Following Francis by Susan Pitchford

Author:Susan Pitchford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Church Publishing Inc.

Oh my God. I thought I'd seen the third world before. Turns out I hadn't seen anything, not until today.

I was completely unprepared for the intensity of Ghana. The miles of people outside Accra selling every conceivable product from goats and chickens to soap and toilet paper, both on the side of the road and in between the lanes of traffic. Even children, even at night. The crumbling concrete buildings, which looked liked they'd been burned out and abandoned decades before, though people were still living and working in them. Most of them were missing walls; the two story buildings seldom had a roof. No windows, except on the fuel stations owned by multinational corporations. Many local entrepreneurs operated from a “building” consisting of four twisted wooden poles tied together and covered with dried palm fronds; others were lucky enough to be housed in shipping containers. But most of them had religious slogans on them, usually Christian but some Muslim: “The Lord is My Shepherd Hair Salon”; “Shoes—Blessed are the Merciful”; “Latest Fashions—Inshallah.”

Once out in the country, the main difference was a decrease in population density, though in the villages the houses were often made of mud or entirely of palms. We passed a group of women dressed in black, and I asked Ennis about them. He said they were refugees from Chad, who'd come when their country had “a hunger.” I later saw a news report on the groups of Sudanese refugees streaming into Chad to escape the violence in their country—what chance do they have, when their refuge is itself pouring out refugees? Shortly afterward we passed through a Liberian refugee camp. My seatmate on the plane had told me that not only had these people lost their possessions and their families, but so many of the women had been raped that the entire female population was deeply traumatized. He said that sometimes when a pregnant woman showed up at a checkpoint, the soldiers would take bets on the sex of the child, and cut the mother open to determine the winner. Impossible not to think of another victim, dying in the sun while the soldiers gamble to pass the time. But there was no time to reflect on this, because each impression was quickly succeeded by new ones.

We passed a man on the roadside holding out a couple of animals upside down. Ennis identified one as antelope, and the other as “grasscutter,” or “bushrat.” He said he was trying to give up bushrat, because hunters don't always shoot them—sometimes they poison them, and so many people have died from eating the poisoned ones that it's become a public health issue here. I wished him luck, and promised the folks at home that I am not tempted by bushrat.

After three hours we reached Elmina, and my more modest hotel. This time the air conditioner was off, and my room felt like the locker of a very dedicated jock. I managed to get it cooled off somewhat before the

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