Renaissance Review WASSCE Examination
RENAISSANCE REVIEW
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
·
Amma
Darko…………………………“Faceless”
·
Bayo
Adebowale……………………“Lonely Days”
·
Patience
Swift………………………“The Last Good Man”
·
Richard
Wright………………………“Native Son”
·
Frank Ogodo
Ogbeche……………“Harvest of Corruption”
·
Dele
Charley…………………“The Blood of a Stranger”
·
Lorraine
·
Oliver
Goldsmith………………“She Stoops to Conquer”
·
William
Shakespeare………………….“Othello”
·
Gabriel
Okara……………………“Piano and Drums”
·
Birago
Diop………………….“Vanity”
·
Elvis Gbanabom
Hallowell…………“The Dining Table”
·
Alfred Lord
Tennyson………………“Crossing the Bar”
·
George
Herbert………………….“The Pulley”
·
William
Blake…………………“The School Boy”
·
Lenrie
Peter…............ “The Panic of Growing Older”
·
Kofi
Awoonor………………….. “The Anvil and the Hammer”
·
Gbemisola
Adeoti…………….. “Ambush”
·
William
Morris……………………. “The Proud King”
·
Robert
Frost………........ “Birches”
·
William
Shakespeare………….. “Shall I compare Thee to a summer’s Day?”
References
Preface
In preparing this book, I have tried to present that useful information
hidden in the various texts of literature. This review has been written for
Literature teachers and senior secondary school students. The review
painstakingly takes the reader through the technical details of literary
appreciation, analyses, summaries, plotlines, setting, characterization, themes
and literary devices. This review will however be found useful by O’level
examination candidates who are required to pass literature or related art
subjects, and by anyone who may have had problems understanding a particular
literary text in this review.
Uche
Chidozie okorie
AMMA DARKO
FACELESS
Amma Darko, born 1956 is an African novelist. She was born in Kofiridua , Ghana
and she grew up in Accra Kumasi Kumasi , during the
eighties, she lived and worked for some time in Germany Accra
Perhaps the most frightening lesson in faceless is the fact that having
lost their moral authority over their children, parents like Maa Tsuru are
totally paralyzed by fear, the fear of terrors such as Poison… Fofo in her
innocence, insists she wants to see Government what she doesn’t know is that
Government itself has lost its priorities, its sense of direction, it has
become dysfunctional and deaf to the cries of children abandoned.
Kofi
Anyidoho
January
12, 2003
SETTING
This fiction clouds with reality is set on the history of the two famous
features of Agbogbloshie, namely, the street girls cum Kayayoos phenomenon, and the daunting squatter enclave carrying on
its shoulders the disheartening name of Sodom
and Gomorrah in Accra
city of Ghana
PLOT analysis/overview
Little or more efforts from the media to
galvanize people into action against street children bring shambolic results.
Street children phenomenon has become an abandoned issue and condoned feelings.
Normal people see it as circumstantial and conventional problem. The uncontrollable
phobia in this parental and societal atrocity has shut down with capitalist
excuses. Some people have it that hierarchically some children are to run
around the streets to scavenge for life, while others live in the glorious
state. However, it is not in the case of Amma Darko and her expendable
characters. With the characters’ paramount, emotional turmoil and environmental
turmour, the author seems to bleach off our stained mindsets about street
children.
Stories of street children defile and defy their age limit, human right
laws and moral etiquette. When you think of the level of molestation, abuses
and denial inflict on them by the street lords and Mamas, and the drastic
measures these children take in the code name of hustle. We can religiously say
that the destroyed and vanquished biblical Sodom
and Gomorrah
The first chapter beams a pictorial light on Fofo. The author
realistically brings in meta-pictures, the ugly hemisphere of this young and
unprotected girl who spends her night outside on the old cardboard lays out in
front of the provision store at the Agbogbloshie market place because it is a
Sunday, so that she wakes up at the dawn of Monday.
The author compels us to see the moral decadence in the Sodom
“It had nothing to do with Sunday being a churchgoing day” [pp.2]
An ancient person from the last century will spit his/her tongue out, if
eventually come across Fofo watching adult films her fourteen years required
her to stay away from or drinking directly from bottle of akpeteshie , or at best, some slightly milder locally produced gin
like Nigerian Kai-Kai. Nevertheless, this is the case of Fofo and the other
children.
“Ultimately, she would have found herself waking up Monday morning
beside one of her age group friends, both of them naked, hazy and disconcerted
and oblivious to what time during the night they had stripped off their clothes
and what exactly they had done with their nakedness, sucked into life on the
streets and reaching out to each new day with an ever-increasing hopelessness,
such were the ways they employed to escape their pain.”[pp.1]
Disillusionment, these children see the society uninhabitable. A reporter
from the private FM stations’ survey makes one’s heart bleeds. A boy and a girl
of about Fofo’s age who are making a home on the streets of Accra
The reporter thinks the kids
would be craving for material things like shoes and dresses. They never think
of material things, only to go home one day to visit their mother and see a
look of joy on her face.
“I want to be able to sleep besides her. I wish her to tell me she was
happy I came to visit her. Whenever I visit her, she doesn’t let me stay long
before she asks me politely to leave. She never has a smile for me. She is
always in a hurry to see my back” [pp.2]
The author compels us to see the emotional denial on the part of their
parents and the forceful mature level, harsh reality turns the psyche of these
children. They reason beyond their age and psychologically turn adamant critics
of their family background and relationship.
“Sometimes I cannot help thinking that maybe she never has a smile for
me because the man she made me with, that is my father, probably also never had
a smile for her.”[pp.2]
“One day she said to me, ‘Go you do not belong here? If I don’t belong
to where she is, where do I belong? But I know that it is not just that she
doesn’t want to see me. She worries about the food that she has. It is never
enough.”[pp.2]
An outlined comparison comes up on the page, the day the little girl
feels loved by an old unknown woman.
The girl says “One day a kind
woman I met at a centre made me very happy. Before I went there, I knew that by
all means she would give me food. But this woman gave me more. She hugged me. I
was dirty. I smelled bad. But she hugged me. That night I slept well. I had a
good dream. Sometimes I wish to be hugged even if I smell of the
streets.”[pp.2]
This is what is required of their parents, emotional attachment not
denial and rejection. The little girl expresses her heart desire, which comes
as a natural instinct from the parents towards their children. The little
girl’s speech also lays emphasis on the ‘The battle of Ages’ the old woman on
that passage represents an entire generation different from the contemporary
age. In their age, child caring and nurture cannot be over-emphasized. The old
woman knows what it takes to have the fruit of the womb and to keep it, unlike,
the contemporary age where someone can easily pick up a newborn baby along the
road or nearby bushes.
We think of Naa Yomo, the popular old woman with brown dental gum. When
Vickie and Kabria visit Maa Tsuru, the children and animals in the compound pay
them no attention, while the few mothers, who are home, choose to mind their
own business. However, a croaky voice asks them whom they want. They tell Naa
Yomo that they want to see Fofo’s mother. She offers them seat. Clearly, Naa
Yomo represents her Age very well, while the other mothers seem to dwell tight
in their ruptured and maddening reality.
The author notifies the reader of Kabria, the regular wife, mother,
worker, and car owner. She has three children Obea, her first child at fifteen,
her second child Essie who is nine and the source of different kinds of worry
to Kabria. Her last child is Ottu, the only son. Kabria takes the
responsibilities of her family, married sixteen years to Adade, her architect
husband. In spite of the little money, she earns. She maps out plans,
continually counting and recounting the money in her purse with the deepest of
frowns and cancelling out items on the household shopping list.
Kabria suffers her period of discomfort in silence, praying to God for
guidance on how to deal with her now physically maturing daughter. Adade, for
his part, retires to bed each night wondering if the time had not come for him
to invest in two bulldogs to discourage potential young male whistlers behind
the wall.
The author compares the two worlds, the street world without parental
care and the home world with parental care. The author shows us the
disconcerted world and the upheaval, suppression and agony therein and shows us
the homely world with unending stress, discomfort and afterward passion parents
come across to watch their children grow.
Simply, Faceless is the story of young children making a home on the
street, with more emphasis on Fofo as the leading character. Amma Darko depicts
Fofo’s life in the choked, dilapidated and hellish creek of Sodom and Gomorrah,
subjected to the daring life of squalor, abuses, rape, molestation,
intimidation, bully and human trafficking by their shattered parents and
atrocious street Lords and Mamas.
These children live a life of disguise, stealing, drug abuse, alcoholic.
They know poverty by its colour, appearance, length and size.
Fofo encounters Kabria in the market at the point of picking Kabria’s
purse. The market people catch her, and Kabria saves her from the hands of
serious a man, who volunteers willingly to give Fofo jungle punishment. Kabria
works in MUTE, an organization that fights and represents the less privileged
and mentally ill persons.
