CLIMATE FICTION— JUST THE RIGHT SPARK

After packing the leftovers into the refrigerator, doing the dishes and sweeping
the dining room, Otutey had not much of a choice but to lay tiredly on the big red
mattress Papa bought him last summer. Being the only son born to his father, he
had his own room to himself and his own bed, which to him meant his privacy,
and he enjoyed that more than anything. On nights like this, he would fall and
bounce off the bed severally, broadly grinning and stretching his arms like the
little children he always watched on television. Like a baby without a care or
worry in the world, Otutey then reclined to his bed quietly, undisturbed by the
murmuring breeze winding through the array of trees surrounding their house
and the pitchy chorus of insects crowding out the noise of the croaking frogs
moving about in the night light.
With his hands clasped onto his chest, there was only little he could do before
going to sleep, but to think about the intriguing fable Papa narrated to him as
they had the evening meal. He knew Papa wanted to teach him more than just
tell an animal story. Although Papa felt that the koala in the story was to be
blamed for not warning the bird to stop singing, Otutey thought that it was the
bird’s fault for singing in the first place. “ If the bird had not sung to begin with,
the hunter would not have noticed their presence and would not have shot at…”
“Otutey”, Papa called out, interrupting his thoughts. “turn the lights off.” “Yes
Papa”, Otutey responded, smacking his lips. He walked to the light switch
adjacent the opening door and turned it off, relieving a sigh of reluctance. He had
always been afraid to sleep in the dark. However, Papa had strongly held that the
lights were to be managed since they came from the solar panels carefully laid on
the roof of the house.. He would argue, “If you waste all the energy from the solar
panels, how would we cook, iron our clothes, ” , and turning to Otutey, he would
continue “ and play your video games.” Then, with a stern and serious look,
almost like an expression between having a mortgage and coming face to face
with a debtor whose debt is overdue, he would finally say “ You know what
happened to your mother thirty years ago, don’t you?”
The whole family knew undoubtedly that after these usual last words, the debate
was over, unless one wanted to test his conviction on the matter the more and
consequently taste his wrath; and that never happened. But this usual look of
Papa’s on this matter had a lot in common with what Otutey observed when Papa
concluded his story that evening. “ So Otutey, you see when Koala stayed
indifferent to the problem bird was causing, in the end the koala got shot by the
hunter, and the bird rather flew away unaffected.” Papa’s point was clear and
specific— see something, do something. The people of Nkwa were very good at
this, which was one reason why he was compelled to put off the lights. In fact, if
he refused to do so, Papa would be summoned to the District Chief Executive and
be made to pay a fine. When one mismanaged his solar electricity, it was assumed
that he or she was using other carbon producing means to provide electricity,
which was unpardonable. Soon, Otutey eventually thought out of consciousness
and into a silence of sleep.
Friday, the next morning, Nkwa saw a heavy downpour although it was not the
rainy season yet. In the past, a day like this would have been very ruinous but for
the intervention of community leaders to stop the people of Nkwa from building
their houses and growing crops in the waterways. Since then, the community had
hardly been plagued by flooding. Also, Papa’s closest friend, Agya Amankwaa, had
been an active advocate of preserving water for the whole District to meet the
challenges of the dry season. After Nkwa had narrowly survived a menacing
drought that cooked the land and painfully took the lives of many women and
children including Otutey's mother, Papa’s wife, Agya Amankwaa led a movement
to persuade and compel the District Chief Executive to initiate conversations to
prevent such excruciating loss in the times ahead. This resulted in discussions that
birthed the water preservation systems Nkwa now enjoyed all year round. Some
of the water was channeled underground to the community farms to provide
irrigation during the dry season to control the potential effects of the dry season.
Not even the deafening thunders could wake Otutey up from the doors of his
sleep. Papa entered Otutey’s room with Otutey lying lazily on the bed. “Herh”,
Papa shouted, and moving angrily to the bed, he shook and struck Otutey’s arms
to wake him up. “Don’t you know today’s Friday? Will you bath and dress up
quickly for school?” Soon, Otutey was ready to have breakfast. Kesewaa, Otutey’s
older sister, usually woke up as early as the sun to prepare breakfast for the
family. This routine left her quite worn out in the mornings, but she knew it would
have been worse if she had lived during the time of Papa’s youth, when she would
have had to gather firewood and burn them into coal before setting fire to
prepare food. Years ago, upon deliberations and discussions on how to deal with
the drought and the increasing rise in temperatures, the community leaders had
introduced the ban on using firewood to prepare food. Papa had explained to her
that too much carbon emitted through burning of fossils fuels like coal, and other
industrial activities were partly responsible for the droughts they had faced some
years ago. Fortunately, after twenty eight years of stopping the burning coals, the
lands had not been as dry and hot as it used to.
Completely relaxed and unconcerned, Otutey drunk his porridge until Papa made
eye contact with him, and without uttering a word, Otutey started eating his food
with urgency. They had to catch the electric bus because these were very few in
the community, and the petrol and diesel run vehicles had to pay high taxes to
operate, so they were gradually fading out of the transport system. Some few
minutes after boarding the bus, Otutey alighted at the his school’s junction and
waved a goodbye to Papa, traversing down the street to his school.
The class did not have much to say when Mr. Henaku, the science facilitator,
asked why the atmosphere suffers increasing heat. “Was the sun giving too much
energy or just the right spark? Why the high temperatures, the drought, flood and
food shortages that Nkwa and other communities had suffered some time ago?
Through brainstorming, they learned that the extreme temperatures were not
caused by the sun, for the sun gave just the right spark of energy. Mr. Henaku
explained further that these were all mainly because of some heat trapping gases
called greenhouse gases and when they are emitted into the atmosphere, they
hold up the heat and make our lands hotter. He continued that although this was
mainly caused by industrial activities in the more developed countries, leading to
hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters in those countries, Africa is mostly
affected.
“Who has trees around his or her house, show by hand.”, asked Mr. Henaku.
Otutey felt very proud to raise his hand but tried to restrain his joy by pretending
a straight face. He was especially happy when Mr. Henaku explained that since
Nkwa and many other African countries started planting more trees, resorting to
solar energy and discouraging fossil fuels like coals, crude oils, and petroleum
gases, and using more solar charged electric vehicles, the temperatures had been
increasing at a rather decreasing rate.
Otutey now understood clearly why Papa took tree planting so seriously and tried
as much as he did to avoid any activities that would produce more smoke or
carbons. Mr. Henaku ended his lesson with the story of the historic drought that
almost wiped out all life in the District. He claimed that other forms of disasters
confronted other countries across Africa , which had led political leaders and all
others to initiate ways to combat the ongoing climate change.
Back home, Otutey excitedly watched the trees around the house, thought back
to the fable story Papa told him, ashamed for ever putting the lights off before
sleeping at night unwillingly. With eyes full of hope for Africa and the will to act,
he knew that just as the sun gave just the right spark of energy, Africa needed just
the right spark of education to combat the ongoing climate change. The next day,
Saturday, 26th February, 2050 being his birthday, he had a new age to celebrate
and a new purpose in mind.