Poet Omama Kidash on sanitation and deforestation

Ghanaian poet, Omama Kidash, whose real name is Godwin Asare has added his voice to the campaign against filth and deforestation in the country. He believes that going green and smelling good are key keys to our basic survival.

Omama Kidash is a poet, playwright, and teacher (Pentecost Senior High School – Koforidua). He is a member of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), a GAW Literary Award winner, and a graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon.

His wordings weave the beautiful survival cloth in this fashion:

The Filth Eats Us

With little throws here and there

We have created a mighty monster

Which opens its wide stinking mouth

To eat us alive.

Filth,

Which comes from us

Join hands before our very eyes

And in unity, transmogrify

Into a stinking unpleasant monster

To devour us in bits

And finally, in full

And we are shameless about it.

When one frowns on

The throwing of unwanted plastics

Through the windows of moving vehicles,

They are insulted and abused –

They say the street is nobody’s home

But it all comes back to us.

Our chocked gutters stink to rip us apart

And then conquer to enslave our healthy bodies.

Filth, who is now recognized as a citizen

Receives much pampering to grow in our

Homes, our streets, our markets, and everywhere.

The filth we create

Takes a bite of us each day

To become our lord.

Like the slave in the hands of the master,

The capital city is in strong chains

Struggling for fresh breath

As we watch the thick filthy rope of dirt

We produce

Hang us on the tree of filthy-filthy.

But we cannot look on any longer

Let’s come together to dig a big pit,

Kill and bury this master and his descendants

Else, the future will ask,

“Where is the sanity in our sanitation?”

Open Defecation

Open defecation

Is no national decoration

It is a shameful worry

To the gateway we sing of.

Open defecation is a cancer

In the body of our development.

We don’t have toilets

So our landfill sites,

Big gutters,

And the kind bare floors of our vicinities

Are molested with clinical dosages of

Excrement.

Plastic balls stuffed with body wastes

Fly over roofs to land like missiles

And choke us to death around the clock.

UNICEF thinks Ghana’s current rate

Of improvement will take

Ninety years to eradicate open defecation.

I think it may be one thousand

If we sit and stare.

Gold Coast

I live in Gold Coast

Where we played oware with diamonds

And the children washed their hands in Akwatia,

Waving Aku Sika’s style on their way home.

When the first ship arrived,

My bente was stripped off

And I became Ota Benga

Taking selfies of the past time.

Now I am Kunta outside the net,

Walking free on a sandy shore.

My king is my kind

But that heart does not look too kind.

Strangers are colouring our waters beyond treatment

Our cowries keep flying into white safes

Yet, we stand on the burning sun and say nothing.

There is a mystery upon the silhouette.

But this is a new dawn.

It is time to ride our horses.

Let’s shelf the clay beads and go for gold

As we create and build with love

Keep Ghana Clean

From the North to the South

Keep Ghana clean

From the East to the West

Keep Ghana clean

From the city to the countryside

Keep Ghana clean

This is the only nation we have

Let’s make it glitter

For the rest of the world to learn from it

Keep Ghana clean

Do not throw anything out of car windows

And do not drop anything on the ground either.

If there is no bin,

Use your bag.

Let’s be responsible

Let’s be wise

Let the elderly start for the children to learn

Keep Ghana clean.

The Trees Are Watching

If you have ever heard the trees talk

You would know they too have feelings

They care too much about us

To be cut into a cross

And be served vinegar for life

Their annual festivals commemorate

How our fathers of old welcomed them,

Gave them stool names to appreciate

The innumerable stools they had given to us

And made them a part of the society.

The trees, who grew older than our fathers

Told us the story of our past

And taught us righteousness and sacredness

The trees who gave us something

More than shade and shelter

Know they have been too kind and faithful

Over the years.

But we, have put on the murderer’s gloves:

While we assassinate the older trees,

Our little ones butcher their young without mercy.

We do not care whether they live or die

We do not care whether they procreate or extinct

But they are not mourning.

They are gathering with our fathers and mothers

On the other side for a reunion

As our world gets hotter and hotter on this side.

The trees are only watching for

They know our sure end.

Another Warning from the Greens

We are not done talking

We will talk and talk and talk

Until your ears wake up and listen to our pleas.

When the last of us are killed

We will all roll into a ball of a big curse and

Haunt you in your dreams.

When will you ever learn?

Will you burn all of us into ashes and pray later?

What kind of generation are you?

We lived with your forebears in peace;

They respected us and even made taboos to

Preserve our lives.

They knew nothing about chemicals that weaken

The body so they lived on us and waxed strong

To full age.

The love they had for us gave them free meat.

Before your forced foods that kill you fast arrived,

We served your fathers healthy dishes

And poured clean air into their lungs.

What kind of generation are you?

You destroy us with a passion and do not care about

How our families survive.

What kind of generation are you?

You murder us with joy and cover the earth with

Concrete.

Who shall face the strong winds for you?

Who shall shield you from the sun when he is angry?

Our warnings keep falling on deaf ears

But we shall scream and scream and scream until

You hear.

Keep us close to protect yourselves

Give us life to have life

Love us to love yourselves

We, the trees are very angry.

Facebook: Omama Kidash

Twitter: OmamaKidash