But it is in Scriptures, so it is there. When we see that Pharaoh of Egypt asked Joseph, a Jew, not from Africa, to help him and save his people from famine that was coming, he knew very well, that Saving and Maintenance is not part of the Black Man’s Mind, it is no wonder that we Blacks have a serious problem for thousands of years.
It is a serious mentality problem. With any problem there is always a solution, right?…Right? Talk to me, talk to me!…Yes, when a problem come, there is always a solution that comes with it. It is only that we Blacks do not listen, we are too proud of ourselves and think we know it all and know the right things, the White Man should only help us when we are in a real mess and bail us out with Tax Payers money that he in his country by hard labour of Nationals, Migrants and other Foreigners had worked for, either in form of expensive loans to cover his risk or worse in Donor money to make us look as if we are poor people. The White Man after World War II in Europe was supported by Care Packets and Marshall Plan Funding which they depended on for a few years only, now they are Donor countries themselves to us while we here in Africa have all the GOD given richness that they do not have.
Africa as a Continent has the capacity to trade all it needs among themselves and live in true and lasting richness. The fact is also that Africans do not trust each other in their own countries, how much less across African borders; they prefer to buy from the White Man blindly based on trust as regards to product quality and business performance…they pay and get their goods.
I am as a Man of GOD tell you, something serious is wrong with the Black Man. As long as he is not correct in his mind to stand strong and defend his very own interest, the White Man will always be ahead of him and certainly take chances of this weakness as this is human nature in most of us. The Black Man must better change and when he cannot learn by himself, employ others that can do the right job on his behave and be contracted by him so that the time should come, Africa will stand strong among Nations, outstanding in History, to make GOD proud of his Creation and for his Glory.”
She had to confess, sometimes she was not able to fully understand the Anointing the Prophet had on him but she knew he was a truly blessed Man of GOD. Alberta Mensah closed her eyes for a moment, saw the Prophet before her eyes, gave thanks for his life and the blessings he gave her during her sleep and moved on. Reaching the banks of the River she saw in the far distance young men getting ready to engage in Galamsey at the River Body. It became a clear signal for her shortly they will no longer be able to fetch water from the River due to pollution caused by their activities to make quick money instead of waiting for four months and harvest maize at their family lands.
“This morning I was hearing someone saying on radio that illnesses, famine, poor health support and poverty were helping Africa to keep the increase in numbers of Africans down otherwise the situation would have been worse with more fighting and even greater poverty,” said Mery Mensah while sitting in front of her rented house enjoying the cool afternoon breeze. “He person also said that Donor organizations do more harm than good for the development of Africa and it seems they have no interest to stop our misery as this is a big business in the end.”
“What are you saying?” asked Joseph Mensah with wide open eyes. “Such stupid comments are against our Christian Believe and completely inhuman. That person does not know what he is talking about…nonsense. He needs to be stopped to promote such nonsense as other people might want to follow him and bring us down even more.” He got up, his hands in his hips, walked over to the Plantain tree, cut off some brown leaves, throw it unto the heap of green grass, turned round and added with grim face;” How many people would have died without Donor money and Volunteers from abroad to help us while we are fighting each other and displace people from their lands simply because two Strong Man are fighting over power and financial resources in their country brainwashing their followers with wrong ideas and good money promised. It is inhuman to see any human dying in hunger or in shame.”
“He said that when you compare two countries over a period of twenty years, one with AID support, one with no AID support, at the end of twenty years the country with no support is better off than the one with AID money,” mentioned Mery Mensah filling the glasses of the old couple married for the past forty years with freshly squeezed Orange Juice harvested from her garden fruits, remembered tomorrow she would need washing powder for her weekly hand washing.