“Any life is important and must be saved no matter the cost, that is what the Bible is demanding from us,” said Joseph Mensah asking his daughter to bring him pounded Fufu and Light Soup as he was hungry.
Mery Mensah sat down on the small wooden block next to her husband that once was a Mechanic for a German Car company, separated a small portion of Fufu into her hand, adding meat to it and enjoyed the taste of it by saying: “We have enough to eat from our small farm and bush meat brings us meat into the soup, but I hear from the Northern Region and in other African countries, Climate Change will worsen the situation in Africa. And I also hear that in Zimbabwe people are hungry while Robert Mugabe has the idea that the land must only be in the hands of the Black Man, someone that obviously is not able to produce enough food to feed the Nation while before it was not so but the country was exporting food stuffs to other countries. Now they even want to print their own useless money as when you have nothing of value in a country to support own currency, money becomes useless and inflation increases, that is what they told us on the radio this morning.”
“My beloved wife,” was Joseph Mensah’s famous phrase when he wanted to caution his wife that liked her fingers clean looking over to the children having finished their meal as well and continued,” politics is nothing for us, we are simple farmers, what do we know about the whole world? We must have trust in the Government, they know what is right for us, they will help us… and if they do not help us, than we turn to GOD, he is always on our side and will never let us down. Somehow it always goes on in life, we only must pray hard and be patient.”
“Be patient? What for?” asked Eric Mensah, the oldest son in the family ready to get married to Mawuni from Volta Region that carried their first child, under her heart. “We young people have a right for a job, for a decent future. Africa is dying in itself out of itself while other countries are booming and enjoying a good life. AID Organizations make a lot of money from their work, this is in fact a big industry that employs a lot of people in and around them. I have the impression that in fact they had no real interest in solving our problem for good as that would mean for them that their job is finished and they will be jobless; a whole industry would collapse when there are no more poor countries like in Africa to be helped but all would to the way Europe once did…just imagine this for a moment.”
“What you are saying is wrong and very, very dangerous,” said Joseph Mensah angry wanting to slap his son into the face but was restraining himself from taken action, instead disciplining himself by saying:” Humanitarian work is always welcome and needed even in most cases it is only for the moment to help someone stay alive while indeed it must be observed that for the past sixty years in Africa it has not helped us for a very long time, but we have gone from one crisis into the next with no end in sight. Other countries like in Asia having had the same problems like us at our Independence Days are now called Tiger States and are far, far advanced than us, they even teach us what we should do and support us with Donor Money and Loan facilities…that is so true…”.
“And that is what I mean buy what I say. When we cannot handle Donor Money to prosper over time and get out of our misery for good but year after year, generation after generation are in the same situation again before the help was given out, we should simply not be given any Donor Funds at all but be forced by hunger and poverty to come to our senses, restructure our minds, create ideas that can benefit and help us, stand on our own feet in dignity and overtake our Overtakers by storm. Donor Money makes someone lazy to change and subsequently dependable on the handouts forever. We are no small boys anymore, we have grown up by now, but we still have the mentality of small boys that are naughty and have no wisdom of their own. We must stop that nonsense and move on towards our assigned destiny. We are not bad people compared to others, we are different and this difference we must use to our advantage to stand out among Nations. How can Ghana lead Africa when Ghana is poor…it just does not add up, I am telling you.”
“You are still young, my son,” was another famous phrase Joseph Mensah used when he wanted to discipline his children,” when you are old like me and hand seen what life is all about, you will come down and face reality of our country and Africa as a continent.”
Eric Mensah got angry posting himself before his father his eyes wide opened:” I do not accept that! I do not take that! I have a responsibility for my family and for that matter I demand that we Blacks change right now and that the White Man stops helping us, something that brings shame to us as Blacks when we are potentially able to help ourselves here in Africa.”
“When there is a whole in the bucket,” Mery Mensah interrupted the men to bring peace unto the family table looking sidewise to Alberta Mensah that had started to read her Text books from school,” the bucket will never be full nor will it ever overflow.”
“You mean when a bucket has a whole this means our Black mentality is not correct and so whatever we do, our country and Africa can never be a continent that has visible richness… until time comes we can be ourselves Donor Nations and give Loans to the industrialized world?”
“Eric, my son, that is exactly what it means… well said,” did Mery Mensah respond, turned round feeling sleepy and entered her bedroom.