I Took The Road Less Traveled To Abotoase

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost

I am that stranger Robert Frost talks about in that famous poem. I am that stranger who comes to a fork in the road and picks the "road less traveled by."

You see when I decided to go to and visit the victims of the Dudzome boat disaster some months back, I knew it was a decision to embark on a long and lonesome journey. When I said I wanted to see the victims with my own eyes and hear their tragic stories with my own ears, I knew I had chosen the road less traveled. It was the grassy path, the one "wanting wear," the one that seemed to lead nowhere that I chose to trod when I decided it wasn't worth my money mailing petty cash to strangers just to fulfill my sense of charity.

Yes, it would have been far easier to sit at home, and sympathize. But I wanted to beat my own path, chart my own course, and indeed, I have done so. What I have seen and heard and experienced has made all the difference; it has carved in me something concrete and permanent that would live with me for the rest of my life.

Sure, I could have gone the other road. Many people did. But had I done so, I never would have had the chance to meet Zinabu Labilah and her six month old child. I would have missed watching her force words out of her mouth while forcing in the tears in her eyes. Labilah was nine months pregnant, when she was forced out of her home in Dudzome into a boat with all her worldly possessions. Have you ever tried swimming while carrying a full grown human being in your stomach?

Had I chosen the other path, my eyes never would have laid upon Norvienyo Amekudzi, the youngest survivor of the boat disaster. Believe me, pictures don?t do enough justice to this little angel. I was blessed by the little girl's beauty, and her mother's graciousness. Had I taken another path I never would have met Rebecca Tobo and her husband and her children at Kwamekrom. Tobo lost several children and grandchildren in the disaster. Her family has nothing but each other.

Had I gone on the beaten path, I never would have seen the utter richness of the lands that lie on banks of the Volta River, and the adverse poverty of people that reside on it. I never would have seen the surreal mountains at Nkonya, the mud hats at Bumbula, or even walked through Kpando market on a market day, to watch women making an honest living under a scorching sun. I never would have seen the labor of love that fishing in the Volta.

My friends traveling the road less traveled to Abotoase took me to the fringes of life and that has made all the difference in me.

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