Some people can't stand the sight of coffins, others, the sight of corpses but for these persons, they have practically been confined to living in the "abode of the dead".
By no choice of theirs, they have to live with the dead as direct neighbours.
In some parts of Keta,and Anloga, cemeteries have become an abode for some residents.
In most cases, the homes were built by families on their plots of land before the cemeteries sprung up. But as is common in the Volta Region, family lands are given out for various purposes, this includes the establishment of large cemeteries.
Mawunyo, a resident living in Keta explained to GhanaWeb that the practice has become necessary because the original burial site in the area had become exhausted. The grounds had become hard and digging graves had become difficult.
“One day we woke up and then they started burying people. They started with one over there, we thought it was something they’ll start and stop but they didn’t. Few years passed and the numbers keep adding and now we have a whole lot of graves here,” he said.
But, how is life for these ghost neighbours? An interaction with some of them revealed a mix-bag of experiences.
At night, not only eerie sounds are heard but according to some residents, they are visited by persons they can’t see but can hear.
“I see ghosts sometimes. I saw a woman, very tall and wearing a dress. I saw another in cloth and I asked if she was human, then she run towards the bush.
I saw another man, very tough, he was holding a torch and vanished when I tried pursuing him,” Old Madam Agbashie, whose house is surrounded by a large cemetery said.
For young Rejoice, her family members only hear sounds but see no one when they come out of their rooms.
“It’s frightening. Sometimes you hear sounds like people fetching water and cooking. The plate will fall or something, but when you come out, you see no one,” she said.
For others however, it’s a typical case of their belief in ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I’ll fear no evil”, as noted in Psalm 23:4 of the Holy Bible.
They believe ghosts live in their own world and will not be loitering around without invitation.
“In the Bible, we heard a story where they said Saul went to invoke the spirit of Samuel. When he went to the sorcerer, he had to invoke the spirit before it came out of the ground and then Saul saw Samuel coming out from the ground. It means there’s a spirit which lives in the form of a human being but it needs to be invoked. But ghosts standing up and moving on its own, I don’t believe in that. We are in our own world and there’s a principle. Spirits are equally in their own world so I don’t see why ghosts should be loitering around where human beings exist,” Mawunyo, a resident said.
Tunu Rose, another resident added,
“There’s nothing to be afraid of because I believe in God. Sometimes I pray that God is before me and behind me so I just walk past.”
