As you probably know, throughout a lot of Africa, there are many shanty towns. These are areas made up of dwellings (or homes, if you want to stretch the term) made from various items, ranging from pieces of wood, cardboard, or metal to small metal shipping containers. These town are ugly and dirty. However, for some people, this is all they have. They have worked very hard to obtain that little room where they sleep. They keep their few possessions in it and have shelter when it rains. It is a step up from those we see sleeping on cement sidewalks or the side of the road.
These areas can be quite large, or just a small community alongside the edge of the road.
A few days ago, we went to a local city in the morning. One the way back, we found that one of the larger communities, and several others along the highway had been razed to the ground. There was nothing but rubble where the dwellings had been. There was a bunch of make-shift furniture sitting along the roadside. Hundreds of men, women and children had just watched in horror as everything they owned was demolished. There was a huge traffic jam and police were there to keep the peace. I didn't take a picture at the time, because it was all too much. Here are a few after a lot of it had been cleaned up a few days later.
I was heartbroken. How could anyone do this to those people? It wasn't much but it was all they had and now they had nothing. It didn't make sense. I was probably as close to wanting to go home as I had been since I got here.
Wanting to make meaning of it all, we reached out to two dear friends from here, one a local Stake President and another a young man we work with. They were able to share some insight into the situation.
It seems many people from the outlying bush areas move to Accra (and other cities) seeking a better life. They want more opportunities for employment, education and safety. However, when they come, they are ill prepared. The city is already flooded with people seeking the same thing. They come with no money to get started, no place to stay and there is no system in place to help them find housing, employment, food etc. So they squat on government land or sometimes land owned by others. The government sometimes allows them to stay until the land is needed for something else. As they settle in, they bring in family and friends from outside the city and communities are formed. The problem comes when the land is needed. In this case, they are going to widen the highway from 4 lanes to 6. The people were informed several months ago that they had to be off the land by a certain date, but they refused to go. They probably had nowhere to go. They were warned many times as the day drew near. They still did not go. When the day came, the bulldozers came and cleared the land.
Some may say that the people should be more important that the highway. However, if things like highways are not constructed, progress is stopped. Jobs do not come to the city for people because there is no way to get in and out. The city would become one large shanty town and no one would be able to move forward. Development is necessary so the whole country can move forward. Ghana is the jewel of Africa. They are working very hard to move from being a third world country. This cannot happen without infrastructure.
Meanwhile, there are still hundreds of men, women and children who are homeless and have just endured the trauma of watching everything they owned destroyed.
Draw whatever conclusions you want. Compare this to whatever politically charged situation comes to your mind. As for me, I am still working through this in my mind and will be for a long, long time.
Like I said, "It's complicated."
Sister Emfield
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