She discovers that the dead body found in the market, which makes
headline on the media and every corner of the market is Fofo’s sister. She
takes Fofo in and sets with her colleagues in the office, Aggie, Vickie and
Dina to represent the faceless street children and to bring the killers of Baby
T to justice.
CHAPTER ONE
It is around 2 a.m. and Fofo, though not hugged, smiles in her sleep. It
is a dream. In her dream, she lives in a home with a roof. In the home with a
roof, there is a toilet. She enters the toilet and does her thing because she
feels the urge to attend to nature’s call. In real life is a war because she
has to do away with bullies, mostly the older and more seasoned street boys,
and their thickset leader, Macho who manage the rubbish dumps.
She smiles in her dream when she feels light pressure on her breasts
under the weight of a pair of hands that are definitely not the lord’s hands.
Slowly she begins her decent from dream to reality. She opens her eyes and sees
someone kneeling over her. It is a man. She closes and opens her eyes again. It
is the no-nonsense Street lord, Poison of the streets, all right; a man who
used to be the leader of the bullies like Macho is now. Fofo let out a cry and
one huge muscular hand comes down hard upon her mouth and suppresses the sounds
from her throat.
The man threatens her life if she refuses his way into her. Poison
pushes up her dress and scowls at the sight of her underpants. Fofo surrenders
too her instincts. Poison unbuckles his belt. Then an angel watching over Fofo
descends and saves her and Fofo bolts away as one pursues by the devil.
In the morning Fofo and Odarley, her friend goes to dump to defecate.
Odarley is vigilant of Macho’s presence, she rushes the act and warns Fofo, who
squats reluctantly to finish quick before Macho and his boys come.
Unexpectedly, a lorry engines revive and all the children on the dump take on
their heels. Fofo rushes off and forgets her plastic bag containing all the
money she got last week. The baldhead Macho takes the bag and Fofo cries. Fofo
thinks of going to see her mother. Odarley asks her whether her mother will
help with money but Fofo refutes this insinuation. Fofo tells Odarley that her
purpose is not of money, but of Poison who tries to rape her last night.
Odarley baffles and questions her claim.
CHAPTER TWO
She is a mother, wife, worker and battered-car owner. no day passes that
Kabria does not wonder how come the good lord created a day to be made up of
only twenty four hours, because from dawn to dusk, domestic schedules gobble
her up; office duties eat her alive, her three children devour her with
sometimes realistic and many times very unrealistic demands.
Kabria faces the problem of how to control her first and maturing
daughter. On the path of Essie, her second daughter, she demands for material
things and Ottu her only son who speaks of how special he is to the family
being the only male child. Adade always rise from bed each working day at 6
a.m. expects to find his breakfast table ready. Adade reads newspaper whenever
he goes for breakfast. The husband and wife always argue about Creamy, the old
car.
CHAPTER THREE
Odarley and Fofo visit Fofo’s mother, after some dramatic scene between
Odarley and the members of the extended family. Maa Tsuru tells Fofo that her
sister Baby T is dead. Baby T works for Mama Broni and when Baby T dies, Poison
threatens Mama Broni not to tell Mama Tsuru about her daughter’s death.
However, Mama Broni tells Mama Tsuru and Poison comes to Mama Tsuru and
threatens to replaces Baby T with Fofo, if she ever seeks to know the cause of
her daughter’s death.
Fofo asks her mother what happened to Baby T, her mother says Baby T
died out of her own fault according to Poison. Fofo digests that and chuckles
bitterly. Fofo also learns that her stepfather has just left her mother. Fofo’s
mother urges her to go, to leave Accra
CHAPTER FOUR
Kabria’s household is up to the neck in its routine Monday morning
chaos. Obea switches on the radio and put the dial on Harvest FM. Adade is in
the bedroom. He listens to something on another FM station on the bedside
radio. Abena, the house help tidies up the kitchen. Harvest FM reviews the
morning newspapers. Kofi Annan’s name keeps cropping up on the radio. Kabria
wonders how many people in other parts of the world had heard of Ghana
The presenter on Harvest FM, Sylv Po, saves the situation. His strong
voice announces a coming discussion on HIV AIDS to be featured on his Good
morning Ghana
Here Kabria battles with her children, prepares them for school. The
guest on the radio talks about pain and hopeless out there on the streets,
which many children seek to deal with through drugs, sex and alcoholic drinks.
The guest reminds the presenter of a recent survey conducted for a programme,
that all girls on the streets are very active sexually, and they learn that for
many of them rape was their first sexual experience. Girls as young as seven,
many are child prostitutes.
Essie barges into Kabria’s concentration, Kabria listens to the radio,
and she turns off the radio and tells the children to get their bags into the
car. She picks up her bag, takes the car key, and looks at the room mirror,
satisfied with her reflection, she leaves the room. She turns towards the
girls’ room. She goes in and lifts Obea’s pillow and a pamphlets falls out. The
title—Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana
She drives her children to school angrily because of the content she
finds in Obea’s bed. After series of events that happen with Creamy on her way
to her office. She gets to the office and greets Dina. Dina ignores and glances
at her wristwatch. Kabria defends herself and blames Creamy. Dina frowns
because Creamy cannot defend itself. Vickie, a co-worker chuckles and teases
Kabria. She says that if even Kabria knocks down some groundnut seller’s ware
at Makola square, she will definitely find a way to put the blame on Creamy.
They all laugh. Dina talks about the meeting she has that morning and the
support they are expecting to get from project on mentally ill pregnant women.
Aggie, the last of the foursome laments if they can get hold of one such
perverse man who sleeps with mentally women.
CHAPTER FIVE
Creamy takes Kabria safe and sound to the market. She heads to the
garden eggs vendor, stops briefly on the way to get some fresh red and green
peppers for Dina. She buys from her vendor and the woman gives her good and
selected ones. She turns to leave and the woman warns her not to follow a path
route, because a girl died along that short road, a gruesome and peculiar
death. People still throng there.
Kabria remembers that she heard of it and asks the woman whether the
girl is a Kayayoo (Northern Ghanaian
girls who come down south to work as porters in the market). The woman replies
that some say she is while others say she is a street girl. The woman describes
how there is no single hair left on the dead body and the discovery of some
white feathers. A white fowl dies secretly the night after. Maybe, it is to
appease the girl’s soul. Kabria leaves and disposes the garden eggs in her car
and takes the long route to the tomatoes vendor. She buys the tomatoes and her
way sees two huge musclar men fight to settle a disagreement over their
operational boundaries. A woman passes, spits, and scrambles “Big muscles, tiny
brains. Can we normal ones ever understand these street people?” ‘Normal people
and Street people’ Kabria wonders. She bumps on other women discussing the
mysterious death of the young girl.
Kabria asks the women whether they take the body to Korle-Bu for an
autopsy. The first woman says she think so. A young boy of fourteen shouts
“Agoo…agoo” and passes Kabria. The boy is in great haste to vamoose from the
scene. Suddenly, a woman screams, “Get him! Don’t let him go! He’s got
somebody’s purse” people check for their purses and unfortunately, Kabria is
the only person still searching. They pursue the boy, they catch him and bring
back Kabria’s purse. The increasing crowd grows eager to make history of the
boy.
A hand from nowhere whacks him across the face. The boy wails. He is
about Obea’s age. Kabria begs the crowd to leave the boy. The man with the boy
refuses. Kabria opens her purse and gives the man some notes. The man takes it
and leaves the boy. “Lucky you!” and when no one expects it, the man knocks the
boy’s forehead with his knuckle. The boy sobs some more. Auntie Tsoo thanks
Kabria. The boy follows Kabria to her car and she tells him to go. He stands
and refuses to go and Kabria asks him whether he is hungry, he says yes and
Kabria mourns softly.
“You tried to steal my purse. I saved you at a cost. And now I should
feed you too?”[pp.47]
Kabria gives him some note and he stands still without moving.
“What again”
Kabria opens her purse, takes out thousand notes and hands it over to
him. He snatches. Kabria becomes irritated.
“A very expensive thief it is you have turned out to be young man. I,
your intended victim who bailed you out, have to feed you too?”
Kabria gets into Creamy. She starts it. Creamy refuses to respond.
Kabria looks into the driving mirror. The boy is still standing there. He
pushes back the cap on his head. Kabria gasp and turns off the ignition. She
takes another good look at him. She gets out of the car, because ruggedness,
dirt and all, the good-looking face she is staring into is not handsome. It is
pretty. The boy is a girl, poses as a boy to steal purses. Moreover, she is
Fofo.
Kabria tells Fofo that she knows not what to do for her. The little girl
replies that she wants to see Government. It appears crazy to Kabria, all she
needs is to leave. She tells Fofo that she will come for her tomorrow. She gets
into Creamy and she starts the ignition. Creamy whines. She thumps down a foot
on the clutch and shift the gear into free. Fofo’s face clouds again. Kabria
wonders if Fofo has seen through her lie. She releases the hand brake. Creamy
begins to roll down the slope. Fofo gets into stride alongside it and tells
Kabria that the dead girl is her sister. Kabria presses the accelerator further
down. Creamy sputters and coughs and roll on down.
