Anaji, Takoradi
Sunday 14 January 2024
The temperatures outside continue to soar, but for now I’m relaxing in air-conditioned comfort in the home of a family friend, listening to three women — Faustina, Victoria, and Matilda. All three are mothers of school-age children, and all have agreed to share their experiences with the pandemic restrictions with me.
I begin by asking if they know anyone who lost jobs and/or had their income slashed due to pandemic restrictions. All three say they do. How did they manage? “It was not easy,” Faustina tells me. Working spouses and extended family pitched in to help.
What about school? There were no opportunities for online learning available, they tell me. Their children read textbooks at home and completed assignments, and their teachers graded them at home. All three hired private tutors to help out at home — an admirable course of action, to be sure, but one that seemingly defeats the stated purpose of school closures.
How much time did their children spend daily on schoolwork? Two hours a day, they tell me, in contrast to eight hours in school. What did they do with the rest of their time? All three women shrug. Nothing much, they say.
These women concur that the incidence of child labor skyrocketed during the pandemic. What about child marriage? All three are emphatic that this sort of thing happens only in the Northern Region of Ghana — not here along the coast.
All three agree that incidents of domestic violence increased during the lockdown. None of them volunteer any details.
Like the teachers I spoke to this morning, all three are adamant that their children not only made no progress during the lockdown, they actually went backward. Will they ever catch up? Perhaps, they allow, with the aid of extended terms and private tutors.
But these women are relatively well-off by local standards, and are able to afford private school tuition and private tutors. What about public school students, whose parents can afford none of these things, and who lack the educational background to tutor their children themselves? All three shrug and look away.
Was it worth it?
Again they look away uncomfortably. “There was a pandemic…” one of them begins, and trails off.
I then ask them if they know anyone who died or suffered serious complications due to the covid. None of them do.
My book The Day the Science Died: Covid Vaccines and the Power of Fear is now available on amazon.
Hello Patrick, let us get together as it appears you are active in Ghana, Africa helping persons help themselves as I am in Kenya and Nigeria, Africa doing the same. I have, unfortunately, many horror stories to share, this being one of them: DEATH SENTENCE FOR LIFE GIVING CHLORINE DIOXIDE
https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/death-sentence-for-life-giving-chlorine
Email me if interested in what we might do together for and with Africa toward "Responsible Freedom": Jack at responsiblyfree@protonmail.com
Get free, stay free.