How we are fragile

Last week, one of the men who tidies the garden around our office (I think his official title is “labourer”) lost a daughter. A number of us from the office went together to his house to greet him, to offer our sympathies, and to present him with some money that we had collected to offset his funeral costs.

We went to see him on the eighth day after her death. According to Gonja custom, the main mourning takes place on the second and seventh days after death. If both parents are dead, then they will mourn on the twelfth day also. As it was, she was young, and so we had missed the official time to commemorate her death.

It was a strange scene. When we arrived, they stopped everything they were doing, and brought us benches to sit on. We all sat in the courtyard in silence for some time, before my director took a moment to explain why we had come.

He mentioned that he was sorry the man had lost someone so young. The man clarified that she was not so young. She had given birth once, he said. “Her daughter is about that age”, he pointed over my shoulder across the courtyard. I turned, to see a girl of about two and a half years – the spitting Ghanaian image of my own young sister. Up to her armpits in bubbles, bouncing at the knees, she was “helping” her mother do the laundry.

Our director went on to inquire about her death; was she sick for a long time? She was not sick, her father said. A piece of glass fell on her foot. My mind, which had wandered as I watched the small girl splashing out of the corner of my eye, suddenly came back into focus. A young, perfectly healthy woman, died from a piece of glass in her foot? Absurd.

But no, not really. Only I take easy-to-access medical facilities for granted. Tetanus shots, for example. The woman had lived in Kotito, a small community about 25 kilometres from Damongo, the site of the closest hospital. Not that far, really – but far enough that she didn’t make the trip to get the inoculation when she cut her foot. Far enough that she was stranded when her illness got worse. Far enough that her daughter will never know her mother.
A reverent, painful silence fell over our small crowd in the corner of the courtyard. In the background were the cries of the goats and the giggles of the laundry baby. I looked across at my coworker, the father of the young woman who had died. His strong, lean body rocked slowly back and forward, his hands between his knees. His eyes were like nothing I have ever seen – they were distant, yet acutely aware of present pain – they were sharp, and yet clouded with tears.

I felt sick to think of how easily she could have been saved. I felt desperate when I considered how many others must die in similar ways. I felt disgusted when I remembered how much money our military leaders spend so that we can kill each other. And all it takes is a piece of glass in your foot.