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| Words and photo by Stephen Abankwa* |
I had a wonderful family and was living a wonderful
life. My parents were not rich, but we were living well. My sister and I were
not hungry and we had everything we needed. One fateful day, my parents were to
travel from our place in the city of Accra, Ghana, to their village for a
family occasion. We woke up that morning and we were happy together. When they
were about to leave, they said to me, “take very good care of your younger
sister”. You see, I have an elder brother, but he is an alcoholic and not
responsible. So, when my parents are away, I take care of my younger sister, Christabel. I was 16 years-old at the time. My sister was 11. They gave me
money to take care of the house and set off on their journey.
During the day, we got word that there was a terrible car accident
and that my parents were involved. We were informed that my parents had lost
their lives. I took the responsibility for calling all the members in our
extended family to inform them about the sad news. My alcoholic brother was too
busy drinking and wasn’t even aware of what had happened. My extended family
had meetings to make preparations for the funeral and also set a date for the
burial. The family also promised that afterwards, they would care for my sister
and I and we would not want for anything. Little did we know that all the
promises were just formalities to grace the day for my dead parents.
After about a month, all of the promised support from family
members had stopped coming. This is where our struggles really began. My
alcoholic brother simply ran away from his responsibilities as the eldest son.
So, I had to take on all of the responsibility of caring for myself and my
younger sister. We had to move out of the apartment we lived in when our
parents where alive because our rent was due and I couldn't afford to pay it. Now,
all we can afford is a dirty room in a filthy neighborhood. I was in secondary
school studying to become a journalist, something I had always dreamed about. But,
in order to earn enough for my sister and I to live on, I was forced to quit
school to find work. My grandparents, in our ancestral village, were the only
ones who were always there for us. But they can’t really help. They are old, sick
and also jobless. In fact, I often have to send them money for their medications.
I have pleaded with my aunts and uncles for help with no success. They always
claim that they have their own troubles and, so, have nothing left to send. My
sister and I are truly alone.
I am not lazy and will take any type of work. I have done
jobs like cleaning for people, doing laundry, running errands, and washing cars
in an effort to support myself and my sister. But work is difficult to find.
Even when I do, the income is very little. In this country, hard work does not
pay much. I was earning so little, there is hardly enough to even eat. If we
get sick, I do not know if we will be able to afford to buy medicine. We are
experiencing pains and my sister always cries of hunger. I am trying my best to endure the hunger pains but my sister cannot. It’s been 3 years and our
situation is growing from bad to worse each day. Christabel cries
every day “is God alive, who will help us”? And “what is the essence of
life”?
Life, as it is said, is like a
coin with two sides. One side can be sweet and the other side can be very
bitter. Our side of the coin has been very bitter. Ghana, West Africa, is a country that has lots of remote towns and villages. Most of the
people who live in the towns and villages suffer from poverty without getting
any public assistance. There are no government programs to provide aid. We
suffer from the same lack of concern. Hunger has become our main problem. And hunger is always present. I will clean gutters or
peoples’ homes just to scrape enough money together to feed myself and my
sister. Even then, the money that I earn is often not enough to feed both of
us. So, I sometimes have to starve myself so that my sister may eat. The pain
and the sleepless nights that I go through due to hunger is something that I don’t
know how to explain. Because to this, I suffer from stomach pains believed to
be caused by an ulcer. But we can’t go to hospital for proper medication when
we are sick because we can’t afford medical bills. When we do eat, most of the
foods we eat are starchy, just to sustain us. They are not nutritious, but
filling. We then suffer ill health from the lack of nutritious foods. It
becomes a vicious cycle.
Because of the hunger, things
have become unbearable for us. The pain becomes so intense that I have even
thought of ending my life. But I won’t because
I don’t know how my sister’s life would be if something should happen to me. And
I don’t know how, without some source of help, it can possibly get better. All
our dreams, aims and ambitions have become shuttered because there is no money
for us to further our educations. My sister and I hope to become great people
in future, but how? Where is the love and care to make our dreams become real? My
dream is to be a journalist and my sister wants to be a fashion designer. But,
under our current conditions, they are only dreams and so very far from
reality.
I am not a beggar. I am a human being. I did not ask for this tragedy to befall my family. I am a young man who has accepted responsibility for myself and my sister. But, we are alone. And the world is too big and too tough for me to do this totally alone. If my sister and I had the help and support that we needed, we would be able to go back to school and fulfill our dreams of the future. I am willing to make my own way and, with a little help, I will do what is necessary to accomplish this. As is said in America, I don’t need a hand-out. I need a hand up!
* edited by F LoBuono
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