It is 2am. I’ve invested the final number of hrs reading through about Pan-Africanism. I must shut down my notebook, depart the get the job done desk and retire to mattress. But I can’t. I am distressed by the pandemic and its destructive assault on innocent people. I have no preference but to no cost my intellect. If I do not, I could keep on being vast-awake right until dawn.
It has been virtually three (3) odd weeks at home. At least I have a residence. There are many kids that, tonight, will lay their heads on concrete or sand, on an vacant abdomen, and snooze. I question what the homeless orphan boy or girl dreams about. I wonder if they are ever delighted at the return to truth when, quickly, their eyes open and the every day struggle resumes.
The tiny cash they could assemble right after a day’s hustle is no longer accessible. The lockdown has restricted the movement of possible customers and benefactors. The streets are silent and vacant. The orphan homeless kid is caged in a slum or has taken refuge underneath an overpass. The President has demanded the orphan stays set. It’s a modest exertion to flatten the curve.
If she’s on her period, by yourself with no caretakers and without having a dime, she’ll have to dismiss private cleanliness. If the administrators of community bogs and bathhouses are charitable plenty of, she could entry the free water govt has manufactured readily available about a a few-thirty day period period. Maybe, civil society might rescue her with free of charge sanitary pads, soap and other toiletries.
If he still left the hinterlands and journeyed to Accra in research of greener pastures, he must temperature the storm on your own. He can’t go out of the town until eventually the lockdown is around. He took a chance to change his future and existence has taught him a bitter lesson. I hope he saved for a wet day. I pray a lengthy lockdown will not leave his shallow pocket empty. If this comes about he may possibly hardly ever have the funds to restock merchandise yet again. Photo the suffering of a migrant labourer.
I was blessed. What if the dice fell on the completely wrong number and I was conceived by poor mother and father? Would I have observed myself, by default, in this vicious cycle of poverty?
Is it too late to conserve Ghana? Is the single mother, with an adolescent boy or girl, who is a nurse and functions the night time change ready to abandon her parental duties and be a part of the national effort and hard work to care for infected folks?
Can we set up a trustworthy volunteer team of babysitters to help these kinds of unique situations? If she dies in the struggle what comes about to her child? But, whatever the circumstance is, government states we ought to mass-test. In truth, it’s the only way to finish this nightmare.
This is a countrywide disaster that feels like a war. Top-down orders would not choose us out of danger. Participatory governance is what we so desperately have to have.
It’s not enough to just listen to ‘Thuma mina’ by Hugh Masekela and sulk. I want to aid. I want to be a section of the brigade that triumphs in the fight in opposition to the coronavirus. I want to lend a hand. A tear just dropped on the surface area of the keypad. “Men don’t cry”, they say, so let’s suppose I yawned.
If heaven yawns too, the metropolis will flood. The raining period draws nigh. How would the orphaned homeless youngster who requires refuge in the open keep on being afloat?
This is a reality verify. Was my patriotism and optimism in Ghana just swollen pleasure? I can’t support but ponder. The Republic isn’t in a position to treatment for the most susceptible citizens. The lockdown is just a penitentiary for an orphaned homeless kid, apart from the jail bars are poverty and not steel.
Politicians just cannot avert these deep-seated fears with claims amplified by the media and petty hoopla. Is there definitely justice for the downtrodden? Can govt safeguard their basic human legal rights? There is a slender line involving the dwelling circumstances of weak folks in our densely populated funds city and a loss of life sentence or a demise want.
If I may insert: The phenomenon of corruption in politics is a war on the lessen courses. Our country-builders have to know that we experience what we sew.
It’s 5am. My eyes are as large my heart. If you are reading through this, I want you to put by yourself in the shoes of an orphan homeless boy or girl and replicate upon their distress.
The writer, Vincent Djokoto, is a Enterprise Government and Columnist.
Twitter/Instagram: @VLKDjokoto
