Thursday, April 2, 2009

Living in the Osu Cemetery

Squatting serenely in the sparkling sunlight, somewhat betwixt the sprawling sports stadium and the skeletal State House, in Osu, is the Osu Cemetery. As darkness descends on the city of Accra, it becomes a horror-home to homeless hordes and residential rejects. They perch, repose, cha cha cha and steeplechase on the gravestone, as if they’re devil-daring the sleeping bones below to rise up and fight their effrontery. It’s scary to drive near this necropolis at night because, every now and then, a humanesque figure would clamber over the wall, streak through your headlight beam, and disintegrate into the nothingness – they never use the gates. If a manic necrophiliac is playing Rumpelstiltskin on the tombstones, and they’re still alive, it’s because they haven’t yet pissed on my blessed Grandpa’s grave.

15 comments:

  1. *Goosebumps* Brrrr...you sure got a dark side to you. I felt like I was in a horror movie just now. Oh my.

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  2. wow, eerie feeling crept into my room this bright spring evening. Wouldnt want to pass Osu Cemetary after reading this. It was incredibly written, I could totally picture it! good one.

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  3. interesting really!
    makes me wonder why all the attempt to scare us about ghost if we could be this close to their bones!

    just behind one of my grandpa's house is a community village in my hometown! and now i wonder why i used to be scared when sleeping in that house when i was a kid.

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  4. Yes, Adaeze, I do have a dark sided to me.

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  5. I'm sure you can pass by the cemetery before 9 pm or some such late hour :-)

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  6. Great question, Novisi. Why are some of us so afraid of ghosts?

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  7. Now that is a testament to the art of survival of the 'human' spirit!
    These precious souls have obviously gone beyond the point of fear.
    Their plight and circumstances really does not give them the space to enjoy the luxury of the sense of fear, pain and indignity.

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  8. ...and one has to climb over strange graves just to go see a loved one's! Ugh!

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  9. Awesome! That was so cool. Maybe u can develop the dark side of you to become Ghana's answer to Anne Rice (hope I got the name of the Queen of Horrifics right).

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  10. Posekyere, that's very grave knowledge there, no? That extreme privation dehumanises us.

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  11. Kayna, to call a grave your "loved one's" sounded a bit ... striking to me. Not sure if you understand me.

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  12. Kiz, thanks. But I'm too afraid to develop whatever dark side of me lurks beyond the light. Permit me to stick to the landscapes. Lol

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  13. Thou shalt not speak ill of the dead. But I dare you, one day, the bones will rise and fight this effontry!

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  14. You know I'm dark and 'striking'.

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