At Mamfikope, the road ends. What follows is a series of
winding forest paths that unfold to stunning views across Lake Volta. From here
you can see the storms as they mull over the highlands of the Togoland.
Tucked within these humble hills is the community of Mankesu,
a village with roots dating back to the 1920’s, surprisingly deep for communities
along the coast of a man-made lake that itself was only formed in the 1960’s by
the creation of the Akosombo dam. I had the privilege of being hosted by and
talking at some length with the one man who has borne witness to almost all of
this history--the consolidation of British colonialism, the bid for
independence (Ghana’s being the first in all of sub-Saharan Africa), the
creation of the dam and the diaspora that followed in its wake. He is a man who
has seen the Volta’s waters rise and recede, and has been the chief of these
lands as it did so. Like Santiago from The
Old Man and the Sea, Kwasi Akwadzrodoh knows his way around the circuitous
fingers of Lake Volta like a taxi driver might his way around Manhattan. The only
difference being that he bears such memories in the sinew of his shoulders and
back.
Kwasi sits in a chair that seems to be the same age as he.
It sags to the dirt floor of his mud-brick hut. The roof, oddly enough, is new.
A son--one of Kwasi’s fourteen children--works as a galamsey gold miner in
Ghana’s western frontier and has sent remittance money home. The rest of their
homestead, including several other mud buildings, one of crumbling concrete,
and a few others of wood and thatch, are not quite as bedazzled. They lament the modest accommodations, but I assure
them, it is wonderful.
After a diner of fresh sardines, rice and pepper sauce, we
watch the stars for a few hours and talk about small, intermittent nothings. I
curl up on a reed mat on a dirt floor under a mosquito net next to a few family
members for the night. Tomorrow, we are going fishing.
In the morning, Kwasi is not feeling well enough to make the
many-hour-long boat ride around the lake to collect the weekly take from the
traps and nets he has set. Decades on the lake with the relentless West African
sun has taken its toll--Kwasi is losing sight in his eyes, particularly the
left. His son, whose name literally translates to “Life is Beautiful” in the
local Ewe language, leads the charge instead.
Now, my time with Kwasi and his family was wonderful, and I
could focus on the hours we spent catching fish and telling stories of local
fishing lore, or the afternoons spent wandering the rocky outcrops and various
islands that dot the lake. But what I can’t seem to get out of my head, what
has never left my mind, is this simple image of Kwasi himself: quiet and still, sitting in his chair with the children and the chickens and the goats mulling at his feet. His face is forward and up, with his good eye focused on something I cannot see, and his bad eye clouded and disobedient looking elsewhere. He talks little, and we communicate almost not at all (my Ewe is quite rudimentary), but it is comfortable and calm. There is the smell of smoked fish from the kiln fresh from this mornings catch.
You see, in my time traveling, I have had the opportunity of meeting, working and spending time with many people who face unbelievably trying circumstances. Some, understandably, have been beaten down by their situation and are most evidently struggling. Others have assumed a different disposition, and of this, it seems to me, Kwasi is somewhat of an archetype.
You see, in my time traveling, I have had the opportunity of meeting, working and spending time with many people who face unbelievably trying circumstances. Some, understandably, have been beaten down by their situation and are most evidently struggling. Others have assumed a different disposition, and of this, it seems to me, Kwasi is somewhat of an archetype.
There is a pride in knowing one’s land, in this case, in
knowing one’s waters. There is a resolute dignity claimed, even if it is simultaneously
denied and forgotten by the rest of the world, by those who endure with this depth
of human fortitude. For years. For decades. For a lifetime. While we bid for
marginally more and marginally better, with the latest model of cell phone or
the newest gadget, here is a man who is content enough with what he has been
given to still wake up each morning and set out for a few more fish.
“No condition is permenent by the greace of God.” Reads one
of the walls of Kwasi’s home. Having never finished schooling, we can perhaps
forgive his spelling, but we would be absolute fools to ignore the message. Not
that I am a believer, only that I am aware enough to see that the most genuine
faith is found in those who have the absolute least--that is a fact.
Kwasi sits in his chair, skinny legs and bulging knees, his limbs
like driftwood blackened by the sun. He chews on a sprig of sugar cane and
stares past me over the lake and all I can think: the meek shall inherit the
earth.
Let’s hope so. Few deserve it more.
From the AP,
-mario