AN AFRICAN WOMAN
She slept with her body spread across three seats. Mouth wide open, expelling her exhaustion in an uncomfortable melody.
How she made the tattered seats of a ‘trotro’ a homely niche, and tuned her body to comfort in the thin air of Accra’s laboring heat _ is still a mystery my pursed smile agreed I cannot solve.
I must have been the ugliest devil alive if I’d woken her up from that short-lived heaven. So I let my long legs bare the encroaching back seats, as my heart whispered to every next climb not to interrupt the tale of my sleeping beauty.
But there came the charming princess, (was it not supposed to be a charming prince? Bubble buster!)
Who knocked her out of her slumber (what happened to the magical kiss?)
She woke up like she was shell shocked, and made a joke out of it all.
This is a story of an African woman, the one who works many jobs; a cleaner, to a nanny, to a chef to a trader, to satisfying a husband, to bearing the tears of her children, and receives the least of appreciations everyday.
Ayekoo!
