A Few Fearless Men

I wanted to name this piece, What is Ghanaian Hospitality If We Cannot Help Each Other or Believe In Your Inner Instincts,  but when I shared the story during a meeting as part of a safety share moment, Seth reminded me that the story depicts the Good Samaritan Jesus spoke about in the gospels. I still choose to go with the original title I intended to use for better impact. After reading my true story, I will leave you to pick any of the titles above based on which one suits you.

In the morning I planned to visit the Volta region to do a recce for my organized trip scheduled for later this year, I went outside to start packing my things into my car boot. I realized that one of Uncle Nana’s car tyres was “down flat”. I called out to him to inform him about it. He came out and said asked whether I had a jack in my car. I was not sure I heard him well because I was in the bedroom and he was outside.

When I came back outside he was already by his car jacking it up with N’Adom giving commentary on the side. I continued to pack things into the car boot. When I was done packing, I drove off to start my journey to Volta.

The truth is, while I started driving, I had my inner voice asking me whether I checked if Uncle Nana took the car jack from my car or if he found one in his car. The voice kept asking me what I will do if I had a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere. I ignored the questions from my inner voice.

We (myself and Calabash) were cruising on our way from Accra to Ho first before going to Amedzofe and then Wli. I had a scheduled meeting with my boss at 1 pm so when it was 5 mins to time, I swapped positions with Calabash. He took over the driving while I took the passenger seat because, before that, I was behind the driver’s seat. So we stopped and swapped seats.

Calabash took over and 15 mins after taking the steering wheel, Calabash saw the tyre pressure indicator on the dashboard come on. Calabash was like “Boss K, the tyre light is on” I looked at it and said to myself, it's just not anything, I am sure it is one of the things where the lights come on because there is low pressure in one of the tyres. In less than a minute, I saw Calabash struggle a bit with the steering with an odd look on his face and then vibrations in the car. Then I asked him to stop the car.

Immediately the car ground to a stop we all came out and then started inspecting the car tyres and then boom, the driver-side back tyre was flat and destroyed without any possibility of repair. Immediately I saw the damaged tyre, the inner voice said: “I told ya!”. I felt like punching myself that very moment. It was my Kalybos moment if you know what that expression means.  

To put things into perspective, we had to cross the Adomi Bridge and went past Juapong. We were about 20 mins after the Peki junction heading to Ho. It looked like the middle of nowhere. 

For someone who always asks himself “What do you have in your hands” I don’t remember asking that question at that moment because I just knew that I may have messed up. Calabash popped up the boot, I quickly went to check and realized, the car had no jack. Uncle Nana took the jack and did not return it.  I then called Uncle Nana and he confirmed it. He indeed took the jack and could not give it to me because when I was leaving the house, he had not changed his tyre because he did not have a spare in his car and was planning to buy a new tyre that week. 

Reality then hit me, how the heck are we going to signal a speeding car and convince the driver to stop because we need his jack to jack up our car to replace the worn-out tyre with a “take me home” spare tyre? I knew it was going to be difficult. Calabash was dressed in a normal shirt but he was baldheaded and had a small beard on his chin. I was wearing a long-sleeved black attire with a hoodie. 

I took my time to describe our appearance because it struck me that that could be a reason why drivers will not stop to help us. A baldheaded man standing by a car trying to stop us in the middle of nowhere together with another man wearing a hoodie? They may be criminals for all I care. I quickly removed the hoodie and dropped it into the car. I didn’t want any wrong profiling. 

Calabash and I tried to stop over 20 cars; taxis, trotros, buses, and Hilux pick-ups, but no one stopped. I asked myself, how long is it going to take us to try to visually stop a driver to help us and be successful? I began to worry when the cars drove by quickly without stopping. Believe me, I started becoming scared. I decided to take my mind off for a minute to distract myself by doing something else while Calabash continued to signal cars passing by to stop with no success. 

When I was done with my distraction, I joined Calabash to try as much as we could. A few moments, I rider came by to ask what he could do to assist. Calabash engage the rider who seem to be a local from the place the car stopped. The last thing Calabash said to the man was, “I want you to go to the next town to see if he could get someone who would come along with you with a jack”.  

As soon as he was done talking to the rider, we both turned away from the rider to the left to continue signaling to oncoming cars to stop to help us. All the drivers drove by except for the last car among a batch with a Togo registered licence plate (AF ). The car was a deep blue old Benz saloon car. As soon as the car stopped, We told the rider to continue where he was going because we believed the driver of the “Togo car” was going to help us. 

Two gentlemen stepped out of the car to ask us what help we needed. It was the driver and a passenger who was seated behind the driver. Calabash approached them to tell them we need their jack to help us change the tyre. I added that we only need the jack for just 10 minutes. The men then went back to the car and it was at this moment that I started to fear. I never told Calabash about this but the thought was, what if these guys in a Togo car pull weapons on us to rob us of our phones, bags, laptops, cameras and money which we had on us at that moment? What if the “helper” who had stopped was going to rob these two helpless guys (Calabash and myself)? Remember the rider had left us. 

Thanks to God as we always say, the guys came back to our car with a jack. The third guy also joined them this time and then my fear heightened more. What if they help us change the tyre and afterwards, rob us of the car? My mindset was running wild, what the heck have I put us into? I was just praying. 

They helped us jerk up the car, remove the tyre and then fix the spare tyre. When they were done, I said to them “Thank you very much” and then ask, “Are you travelling to Ho?” the driver said “Yes.” I could sense the Ghanaian tone instead of a Togolese or French tone. Then I asked whether they are Ghanaian. The driver said “Yes” I thanked them once again and told them, we were going to be right behind them. They took off and so did we. 

When we settled in the car after everything, I was like, thank God for sending us the helpers. With the number of cars that passed by without help, I could not imagine how long we were going to stay there until help came. The whole process from the time we stopped and the till we finished fixing the spare tyre took like 15 to 20mins. 

After we hit the road, I became even more fearful. What if another tyre goes off? We now have no spare tyre because the other one which was now in the boot was destroyed beyond repairs. 

I am happy to announce that the car took us to all the places in Volta and brought us to Accra without any tyre issues. 

Many thanks to the three fearless men who came to help. I call them fearless because I know Ghanaian drivers fear stopping to help another driver for fear of being robbed by robbers who will stage a “car with a damaged tyre or overheating” to pounce on them to take their valuables away. So I understand them because, to a large extent, I would have done the same if I was in their shoes. I believe we can change our attitudes towards ourselves. We need to face our fears by helping others in difficult situations. I would have understood if we experienced the same thing at night but they ignored us during the day at around 1 pm.  

Why didn’t I listen to my inner voice to check if Uncle Nana indeed had taken my jack? The worse thing if I had checked would have been for me to buy another jack on the way before driving out of Accra.  

Many thanks once again to the Good Samaritans who stopped to help us out. Calabash, myself and a host of loved ones are grateful. 

 Have a good day.

Wofa Ampong Kwesi writes to share his life experiences to help you learn the lessons so you can live a better and fulfilled life. 

Think positive, be positive and stay blessed. 

Email the writer at wofaampongkwesi@gmail.com