I believe fate has a way of bringing different strands of an issue together, sometimes in the most unremarkable way, and perhaps to force us into deep reflection.
Over the past few days, I have had four ordinarily unrelated telephone conversations that conspired to bring home to me the realities of our daily grind and turned me into an amateur philosopher of sorts.
Choreography of requests
The other day, someone called me on the verge of tears, seeking ‘just GH¢100.00’ to get some anti-malaria drugs from the pharmacy following a visit to the clinic.
After that had been sorted out, another person called later in the day, saying she was on the verge of being thrown out of her room over her overdue rent.
She needed ‘only’ GH¢1500.00 to add to her money to redeem her situation, and was truly in distress.
Apparently, she had been playing ‘hide and seek’ with her landlord for close to two weeks.
There must have been choreography by some unseen hands, because in a telephone conversation with a businessman friend the very next day, he lamented that he was in real trouble and was suffering from insomnia.
Why? Because his imported goods were resting peacefully at the Tema Harbour and he needed GH¢90,000.00 ‘urgently’ to clear them, or else he would lose his goods.
‘Nine hundred (900) million cedis’, he said, clearly for dramatic effect, insisting on ‘old cedis’ as if to drive home the enormity of his bill.
To crown it all, a young person I know called to inform me that he had not eaten all day and needed ‘just GH¢20.00” to buy some banku.
I thought of the price of a bottle of beer I had had the previous day and almost felt guilty.
I sent him GH¢50.00, perhaps to assuage the guilt. After all, it was Sunday. Matthew 25:35-40 rang in my ears.
To each their own
As these strands of urgent needs clashed in my head and I processed them, something struck me.
At each level of need in the four scenarios described, the money these people were looking for, however paltry or princely others might deem it to be, literally meant the world to them.
Failing this, they would suffer worse health, be rendered homeless, lose huge amounts of goods or starve.
For each of them, therefore, their struggles, concerns, feelings of inadequacy and helplessness over their predicaments were very legitimate in the most personal way, and rightly so.
At that particular point in time, the hungry young man, for instance, did not need ‘900 million cedis’.
Just GH¢20.00 was enough to solve his immediate need. Au contraire, perhaps to the businessman, the hungry young man did not really have a problem.
‘Only’ GH¢20.00?
The story is told of a businessman who went to see a pastor for divine intervention to help him secure the contract for a multi-million cedi government project.
A lady was in consultation with the pastor for divine favour when he arrived.
She was moaning loudly about her need for GH¢1,000.00 to start a roadside banku and tilapia stall, for which reason she had been fasting in supplication to God.
Irritated that his time was being wasted, the businessman pulled out the ‘measly’ GH¢1,000 from his wallet, gave it to the lady and told her to shut up over this ‘small money’ and get lost so he could have a more worthy consultation with the pastor towards his mega-project.
The lady was, of course, overjoyed that God had answered her prayer, and scurried off with a spring in her step, joy in her heart and a wide smile plastered across her face.
Trauma vs trivia
In life, what traumatises and keeps some awake may be trivia for others, because they see their problems as much bigger, and therefore, more important.
He who casually spends GH¢3,000.00 on lunch with a couple of friends at a fancy restaurant in Accra may struggle to imagine how a family of four in another part of the capital can manage to prepare a meal on a budget of GH¢100. 00.
The rich businessman who thinks nothing of taking his girlfriend to London, Cape Town or Dubai for a weekend of luxury shopping may not appreciate the university student, who sees a GH¢200 box of pizza for his girlfriend as a huge sacrifice.
Interestingly, the student may, in turn, scoff at the SHS student who can only afford a bottle of malt drink for his girlfriend on an outing.
Vice versa, the market porter earning a few coins every day may think the top lawyer or doctor or pharmacist has no problems because he or she is earning so much money, and yet the successful businessman facing huge financial demands from family members and others thinks the peasant farmer has no problems.
It goes on and on.
Cocktail of life
The more I thought of the four conversations I had over the past week, the more it hit me that at each level and at each turn on this journey called life, it is tempting and perhaps natural, but also misleading, to presume to be luckier or less lucky than others.
The grimy, unvarnished truth is that each level of the socio-economic pyramid of life comes with its own blessings and challenges.
To presume that others have no problems or far fewer problems just because you appear to be saddled with what you perceive to be heavier burdens is to forget that beautiful roses, blooming in the sunshine and smelling fragrant, do also have sharp, prickly thorns.
Flipping the coin, an assumption that others who are less fortunate than you are, especially in material terms, are necessarily miserable, smacks of a certain arrogance.
The truth is that life is truly a mixed bag, and as a general rule, you can’t have it your way all the time.
For most, it is a cocktail with varying doses of the good, the bad and the ugly.
You just deal with the elements as they come.
On the streets, they put it succinctly thus: ‘this life no balance’.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
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