At the office, Kabria narrates her story to her colleagues and they pay
attention with no interruption. They discuss the aftermath of all the events
and scenario in the market. Kabria recalls of the morning programme by Harvest
FM on AIDS and stree children.
CHAPTER SIX
The exercise book with its PPAG pamphlets replaces Fofo and everything
to do with her in Kabria’s mind. Kabria practices in her head how to ask some
uncomfortable questions to Obea. She spots Obea right away when she reaches
their school gate. Obea sits under a tree with some classmates. She waits to
pick up both Essie and Ottu too. They all go into the car and Kabria asks Obea
what she was discussing with her friends. Obea gets angry. “School work mum”
They get home and Kabria heads straight for her room to change. While
the children sort themselves, out. Moreover, when she leaves for the kitchen to
see to dinner, the children get busy with their homework. Abena washes dishes
in the sink. Kabria’s mind begins to play tricks with her, conjures up images
of a dead girl who refuses to lie still in her coffin during her burial day. A
report once alleged that African woman worked for an average of sixty-seven
hours a week as opposed to fifty-five for the African man. Kabria tells Abena
that in Cuba
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kabria arrives at Agbogloshie around ten O’clock the following morning
and parks Creamy at the same place as the previous day. She calls their
communication center and reports that Fofo is nowhere there. In addition, she
tells them that by the time she gets back to her car and Fofo is still not around
she will leave. She gets to her car and Fofo never appears. She goes to the
direction of the blue kiosk where the dead body was. Kabria takes in the scene
in all its clarity. A crudely dug gutter by the side of the kiosk, which
infested with algae, stinks pungently, betrays the litres of urine feed it each
day. It adds to the misery of the environment.
Kabria enters the kiosk. She recognizes the salon owner from her huge
portrait in one corner. The presence of Kabria prompts the salon owner, she
says—“you should have come earlier. We are fully booked up for the day. Can you
come back tomorrow?”
Kabria greets her and tells her that she is not there to plait hair. She
tells her that she is from an organization called MUTE and scretches out her
job ID card. The woman gets confused. Kabria says she came for the body found
behind the woman’s salon last week. The woman alarms. “Sister have I done
something to you? Do you know me from somewhere? Have I, maybe, snatched your
husband from you?
The woman laments and tells Kabria to go and leave her never to return.
Kabria tells her lies to gain her trust and the woman feels for her. Stories of
how her husband maltreats her and at this stage the woman is also in the same
shoe gives Kabria chair to sit. Kabria takes the seat, feels like both Judas
Iscariot and Archimedes. The woman does not allow her pose her question again.
She launches into her response.
“To tell you the truth, my sister, what at all am I even supposed to
know?”
Kabria breaks into a cold sweat. Is that all, the woman is going to tell
her after she has so cold bloodedly massacred Adade’s reputation. All for the
sake of some information about a dead girl, whose face she had never even set
eyes on. The woman knows nothing but grants Kabria the chance to speak with her
senior apprentice on pink blouse. The senior apprentice tells Kabria that when
she came to work that day people gathered around the dead body. They discuss
whether the girl died there or somewhere else. She tells Kabria that she saw a white
fowl lying slaughtered at the spot where the body was. Kabria goes into the
kiosk and thanks their Madam. She leaves. She casts a final look at the girls
as she leaves the salon and catches them all staring at her and whispering
among themselves. She prays fervently to God that by the time she reaches
Creamy, Fofo should be waiting by it. She focuses her thoughts on the history
of the two famous features of Agbogbloshie, namely, the street girl cum Kayayoos phenomenon, and the daunting
squatter enclave carrying on its shoulders the disheartening name of Sodom and Gomorrah
Kabria prays some more and God above smiles upon her, from afar she
spots Fofo besides Creamy. Fofo slumps against the car rather awkwardly and her
head lowers. She calls her. Fofo ignores the call. Kabria quickens her steps.
She calls again and Fofo raises her head. She runs to the communication centre.
She calls the office. Vickie picks it up. She orders Vickie to tell Dina that
she is bringing the girl to the office.
They ride in silence until they are out of the Agbogbloshie area, before
Kabria recovers from her initial shock and asks Fofo who did this to you. Her
right eye is bloodshed. The lip is cracked. The right side of her face is
swollen. Fofo refuses to say who put her on that alarming condition.
Kabria asks Fofo whether her dead sister’s case has anything to do with
her condition. Fofo denies any death’s case. Kabria reminds her of the one
found in the market. Fofo denies giving out such information. Kabria baffles.
“Was it not you who told me yesterday that the girl whose body was found behind
the blue hairdresser’s kiosk was your sister?”
When they get to the office Dina runs mad seeing Fofo’s appearance. They
think about informing the police and Fofo tries to escape because they mention
police. Vickie blocks the entrance and Fofo wails “No Police”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The pamphlets are under your pillow, mum. I put them there this
morning.” The pamphlets are three in all. Something on PPAG’s consultancy
works. She smiles at the thought that Obea employs the same tactic she employed
to discover them under her pillow. Kabria browses through them. After she gets
distraction from Ottu, she returns to the pamphlets. Something catches her
attention. ‘Youth to Youth Approach’ ‘Peer to Peer Counselling’ it makes a lot
of sense of her. Kids who did not have the benefit of parental guidance could
benefit from those who did. Kabria goes deeper on the insight of PPAG and the
diversity of their programmes. Ottu calls and Kabria gives up, she pushes the
pamphlets under the pillow and rise to the door. She has to check on the food
anyway. Ottu follows her to the kitchen. There, she has series of arguments
with her three children. She returns to the PPAG pamphlets. She asks Obea who
gave her the pamphlets. Obea replies that a friend in school whose mother works
with the organization. Kabria summons her children and asks them what they know
about street girls. Obea answers that they are the iced water and dog chains
sellers at the roadside. She tells them about Fofo, she does not have a home,
nobody cares for her, nobody buys her clothes and nobody feeds her.
Then let her come and live with us Essie says. Kabria tells them that
you do not pick somebody from the streets into your home. There are
consequences. At this point Obea quotes John F. Kennedy— the future promise of
any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth”
Kabria affirms that the late American President is correct. Before Kabria
sleeps that night, she calls Dina to ask how Fofo is doing.
CHAPTER NINE
It is one of those MUTE meetings. Dina is at her eloquent best. Dina
details the aims and objectives of MUTE. She explains how personally they are
involved with Fofo’s situation. She expresses the need to document stories and
encounter like the birth area names such as Jericho
and Bethlehem
At this point Kabria brings up the issues of PPAG pamphlets and their
contents. How it will help the peer and youth out there on the streets. They
need to bring these bullies and the killers to book since Fofo keeps mentioning
Government and in her little understand she believes that Government have the
power to stop or do certain things.
MUTE decides to visit the police station and extracts information from
them, what they know about the dead girl before confronting Maa Tsuru and Mama
Broni. They all agree to the plan. Dina shares the assignment. She orders
Kabria and Vickie to go the police and then Fofo’s mother. While she goes to
the clinic to see Fofo’s doctor, from there she will pass the house, check on
Fofo, and see to some other things too. Aggie stays in the office to updates
file; the mentally ill pregnant woman’s and Fofo’s.
The police station stands in a very busy area and is a sorry sight.
Broken windows, leaky drains, cracked walls and peeling paint greet Vickie and
Kabria. The officer behind the outdated front desk listens to the bland
expression to their mission and sends them in to the inspector’s office. They
meet the inspector and repeat their mission. He listens to them in hostile
silence and mutter with the wave of one hand for them to sit down. They thank
him. The inspector boom again. He seems to be enjoying making them see how very
unwelcome they are. Kabria tells the inspector the aim of their organization.
Kabria asks about the dead girl’s body, if any useful information has come
across. The inspector replies that bodies are at all kinds of places at all
sorts of times. Vickie tells him that they are interested in this particular
one. Kabria asks him whether they are still investigating. The police
inspector’s face clouds angrily. He obviously is not pleased with their
persistence. The inspector barges, sorts who gave them authority to come to the
police station. Kabria replies that they came to seek information for their
organization. The inspector orders them to turn and he shows them a filing
cabinet there, where confidential reports are.
They see what it is he wanted them to see. One drawer is bad that it
cannot shut close. Another’s handle is missing and the third has a gaping hole
where a lock should have been. The inspector tells them about the formal
inspector, who stayed in the office before him.
“I have been here a fairly long time now, but I met the inspector who
was at this post ten years ago, one day. And do you know the first question
that he asked me? Whether this cabinet had now been repaired now, the
furniture? Did I offer you both chairs when you come? Come! Have you seen my
chair? Have you seen my table?”
