The year was 2020. In a country called Ghana. For many, 1st January was the dawn of a new year with many prophecies of successes. For others, it was another ordinary day and life continued as always.
The media was bustling with news of muffled local politics and seemingly irrelevant foreign adversities. The economy of the country, as was being touted by the ruling party, was on the verge of becoming superfluously successful in ways unprecedented by the comparatively recent past.
The majority of citizens were moaning and grumbling silently as is typical of the Ghanaian. Freedom of speech, a distorted phrase affiliated with the so-called democratic dispensation, was encouraging loose blabber, from opposing, blind, unrecognisable self-acclaimed stalwarts of various quadrants of the Ghanaian society.
However, none was broadcasting the hustle being real! Living la vida loca in that year 2020 meant an affiliation to a certain social caste, which was known but not necessarily clearly defined.
The chaos of the year and its dire effect on the whole world was gradually brewing from a country that seemed too far from the Ghanaian. Inching gradually from the northern hemisphere of the world was a weapon of contagious distraction.
The main vehicle that carried this weapon was fluids from soma’s ENT. Much as weapons of similar structures have caused a massive distraction in the past, never has one confused and brought the whole world to a halt like this contagious covid19. By March of 2020 Ghanaians were still hopeful of a better and brighter year as they anticipated campaign jamboree from the various political entities.
But the hope was dimmed to an almost blind spot when contagion struck from an ambassadorial perspective. The “rich man’s disease” as the locals referred to it, began to spread at a slow staggering speed in mathematical multiples. As was necessary, the ultimate leadership, like a concerned mother and in replication of what the countries of the northern hemisphere had done, brought all institutional gatherings to a close.
The silence of the day and its uncertainty of the future was subconsciously sickening. Lockdown, as was imposed, seemed unnecessary to the layman of handy skills. Such sat by walls, in groups daily, questioning how their next pesewa and meal may be made.
While during this period the minute fraction of people of assumed and acquired considerable fortune stocked up more than enough to survive a lifetime of the layman earlier mentioned.
The informal market leveraged on the hasty demands of the people of the urban centres and clearly, the missing regulation of the food market came to bare. Basic necessities of life became luxury products sold at preposterous prices. Life had to still go on but it had to be gradual, logically thinking.
But the reality in the Ghanaian context of life could not go on in that slow graduation. The majority, who often said they are in business, or fully employed, or self-employed, actually lived from hand to mouth.
So the closure meant a cessation of living, as hands could only get to mouth with a hesitant swift. All and many anticipated, in that period of 2020, the weekly corona SONA which in summary was a recitation of a multiplication table of the infected fraction of the population and how to avoid being part of that fraction.
Hidden in this complex quagmire of Ghana’s 2020 beaten strain was praise from the international community, which made proud the smugs who led that geographical corner of the continent.
After some time reality set in, the lockdown was not for the Ghanaian. Lift-off (not up) and the city centres were bustling with the normal, people and sellers tripping over each other. Rule of protocols were observed in the most obvious places, everywhere else, on the blind side of authority, or not, just went back to normal chaotic activity.
The new paragraph, not paradigm had begun. Borders still closed, the so-called middle-income economy had to survive. On the microscale farmers’ markets improved, never a day was there a shortage of foodstuffs in the local markets which in the near past claimed to depend highly on imported foodstuff.
The low food stocks were of products out of season and when the glut came they came in the known excesses. But that didn’t change the new normal to the old normal. The over cheer of imports were most felt with a gradual metamorphosis of supermarkets shelves cluttered with local brand names.
It basically made life liveable and understandable. In the minds of ordinary people, the slow never-ending story of an inconsistent symptomatic infection basically sounded like a twisted story of a case of common cold becoming deadly. Scientifically it was a new type of Coronavirus emitting a disease which was found in 2019, hence covid19, with no cure and no specific symptoms nor vaccine. It was the cleanest disease ever to be known…it compelled personal hygiene to be a compulsory public activity, leaving authorities to be on guard to avoid infection or spread in open environments.
But then the main catalysts of society were left locked behind doors. Bairns of various ages had to find alternative ways of becoming brainy while stuck in houses they’ve often called home. As an economy can not grow without education the future became luminously dim for all teaching and learning institutions to function.
Fear of viral spread in the cluttered institutions across the triad compelled authorities to adopt a staggered “in, out, side, side on in, out” approach to letting education continue. The privileged few adopted high-tech themes by adapted teams and zoomed virtual classrooms to stay up to date with learning.
There the economic divide clearly showed its distinct demarcation of the haves and the have nots to the children many. A whole academic term rolled out for the haves, the graduating classes of junior, senior highs school and final year college graduands.
A minute fraction of children closed a phase of a distorted academic calendar. What about the larger fraction from creche through to 2nd-year students who thanks to covid have lingered loosely holding on to hope masked as their parents?
Their educational future could stay paused till the political jamboree, muddled with unsubstantiated accusations of supposed fraudulent acts along with glaring mixed feelings of joy and disappointment on the reelection of the Ghanaian sitting president has been accepted by all.
That notwithstanding the hospitable Ghanaian known by the world lives for Christmas. It’s a time for enjoyment by all and it’s a time when serious decisions are put on hold so children, adults all religious sects excitedly brought the covid19 year to an end with ceremonies that saw crowds gather in various functions and events camouflaging their smiles behind surgical masks and flaunting their best wears to say thank you to the almighty for keeping many alive irrespective of the numbers lost across the globe.
I, Ekuba Quayenortey, wrote this piece over a period of 6 months as I thought over the challenges I have had to face through this year 2020. The title was based on the fact that nothing has happened in isolation. The consequences we face in our everyday lives are based on the things we randomly do and yet we assume they are not connected.
We were taught to create paragraphs in the essays we write as we expand our objectives as separate points. But a reality check is that without each objective the previous or subsequent objectives mean nothing. Therefore the interconnected and underlying meanings of each objective bring out the full picture of the passages we write or live.
