Why a Coconut Seller is my Inspirational Icon for the Month of July 2011

A celebrity shot with The HERO

“I'm supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure, Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders, I ain't never supposed to show it, my crew ain't supposed to know it..” – Eminem (Like Toy Soldiers)

Growing up from a somehow difficult background, I’ve learnt that I don’t really have to look far for inspiration, for it stares at me through everyday familiar lenses, while I on the other hand would be gazing through telescopes for extraterrestrial motivation. Through various ordinary encounters breath by breath, we bump into inspiration, only to ignore it because it is not dressed like Stevie Wonder with 22 Grammy Awards.

Right from home in Ghana to the UK, through Ontario Canada to India and Australia, I have encountered simple everyday people whose experiences have shaped my life to understand that inspiration can be derived from several modest forms, and not only through an extraordinarily touching Hellen Keller-Annie Sullivan story.

On Sunday 10th June, 2011, my encounter with a humble 43yr old coconut seller is to change my life for the years to come as I have become more humbler and renewed my convictions that we are just mere reflection of one another and that what binds us together is far more greater than what pulls us apart.

It was a soggy and damp morning, and I found myself in the heart of a local community called Darkuman where we are setting up social action initiatives for the ‘Zongo’ community. After 3hrs of putting our new, incredibly petite local office in shape, we paced slowly through the mushy red top soil that exposed the unreasonably asphalt-starved, semi-faceless road in the neighborhood. The anemic road, hungering for the visitation of a generous coal-tar would channel the message through an uncomfortable friction it spat beneath the soles of our unyielding shoes.

From a distance, I saw an unassuming gentleman carrying a heavy load of coconuts for sale, the astonishment of the enormous load on his puny head was as real as the coconut-thirst hormone that was triggered down my moisture inviting throat. I made fun of him in a local language, “Boss, please don’t kill yourself because of money”. Wearing a shirt twice his size, his slender chin spoke a broad smile as he replied, “I hear you”. As our lips greeted the tiny opening of the coconut and the entire nudity of our tongue swam in the pool of the coconut juice, my colleague community organizer started an interview, of which I would later take the baton.

Our guest was Kofi Obeng, 43yr old gentleman who lives in Adeiso, a small community along Nsawam in the Eastern Region of Accra. (Nsawam is about 1 and 1/2hrs from Accra, Ghana’s capital city). He is married with 3 children aged 18, 17 and 12. The Kate Middleton of his life is a low income bread baker with an experience of 20 years romance with the oven.

Kofi has been selling coconuts for more than a decade and half or so, traveling from his village to Accra with large quantities of the commodity. In the capital city, he sleeps under a kiosk with his loads of coconut as a treasured roommate. Together with his goods, they are exposed to the elements at night and being each other’s keeper, they obviously live by a slogan, “each for one another, God for us all”.

Now this is what set me on fire- the couple’s first 2 children are enrolled in good enough Senior High Schools in the Eastern Region of Ghana, the third is in a Junior High School. Out of his coconut which he sells by carrying something like 30kg load equivalence, and walking several miles through different localities within the city, he has been able to pay his wards’ tuition, sustenance and hostel accommodation fees, while the wife’s meager income from the bread business is used for the house.

Kofi is very thrifty, tactful with finances and wouldn’t need to save at Halifax to control his spending, for he has made a pledge to educate his children to the highest level to be competitive at every aspect of life and that simple creed supports his spine firmly to bear that unimaginably heavy load. The coconut is paying more than $3,000 per annum only as educational costs for the 3 children. Kofi’s dream is to save enough money to purchase a taxi, learn how to drive and drive the cab himself since the 2 children are getting close to entering University and the coconut business wouldn’t be enough to sustain them.

After listening with attention and he accepted our invitation for a celebrity shot, I smiled at the camera while my whole face froze. I helped him carry the unfriendly load with every inch of my weary muscles and as he walked away in baggy trousers with slippers that had outlived its life span, I told myself- there goes my inspirational icon for the month of July, he is my hero.