The table is old. It chipped at the edges and covers in scratches. The leather
covering of the chair tears up. The police officer orders Vickie to pick up his
office phone, Vickie does and the cell phone is dead. By now, they get the
message and want to leave. Nevertheless, the inspector is not through with them
yet. The inspector takes Kabria and Vickie to an empty yard and asks them what
they see. They respond that they see nothing.
“Exactly! You saw nothing, no? But what should you have seen? Shouldn’t
you have seen something there?”
“A vehicle, you have no vehicle?”
The inspector’s cynical grin turns to a wry smile. Vickie and Kabria
follow and watch him slump down on his miserable chair, behind his chipped
table.
CHAPTER TEN
No Ghanaian with money would choose to live in the inner city. If he has
to, then only as part of an established extended family household according to
the author. Vickie and Kabria with paper directions, wave their way through
narrow alleys and dilapidated buildings to locate where Maa Tsuru lives. They
see crudely constructed wooden structure, encounter a lone man behind an old
table with sign proclaiming him as a watch or shoes repairer. The drains of the
area choke with filth and discarded plastic bags. They spot a kenkey house
painted a gaudy green. They enter and see two very fat women, one slumps on low
stools, busy washing dried cornhusks. Under a shed to the right of the entrance
is trading venom with other who is in a brown cloth.
Kabria and Vickie interrupt their conversation and announce themselves.
Vickie describes the house they are looking for, and the fat woman in brown
tells them of Naa Yomo’s house. The woman offers them seat and sends for her
six year ago daughter to go and call her elder sister. The fat woman’s elder
daughter appears and the fat woman instructs her to take Vickie and Kabria to
Naa Yomo’s house. Vickie and Kabria thank them and follow the girl out.
The girl shows them the house. Kabria gives her a coin in appreciation.
She thanks and walks away. Vickie and Kabria enter the blue house. Most of the
doors of its twelve rooms appear closed, but the front of each entrance shields
with curtain, which by themselves give clues to the economic status of its
occupants. The children and animals in the compound pay them no attention,
while the few mothers, who are home, choose to mind their own business. A
croaky voice asks them who they want. They turn to the source of the voice and
know instantly that they are facing the famous Naa Yomo. They tell Naa Yomo
that they want to see Fofo’s mother and the reason why they want to see her.
Naa Yomo offers them seats and tells them that Maa Tsuru locks herself up in a
room. Vickie and Kabria ask to know why she locks herself up, the old woman
finds it difficult to say, but starts telling them that she gave birth to
eleven children and have buried five. The old woman thanks God for her husband.
A good man, who never say to his child, there is no food, go out onto the
street and find some money for food. Vickie and Kabria listen. Naa yomo gives
them a truckload of information but it is up to them to sieve out the useful.
Kabria asks the old woman about her children. She says they have all moved out.
They are all in good employment. Naa Yomo tells them how her children wanted
her to leave the area, but she refuses. She tells them of an evil man who
visited Maa Tsuru and Maa Tsuru does not want to do anything with the man, for
that she locks herself up and people in the house feed her leftovers of their
food because in the house they act like one family. Vickie and Kabria plan to
leave and hear Maa Tsuru wails. Naa Yomo explains that it is the curse. En
route back to the office, Vickie says that Naa Yomo knows so much. Kabria
agrees that if the contents in her head can be deciphers with the click of a
mouse, she could fill up another George Padmore Library.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dina agitates over Vickie and Kabria inability to meet Maa Tsuru until
she hears all they have to say about Naa Yomo. Fofo gets well in Dina’s home.
She is not talking much still yet. Aggie suggests Fofo goes to stay with Kabria
her saviour maybe she will reveal more information to her. Dina refutes and
tells her that Kabria is a mother who has to take care of her family problem
first. Dina suggests they should take her to Children-in-Need or
Street-Girls-Aid but before they release her, they must be certain she will be
safe. Aggie asks Dina about Harvest FM. Dina says that Sylv Po is doing his
best that he will be discussing the street children phenomenon again on his GMG
show tomorrow. They all plan that Kabria will come to Dina’s house to see if
Fofo will gives her more information, so that they can feed Harvest FM for more
discussion issues over the air. Kabria agrees to come.
On her way, home with her children, she tells them that she will leave
them tonight to Dina’s place. The children are surprised; they never experience
something of that nature. It is unusual to them, Dad will come back not to meet
Mum at home, and Mum is relaxed about it. Kabria laughs. The telephone rings by
the time they reach home. It is Dina. Fofo is ready and waits. She longs to see
Kabria.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The few days under Dina’s secure roof and in MUTE’s absolute care put
Fofo through a tremendous transformation. She becomes relaxed. Her face rests.
She emits an aura of softness. Kabria visits Fofo in Dina’s house. Kabria asks
about her health and Dina says that she is on painkillers, and Afi, Dina’s
house help has been pampering her a lot. Kabria asks Fofo if she is ready to
talk. She says yes and when Dina seems to leave the room for Kabria and Fofo.
Fofo tells Dina to stay. they only excuse Afi. Kabria tells Fofo that they
visited her mother. Fofo asks whether they see her brother. Kabria replies that
her mother refused to open her door. Dina says that their interest at MUTE lies
in knowing why people generally live on the streets, especially in Fofo’s case.
Fofo tells them that she started with begging when she dropped out of school.
It is the same with Baby T. fofo talks about Baby T. and her philosophy of how
to suppresses hunger by taking charge. Moreover, that means finding money for
food through any means possible. Fair or foul, begging, stealing, whatever and
Fofo learnt the act of pick pocketing from her. She was a very good teacher
Baby T. fofo says. Kabria tells Fofo that she denies Baby T. at a particular
point in time. Fofo admits and tells them that Baby was her sister. Fofo’s
mother sends her to live with Mama Broni. Poison, the bad man attacks her. Fofo
tells them that she spends her time on the street the more its attraction lures
her, because she lives her life, nobody controls her, she watches any film at
the public video center and it is fun. She makes friend and joins gang. She
tells them about Odarley her friend, who is still at Sodom
and Gomorrah
Abena is the only one up and waiting when the interaction with Fofo over
and Dina takes Kabria home.
CHAPTER THIRDTEEN
The unabated interest of MUTE in Fofo and her late sister, Baby T, leads
to Harvest FM’s Sylv Po becoming more engrossed in the saga, after Dina updates
him with details of their conversation with Fofo. Sylv Po begins a series on
the street child phenomenon and uses Fofo’s story as a case study. His first
guest, a Ms. Kamame, whose non-governmental organization had done a study of
the phenomenon in Accra
The producer of Sylv Po then turns off the sound of the telephone so
that only the signal button light keeps flashing. The caller persists and Sylv
Po agrees with his producer to make an exception of the persistent caller and
find out what he wants. Kamame delivers her long and interesting research
findings and Sylv Po summarizes the programme. The producer opens the phone
lines and the caller voices out his pidgin lingua franca about his real story
of the dead girl found in the market of Agbogbloshie. The caller says—
“the name of the dead is fati. She dies because she does something bad.
Something very bad. She get husband in her hometown. Den she ran leave him and
come to Accra
Sylv Po asks the caller on the phone whether he knows Fati. The caller
says the question is not important. Sylv Po tells the caller to say what he
thinks is important. The caller says that he is sure the dead girl is Fati.
After the caller leaves offline, Slyv Po sighs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Book two takes us back to past years. It brings to life the story of
Tsuru. Kwei’s mother argues with him. His mother scolds him for impregnating
Tsuru, whose dying mother laid a curse before she died. Kwei argues that the
curse is not for Tsuru but for her father, who abandoned her mother in her time
of distress. Kwei’s mother explains that Tsuru is a descendant of her father;
therefore, the curse her mother laid follows her too. Kwei’s mother calls him a
boy, but Kwei maintains that he is a man. Kwei is an unemployed Mason; her
mother feeds him and sees him as a boy. That he has no job, but has gone and
impregnated a girl. His mother has no problem with the pregnancy, after all she
will add to the numbers of her grand children before she dies, but must it be a
girl with a curse. Kwei’s mother condemns the pregnancy for the curse. Kwei
scrambles money together, on his own buys bottle of schnapps, goes over to Maa
Tsuru’s family home, and announces he has come to show his face. Three family
members accept his drink on the family’s behalf. Kwei’s mother however stops
feeding him. Kwei’s family also treats him like a leper. Kwei survives this situation
for only few days. He informs Maa Tsuru’s family he has to go and seek for
work. With baby on the way, Maa Tsuru sheds tears. Kwei stays away for several
months. Nobody hears from him. Maa Tsuru goes hungry. She assists her aunt in
her Kenkey business to eat. Kwei arrives. He comes with little money and plenty
bodily scars. Rumor has it that Kwei get caught up in bad company that steals
building materials from construction sites in Accra
Maa Tsuru’s aunt reprimands her about Kwei and the full wife services
she gives to Kwei without Kwei paying her pride price. She reprimands her too
late, Maa Tsuru carries Kwei’s second child. He does any odd job that comes his
way that pays some money. Maa Tsuru depends totally on Kwei and Kwei’s care for
them all doubled. The unexpected happens. Maa Tsuru is still spending the
nights with Kwei. Neither of them takes any precaution. They know it could
happen. They assume and hope it would not. Then it does. Maa Tsuru becomes
pregnant the third time, while their second son is still crawling.
