I was thinking about the incredible memories of contrast during 1982.The reasons for the military coup were many. But since I was not born and raised in Ghana, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to provide opinions on the merits of the military taking over. Historically over many years, there has been a pattern of military coups as a reaction to a corrupt civilian government. Originally British colonists packed up and left, leaving the infant infrastructure to fend for itself. Layered on top of that are issues of expected compliance with the IMF and World Bank, loaning money to a developing country at low interest rates, but also demanding economic reforms which resulted in the public's perception of high interest rates with rampant inflation. Western countries provided economic assistance contingent on their ability to dictate the political development of Ghana. Noncompliance meant its leaders were labeled as pawns of Castro and socialism, or tools of the USSR. Years of corruption, or as we say in Twi kalabule, had created an environment ripe for volatile change. High inflation rates, skyrocketing food costs, soaring transportation costs all lead up to masses of people struggling to make ends meet and to feed their families. The continent of Africa is very complex, and each country has its own stories of hardship and pain at the expense of its people. But ultimately, it's not easy to determine exactly who is to blame.
Unfortunately, the legacy of unjust economic and fiscal reform is still wreaking havoc across the developing world. With the recent economic collapse experienced in Europe and the United States, we are starting to understand the pain that the continent of Africa has been enduring for generations. The error we keep making though, is to assume that politicians will fix these economic problems. Nothing short of a spiritual solution providing for a moral shift in mankind will solve the economic issues that the world faces. According to Oxfam's report "Working For The Few: Political Capture and Economic Inequality" published January 20, 2014, just one percent of the world's population controls nearly half of the planet's wealth. This tiny slice of humanity controls $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.
"Whatsoever passeth beyond the limits of moderation will cease to exert a beneficial influence. Consider for instance such things as liberty, civilization and the like. However much men of understanding may favorably regard them, they will, if carried to excess, exercise a pernicious influence upon men…. Please God, the peoples of the world may be led, as the result of the high endeavors exerted by their rulers and the wise and learned amongst men, to recognize their best interests."-- Bahá’u’lláh, Founder of the Baha'i Faith
Ghana is fraught with examples of extremes of wealth and poverty. Back when I was a student, I stayed at the Baha'i Center when I went to Accra. I could see across Ring Road a one story building and next to it an eight story building. In between the two there was a sign that read Ajeshie Hotel. I never saw anyone stay at that hotel though, so one day I asked why. The clerk who worked at the Center laughed, pointing out that the reason I never saw guests at the hotel was because the hotel was the one story building behind the hedge, and the 8 story building was the house built by a man who had a reputation for skimming money from his construction contracts with the government.
The military coup was a reaction against this excess and corruption, and an effort to shut down the black market which was the real economy in the country. The official exchange rate, for example, would mean a loaf of bread would have cost me about 50 dollars, but by exchanging money on the black market, that same loaf of bread was 50 cents. It was the only way to survive and people who did not have access to hard currency from a foreign source were hit hard. Since I couldn't withdraw dollars in Ghana, I had to keep my money in an account in Togo and each month I traveled over the border to pull out hard currency called CFA used by the Francophone countries and backed by the French Treasury. I hid the bills in the bottom of my shoes or sewed them into the handle of my suitcase, and then prayed as I crossed back over the border while being searched by Ghanaian soldiers, terrified if I was caught I would be taken into the small shack where I could hear the cries of civilians being beaten for trafficking money. When I got to Accra, I met with a money changer in a dark house to get local currency called the Cedi, hoping to God I would not be discovered because the military would shoot anyone on site for changing money on the black market. Many years later as Ghana's economy boomed, the restriction was taken off the government-imposed exchange rates, so monetary exchange is now conducted legally out in the open.
At one point, there was an attempt to devalue the Cedi by reissuing currency, so everyone was required to bring their cash to a bank and exchange it for the new bills, making the old bills useless. A woman living in Bomso, the neighborhood just outside the university gate, was a successful waxprint cloth seller who used the black market rates for her prices. She was so successful that she had a room filled to the ceiling with Cedis. Rather than take the risk to exchange all her money and be beaten to death by the military for conducting black market business and hoarding, she decided it was better to hide the evidence, so she burned her house down.
And with the military shutting down the black market, the shop owners and mommies refused to bring their goods to the market to sell at official prices set up by the military government. One auntie told me, "Hmm, mo bo dam, paa. They are crazy. I paid ten Cedis for this, and I need to sell for a profit to feed my children. But now the military wants me to bring it to market and sell for one Cedi? Enye, koraa. Don't mind them. I will sit down and I will stay home." And as the markets shut down, each day came with an increased challenge to find even basic foods.
