Mother’s Day! Our Chinese Chop Sticks’ Day!

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Mothers in Ghana, we the Women’s Wing of the New Patriotic Party, seize this

special occasion that respects you to pay tribute to you for all the sacrifice,

commitment, tolerance and love you have bestowed on children and families in this

country” (Ghanaweb May 13, 2012).

Ghanaians are hunters

Cultural predators

Stalking

Chasing

The West

The Orient

Looking for it all

Looking for new Daze

Oh! Their Mother’s Day

Oh! River Thames’ Day

Chinese Chop Sticks’ Day

Their day is our DAYS

Their day is our Daze

Valentine’s Day is our Daze

Easter Day is our Daze

Christmas Day is our Daze

Mother’s Day is our Daze

Chelsea’s Day

Ah! Bechem Chelsea’s Daze

Motherhood is universal

Mother is good

Mother is gold

Mother is a goddess

But our Mother is doomed

Ghana!

Our Mother is doomed

Mother Ghana is doomed

By her children

Our dearth of inventiveness

Our inferiorization of our own

Our love for foreign things

Our Mother Ghana is doomed

Raped

Battered

Inferiorized

Marginalized

By her own children

Ghanaians are hunting

Hunting for more

Days, Months, Centenaries

All foreign ones

In the woods of the West

In the woods of the Orient

Ah! To celebrate our daze

In praise of the West

In praise of the Orient

Ah! Very soon

Celebration

We shall celebrate it all

Lincoln’s Day

River Thames’ Day

Their day is our daze

Ghanaians are hunters

Cultural predators

We over-killed another one

Mother’s Day

As we over-killed all

Valentine’s Day

Easter

Christmas

Ghanaians are hunters

Cultural predators

In the woods of the West

In the woods of the Orient

Ah! That is what we do best

Pray for foreign cultures

Prey on foreign cultures

Ah! It is our best achievements

The best comes from the West

The nest comes from the East

Ah! Our nursing rhymes

The rhymes that ruin us

Ghanaians are hunters

Cultural predators

In a daze

Hunting

Foraging

Chasing

Stalking

Searching

For all things Western

For all things Oriental

*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained

oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania

with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In

her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”

poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com

**My poems and essays on Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in

part for any academic or scholarly work without my written permission.