On the Dunkwa road, the Land Rover dipped, swerved, and slithered around potholes and waded through deep puddles. Our fate is in the hands of this driver, Dawson thought, and the driver looked like he might have been twenty years old at the most.
The rain wasn’t lessening. If anything, it was getting heavier. Every few minutes, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, followed by a sharp crack of deafening thunder. When Dawson and the other passengers alighted at the Dunkwa tro-tro depot, water on the ground was ankle high. Crouching under his now almost useless umbrella, Dawson called Akua.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“At the tro-tro station.”
“Okay, stay there, and we’ll pick you up in the SUV. We’re not far.”
Dawson found an abandoned vegetable stand to shelter underneath, watching rivers of muddy rainwater flowing from the lorry park while pedestrians negotiated the least hazardous routes to tread while pulling up the hems of their trousers and skirts to avoid soaking them, but it was no use. A soaking was inevitable.
Dawson spotted Akua and Samuels approaching in the Prado. Dawson hopped into the backseat and heaved a sigh of relief to be out of the rain.
Akua smiled at him from the front passenger seat. “Weather couldn’t get any nastier than this.”
“Terrible,” he agreed. “I’m an Accra man. We don’t have rain like this.”
“Some wellies and a raincoat in the back for you,” she said. “Try them on.”
“Thank you,” Dawson said. To Samuels in the driver’s seat, he said, “Morning, Mr. Samuels,” although afternoon was close.
“Morning, sir.”
The Wellingtons were a little tight, but they would do, and the raincoat was excellent.
Samuels turned off the main road at a snail’s pace, engaging four-wheel drive as they dipped into muddy floodwater that grew progressively deeper.
“The river crested last night,” Akua said. “Everyone is headed for higher ground.”
Ahead of their vehicle, a stream of people waded through thigh-deep water, some with their kids on their shoulders. A few random items like small pieces of furniture were floating free.
“The main road is at a higher elevation,” Akua explained, “so that’s where people are headed, and there’s also a hill on the other side of town.”
The Prado dipped even lower, making Dawson anxious that they might get stuck, but the vehicle handled it with barely a loss of traction and the water level dropped again as they came to the main road where people were standing under shelter on anything that would keep them above water level-stacked tables or chairs.
“Let’s go up the hill,” Akua said to Samuels, “and then we can take some shots of the Ofin River.”
At the crest of the hill, much of the town had gathered to escape the floodwater, but it was still ankle-deep. Samuels pulled over and the three got out and trudged through the mud to a spot overlooking the Ofin. It was churning gray and brown as it rushed along swiftly, as if desperate to get to its destination, but at one silt-laden area, it had nowhere to go but up and over.
“We’ll descend now, as close as possible to the riverbank,” Akua said.
They slid down, holding on to vegetation to avoid slipping and tumbling. It was most hazardous for Samuels, as he had the expensive camera equipment. At one point, Akua did lose her footing and fell with a thud on her posterior. She cursed, and then began to laugh hysterically at the frank absurdity of the mission as rain pelted her in the face. “Oh, my God. Why do I even do this?”
Dawson, a little bit ahead of her, came back and stood over her smiling. “Maybe because you care about your work?”
“Ugh,” she said. “There’s caring, and then there’s insanity.”
Dawson extended a hand and she pulled herself up, still laughing. Samuels, a few meters away, asked her if she was okay.
“I’m good, Samuels. Come on. Let’s keep going. I want to get to a good spot where I can do a piece with the river showing in the background.”
Dawson admired her tenacity, and wondered if Christine would do anything like this. She would, but only for the most necessary of reasons-like to rescue a family member. He had a spontaneous vision of throwing his mother-in-law down this hill into the river, and had to suppress a laugh. Not nice. Still, it was funny.
“This should be a good spot, Akua,” Samuels said, and for the first time Dawson wondered if there was anything between the two of them.
They spent some time setting up the scene and doing a couple run-throughs before the final take. Dawson’s attention was drawn to the Ofin River. No mining sites were visible at this particular spot, and the vegetation on the banks was thick and green, but downstream, the telltale signs of a stripped landscape began. As Dawson stared at the area, he saw someone appear at the edge of the river on the same side. He wasn’t difficult to recognize.
Yaw Okoh.
He was barefoot and shirtless, his taut, broad shoulders and V-shaped torso glistening wet. He had stopped to urinate in the bushes.
Dawson looked quickly back at Akua and Samuels. They were engrossed in their video production. Dawson began to make his way in Yaw’s direction. The din of the rain, the noise of the river, and the episodic clap of thunder all combined to disguise any giveaway sound of Dawson moving in the bush.
Once Yaw had answered his call of nature, he continued walking downstream in the rain. Dawson tried to keep an eye on him while struggling with mud and vegetation, while Yaw seemed to move effortlessly. I need to spend more time in the bush, Dawson thought, annoyed at his clumsiness-not that his “wellies” were of any help.
As the river turned course slightly, it also narrowed, and to Dawson’s surprise, Yaw approached the water and got close to the edge, studying the currents. Impossible, Dawson thought. Yaw could not possibly cross the river as swift and deep as it was, could he? But, yes, he took two steps into the water, gauging his landing spot on the other side and how strongly he needed to swim. Dawson moved quickly, half jumping, half sliding the remainder of the way to the river. One boot entered and he pulled it back sharply. Good thing it was a little too small, or he would have lost it.
“Yaw!” Dawson called out, but it wasn’t loud enough. “Yaw!”
The muscleman turned his head, saw Dawson, and then deliberately continued his advance into the river.
Furiously, Dawson yelled out, “Stop!”
But as he got closer, Yaw had already waded into the river to neck height, launching himself across. Dawson stopped, his chest heaving as he watched Yaw making his way at a diagonal to the other bank. For Dawson, a man who could not swim to save his hide, it was incredible that one man could take on a river in a storm like this. Sure, it wasn’t as wide as the grandest of Ghana’s bodies of water-Volta, Pra, Ankobra-but it was still a significant river, especially in Dawson’s eyes.
Yaw reached the other side and climbed up the bank as casually as if taking a stroll on a fine day, walked to the forest ahead of him, and disappeared without a word. Dawson’s jaws were clenched. At first he had had sympathy for this man who had lost his brother, but now Yaw was being just plain evasive. That made Dawson all the more determined. I will get to him and make him talk.
Returning to where Akua and Samuels had been doing their report, Dawson found them wrapping up for the day. After she redid a couple of spots in the segment to perfect it, they packed up and Dawson joined them on the trudge up the hill. It was difficult to say whether going up or coming down was tougher.