Some staples became luxuries, like bread. Bread is not traditionally Akan, it was adopted from the Dutch and the British. Bakers build huge clay ovens at their homes, getting up before sunrise to bake and sell bread to neighbors and sellers who take the loaves to the market first thing in the morning.As time went on in 1982, bread became non-existent because flour at the official rate was ridiculously expensive and supplies were scarce. One day though, Auntie Bea had heard rumor that the woman who baked in Adwaso village near the Ridge Road gate to the university had found a supply of flour and had started baking again. She asked me to go and see if I could beg her for a few loaves to sell to us. Since I was an obruni or white man, the baker would be more comfortable to sell to me since she would know I was not part of the military government or a member of the "people's revolution." I got up at dawn and walked to the woman's house with a piece of waxprint cloth about the size of a bed sheet which I would use to wrap up the bread. As I approached her house, the smell of the baking bread that came from her clay oven was heavenly. We struck up a conversation and I let her know that there were three children at the house with us, and the bread would help greatly. She was very kind, and let me know I could purchase as much as I liked. Knowing that we would probably not see bread for a long time, I asked if I could buy everything she had left - 25 loaves. She agreed.
I stacked the loaves up in my cloth, tied it like a knapsack, and slung the huge parcel over my shoulder. Walking back to the house and carrying such a huge stash of bread was terrifying. At any moment a military truck could drive through, or one of our neighbors could become suspicious and create a scene. I remembered that there was a gap in the iron rods of the university fence, so instead of going to the gate where I would have drawn attention, I went through the bush and found the hole in the fence. Somehow I made it back to our house on campus with no one noticing.
Auntie Bea's reaction to my having bought all 25 loaves was a mixture of joy and rage. Joyfully happy because she knew she would have something for us for breakfast for awhile, but at the same time just as angry as anyone's mother would be, scolding and reprimanding me for having taken such a risk. She yelled at me, "Yaw, you could have been caught and the whole family would have been taken to the barracks and beaten!" I sat at the dining table, taking my punishment while Auntie Bea yelled and cut the loaves to store them in the freezer. By the time she was done, she put her hands on both my cheeks and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Ayekoo, Yaw! Well done!" To this day every time I visit the Asares, Aunie Bea tells the story and laughs.
Finding provisions continued to get more and more difficult in Kumasi, so one day Mawushi and I decided to take the bus to Accra and see what we could find for our families. We braved the checkpoints with the soldiers, and when we got to Accra we hit the streets to start combing the shops. Imagine how surreal it was to walk into a grocery store, finding nothing. Everyone was as quiet as we were, looking at the bare shelves and realizing the gravity of the situation.
We continued to systematically hit store after store. We found a French government issued 4 litre container of corn oil for cooking. We found a sack of Soviet rice. We found a 2 pound tin of processed American cheddar cheese, stamped "Compliments of the United States of America."
We heard rumor that a shop a few blocks away had powdered milk that they were selling in rations. As we came around the corner we saw a queue of probably a hundred people meandering down the street, all waiting their turn. We shrugged at each other and got in line, knowing that this was going to take some time but we were in no rush to get anywhere.
We stood and waited in the hot sun, wiping our brows and getting drowsy in the heat of the afternoon. Suddenly, I heard the sound of trucks revving their engines, shifting gears to speed up, and the rattling sound of "pop! pop! pop!" My stomach sank and the hair on the back of my neck raised up. Mawushi and I spun around, and my heart stopped as everything turned into slow motion. Four huge flatbed trucks were barreling down the street with what must have been 100 soldiers, all armed with machine guns shooting over our heads to get the crowd to disperse. Everyone was scrambling and screaming. I turned to Mawushi and yelled as loud as I could so that he could hear me above the chaos, "SHOULD WE RUN?! SHOULD WE RUN?!" He looked around, and then pointed over my head and yelled back at me, "YES! LET'S GO!"
I have never run so fast in my life. We were dodging through the crowd, jumping over people who had fallen while trying to escape the machine guns. Screaming people were running in every direction, while babies on the backs of women were crying in terror. Mawushi kept pointing, and I then realized he was pointing to the doorway of an office set back a few feet from the sidewalk. The door was locked shut, so we turned and pushed our backs into the door, trying with all our might to disappear. Mawushi motioned to me to keep quiet. I stood so still that I was not breathing, terrified to draw the attention of the soldiers who were now passing us in the trucks. People were running everywhere with the deafening crack of machine guns firing.
We stood motionless. After a few minutes, it was quiet. Bending over, I gasped for air. The trucks and soldiers were gone and the gunfire had ceased. We slowly came out of the doorway; I tasted blood and realized I had bit my lip. As we peered out of the foyer, there was no one around, no signs of anyone. We walked out alone into the street. It was eerie to see it completely deserted. It was as if no one had been there at all.
