One Cedi And A Dream

There’s been a whole lot going on in Ghana at the moment and it makes me realize how hardworking young people in Ghana are. About a year ago, I was talking to my friend and he said he owed it to himself and his mom to make it in life whether legally or illegally. I laughed thinking he was going to laugh back but he didn’t. That was when I realized he’s serious. About two weeks ago, he informed me he was relocating to the US.

I was very excited to hear about it and I even brought back the whole topic of he making it in life legally or illegally. I just wanted to know what he meant by illegally. I’m so sorry but in case you were waiting for me to tell you what he meant, he didn’t tell me so I still don’t know. The thing is, most young people in Ghana have a lot of dreams. Very beautiful and great dreams but no resources to make them a reality. So most of them end up working so much all their lives to gather money to relocate.

I remember one post that said “don’t travel abroad, you can make it in Ghana”. The problem is not about making it in Ghana. The main problem is that there are no resources available for us to make it. It’s either you make the resources for yourself and then struggle to make it or you make the resources and use them to seek greener pastures on another man’s land. Your choice. I used the word struggle to make it because most youth use about 70% of the salary to pay rent and 30% to feed themselves. I didn’t even factor in transportation and bills.

So as a youth if you have dreams of doing something and your finances are malnourished, it means you’d have to go hungry to fund those dreams. In the long run, it might not even workout and that would mean waste of resources. The same resources that took you years to gather. I don’t even blame anyone relocating anymore. Some people said if they get the opportunity to choose where to be in their next life, they would rather be trees in Europe than humans in Ghana.

Trust me, I understand them because even trees are protected in such continents and that’s something human beings here can’t relate. Sometimes I hear people say Ghanaian youth are lazy and blah blah. See, not everyone is lazy. I know people that wake up every blessed day to go hustle and still have nothing to show. The fact that you worked hard and got to where you are doesn’t mean others are lazy because believe me, people work so hard for very little.

Anyway, now that I think of it, it’s been a long time since I heard any Ghanaian youth sing “Arise Ghana youth for your country”. I won’t even blame anyone. At this point everyone is just hungry. Charley, there’s no energy again o.