AMERICAN CHARITY
Ships coming from a
distance carry everyone’s dreams ashore. For some, they slip in like eddies
of tides; for others they
crash against
the rocks of poor fortune .
Each brings their new song of freedom, coming to America.
Charity Anasie waited at the side of the
dusty roadway. The carrot red earth fought with the deep emerald green plants
that exploded above her head. A canopy of shade formed over the hot asphalt.
Charity stood under the shade and stretched her thin ebony arm above her head to hold up the drooping palm and prevent it from catching her hair. Despite having
spent a whole day at work, her starched pink blouse and pleated blue skirt
still held their neatness. Her long angular ebony face, wide smiling mouth and
bright open eyes gave no hint of the stressful day she had spent in the Ghanaian
Government statistics office, under high ceiling fans that continuallyed to circulated hot stale air. Charity was radiantly
excited because she was going to the post office to pick up a letter, hopefully, from her husband, Conrad, who had been in America for over
two years and away from her for nearly four years.
It was the end of 1994 the world was not a
peaceful place, but it never had been. The civil war in Liberia and Sierra
Leone seemed like just another African power struggle. It would be ten years
for the world to learn the full extent of the horrors there. Ghana was at
peace, the UK was at peace and the U.S. was at peace, despite their perennial
political scandals. Charity was
beginning to become concerned about Conrad being away so long. She had heard of many
women in Ghana who had lost their husbands to the fast life of America. One of
her cousins had even surprised her husband, on a trip to
America, and found that he was married to a white woman! This,
she prayed, would never happen to her!
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