Courtesy: www.rosl.org.uk

A collection of essays about Amma Darko's writing has recently been published by Professor Vincent O. Odamtten, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York.

Read more about the publication:  Ayebia Publishing (external link)

I am sitting behind my table at the office and staring out onto the road and at the long traffic build up.

The vehicles have been static for the past thirty minutes at least. The road is under construction. It is the major road from Accra, the nation's capital city and the capital of the Greater Accra Region, to the Eastern Region. It is being expanded to accommodate the upsurge in vehicular flow. I am staring at the back of a man who just left my office. He came to submit a letter about which I had to make further inquiries to obtain some necessary details relevant for my judgement of his situation. In the course of my interaction with him, he burst forth unexpectedly with what seemed like a long in-held pent up fury. The root of his anger which bordered almost on bitterness, was his wife. He had even removed his wedding ring in reaction to the disrespect showed him by his wife, he claimed. And proudly showed me his ringless finger. We digressed from the main purpose of his visit. His wife, he insisted, was treating him with gross disrespect and unfairness. She had a good job in her field; he didn't. They were both university graduates.

His wife had been given a brand new BMW salon car by her company while he had to make do with their small old car which is a nineties model old Opel salon car.

He was compelled to stop using the old Opel because it was emitting thick smoke from the exhaust to the extent that one young police officer once stopped him and asked if his mother was by chance a fishmonger who had contracted him to smoke some of her fish for her in his car. As a result he had now resorted to the use of public transport. The engine of the old Opel needed to be replaced. He was hoping for someone to take it off his hands even at a ridiculously low price. Any price at all just to be rid of it. I asked him curiously what this person he was hoping would take the Old Opel off his hands could possibly use a car for smoking so badly a policeman thought he was smoking his mother's fish in it. He replied very optimistically that he was certain that once the engine was replaced the car could be used for a taxi.

It was a German car, he added, so the body was strong.

He didn't have the money to replace the engine himself, he declared. And added bitterly that so while his wife rode in a posh brand new BMW, he had to make do with waiting by the roadside all the time to hustle for a bus or tro-tro or taxi. He was very bitter about the fact that his wife was enjoying the comfort of a new car and he wasn't. It was unacceptable, he declared, more so that his wife saw nothing wrong with the situation. I asked him patiently if he would have had it the other way round. He driving his wife's new BMW while his wife hustled for public transport. He indirectly framed his agreement with that situation with the enthusiastic response that he would gladly have been willing to drop off and pick up his wife from the office everyday. He would also have nothing to feel bitter and complain about because in between dropping and picking his wife, the BMW would be at his disposal. With a smile at the corner of my lips I asked him what was to happen if in between the dropping and picking of his wife at her office, the wife wanted or needed to go somewhere with the car.

Like rush to get a few things in the market during her lunch break. He replied that his wife wouldn't be doing that everyday, so the inconvenience of her hustling for public transport would be only occasional as opposed to his situation which was on a regular daily basis.

My blood began to boil. But I also sensed that not only was the man passionate and convinced about the rightness of his thinking but that it was also deemed the more acceptable norm. The husband rides the car the wife hustles for the public transport. It is reflective in all aspects of our lives. I am intrigued.

(Amma Darko, 30th Dec., 2006)

Amma Darko investigates for her books with scientific accuracy. She combs through archives, visits places where the events are set and interviews people.

She describes rural and urban surroundings in a very vivid and precise way, so that the reader can imagine the way of living in Ghana without ever having been there.

The main characters in Amma Darko's works are female. There is a very simple reason for it: "As a woman, I can put myself best in a woman's place", the writer explaines.