Unwilling traveller

One plus one wasn’t two and that is why I noticed him. He had a huge woolen grey cardigan, neatly folded and squeezed into a duty free bag with one bag of chocolate. Why would anyone carry a cardigan between Accra and Kumasi in the middle of hot February – and with only one bag of chocolate?

No doubt. He must have come off an international flight. The stoniness of face spread through his rigidly held body and told his story without any more words. Your guess is as good as mine. He was forced out of wherever he was trying to eke a living without ‘papers’.

And I couldn’t help remembering many others incongruous ensembles I had encountered over the years. The gentleman in the stiffly starched linen shirt sitting on the other side of the lady grumbling that the drugs he gave her was the reason why they were both being sent back on an unwilling flight. The stench of her mouth made me desperate to change my seat on the BA flight. The group of young men being herded off an Air Maroc flight from Ghana which had stopped in Morroco en route to London. Clearly, the airline was not satisfied that they should be allowed to complete the journey they had paid for.

So I ask myself often -why go to any place illegitimately just because they have what it takes to give you your dreams? What’s so sacred about any location for life’s journey? Can creativity where you are welcome give you the same edge? Can dogged administration of the available territory yield results? And again, can crime ever be an acceptable route to getting and having? Surely, there must be always a better way where you are safe, secure and allowed? Let’s think about this.