Kwei becomes a changed man overnight. Kwei blames Maa Tsuru for allowing
herself conceive the third time. Kwei accuses Maa Tsuru of being a bad luck and
he stops Maa Tsuru from coming close to his doorsteps. Maa Tsuru waves her way
back to the mercy of her anut, and secretly awaits Kwei’s reconciliation
messages. Maa Tsuru visits Kwei unexpectly and sees another woman in his house.
Maa Tsuru exchanges words with Melon-bosom. Melon-bosom scolds Maa Tsuru and
tells her that she is under a curse. Maa Tsuru returns home in shock.
Melon-bosom goes to Kwei and accuses Maa Tsuru of planning to eliminate both of
them. Kwei invites Maa Tsuru. Maa Tsuru comes and Kwei locks her inside. He
goes to the drinking spot and takes akpeteshie.
He comes back and pounces on Maa Tsuru. He pounces on her pregnant body, and
Maa Tsuru begins to bleed. Kwei grins. He pulls her up by one arm, holds her by
the back of her neck and pushes her out of the house. He goes to Agboo Ayee and tells all the alcoholic
takers that they should start calling him Dr. Kwei, because he has
singlehandedly and very cost effectively terminates an unwanted pregnancy. Days
turn to weeks and to months, Kwei observes to his utmost horror that Maa
Tsuru’s pregnancy is growing bigger and at a rapidly fast rate. Kwei thinks the
power behind Maa Tsuru and her baby’s survival. He thinks it is the curse. By
morning, kwei is gone. He stays away for only a year. Maa Tsuru keeps appearing
in his dreams, he alleged, urging him to return home. This time, he does not
come with bodily scars. He shows signs of having some decent work to do while
away. He buys Maa Tsuru two half pieces of wax prints. Kwei begs for
forgiveness and solicit the aunt’s help to woo back Maa Tsuru for good. The
aunt forbids Kwei’s request and refuses to place her niece’s hand back kwei.
Kwei gives up on that angle and approaches it from the uncle’s with bottle of
imported schnapps. He adds some money and promises that he will come back in a
few days time to discuss the marriage ceremony.
Kwei and Maa Tsuru’s first daughter, but third child, who is born during
Kwei’s unceremonious absence has no Kwei’s family name at birth. She goes first
by the name Tsuru’s baby, which evolves to Baby Tsuru and then to Baby T. much
to the displeasure and heartache of her aunt, Maa Tsuru starts cooking for Kwei
again and takes to sleeping over at his place. One morning, Kwei’s mother
summons him. She tells him to go and
leave Maa Tsuru. She is carrying your fourth child. His mother warns that soon
the fifth will come. She advises Kwei to go away instead of bring shame to the
family. Kwei’s family condemns fifth number in child bearing. It is a taboo.
Two superstitious swords cross paths. A cursed woman mixes with the number five
taboo. Maa Tsuru gives birth to their second daughter, their fourth child.
Kwei’s family does not honour the baby with a name. She ends up naming her
Fofo. By the time, Fofo’s two older brothers each strikes ten; they are running
errands at the seaside and the fish market. Baby T and Fofo by then are
performing petty chores for family members in exchange for food leftovers and
old clothes. Kwei is gone, but his lover and their children remain together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kpakpo comes into Maa Tsuru’s life and Maa Tsuru tells her children to
look upon him as their new father. Kpakpo visits Maa Tsuru regularly, when
Kpakpo visits, Maa Tsuru cooks for him to eat. Since food is always ready
whenever he visits, Kpakpo establishes regular afternoon calls on Maa Tsuru. Kpakpo
discloses his desire to share bed with Maa Tsuru and Maa Tsuru feels flattered
by it. The following day she goes to market, buys curtain and divides her room
into two. The first night with their new father in the room, the boys could not
sleep for one second. They are early riser. They leave the house. Maa Tsuru
decides not to look for her sons, after all they are grown ups. She notices
them toss and turn on their mats the whole night through. They see it all. They
are no longer kids let them go. The boys leave with their contribution to the
daily household income. Maa Tsuru begins to feel the pinch. She drops a hint to
Kpakpo, but he does not get it. Maa Tsuru discovers that Kpakpo is not a
factory worker. He lied to her. He used it to get close to her. Truth about Kpakpo’s
criminal act reveals and everybody thinks Maa Tsuru will get rid of Kpakpo. She
does nothing about.
It turns out that she is pregnant with his first child. Kpakpo still has
no job. Maa Tsuru continues to do odd jobs now and then. Baby T and Fofo add
whatever they make off the streets. Two months from her term, Maa Tsuru goes
into premature labour one evening. The midwife detains Maa Tsuru overnight.
Baby T and Fofo sleep with their new father Kpakpo. Fofo wakes at midnight and
sees Kpakpo tiptoes over to Baby T and taps her in the shoulder. Baby T wakes
and Kpakpo beckons her to follow him. She follows him to the other side of the
curtain. Fofo’s heart beats fast. Kpakpo takes Baby T’s hand and signals her to
remove her dress. Baby T obeys as though in a trance. He savours Baby T’s
maturing body hungrily with his eyes. Then he brushes the back of one hand over
Baby T’ breasts and draws down her pants. They fall to the floor. Fofo shakes
violently. Fofo shuts her eyes tight. She begins to rehearse inside her head
how she would go about breaking the news to Onko, their neighbour. In the
morning, Baby T claims their new father did nothing to her.
Maa Tsuru returns with a baby. The gossip reaches her ears the very
minute she lands in the house. She plays deaf to it and resumes life with
Kpakpo from where she left off.
One morning, Fofo comes and lodges a report to her mother that Baby T
sits besides the gutter shivering. Maa Tsuru orders Fofo to call Baby T. Baby T
comes in and Maa Tsuru discovers the blood on dress. She asks Baby T what
happened to her. In great pain and distress, she calls out Onko. Onko rapes
Baby T.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Onko finds it difficult to face Maa Tsuru. Onko claims that Baby T
started pushing herself on him. Onko says Baby T always hop on his lap. Maa
Tsuru cries. Onko begs and sounds repentant. He claims Devil pushed him to do
that. He gives Maa Tsuru money to console her. He assures Maa Tsuru that he
will pay for Baby T’s treatment. Maa Tsuru smiles and takes the money, untie her
cloth around her waist, places the wad of notes in one corner of it.
For over three weeks, Onko sets trap for Baby T. A day came, Onko asks
Baby T into his room to collect money to buy food for both of them. He
unexpectedly locks the door and pushes an unsuspecting and too trusting Baby T
onto his bed, pins her down, forces a handkerchief inside her mouth and tears
off her pants. Three times, he does it, and leaves her bleeding on his bed. He
threatens her not to tell anyone. He claims he knows what Kpakpo did to her and
will report her to her Mum, if she tells anyone. Baby T comes and reports what
happened to Maa Tsuru. Maa Tsuru will reply and tells her not to mind Onko. One
day Maa Tsuru visits Onko workshop and warns him about Baby T. Onko openly tells
Maa Tsuru that he loves Baby T. by the time Onko comes back from work. Baby T
leaves out.
Kpakpo tells Maa Tsuru about Mama Abidjan, his relative who used to work
as a prostitute in the Ivory Coast, eventually graduating to become a Madam,
she is now a repented retiree who is into recruiting young girls for work in
chop bars and household. Kpakpo claims that Mama Abidjan knows his relationship
with Baby T therefore will find a good placement for her. Therefore, Mama
Abidjan holds a conference with Maami Broni, who agrees to take on Baby T. Mama
Abidjan, communicates this to Kpakpo who then informs Maa Tsuru. Maa Tsuru
talks to Baby T, who subsequently packs her things ready and leaves with Maami
Broni who comes and picks her up from the house to her new unknown life.
Several weeks later, Maa Tsuru tries to find out where her daughter works. She
asks Kpakpo and Kpakpo assures to find out. Maa Tsuru repeats the question
three days later; Kpakpo claims he did not meet Mama Abidjan. Maa Tsuru allows
one week to elapses. She does not press Kpakpo for an answer any longer. She
does not know where Maami Broni lives but she knows where Mama Abidjan lives.
She pays Mama Abidjan a surprise visit one early morning. Mama Abidjan does not
take kindly to the unexpected visit. Mama Abidjan claims she is not the one who
forced her to give her daughter out, she yells and bangs her door. Maa Tsuru
threatens to involve the police if she refuses to tell her where her daughter
is. Mama Abidjan promises to find where Baby T works and gives her the address.
