Thanksgiving in Ghana Part 2 - The Child Slaves

Thanksgiving in Rural Ghana, Africa (continued)

 

The next day, Wednesday, was no less emotional. We traveled with the chief to visit a village where several slave masters want to release their child slaves. Currently, there is nowhere for them to release the children to. Their parents (mostly single mothers) do not want the children back because they can't afford to feed them.The next day, Wednesday, was no less emotional. We traveled with the chief to visit a village where several slave masters want to release their child slaves. Currently, there is nowhere for them to release the children to. Their parents (mostly single mothers) do not want the children back because they can't afford to feed them. The chiefs of both villages have enlisted our help in building an orphanage for many of these kids, and they wanted to show us just what we're getting into.

 

We left our village by canoe early in the morning. Evans, our friend in the village who owns an outboard motor and boat with only a few minor leaks, guided us across the choppy dawn waters of expansive Lake Volta along the mostly uninhabited lakeshore, dotted with an occasional thatched roof of a mud hut from other tiny villages like ours that call the lake home and use it for fishing, the only stable (yet sometimes weak) source of income for the people of the area. The pink sun was rising, but the first clouds we'd seen since we arrived cast a gloomy pallor over the otherwise picturesque scene.

 

We arrived in the new village a little over an hour after we left the shore of Bakpakope. Children gathered near a building under a tree shouted and clapped as we came into view, some of them jumping up and down in excitement. "Obroni! Obroni!" ("White people! White people!") they cheered, so loudly that we could hear them over the splashing of the waves.

 

Our boat landed on the muddy shore of a dreary beach, dotted with more wooden boats that would only be made safe if sunk, bunches of fishing nets in need of mending (which would be done before sundown, most likely), and small makeshift stalls where women wearing long, brightly colored dresses and head wraps sat in plastic chairs in the mud while the sun beat down on them and their inexpensive wares. Tro tros billowing black smoke parked and loaded passengers, then turned around and took off down the road to the market in Kajaji, where the "real" wares were being sold.

 

Our chief brought us to his second house, just a few feet from the beach in the middle of the fray. Like his first house in Bakpakope, it was a concrete-covered mud hut with a corrugated tin roof. Inside were a couple of plastic chairs, a small table and mats for sleeping. Unlike his Bakpakope house, though, this one had solid wooden doors so it could be locked while he was away. The only road in the area runs through this village, and tro tros for bigger destinations like Atebubu and Kwame Danse, which are as big as they sound, leave at dawn. There are no guesthouses or accommodations for travelers in this village, so it makes sense to have a house there for a person who attends many meetings and gatherings. We made our tentative schedule for the day, then headed out to greet the children and other local villagers, including the acting chief, who gathered nearby.

 

Oh, the excitement! We may as well have been at the Oscars with all the clapping, hand shaking and excitement! Everyone wanted to touch us and greet us, and we were humbled. We sat with the children, many of whom were dressed in clothes clearly purchased for the day ... nice, new secondhand Easter dresses for the girls and denim jeans (many too short, but with waists hanging off the tiny bellies) for the boys. Many of the dresses were torn and it was clear that an effort had been made to keep the clothes free of the dirt and mud that covered our feet. Many children were barefoot, their feet showing the same ruggedness of never wearing shoes that people in our own village have.

 

We sat down with the children and sang songs, some local and some from Barney and Sesame Street that Deb and I sang with our own children. The children laughed and cheered and clapped for us and for themselves at the end of each song, and it was a very happy time. We'd sent someone to buy biscuits (cookies), and the children formed lines to collect them. I was impressed. Most of the time children in Ghana run us over like a herd of buffalo if there's a treat being handled out. I asked the man who seemed to be in charge of them if they'd learned to form lines in school. "No," he answered. "These children don't go to school. They learn it in church."

 

With assistance, we found a quiet spot to set up chairs and film the children one-by-one. Some of them, we'd been told, were orphans, and others were trafficked children. We wanted to focus on the trafficked children so that we could really tell the story of the child slaves once we returned.

 

The first girl, about 10 years old, handed us a slip of paper with two names. The first was her name, and the second was the name of her master. Her hair was newly cut and she had on a nice dress and shoes. Deb filmed and Jake snapped pictures as I interviewed her. Life was good, she told me. Her master was nice, she went to school, she had plenty of food. I wrote everything down as she talked, but after about three questions, I looked over my shoulder and gave Deb a glare of frustration. I thanked her, then asked for the second child.

 

This time a little boy named Solomon, who said he was 14 but was no older than nine years, dressed in a smart denim outfit and with a fresh hairline straight from the barbershop sat down and handed me his slip of paper. "How are you?" I asked. "I am fine," he said. "What do you do here?" I asked. "I go to school," he answered. "Is your master good to you?" I asked. "Yes," he said.

 

I put my notebook down. These children had clearly been coached. I knew, I told our interpreter, that a child slave can often be noticed because their hair is bushy and not cared for. They don't go to school. Their masters beat them. They don't have enough food. They often sleep outside. They have miserable lives. And yet, these children were here with new clothes and hair cuts saying life was great. "If we don't hear the truth, we cannot help them," I said. The interpreter nodded in approval.

