The Hole and the Stars

Kwabena’s mother strokes his head as he rests it down on the rough sack and she tells him god loves

them all. He looks through the smoke hole at the open sky with the myriad of stars peering back, the

open sky letting in the bitter cold and whispering wind. His mother pulls the rough grey material up to

his shoulders and he tries to remember the blistering heat of the day to keep warm, the midday heat

when the dust blows and the flies drink the sweat off his temples. Gradually, sleep captures him, looking

at the stars, thinking of the picture he holds in the threadbare pocket of his shorts, which his father gave

him before the cholera finally took his ravaged body. They had come to Kumasi on the promise of work

on the goldfields, but there was none, then their meagre rations ran out and the rains failed.

His mother nicknames him loco, laughingly and lovingly because he is like a train but, she thinks, he is

also a little bit mad. For every day, he goes to his hole and he and his friends carry on their excavations.

But his mother is proud of little Ebo (as she calls him) and watches his travails with the proud gaze only a

parent possesses. His friends take their stones and begin digging out the red earth with him as she looks

on.

Initially, for the first week, it was just Ebo. When the women had finished teaching them their chores,

his friends would come and watch as he dug, his rough pitch in one hand, the other piling the dust into

the beaten up pail, which when full, he would carry out behind the line of three trees bordering the

rough huts, and empty out. Then he would come and begin again. On the third night, a dust-storm blew

up, and in the morning, Ebo’s hole had been filled in again along with a thick layer inside their hut. The

women busied themselves tidying the huts and their meagre things, and Ebo stared for a while at the

rough circle where his tiny hole had been.

His friend Kwasi put an arm around his shoulder and said, “Don’t worry man, I’ll help you. If you want a

hole, we’ll make a hole.” They set to work, the Birimian dust was easier to move than the earth had

been, and they took just a morning and forty buckets to make the hole as big as it had been. Gradually,

the other four boys came over, intrigued, and decided to join in. They had little to do anyway and it was

a game to them. One of them said, “Ebo, what are you digging for?” and another joked, “He’s trying to

find oil!” and they laughed until Ebo looked up smiling and said, “And what if I find it, will you still

laugh?” 

They did not all have pitches like Ebo, in fact there were only two proper tools between them. The other

four had thick stones, picked for a sharp edge. After two more days, Ebo said excitedly, “Look! Do you

see?” The others, bewildered, needed him to explain that the dusty ochre had given way to a fiercely

red, heavier clay. It was more difficult to dig and progress was slow. Gradually, the perimeter of the

hole widened as the centre deepened, and after two weeks, they could all hide in the hole without

anyone standing fifty yards away being able to see them. They had begun to take the clay, formed it into

rough blocks and set it down between the trees. Ebo told them that the slight shade from the trees

would stop it drying too quickly, so that it didn’t crack. 

The women and then the men grew curious as to what little Ebo was up to. One day he was summoned

to the hut of his father’s brother, now the elder of the small group they lived in, and asked to explain

himself.

“I’m making bricks,” said Ebo, “and we can build a wall to keep the dust storms out, and one day, when

we have cattle again, we can keep them in. And the bricks come out of the hole, and when the hole is

deep enough, it will fill with water!” 

The older man smiled a broad and generous smile. “You’re a bright kid, Ebo. But don’t hope too high. 

Keep your dreams beneath the stars, where you can see them.” He had become the father figure in little

Kwabena’s life since the death of his father. 

Tonight though, Kwabena drifts off to sleep, his hole now deep enough to stand in, and joke that one will

soon need a ladder to get in and out. His dreams are filled with thoughts of the rain, of the water

coming up from the hole and down from the sky and meeting like the love in his heart did whenever it

 

met the gaze of his father’s eyes. He hopes for animals, he hopes for the tiny village to have a great fire

set amongst the stones, cooking a sumptuous feast as the children dance around and the adults laugh

and rest among comfortable cloths. He knows little of brands and technology, but his dreams still

manage to fill his head at night, bright, vivid colours in place of the washed out greys and browns, shining

tools in place of his dented and dreary ones, the rich smells of cooking meat and vegetables, the glossy

hair and rich, dark skin, plump across the tummies of his family. Sometimes he dreams his father is there

too, but less often now, he knows his father is with god, sending down the dreams and the wisdom to

him through the stars.

Sometimes, Kwabena dreams of the white men, the men over the big water that his father told him

about. The ones with big houses, with shiny windows that keep out the dust but that you can see

straight through, like magic. They have soft, warm clothes and full tummies. They have wisdom but are

stupid, have beauty yet are scary; they have the power of choice but are too stupid to choose. Kwabena

would like to meet them, to ask why they don’t choose and to find out what they could if they did. 

Kwabena is alive. Sometimes, he wishes he were more alive, but he is alive.

    

Three thousand, one hundred miles away, I sit in a bed formed of milled pine, topped with a mattress of 

pocket-sprung, triple quilted luxury and topped off with a layer of memory foam, under a 30 tog duvet

ensconced in Egyptian cotton. My windows have double-glazed glass, to keep out the wind and the

cursed rain, and any dust that may happen to pass by. I can choose to have light or pitch dark (I prefer

the dark) and yet sleep is slow to come.

My belly is full. The food is good. I can choose to finish it with coffee, the finest fruit juice, or fancy

booze and yet still, sleep is loath to visit me. I can buy all the tools I want, but still I sit awake. Often, I sit

and look through the big picture window. The wide theatre of the forest opens out below me, whilst the

stars sit above, only sometimes though  – my sky is not as open as Kwabena’s which in itself is a blessing

and a curse. When the stars are there, I look up at the North Star, which I told my children is their

granddad, who died three years ago. They smile at him; they know he is looking down toward them,

keeping them safe with a stern yet gentle gaze. When the stars aren’t there, or I choose to go to bed

instead of sitting in the window, I just imagine the stars instead.

When, eventually, my body drifts into a thought that veers to fantasy, allowing sleep to creep in through

the back door, I dream too. I dream music, romance, inventions and vengeance, chases and races and

tragedies and oddities. I often dream of beautiful women, and of sinister ones and of knives. There is

usually an obstacle to overcome, a marauder to be outwitted, a lunatic to be outrun, a never-ending

series of railway tracks to cross. There is always fear; and hope. I am alive. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t,

but I’m alive. 

Sometimes I dream of Kwabena, and wonder if I might be more content with a life of much greater

simplicity. There is no automatic nobility in struggle, yet it keeps the mind strong and tethered to reality.

It keeps the wits sharp and the sense flowing and it is in short supply where I live. Some seem to think it

is a struggle if their train is five minutes late, if the shop doesn’t have the latest mobile phone just when

they want to buy it, if the rain soaks them whilst making their gardens grow.

I don’t understand these people. They are aliens to me; much as they would be toKwabena if they

suddenly appeared next to his hole. My dreams of vengeance are not a wish for suffering, they are a cry

for enlightenment; a fervent desire that an understanding of the stuff of life could ignite its way back

into the minds of the masses, burning the crust of selfishness off their greedy hearts and firing their souls

back into action.

For now, I’ll settle for the stars as Ebo settles for his hole. He is not the stereotype of the black man I

sometimes hear about, and sometimes see around me. I am not the stereotype of the white man his

father had seen and relayed on to him. He doesn’t know me, but I love him. I send my love across the

miles and hope it brings him safety, and some of my rain to keep his smile glowing.