Sex Tourists Battering Ghanaian Girls/Boys

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

** I recently spent about two months in Ghana, and the next series of poems will

recount my observations and experiences. Stay tuned!

We see them

Tourists

Unkempt with pride

Balding in wrong places

Roaming freely and agog

Like freed caged-birds

In boundless territories

In lawless principalities

Sauntering streets

Sauntering markets

Sauntering schools

Sauntering beaches

Sauntering bars/discoes

Dangling dollars in the air

Flaunting their light skin

Showing brown teeth

Ready to grip

Ready to pounce

Ready to prey

Ready to pillage

Ready to plunder

Girls, boys,

Ghanaian girls, boys

We see them

Tourists

Mesmerizing Ghanaians

Ah! Girls/boys peacocking

Hmm! Ghanaian girls/boys

Gawking at dollars

Hawking chest stocks

Mortgaging their morals

Mortgaging their bodies

Peddling their front-sides

Paddling their backsides

Girls preening weave-ons

Weave-ons of horse hair

Blonde camel hair

Brunette goat hair

Black sheep hair

Flashing heirs of hair

Wes see them

Tourists

Gambling with dollars

On Ghanaian girls’ breasts

On Ghanaian boys’ backs

In discoes of dearth

In ghettoes of disease

In halls of HIV/AIDS

We see them

Tourists

Their Western fingers

Civilized fingers

Manicured fingers

Racist fingers

Hegemonic fingers

Clawing at girls/boys

Battering girls/boys

Mauling, abusing them

Mauling the breasts of Osu

The legs of Nkrumah Circle

The thighs of Adabraka

The pouted lips of Labadi

We see them

Tourists

With girls, boys

I saw them

Ghanaian girls, boys

In dimly lit ghettoes

In brightly lit hotels

Preening like parrots

Garlanded in used clothes

With pouted lips

With barricaded chests

With maladjusted backs

We see them

Tourists

With girls, boys

Ghanaian girls, boys

In discoes of dearth

In beaches of death

In Ho

In Accra

In Kumasi

In Sunyani

In Tamale

In Cape Coast

In Sekondi-Takoradi

In Koforidua

Grinding it all

In theaters of decadence

In theaters of debauchery

We see them

Tourists

In citadels of decay

Citadels built for kids

By our society

By our parents

By our schools

By our prophets

By our “big” men

By our governments

Happily churning crucibles

Happily stirring crucibles

Of neocolonialism

Of racial hegemony

Of globalization

Of wanton poverty

Of cruel miseducation

Of greedy bastard-elites

Of greedy leaders, elders

Whose mission is their pocket

Whose morality is a cargo-cult

Whose moment of excellence is graft

*Akadu N. 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