Perhaps I was born with little or no luck and I definitely have to blame my hopeless mother for not letting the local priest baptize me when I was born, instead, I had the now not so common home christening. My father couldn’t afford the white garment needed for the church service for them so they opted to do their little thing at home. I don’t even understand why she was messing with such a broke man.
I wouldn’t be working like a donkey and still be broke if she was more smart with her choice of men. I can hardly afford enough credit on my mobile phone to call this same mother after having called my boyfriend who can’t afford to buy the credit for me but expects to be called regularly.
In fact, his expectation does not even upset me as much as when he does the usual Ghanaian thing-flashes me, expecting that I will call back in the next second.
Things are hard in Accra and even with a University degree, things are not getting any better and my salary has not increased in the last 3 years. Yet, the gutter side Wakyee seller who I used to buy from each morning has increased her prices more than 10 times.
Nowadays, instead of buying the morning Wakyee each day as I used to—I only can afford it on Fridays and recently, she had the stupid nerve to ask me why she doesn’t see me more often. Maybe if she cuts down on the rate at which she increases her price, she will begin to see more of me.
Of course I couldn’t tell her that so I told her, I only eat Wakyee’s on Fridays to go with the gradually spreading ‘local Friday’. Instead of wearing just a Ghanaian print on Fridays, some of us have stolen it as an excuse to cover our inability to afford everyday Wakyee.
Girls are sweating even when it is raining in this part of the world. It is difficult to even be a lady as you have to fight the men for everything, the usual morning struggle for seat in ‘trotro’ at Kaneshie has become so normal to me and until my friend visited from London recently, I couldn’t remember the last time I was in a taxi.
Talking about ‘trotro’, I think the new set of ‘trotro’ men should stop asking for a woman’s number if they are not ready to even pay her fare. I wouldn’t mind trading my phone number each day for a free ‘trotro’ ride to work. But these guys wait for you to pay the damn fare and then they proceed to ask you for your number. The last time, I told one of them I do not have a phone so he should give me his phone and then he can call me on it later—you can’t imagine how quick his face changed.
That was just by the way, so let me dig into why I am writing this—and as you can see, I am damn frustrated about my current situation. If you are a woman in my shoes, you better be happy I am on a search for an answer for all of us because ‘Girls Abr3’.
Even though I am not a TV star, I believe I am far beautiful than most of the women I see on my TV. Maybe the picture quality of my TV is a little messed up as it is nearly 10 years old but my mirror tells me I will beat most of these girls in any beauty pageant—even if judged by blind corrupt men.
F*ck it, who cares about who is beautiful nowadays—it is all about who has that ‘MUGU’ in her purse. And by ‘MUGU’, I mean the somewhat derogatory Nigerian ‘word’ which has come to mean; a stupid man with a lot of money that can easily be talked into giving a lot away.