THE TAMALE ROAD SAGA

If you don’t know by now that Tamale is a stress free place to live, I am telling you now that it really is. Can you ever get a peaceful place where any uninhabited lands happen to serve as a place of convenience with no strings attached to live? Can you get a place where even armed robbers refuse to rob for the safety of their lives as your place of abode? Can you ever get a place where indigenes give wings to strangers to fly while crawling to build a home? Can you get to easily live at a place where the Volta River Authority fears to switch the electricity on and off all the time for fear of the public mob? Enough of the prelims, I just want to talk about the many love stories that take place on the roads day in and out in the Tamale metropolis.

Firstly, everybody knows that internal transportation is heavily dependent on motor bicycles here in Tamale. Presently, many southerners migrating to the Savannah has paved way for rivalry between vehicles and motor cycles especially during the rush hours. Bicycles and pedestrians also fight for the recognition and love of the manly roads.

Now, a little carelessness, and blood is shed just because of the struggle for recognition by the roads. When you happen to be walking in the pedestrian lane in the Savannah, be sure to send one of your eyes to be on guard at the back of your head or your body will suffer or perish in the struggle for the affection of the roads. It is not shocking to hear unfathomable questions like:

  “Ei why? Didn’t you see me coming? Why did you block my way? You are lucky nothing happened to my thing”

When you happen to survive a hit by a bicycle or a motor bike that neither ‘belled’ nor horned, as though your eyes were at your back.

Riders of motor bicycles are easily spotted teasing death by over speeding while wearing no protective helmets. Sadly, death has most of the last laughs. I have heard of many accidents involving motor accidents and I have seen a few. One fatal accident my mother witnessed kept me awake for days two years ago. The victim was hit by an articulator which squashed his head, according to my mother and some eye witnesses, his body was shaking but his head was totally mashed.  The person was not dead but his head was totally destroyed, all that because he was over speeding. A former colleague died a few months back because he decided to make his helmet a decorating tool while playing the speed game with the manly road. I was angry than sad, I was more angry at the dead than I was with him when we used to mostly bicker at our place of work. Why would you dare death?

I love that the children here are very independent. They are made to depend on their legs or bicycles to take them to their schools every day. I am not against that. What I am against is the fact that many children under the ages of fourteen are given bicycles, which not only carry them, but their siblings to school through the very busy roads which habour vehicles and motor cycles. I have seen many children involved in accidents while riding to school. I have seen children who are hit by vehicles in their quest to cross the roads to their destinations. In my humble opinion, this road affair is not a thing for the young.

 There is a well known saying that Tamale inhabitants fear no vehicles but fear rain. When it is raining, they will easily seek shelter but a lorry can horn for a long time and a human being will pretend as though the road belongs to him or her. I have witnessed the sudden deaths of two adults by vehicles on these Tamale roads. So, can we please sympathetically spare our children from engaging in this fierce battle for the champions of the roads? We have taken in a lot of salt so let the rivalry be among ourselves, if we so want to neglect the rules and regulations of the roads and go by our own knowledge to determine who must be bowed to when plying the roads, then so be it.

The most annoying thing is the behaviour of some of the road regulators. They look for every little chance they get to take some money from the road users, especially the meek looking ones. This is because they fear the huge bodies and the aggressive looking faces. They see all the stupid over takings, the despicable ways many ride or drive, the wrong routes others ply and all they know is to take bribes from whoever looks easy. The Savannah is a wonderful place to be, but never set your eyes on those who fight with all their might to gain the love and attention of their dear road or you’ll be doomed.

      Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © 2014.