Ghana Life: The way of life
Motoring in Africa presents its own special visions of heaven and hell. It is the human experience in microcosm, a journey through a world of contrasts where life manifests itself in primary colors. Here are none of the dimly remembered shades of gray from a childhood in the perpetual winter of an English grammar school, taught the restraint and uncertainty engendered by science and reason, but all things bright and beautiful in a world ruled with boisterous confidence that ‘God will provide’ and ‘everything will be alright’.
On a crisp, bright morning on a deserted road heading north, crossing the crest of a hill with the eye leaping suddenly into the blue mist half an hour ahead, the vast expanse of the Sahel strewn in burnt ocher and sienna with hints of of newly sprouted green, the onslaught of vehicle lazily setting to blow off successive squadrons of crows from the highway track passing swiftly and smoothly under a set of good wheels as if the car itself were about to take off into flight, a driver may to be moved to reflect happily with the former tycoon who inscribed on the wall of the Red Fort in Delhi: ‘If there is a paradise on earth, this is it.’
Yet a few hours later, in the heat of the afternoon, dazzled by blinding sun despite dark glasses poking the bridge of his nose, furiously rolling up the windows to ward off clouds or drifting red dust. by passing trucks, then frantically rewinding in a desperate effort to avoid suffocation, glued to the seatback by a glue of perspiration but buffeted from the seat by the endless craters in the road that slow progress to a slow pace keeping the hours of sleep in the future, the driver may be so tortured as to wonder grimly with Finley Peter Dunne, ‘Why is it so hard for a poor man to get out of purgatory?’
The Ghanaian drives on the road, as he travels through life: enjoying the cool mornings and suffering the hot afternoons, but with the certainty that he will reach his goal. He expects setbacks and delays along the way, but these are dictated by a higher power over which he has no control. Some misfortunes can be seen as the manifestation of the bad thoughts of his enemies, but these are avoided by the same intangible means by which they are believed to be perpetrated. Every setback is seen as bad luck and every advance is welcomed as good fortune, but the expectation of eventual success lasts in not a few until the final destination.
In The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, TE Lawrence observes that in most men the soul grows old and dies before the body. It is one of the wonders of Africa that in so many men and women the soul burns strongly from disease and the inevitable frailties of the years, never giving up the fight as long as the physical means exist. As reflected in the Akan proverb, “Until the head is torn off, we must wear our hat,” the African soul is neither sated by triumph nor weakened by disaster, and seems to possess an astonishing immunity to the usual long-term effects. from Kipling’s The Two Impostors. Like African teeth, the African soul possesses lifelong strength and resistance to decay that ensures lasting progress on the path of life.
