Hanna

image by Khadija Saye.

Hanna

Growing up in modern Ghana, I remember a small 

portrait of my great grandmother, Hanna, on the

mantle of our ornate fireplace. She was married at

12 and had 10 children by the time she was 25.

She was one of ten wives. Women had no real rights 

then, at the end of the19th century; but she was 

rebellious, and had an independent soul. She tired of 

the arrogance and cruelty of her husband, and she 

refused to have more children. She was raped

regularly, and was forced to have 3 more kids.

She was taken to court, and found guilty of being

disloyal to her husband. She was publicly stoned

for her insolence. She was blinded from head

trauma, and was left with blurry object perception.

The bright sun still hurt her eyes, so she dealt with

her photophobia by fashioning a rawhide strap,

fitted with three equal squares of lamb’s wool--one 

stationary for her nose, and the other two could be

moved off her eyes while inside.

For three generations now, my family owns a large

prosperous cocao farm, with huge orchards. We 

provide seed pods for some of the world’s best

chocolate. Oddly, Ghana never enslaved its own

population. They bought and imported slaves for

cheap labor.

In our family, my mother, and her sister-wife, were

the first women to graduate high school. I have

been fortunate enough to graduate from college.

We’re well off enough to vacation annually down

south along the Gold Coast.

My great grandfather had ten wives. My father

three. My husband only has me, and he’s damn 

lucky to have me. Looking at great granny’s

portrait at my parents, I wonder what she would

think about modern Ghana; where we’ve kept

AIDs down to a minimum, and now we are dealing

with the world-wide Corona virus pandemic. We

have managed to only have 18,000 cases of Covid-

19, and only 118 deaths. Every day we hear and

see how terrible it is in America, and we pray for

them every night.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at Visual Verse Anthology