KARIM HOW ARE YOU?

Karim how are you, a friend asked. I am doing amazingly well my brother, I replied with such confidence and optimism. But then I realized he was surprised and so he proceeded to ask, in these hard times? Then the surprised look all of a sudden changed to my side and asked instead, why were you expecting something different?

That is what happens when you pretend you are in America. As for me I have come to terms with the situation. I have lowered the standards and have kept my head under waters and that’s how come am doing fine.

I am on the 3^rd floor of the Alexander Adum Kwapong Hall in the University of Ghana where I school, I have to climb up and down almost everyday just so I can get a bucket of water to bath or perhaps a cup to brush my teeth basically because Ghana Water Company for one reason or the other cant pump water through my pipeline in a country where we can literally get water from hitting a rod on a rock (Moses’ style). I am used to it so I only take relief in smiling and accepting that’s the standard. Let those little school children in the village who have to travel 2 kilometers daily to fetch water before they go to school cry.

For about three weeks now one of my lectures, which start from 5:30 to 7:20pm, has been ended abruptly and consistently because now ECG decides when my lecturers teach and when they should not. As if the case is only so in the evening, lectures scheduled for 1:30pm where the sun is shining and all the lecture rooms have abundant lights also end all the time because PowerPoint presentations cannot go on. Its always funny how my Sociology lecturer, a lady with such calm and tender voice always has to shout on top of voice just so she can make sense to the over 300 students in her class every Wednesday at 3:30pm. And so I don’t get surprise when after 45 minutes she would eventually say in a rather tired voice, see you next week. 

That means more than an hour is lost.

My best friend in the University, my beautiful Binatone rice cooker, these days would refuse to respond to me for obvious reasons, dumso dumso. Normally what happens is after filling it with some whitish stone-like particles; I would run around and come back after 15 minutes with smiles to see them turned into some beautiful, soft and tender teeth-like particles. I would open the basin and see these whitish particles with beaming smiles (cooked rice) waiting to be consumed but unfortunately the story is different now.

And then the president would go to the church and accuse us of having short memories because after he halted dumso dumso temporarily, we failed to say thank you. Perhaps he was expecting us to organize a concert with Shatta Wale and Samini and possibly have Sarkodie and the rest playing along so that we would announce dumso dumso is over. He forgets we have given him all our resources to fix our problems. Now few months later we are back to square one. By now he should be biting his lips for such a reminder because we surely wont be so forgetful this time.

The most annoying part of it all is that the ECG has gotten the impetus and impudence to carefully articulate a rather ridiculous load shedding time table for us. Interestingly annoying isn't it?. Sad thing is they don’t even follow their own time table. God save Ghana.

Well it is not my intention to give the real State of the Nation address here; I am only giving the reasons why I am amazingly living comfortably. Because it is obvious that going by what I have clearly stated above, if I am to worry myself so much about them, I would probably die before my time. You can call it mediocrity or whatever you like, be not as charitable as I have been, my advice is follow my lead, reduce the standards, expect little and you wont be worried about anything.

My name is Karim, and I am doing perfectly fine.