A month later Nana, Akwasi and I were out on the grounds of Tech. We had gone to the post office on the campus so that I could check for mail from the U.S. It was a day off from school, so we were not in a rush. We decided to go for a long walk.
The grounds were beautiful. There were expansive manicured lawns, carefully groomed by the laga laga men who used cutlasses to keep the grass tidy. Beautiful acacia trees that bloomed with thousands of yellow or red flowers, and Bodi trees with white bark, filled with dark green leaves that stretched far over the lawns. Orchids, plumeria and anthuriums grew in carefully planted flower beds. It was peaceful with just the sounds of song birds singing and the chatter of monkeys in the trees.
As we walked, we saw that the clouds were coming in from the horizon, and soon thunder and lightening would promise wonderful tropical rain. Growing up in Southern California, I missed out on the spectacle of thunder storms, so each one was an event for me while living in Ghana. The homes at Tech were built with concrete block, and yet the thunder was so powerful that it could make the entire house shake. I learned to know when the rain was coming, because the wind would pick up and there was a scent of fresh water in the air.
We kept walking, keeping an eye on the horizon. But this was strange, there was no wind coming with this particular cloud. No rumbling of thunder in the distance. This cloud was too low, and not the usual army of towering thunder clouds. There was something very odd about it and it was moving very quickly.
The cloud steadily approached us over the canopy of the rain forest at the edge of the campus, and as it got closer we noticed the color was strange. Thunder clouds are white on top and dark grey on the bottom, with flashes of lightning that jumped from cloud to cloud. This cloud had none of that. It was silver grey throughout.
And it had become silent. The birds had stopped singing and the monkeys had stopped their fussing.
Our curiosity was soon overcome by concern. We stood still on the pathway at the edge of the vast lawn, and watched what was coming towards us. It got bigger and bigger, moving very quickly and changing color. It was no longer grey, now it was a pale blue.
Frozen in awe, I whispered barely loud enough to be heard, "Should we run, you guys? Should we run?" Nana whispered back, "No Yaw, not yet. Let's see what happens." We stood still. The cloud was now an iridescent bright blue, and was shifting and churning like flowing water. Soon it was upon us. And then we were completely engulfed in it.
It must have been a million sparkling blue butterflies. Thousands landed on us while the cloud circled and enclosed us, as if to greet us and tell us that there was nothing to be afraid of. We started to quietly laugh in disbelief. Each of us stood with our arms outstretched, covered head to toe with blue butterflies, each resting their wings.
The silence was incredible. It was so quiet that all we could hear was our breath and the breeze rustling the leaves of the silk cotton trees high above us. Nana whispered, "Aren't you glad we didn't run, Yaw?" I whispered back, "Yeah."
It was impossible to tell where our bodies ended and the cloud of shimmering blue light began. I felt as if I was part of the cloud, and that my body had dropped away. I'm sure Nana and Akwasi felt the same. Millions of glittering wings, catching the light and reflecting the sparkling blue.
The moment seemed to stand still. Just the three of us in a pool of blue light, a chorus of tiny wings softly lifting and falling, lifting and falling. Once they were rested after a few minutes, they took flight just as gently as they had landed on us, joining the circling cloud which then continued to float towards its destination in complete silence, up and over the forest canopy. We didn't move. We didn't say a word. We just stood and watched the cloud disappear into the distance, wondering where they were going to. We had just witnessed something sacred, as if the essence of joy had just past through us and we had touched the spirit of God; a moment imprinted on each of our souls, witnessing the perfection of nature and our Creator. This was beauty that could only be created by the divine. As we looked at each other, the words to describe what had just occurred would not come. Nana smiled and motioned to us, and we continued on our walk in silence.
For many Ghanaians those were years of unbelievable suffering. Hunger, danger and political chaos were part of our daily lives and yet we endured. We found our strength through our families and in our faith, carrying on with life as best we could while maintaining our human dignity as we struggled to take care of those around us.
And yet in spite of great hardship, the human spirit seems to blur those horrible memories over time. And the treasured memories? They get clearer and more vivid as the years go on. I look back and I can't remember the faces of the soldiers. I don't remember the hunger from rationing food into two small meals a day. But I do remember every single moment of joy I felt when I first met my brothers Nana and Akwasi, of the serenity listening to a choir and the beat of the talking drums calling out in the quiet night during my visits to the villages to meet with our Baha'i brothers and sisters, and the humbling sacredness I felt when Nana gave me my naming ceremony and the name Yaw under the full moon in a clearing in the rain forest.
I realize looking back that we endured the suffering because there were moments like this, receiving a glimpse of eternity in a cloud of a million butterflies, confirming our faith in such a simple, exquisite and profound way.
Euphaedra Medon Medon
Native to Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.