The following day Maa Tsuru waits anxiously for Mama Abidjan. Maami Broni turns
up. Then she tells Maa Tsuru to go to her room and look through her window, she
will see Baby T’s employer. Maa Tsuru does and shakes like a leaf. Maami Broni
also tells her that the employer is also looking out for her younger daughter
Fofo. Maami Broni snorts that if Maa Tsuru gives him problem about Baby T
again. She will not even see Fofo her younger daughter. Maami Broni talks about
the Envelopes they give out to people, whom daughter work with them. Maa Tsuru
notices that Kpakpo intercepts the envelope, no wonder he came with chop money
the other day. Maami Broni comes to symbolize the arrival of an envelope
containing money, whenever she shows up in the house. The envelope always
brings smile to Kpakpo’s face and a wince to Maa Tsuru’s, who nevertheless
never turns it down.
Maami Broni’s presence in the house for once does not translate into an
envelope containing money. It is to break the news of the body behind the blue
Rasta hairdressing kiosk at Agbogbloshie. Before this news, Kpakpo left three
days ago.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kabria feels justified to be upset with Creamy. There is always
something about Creamy to be upset with. Today, it is behaving like everything
else but a car. It is literally crawling. Creamy stops dead right there in its
tracks. It is in the middle of the roundabout. Tears of embarrassment well up
in Kabria’s eyes. A policeman comes up and checks Kabria’s Creamy, advises her
on the car. Minutes later, Creamy responds to life. When Kabria gets to the
office lately, she meets only Dina. Dina tells her that she has dispatches
Aggie and Vickie to the mortuary.
Aggie reports she knows someone there who could have access to Baby T’s
post Mortem results. They suspect Poison, but suspicion is not enough to nail
him. Kabria laments how Creamy disappointed her on the way. They think about
convincing Fofo to follow them to the Mortuary.
Aggie and Vickie sit in a room next to the morgue, juggle with the
intricacies of death. Aggie acquaints with a male nurse and spells out their
mission. The male nurse could not hide his bemusement. He wonders what on earth
brought Aggie and Vickie to come all the way just for the sake of a street girl
corpse. Aggie explains that the corpse connects to one of their case files. She
requests for a copy of the autopsy report. Moreover, the male nurse replies
that they have rules governing all the files in the hospital. However, he
chooses to help Aggie for any reason that brought two fine women like them. He
flips through Baby T’s report. She died from a fatal head injury he says. There
was bleeding on the left of her brain, he adds. The report indicates that she
dealt with severe slaps. It is suggestive of a male hand.
While Aggie and Vickie, at the mortuary sorting out the puzzling pieces
of Baby T’s death, Kabria pays Naa Yomo a brief visit. Maa Tsuru’s hands
tremble so badly in her room. She sets her baby down on the floor beside the
older one and listens again. Naa Yomo knocks and tells Maa Tsuru to open up her
door. Maa Tsuru opens up a little bit and peeps and sees Naa Yomo. Maa Tsuru
opens the door wider to let her in. Naa Yomo refuses the invitation. She leans
instead on her walking stick and gruntle. Naa Yomo simply deems it her
responsibility to check every one because she is the oldest member of the
household. Maa Tsuru comes out and walks across to Naa Yomo shortly after. Naa
Yomo tells her how members of the household see her as a leper. She always
refuses to come out from her room. Naa Yomo tells Maa Tsuru, that a woman
visited and her name is Kabria. She is from the organization that has been
caring for Fofo. They want to know the whole true story. She will be back with
a man from a radio station who has been working with them. They are people with
good sense. They will come with Fofo. I assured them that this time you would
open your door to them. Maa Tsuru agrees.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sylv Po arrives at MUTE to pick up Kabria and Fofo, carries a recorder
and a microphone. He drives a metallic blue VW Golf, sleek and fully
air-conditioned. Sylv Po asks Kabria about her car. He hears they drive the
same car, but frowns when he discovers Kabria drives old Beetle. They plan how
to visit Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah Accra is sleeping, that is when Sodom
and Gomorrah
They pass by tabletop mini marts, barbering and hairdressing salons,
tailors and dressmaking shops. A video centre that by all indications,
specialized in adult film, proudly proclaims on their signpost. They get to
Fofo’s former wooden shack. The door is ajar Fofo enters alone. A girl of about
fifteen is asleep on a piece of cloth on the floor. A baby of about six months
is scrambling all over her in obvious search for food or attention or both.
Fofo wakes her and asks her for Odarley. She tells Fofo that Odarley rents here
in the night. She goes back to sleep. Fofo tells them that the girl works at
night. She is a daytime tenant.
Maa Tsuru waits for them in the doorway. She leads them quickly into the
room. Before then they go and greet Naa Yomo. She is pleased at what she sees
of Fofo. The children playing in the compound stop and stare. So too do their
mothers. Inside the room, Maa Tsuru makes to embrace Fofo. Fofo goes rigid. Maa
Tsuru’s face falls. She withdraws slowly from her daughter. There is pain in
her eyes. She tells Kabria and Sylv Po to sit and they take the two available
seats. Maa Tsuru tells them that Naa Yomo told her everything and she is
willing to open up her heart in the presence of those two people who are
strangers. Maa Tsuru talks, Sylv Po records.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Something
gnaws at Kabria when she starts Creamy with Obea, Essie and Ottu in the back.
The handprint on Fofo’s cheeks the day following their first encounter at the
market when she found Fofo beaten up. The pathologist’s report states similar
handprints on Baby T’s cheeks. She steps on the clutch. Kabria goes straight to
the Kitchen without changing when they get home. Abena comes late with the
garden eggs stew. Her Madam sends her to the market yet again, she explains.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The fast mail service man knocks on MUTE’s front door with a smile,
announces the mail with a smile, hands out the messenger’s receipt book to be
signed by Dina with a smile, places the parcel in Dina’s hands with a smile,
and turns and walks away to his motorbike with a smile. Dina calls out to the
others, to come and see a strange parcel they have received. They imagine,
maybe people are appreciating their involvement into the situation of street
girls with gift. Dina unwrap the parcel. Kabria twitches her nose, follows by
Vickie who sniffs in her immediate surrounding air with great suspicion. As for
Aggie, she twitches, sniffs, twitches again. Dina shrieks and darts off to the
toilet where she drops the offending parcel right into the water closet where
literally, it rightly belongs. For the next thirty minutes, the three watch in
anguish. Dina watches her hands in an unending effort as though to rid it of
the blood. She washes with soap. She rinse the hands twice in a disinfectant
solution, decides the scent of the disinfectant reminds her of the scent of the
parcel. She pours ample WC cleaning gel into her palms and resumes the wriggling
act for another five to ten minutes. She calls Sylv Po. She tells him that they
received a shit parcel. Sylv Po replies that they also received an odd call at
the station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Poison runs away from home at the age of eight to hit the streets. He is
an extremely shy boy, very soft spoken and covers from head to toe in scars
gained from several years of lashes with a man’s leather belt at the
stepfather’s hands. Poison lands in bad company on the streets. He masters in
car tape-deck thefts. The more he steals, and gets away with, the more
confident he becomes. The more confident he grows, the more he feels in control
of the streets. After three years of car stealing, Poison becomes bore with
tape-deck theft. He desires change. He ends up perching with a girl six years
his senior. He becomes her messenger and runs errands for her supervisor too.
An errand for the supervisor often involves going to one of his girls with a
load of warnings and threats, to instils fear in the girl, and get her to part
willingly and immediately with the supervisor’s share of her previous night’s
earnings. Poison masters the intricacies of pimping enough to have a go at it
on his own. He makes mark and a name on the streets already. Then he embarks on
an aggressive recruitment of girls to own.
He seats on a bench on the veranda of his abode, surrounds by members of
his gang when Kabria and Sylv Po come before him. To Poison, MUTE is the cause
of most of his headaches about the increasing public interest in Baby T’s
death. They bring it to the attention of the media through Sylv Po, and the
shit parcel is a message to them not to meddle in other people’s business. He
exudes jungle power and smiles like the confident controller of the streets
that he is. Kabria shudders at the intermittent stares he fixes on her. Sylv Po
does most of the talking and while he talks Poison never interrupts him once.
Finally, when he speaks, it is to say simply “I did not kill Baby T. I left her
alive”
The meeting with Poison goes through a little coercion, a touch of
blackmail, and a bit deceit. Dina contacts the Agency that hired out Afi to her
and inquires about the woman from whom they saved Afi before she could be sold
into prostitution. The Agency feels reluctant to co-operate. The Agency’s
problem is that it would not undermine the confidence of their sources should
they co-operate with MUTE and Harvest FM. The Agency promptly does a U-turn and
agrees to co-operate. They put their sources to work. A message reaches Poison
that a consignment is coming. In Poison’s world, it means fresh young girls
recruited from poor villages under a similar pretext as Afi had suffered. The
woman bringing the consignment tells Poison she will come with her partner. At
the scheduled meeting, Kabria shows up with Sylv Po. They do not hide their
true identity and Poison is truly awed by their interest in Baby T.
