The Masses can Move

Isn't this a lovely photo? Its one of my favourites.



You know just the other day, I was driving along the beach road from Tema and it just struck me - the sheer paucity of coconut trees on that stretch of the road. I could actually count them. but contrasting that with the scenic view provided naturally by the sundown on the horizon, I concluded that in the middle of paucity, there sure is hope and a source of pleasantness.

There is a stretch of road that could be improved, where the rules will be obeyed, including the axle loads that have been set, where trees could be planted, where families could enjoy, where fisher folk can apply their trade, where use of the shoreline would recognise that others may come and share in the beauty. There is - in short - a myriad of things that one could do in every situation - but do we? this is actually symptomatic of what I see around me...

Question: How did the coconuts get this few? what poor grammar! let me try again!! why are there so few cocunut trees on a beach previously famed by its numbers.

Here comes the smart answer :-) Through the natural ravages of the strong waves and through the natural actions of the fisherfolk on the beach. hahaha..

What nature can destroy can be saved or repaired but what man in his wisdom destroys cannot be saved because he may not even create the space to let that happen or indeed may not even appreciate that he is the source of the damage or even agree with you that something he has done is a prime mover of that problem..

guess what!! we eat the fish, we watch the fisher folk draw their lines in from the sea.. and do you know what they use as their braces? the coconut trees.. Tra la laaa!

So over time a coconut tree is not cut down but "roped down".. so when you approach the cocunut tree, the wounds on the skins - those ridge marks you see on the stem/trunk are all the marks of our nets being drawn in to provide us with fish ... the only thing we don't remember is that once we get our fish, we forget about the ravaging menace to the trees.

Maybe we don't care. Maybe we haven't been schooled to appreciate the problem or may be we have accepted that it is a normal exercise in civic irresponsibility which is the responsibilityof someone else to solve. well you are wrong.

Why? Without those coconuts providing the roots against the ravages of the sea, we have to use rocks to shore up our coast line... and where will the beach be for us to swim??

Which is why, I thought that maybe, just maybe, we will be able to see beyond our noses and have a more comprehensive view of whats around us.
... and lest I forget ...

... Oh dear, it has just been a tumultous remembrance of a day many will both like to remember and forget.. but that is Ghana for you.. our History sometimes teaches us lessons that help us to sometimes wrongly apply our experiences..

When we start thinking about Ghana rather than them and us, you or me, , all this thing called collective effort will not be commercial responsibility saddled upon us but rather grabbed by all of us to create opportunity and the building blocks upon which we can develop and for which we can be remembered by.

What at all is this tendency not to look beyond our noses? there is a bigger world out there..

but who knows - as you step out into the limelight of public opinion, it looks like the thought process are also blinded by the lights. Ouch!!!

The way things should be, we must see that we eat, dream, laugh and shake development - development that brings progress, development that is understood, development that is based on a paradigm that is unambigous, and of course, development that is broad-based. We all stand to gain from that.

What is in your corner of the ring? just a towel and a stool? Look beyond your nose!!