Obtaining an accommodation in a compound house is not altogether free

Foxes have holes and birds have nest but the son of Man has no­where to lay his head- The Holy Bible.

In Sikaman, because of the ev­er-worsening problem of accommodat­ing human beings, it is rather easy to become a Son of Man. And although the most natural thing for married cou­ples is to live in their own homes free from parental interference and ‘in-law syndromes’, lack of accommodation makes this impossible.

A girl, therefore, leaves her par­ent’s home to cohabit with her hus­band and his people. And in some cas­es, because shelter is as scarce as gold, some married young men are forced to temporarily reside in their wives’ homes where spacious accommodation is not lacking.

When my pal, Kofi Kokotako, for in­stance was newly married way back in 1981 in Kumasi, he decided to quit his single-room rat-hole to live in a large bungalow-type residence belonging to his wife’s family.

He was indeed welcomed like a charismatic leader, but was not too long before he realised that the bunga­low was no paradise after all.

Kokotako and his wife occupied the main hall and two bedrooms and his wife’s mother, aunt, two stubborn teenage brothers and a retired uncle occupied the equally capacious boys’ quarters.

Since my good friend was now apparent-head of the entire home, he had to see to the feeding of the inmates on a three-times-a-day basis. His wife’s mother was diabetic and the uncle was always complaining of kooko, meaning that the health bill had to escalate accordingly. By the Extend­ed Family Decree issued by his wife, he was obliged to foot all house bills, including electricity, water, among others.

In two months, he had withdrawn his relatively huge reserves from his bankers and promptly got bankrupt. His wife’s family were sponges and her two teenage brothers could eat like pigs. They also pilfered Kokotako’s belong­ings, including shoes which ‘auctioned’ on the open market.

Kokotako was a prosperous insur­ance executive at the time but of course, he could hardly cope with the pressure. He began having sleepless nights, and the petty quarrels with his wife grew frequent.

Like a field-marshall, Kokotako act­ed rather swiftly to save the situation. He cut the domestic budget to size in a revolutionary manner and issued a directive that ‘with immediate effect’ he could feed the whole damn lot only once in a day. No reasons were given.

Within a week, everyone turned against him. The wife’s aunt told him to the face that he was a hopeless per­son. When he complained to his wife, she did not sympathise with him a bit. Instead, she confirmed her auntie’s observation, and said that he was not only hopeless, but also useless.

That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. A fierce fight ensued after which the wife threw out Koko­tako’s belongings onto the streets. Kokotako was immediately transformed into a ‘Son of Man’.

He was a quite religious then, and as he wanted to pick his belongings he remembered what Jesus said of his own situation ‘Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man, has nowhere to lay his head’ Luke 9:58. It was as if the quotation was specially made for Kokotako alone.

The capital of Sikaman is so jammed to capacity with different types of human beings, including pick pockets and grave-looters, to the extent that accommodating the rich and poor is a perpetual headache. This means that there are many ‘Sons of Men’ in the capital in dire need of shel­ter, a basic human need. The advance payment for a hall and chamber in any comer of the capital is not less than ¢150,000.

However, if you are able to obtain accommodation, especially in a com­pound house, do not think you are al­together free. The fact that you are no longer a ‘Son of Man’ doesn’t mean you have your freedom. Your freedom ends where the landlord’s left leg begins.

A landlord who has the character­istics of a Nazi could enact bye-laws to restrict tenants, to prove to them that they are in a concentration camp. If you rebel, you are summarily trans­formed into a ‘Son of Man’ irrespective of your social status.

A typical landlord who takes several ‘quarters’ of mahogany-bitters, espe­cially on his birthday, can, therefore, enact bye-laws to suit his whims and caprices.

You are not allowed to pound fufu after 6pm; the volume of your radio must not exceed a certain decibel, you must not receive too many visitors be­cause the dictator landlord might not know which of them -an armed robber on a reconnaissance survey is.

Second set of rules and regulations: Thou shall not cook Koobi or momoni because l (the landlord) am allergic to such unholy smell; no singing in the house when the landlord is enjoying his siesta; no tenant must laugh like a rich man; you are allowed to sneeze only on Sundays and public holidays.

You must greet the landlord first thing in the morning and on his wife’s birthday you must be seen to be pre­senting gifts and dancing at her party to reaffirm your loyalty to the landlord-your god.

The most important set of rules borders on the payment of rent before you are asked to do so; you are not to use electrical appliances like electric stoves, refrigerators, deep freezer, water heater. Any tenant who uses any of these must have applied in writing, undertaking to pay a third of the total electricity bill of the compound house.

Lastly, there are always other un­written laws which tenants must obey or steer clear of: You must not talk big English or politics in the house.

The reasons are very clear. You might not know whether the landlord wants party politics or non-party grass-root democracy. And since most land­lords are not in the habit of discussing their political desires, you might easily step on his toes and risk a dismissal.

“Koo Pia”, he’d begin. “You’ve been a quiet tenant all these years. You pay your bills regularly, but you know something? I’m renovating the portion of the house where your room is unfor­tunately located. Please it is not my fault, but the fault of the room. You’re requested to find a new place in two weeks to enable the renovation to be­gin. If you have any complaints, please complain to your room. Good day.”

These are some of the problems workers face day in day out. They are tossed from one suburb to another, one slum to the next, they have to put up temporarily with friends, enemies and in-laws. Obtaining permanent shelter becomes the worker’s headache till he goes on pension when he can retire to his father’s cottage in the village and have the freedom to sneeze without being ejected. These days we hear of a Civil Servants Association trying hard to build houses for their members – a laudable but improbable venture. How many civil servants can benefit from this? And how many houses can the Association afford to build every year? And the plenty-talk about affordable houses-how affordable are they to 97 per cent of the population of workers.

Ministry of Housing? It’s a long time since l heard of them. The Secretary should come out and tell us something. Something about accommodating the astronomical number of ‘Sons of Men’ in Sikaman.

This article was first published on Saturday September 29, 1990.