Sylv Po tells Poison that if truly he is not the killer of Baby T then
he should join hand with them to fish out the killer, because everybody points
Poison as the killer. Poison admits that he beat Baby T up, but he did not kill
her. Sylv Po asks for Maami Broni and Poison orders his Lieutenant to give the
directions to her place. Sylv Po confers briefly with Kabria, then excuses
himself and calls Dina on his cell phone. Poison grows nervous watching all
this. Poison booms, that he is a businessman and it is not possible for him to
kill one of his girls. Kabria, who has been silent observer, stares Poison direct
in the face for the first time. She believes him. It is common sense. It is
instinct. Sylv Po asks Poison if he is aware of the three anonymous calls to
Harvest FM. Poison does not respond. Sylv Po talks about the caller who claimed
that the dead girl was Fati who deserved to die because she jilted her old
husband. Poison glares at Sylv Po and rises abruptly, catches even his gang
members off ground. Kabria shakes visibly. Sylv Po stands his ground and stares
Poison right back in the eyes. The fleeting tension doubles the weight of the
surrounding air. Then suddenly, Poison chuckles and roars into laughter. The
gang joins in. poison admits that he ordered the first two calls to the
station. He says he is a businessman and needs no disturbance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“So who killed her?” Dina poses. Kabria narrates the discomfort she felt
sitting there with Poison and his gang. It is a meeting of MUTE’s four with
Fofo, to decide on her rehabilitation. Dina went for Maami Broni and did not
find her the previous day. Dina directs they leave Maami Broni issue hanging
and go on to tackle Fofo. Fofo says she does not have money. Dina assures her
of MUTE’s support. Dina convinces Fofo to leave the streets and her old
friends. Fofo feels nostalgia. Dina tells her about school and Fofo refuses to
go back to school. Dina suggests learning the trade and Fofo is not enthused.
The organization offers dressmaking, hairdressing, catering and beads making
Dina explains and tells Fofo to choose one. Fofo chooses catering. Dina moves
on to the next point. She talks about Fofo’s health and the test the
organization will conduct on her. Fofo shrieks hysterically and Kabria calms
her down. A knock on the door cuts Dina’s discussion short.
It is the office day watchman; he announces the presence of a girl who
wants to see Fofo. Dina calls Fofo and goes out together with her to meet
whoever the girl is. The others come to stand on the veranda to watch. Fofo
recognizes her friend from a distance and break into a run. Odarley runs to
meet her halfway. They embrace size each other up. Dina prods Fofo to invite
her friend inside. Odarley disagrees and Fofo tells her they are nice people.
Odarley tells Fofo that Naa Yomo sends her. Dina asks Odarley for the second
time to come inside. She shakes her head. Odarley holds Fofo by one hand and
put her lips to Fofo’s ears. She tells her that Onko is dead. Fofo’s eyes
widen. Odarley tells Fofo that Onko committed suicide. He hanged himself on a
tree. It happens not far from his workshop and he is in a pair of light blue
shorts, the colour of the skies. He leaves no note. The police come for his
body, and then visit his workshop. Then they go and inform Naa Yomo about it.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Vickie for instance, shudders at the sight of the strange animal skulls
and bones covered in blood. Sylv Po neither understand nor like one bit, the
idea of being command to walk backwards after he grins at a rather funny
looking wooden stature. He thinks they need to vamoose from the shrine but he
goes to the Jujuman to find out about Onko’s consultative visit prior to his
death. Not to mention that their fact-finding call on the Jujuman has cost them
the equivalent of two bottles of schnapps and two fowls, in cash, converted at
the Jujuman’s so to say, rate of exchange and his special mode of estimated
MUTE and Harvest FM’s bill. The Jujuman does not, even if for the sake of sheer
politeness attempt to hide that he knows clip and clear the reasons for Onko’s
business woes. He gives Onko what Onko rather unreasonably, but sadly, truly
wanted, after listening carefully to Onko’s narration of what Onko claimed to
be the cause of his business woes, which is that the girl he defiles, is the
daughter of a cursed woman. The Jujuman prescribes his requirements to diffuse
what he immediately diagnosed to be a mix up of Onko’s good blood with that of
Baby T’s polluted and cursed blood. The Jujuman’s such impossible item is Baby
T’s pubic hair. The Jujuman underestimates Onko’s determination and
miscalculates.
He thinks that Onko’s biggest headache would be Baby T’s pubic hair. It
is not. It is the fowl that should be a half-caste. Sylv Po asks the Jujuman
whether Onko finds the half-caste fowl. He replies yes. The Jujuman also talks
about the red fat woman. She requires a fowl. To appease the girl’s spirit that
is haunting her. It is Maami Broni. She buys it and slaughters it at where the
girl dies, behind a blue Rasta hairdressing kiosk at Agbogbloshie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It pummels
Maami Broni’s guilt to zero. If Baby T liked sex as was being alleged and was
already doing it anyway with men old enough to be her father, for free, then
why not put her in the business and make it profitable for everyone. Maami
Broni, like Mama Abidjan is an old graduate of Ivory Coast
Maami Broni helps in the only way she knows how. She introduces Baby T
to the devil’s weed. It helps. Baby T begins to use it regularly; carrying out
her duty with several men night and day becomes bearable. The men like her. She
is pretty and young. Everything is going fine… until Onko consults a Jujuman to
help pull his business out of its slumber. once the first headache with the
pure white home bred fowl has been conveniently solved by the Jujuman, the next
one rears its ugly head. How the hell is he going to get a strand of Baby T’s
pubic hair?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Agboo Ayee drinking spot
kiosk by a freak coincidence is of the same blue colour as the Rasta
hairdresser’s kiosk at Agbogbloshie. For the past almost three weeks, its first
customer of the day is Kpakpo. He is also the last man to leave. Kpakpo sleeps
right beside the gutter behind the kiosk. Onko meets Kpakpo and buys him tots.
Kpakpo takes ten tots but Onko refuses to take any drop. Onko launches his
plan. Onko orders Kpakpo to take him to Poison. Kpakpo refuses and claims
Poison’s den is a den of death. Onko begs him and orders more tots for Kpakpo.
Kpakpo tells Onko that he cannot take him there but can afford to show him the
way. Kpakpo tells him about Mama Abidjan and the way to convince her to take
him to Poison.
Mama Abidjan scowls at the sight of Onko. Onko keeps faith with Kpakpo’s
advice. He stretches out the wad of notes. Mama Abidjan’s eyes move to and
remain transfix on it. Then she glances sharply at Onko in the face and returns
the gaze to the cash. Mama Abidjan asks him what for. He says she should
recommend him to poison. He expresses his desire that he wants Baby T.
Baby T’s reaction at the sight of Onko, churns Maami Broni’s heart. She
conceals it because Poison is present. Baby T mourns and it gets to Poison
nerves. He makes another offer to Onko to take a look at other girl and make a
selection there. Onko refuses, rather pays more money for Baby T, and under Poison’s
eagle greedy eyes, he agrees. He orders Baby T to give Onko pleasure or faces
his wrath. Baby T hesitates and Poison lands her the first slap. Poison’s face
goes bland. Maami Broni always cries at the sight of that. Strange old thought
goes through Poison’s mind to manifest them in that facial transformation. He
stares blandly at Baby T; he slowly unbuckles his leather belt and draw it out
through the trousers hooks… Baby T feels the first lash. She huddles in the
corner when Maami Broni and Onko enter the room. Her thin blouse stocks to her
body with her tears. Maami Broni turns and walks out of the room. She leaves
Onko in there with Baby T and locks the door from outside and take a seat
beside the door. When Onko finishes with Baby T, he would tap for the door to
be opened.
The tap sounds a little too early and a bit too frantic. Onko gives up,
she thinks. She opens the door. Onko steps out as Maami Broni has expected. He
beckons her in. Baby T lies with a split head on the concrete floor. A bizarre
image comes to Maami Broni’s mind. It is the image of shattered stone oozing
blood. A stone strikes against steel. Baby T is dead.
EPILOGUE
The weight of Baby T’s spirit on her mind, Onko’s suicide, and Sylv Po’s
persistent pleas on air, all pushes Maami Broni out from her hideout to Harvest
Fm. Fofo reports to the organization to begin her rehabilitation. Maami Broni
makes further revelations. It is Poison who orders that the gang dumps Baby T’s
body behind the Rasta kiosk at Agbogbloshie in the night. The facial
mutilations are to confuse identification. It is Maami Broni who called to
rebuff the Fati’s story. Kabria wakes up in the middle of the night sweating
profusely. She has been toying with the idea of whether the time has not really
come for her to finally, truly get rid of Creamy and maybe coax Adade to top up
whatever she would get for Creamy to enable her buy a second hand ‘Dae woo
Tico’
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
The most striking feature of the Faceless is its technique and dynamic
mechanism of employment and deployment of characters— MUTE members and Harvest
FM, Sylv Po. They serve as detectives, they investigate, provide intelligent
information to unravel the mystery and scattered puzzle over Baby T’s death.