 

"I know you have been told to tell us things that are not true, and I know you are afraid to tell us the truth," I said, then waited for the interpreter to tell Solomon. His eyes got wide and he looked down for a moment. "We want to help you to go to school, but I need you to tell the truth. We will not tell your master," I said. The boy nodded, his face empty and sad, like so many of the children we would talk to later. I wasn't sure if I'd made an impact.

 

"You look very nice today. Your hair looks handsome and your clothes are nice. Is this what you usually wear?"

"No," he answered. "This is just for today."

"Were you told what to say to us?"

"Yes," he said. "I was told to lie."

"What do you do here?" I asked.

"Fishing," he answered.

"Do you go to school?"

"No."

"Do you want to go to school?"

"Yes," he answered, with a pleading look in his eyes. "Very much," the translator added.

"Where are your parents?""My father died and my mother ran off. I don't know where. She gave me to my uncle." An uncle is often a common name for a master, although most are not related to the children. Like so many single mothers who sell their children into slavery, Solomon's mother was most likely given a small amount of money for Solomon, and was probably told he would be taken care of and would go to school.

"Is your master good to you?"

"He beats me," he said.

"How long have you been here?""Since I was small. I do not remember."

He went on to tell us that his master beat him yesterday because he said he was not working hard enough. His master often sent him to sleep outside in the bush if he was angry with him. He told us his daily schedule, which left him about two to three hours to sleep. I'd heard this before and knew it was true. When there was a spare moment, Solomon was to fetch water, wash food bowls or do other chores. He was never to be idle.

"Are you afraid of your master?" I asked."Yes, very much."

"Do you think he will kill you?"

"Yes."

"If you could do something different, what would it be?""I want to go to school."

"Why don't you just leave?""I would have to beg for my life when my master found me. No one will help me if they find me."

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

He perked up and smiled. "A footballer!" he said, grinning widely. "When they rest for one half hour, I sometimes go and play football and the master does not know. I love football!" Tears welled in our eyes. This was perhaps his only stolen bit of childhood he had.

 

I set down my notebook and moved a little closer. I took in his hollow eyes, malnourished arms and legs and wounds on his hands that bled his humanity to his master's blind eyes. "I have heard you and I want to help you. We want to help you to go to school, but it will take some time. We will not forget about you, but please be patient with us. We will do our best."

 

With that, we took turns hugging Solomon, tears heavy in our eyes. We knew these hugs may be the only ones this little boy has had in his life.

 

"Next," I said, and another hollow-eyed child sat down.

 

There are an estimated 7,000 children working as child laborers and child slaves on Lake Volta. They don't go to school, are beaten, malnourished and often die doing the work they are forced to do. We spoke to 14 of these children on Wednesday, with about four dozen more left waiting. All but one lied at first, then shared their equally heartbreaking stories after we promised to not talk to their masters. Boys of four or five years old told of sleeping in the mud, rowing the boats, being beaten and being hungry. Every child only wanted to go to school.

 

Only one little girl held out. She was about six years old and wore a lemon-yellow chiffon dress with a large flower at the waist. Her hair was bushy and she did not make eye contact with us the entire time she sat with us. Instead, she kept glancing into the crowd of onlookers that had gathered to watch us at the top of the hill despite our shooing them away repeatedly. Life was fine, she told us. Her master was nice and she went to school every day. She could not tell us the name of her school or the name of her teacher.

 

I put my notebook down and, in a soft voice, told her we cared about her and would not tell her master. The little girl looked down at her hands and fiddled with the untied ribbon of her dress. She covered her face and said, "Take me away! This is very bad for me! I suffer too much!" Tears rolled down her face and she tried to hide them.

 

The scene was so painful to watch. I gently resumed my questions, to which she revealed that she was regularly beaten and made to carry water from the lake each day (which is incredibly heavy), cook, clean, sweep and do other house chores. Like the other children we spoke to, I told her that we wanted to help her, but that it will take time. We gave her a hug and tears poured down from under Deb's sunglasses.

 

We will help these children. The chiefs showed us a six-acre plot of land where they want help to build an orphanage and a school. The orphanage will be run with foster parents living in each dorm so that the children have a sense of family for the first time. They will go to school inside a local church, which has donated the building during the week, until a proper school can be funded and constructed. And the site will have a football field so that children like Solomon can be kids for just a little while. Like all of our Compassionate Journeys projects, it will be locally run, but we will provide volunteers, accountability and funding so that the people can be empowered to make this change themselves.

 

We headed back to our village with new resolve. We all made a pact to make a difference for these kids, and we will.

 

On Thursday, we sat down to our Thanksgiving meal ... ramen noodles and a packet of instant red beans and rice Deb brought with her that we'd saved for the holiday. It was so incredibly good after eating nothing but white rice, yams and pepper sauce for most of three weeks. For all of us, it was the most thankful Thanksgiving we'd ever had.

Amanda Christmann Larson is director of Compassionate Journeys, a volunteer organization dedicated to providing resources and opportunities to deeply impoverished people and trafficked children in Ghana, West Africa. She lives in Anthem, Arizona and will be returning home January 6, 2012. For more information, visit www.compassionatejourneys.com or www.babesblockingtraffic.org.