Pressure!!!
Where are we all rushing to? Eh? Pressure here, pressure there, pressure everywhere.
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I looked on with awe and shock when this morning in traffic, I saw a young corporate woman shave her armpit hairs behind her steering wheel.
Time was exactly 6:15a.m. Mercy! Has it come to this? That women do not have time to shave their hairs before leaving home? Is it for fear of running late for work or what? Eigh, it’s getting scary!
Huh, I wanted to borrow Kodwo Nkansah Lil Wayne’s statement, I can’t think far; I can’t think madness. But that cliché has become too shared now, it’s almost losing its essence. Hm, I was truly stunned!
Fine, sometime last year, I saw a woman sitting behind her steering wheel in traffic, painting her loooooong acrylic nails.
I thought that was gross! She wore a cream dress. What if the red nail polish poured or spilled into it? But I guess she was too skilled for any mistakes.
Each time the cars inched forward, she carefully placed the conical bottle bearing the polish on her dash board, and moved forward. At the time I thought that was news. But this one? Shaving in traffic? Merhn!
The way she had lifted her flabby left arm up over her head, so the skin of your armpit would be taut is still so fresh in my mind. Obviously she didn’t want any inhibitions to her downward strokes.
Eigh ewiase! When she was done stroking downwards, she stroked the same region in an upward and then sideways manner. I looked on with awe.
Occasionally, she would point the shaving stick towards her mouth and blow away stuck-in hairs. In fact, I could only shake my head as I looked on.
Our trotro was parallel to her vehicle and my side of seating was closer to her so I really could catch clear pictures of the happening.
She sorted her left armpit out first, and then the right followed. Her sleeveless dress made her work really easy.
Until the man seated directly behind me said, “ohoh, what is becoming of women these days? Couldn’t she have done this at home, I thought I was the only person concerned about the woman’s act.
Although he spoke to himself, his statement drew the attention of others to that which had caught his attention. A discussion ensued among passengers, none of who knew the other.
And that is what amazes and excites me about travelling via trotro. People who do not know each other are able to engage in serious conversations as though they were related.
Telling my friend Tilly about my eventful observation or better still, my encounter of the day, she laughed and said Ablah, nothing surprises me anymore. For all you know, it’s a prophetic action she is taking; an akwankyer3.
Her explanation made me laugh. How would any prophet ask anyone to shave in traffic or in public? How? When I tried to argue over her joke, she said, “Ablah, one of these prophets once asked me to stand beside a busy road in town to plait my hair.
He asked me to part my hair in four parts, comb it out and braid the quarters right beside the road. It was for the purposes of restoring my stolen glory. I was to do this every Friday morning for a month. And I did.
I did it with the hope of no familiar person noticing my act.” She heaved a sigh and said, “you don’t know what some of us have gone through”.
Her confession shocked me. I couldn’t imagine putting myself in her shoes to perform that kind of akwankyer3.
Living in a modern world as a career woman isn’t too easy. It worsens when you find yourself playing the role of a mother responsible for dropping her children at school.
I quite remember sighting many miserable moments early in the morning when I lived at Adenta. Those were when the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange hadn’t been constructed.
Traffic on the Adenta-Tetteh-Quarshie stretch was always eventful. One had to leave home as early as 5:00, to enable a good “traffic dodging”.
It was not uncommon to see school children taking their breakfast in slow-moving vehicles. Some had to finish dressing up in the cars.
On a few occasions, I saw mothers braiding the hair of their wards in cars. I really did witness a lot during those “go-slow” traffic movements of the time. Pressure!
And that brings me to the big question – why should we travel far to send our wards to school? Is it that in our areas of residences or areas close by, there aren’t the kind of schools we need or something?
Why should one travel all the way from say, Oyarifa, to transport their ward to school at Ridge, Asylum Down or Cantonments? Why?
Right from the Adenta experience, I advised myself never to trek away from a three mile radius to send my children to school. True to my hopes, I have been able to find Naa Atswei a good nursery school near my area of residence.
Truly, that has relieved me of a great burden. When Obodai isn’t able to pick her up from school, I am still at peace because I know once I arrive in our area, she is invariably home too.
I have even been able to walk her home a few times without her feeling tired – good exercise. That was just by the way.
But this lady who was shaving in traffic, what could have made her not do that at home? Only heaven knows when next she will shave in public. Hm. Pressure.