I call her Asibi,
Half woman ,half machine, she moves at 10km/hr through the dense static traffic in the city center. With an A.S.I.B.I ( Automated Super Industrial Body index) of 1:1:1 ; 10 tons to 10 miles in 10 hours.
She has a 12 cylinder capacity exhaust lungs installed in her chest, her veins transmit 120kv of power from head to toe. Hydraulic levers for biceps and damper forearms extend from her hard weatherproof metal back. Her hip stregth is derived from a complex system of interlocking steel brakets and sockets and thick double action shock absorber buttocks. She has strong long legs, powerful thighs fitted with anti-buckle knees and massive pressure plates for her feet. She operates green; no fuel ,no gas. For stability, balance and speed, there is none to compare.
What would transform this beautiful, lovely woman into a heavy duty machine,an urban she -cyborg doing the work of pick up vans? the answer is extreme poverty. After arriving in the capital city from the far north of her country, refusing to sell her body, she offers for service the only thing she has; her daily ration of energy from being alive, strength and will power to survive the urban hustle. Her reward?, $5 a day to feed herself, her fatherless son and parents back home. None to buy energy tonic or painkillers to subside the pain or towels, toiletries and fragrant soaps to clean her sweat. Imagine what a nights rest must be like for her on the first come, first sleep, shop frontages on the zongo alleyways where rapists hound and mosquitoes breed.
Asibi is a common name among the Northern Ghanaian girls who leave the rural hinterlands to work in the cities of the south. Rural urban migration at its worst is seen in the effect on the health of women and children who arrive daily to find work as Kayayos or load carriers in the city centers and market places. They offer their 'strength' services to carry heavy loads for miles through traffic which would take longer for a van or truck to cross. And at what cost?!
How can we create beautiful and enjoyable cities with scenes like this?
Sweat and pain are the paint and brush with which scenes of poverty in urban areas are truthfully painted.
kojoderban
Excellent article. Many of these Asibis form the bedrock of our economies. If only thier strength committment, energy, hardwork and fighting spirit were harnessed into something more productive than carrying heavy loads, our continent will be much better of.
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