Darko also uses Ms. Kamame’s coherent research to show the causes of the street
children phenomenon possibly. This technique renders police officers and their
skills impotent and void. In addition, throw more light on the poor
infrastructure possessed by the Accra Police and government’s negligence
towards the needs of the police force. Through Agent Kabria, Vickie, Dina,
Aggie and Sylv Po, the author reveals the major characters; factors involve in
the street children phenomenon and pin-points the grassroots causes of rape,
bully, human trafficking, mysterious death and robbery. The author uses third
person pronoun narrative.
LANGUAGE
The language used by Darko’s characters and by the narrator is polished,
simple and easy to grasp. Except the persistent caller on Sylv Po’s radio
programme, who uses Pidgin English to express himself. Pidgin as a means of
communication is mostly found among the uneducated and illiterate, common
people, who can be easily seen in places like Sodom
and Gomorrah
STYLE
The author uses the documentary style to document the life of street
children, and shows pictorial evidences of their suffering and tribulations. We
see these documentaries clearly in MUTE’s files, Ms. Kamame’s research work and
Harvest FM radio program.
CHARACTERIZATION
FOFO
Fofo, who deals with abandonment and makes a home on the street, is the
fourth child and second daughter of Maa Tsuru. Fofo is the by-product that
sends Kwei’s into exile. Fourteen-year-old Fofo is a street child, like many
children, who live in an area called Sodom and Gomorrah in Accra ,
Ghana
BABY T
The much-discussed Baby T is Kwei and Maa Tsuru’s first daughter, but
third child, Maa Tsuru born her during Kwei’s unceremonious absence. She is not
honoured with a kwei family name at birth. She goes first by the name Tsuru’s
baby; which evolve to Baby Tsuru. She deals with molestation and prostitution
in the satanic hands of Poison and Maami Broni. She is the one found dead
behind the Rasta kiosk at Agbogloshie market. Her death opens the strict
investigation by members of the MUTE.
MAA TSURU
Maa Tsuru is the product of a single parent and the aftermath of an
unfulfilled marriage and abject poverty. She is the wife of Kwei and later to
Kpakpo. She gives birth to four children to Kwei and two to Kpakpo. She lives
by the mercy of the leftovers from the members of the house. She is popularly
known in the neighborhood as a cursed woman. Men run away from her, that is why
she easily falls for any man who cares to come close to her.
KABRIA
The mother of three children, wife, worker and battered-car owner,
married sixteen years to Adade, her architect husband. She passionately loves
her job with MUTE, a non-governmental organization that is basically into
documentation and information build up. Literary, she is Fofo’s Angel. She
encounters Fofo in Agbogbloshie market.
DINA
Dina is a graduate of the University
of Ghana
SYLV PO
Sylv Po is the presenter on Harvest FM incharge of ‘Good Morning Ghana
show’ Sylv Po establishes the atsmophere for experts to deliver talks on
prevention of AIDS versus the street children phenomenon. He boosts the
investigation of Baby T by proving media assistance to the members of MUTE.
VICKIE & AGGIE
They play vital and major role in the story line, assisting in looking
out for information. They work in MUTE along side Kabria and Dina, with their
official roles.
MAAMI BRONI
Maami Broni is an old graduate of Ivory Coast Abidjan in Ivory Coast or Agege in Nigeria
POISON
Poison is a young boy of eight who runs away from home and hits the
streets. He is extremely shy boy, very soft spoken. His stepfather enjoys
lashing him with belt. Poison land in bad company on the streets. He masters
car tape-deck thefts. He gains ground on the street and changes his desire.
Poison masters the intricacies of pimping and he starts on aggressive
recruitment of girls. He is Baby T’s employer and the king of the streets.
ONKO
He is the son of one of Naa Yomo’s cousins; and he is a kind man. He is
one of the few better off people in the compound house. He owns a colour
television that is in excellent condition and a big cassette tape recorder,
which is an original made in Japan
NAA YOMO
The oldest woman in the compound house, she knows the story of everybody
that lived and lives in the house. She can attest to marriages, the proper ones
and the co-habitations. She is the daughter of one of those twelve sons of the
honourable man who built the compound house. She gives vital information to
Kabria and Vickie when they visit. Her children have moved out. They are all in
good employment.
ADADE
An architect, Kabria’s husband, who always rise from bed each working
day at 6 a.m never one minute earlier which is a whole hour after Kabria. He
never comes to the breakfast table without a newspaper in his hand. After work,
Adade normally meet friends at a drinking spot to socialize over bottles of
beer. Adade has a brand new Toyota Corona and makes jest of his wife’s battered
car.
OBEA
Kabria and Adade’s first child, she is fifteen. Obea throws both Kabria
and Adade in to absolute turmoil. There she is, one minute their little girl,
next moment protesting any reference to her as their little girl.
ESSIE
Second child to Kabria and Adade, Essie is born at midnight. Nine years
on, She demands for material things. Kabri worries over this.
OTTU
Ottu is Kabria and Adade’s only and third son. Ottu speaks of how
special he is to the family being the only male child.
ODARLEY
Fofo’s friend, who also makes home on the street. Odarley’s mother sends
her out of home. Her mother thinks that Odarley is troublesome and accuses her
of stealing her money at home.
KWEI
Kwei is the father to Baby T, fofo and Maa Tsuru’s other two boys. Kwei runs
away to avoid getting Maa Tsuru pregnant for the fifth time, which is a great
taboo in his family to give birth to five children.
KPAKPO
Kpakpo is Maa Tsuru’s second husband. Kpakpo is the man who survives
through dubious means. He would demand rent advance from a prospective tenant
with a view to rent out his one room at his family house in Central Accra to
the person when the cash lands safe and sound in his hand, pop, comes his
“Tenancy Agreementr” unwritten. He is the first man to abuse Baby T sexually.
When Baby T dies, he flees.
THEMES
FACELESS
The title of the novel makes its greatest theme of all time. The author
critically renders a social, economical, psychological and political commentary
on the faceless, the non-entities, the condemned to rot in the wrathful hands
of streets, people who live life at night, the ghostly human, the no
nomenclatures, the unrepresented, marginalized, forgotten, people in the
alarming hell of Sodom and Gomorrah. Through the efforts of MUTE and Harvest Fm,
hope surfaces. Light comes down into the pit of Sodom
and Gomorrah
UNFULFILLED MARRIAGE
This is the rebellious mother and originator of broken families. The
aftermath brings single parenting. Eighty percent of all the children in the
streets have no father. They depend on their incapacitated and distorted
mothers, who cannot provide enough for them. Kwei is such a father. He abandons
Maa Tsuru and runs away, leaves behind his four children, and Kpakpo adds to
Maa Tsuru’s running misery. Poison is also a product of broken family, his
stepfather’s act of wickedness pushes him away from home.
POVERTY
Poverty, personified in many ways, is one of the punisher of souls in
the novel. It surfaces on the path of fathers and mothers, who could not feed
their children, therefore send them to the streets. Kwei is an unemployed
Mason, his mother feeds him. Maa Tsuru assists her aunt in her kenkey business
and when her aunt dies, she lives on the mercy of neighbours’ leftover foods.
Kpakpo has no job and he goes out only to drink akpeteshie. We see Maa Tsuru
dividing their one room with a curtain, and the children always hear their
parents sharing bed at night. Maa Tsuru closes her mouth and sits on her
daughter’s rape case, because Onko offers her some wad of notes. Maa Tsuru
sends her daughter out into slavery and when she inquires to know her daughter’s
state, the employer shuns her with an envelope. A crudely dug gutter, which is
infested with algae in Sodom and Gomorrah
SLAVERY
One of the human right violation, the streets’ lords and mamas recruit
girls and trade them into prostitution. Sex starving men abuse and beat these young
girls. They turn and force them into a disconcerted world, and derail them
physically and psychological. These girls face their harsh and worse reality
and live like animals.
DENIAL
[physical and emotional] the children on the
streets can never remember the last time, their parents smile at them, embrace,
encourage or console them in their moment of distress. Rather, their parents
see them as problem and heavy laden. They seem to send them away to lessen
their work or parental load. On the part of the normal people, they see the
streets children as urchins and disturbances that they need to do away with.
MOTIF
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or
literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Absentee fathers, Ignorance, Distorted beliefs and perception, Sheer
Irresponsibility, Rape, Brutality, Abuses and Misplaced Priorities
SYMBOLS
Creamy—represents the
economical struggle of a normal working class person in Accra
Naa Yomo—symbolizes ancient way
of life.
Comments
Post a Comment