"Faking Reality---We are all Liars" by Bulldog

Shatta Wale's manager, Bulldog of Bullhaus Entertainment has hit the hammer right on the nail head concerning the fake and dishonest attitudes of mankind.

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"I have Slept with over 700 Men" - Ghanaian SHS graduate girl Confesses

Juju in Prostitution; The confession of a 19 year old

When she told me she sleeps with six men every night, the expression on my face made her think I didn’t believe her, so she began to mention the names of her regular customers.

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PHOTOS: Adisadel College old boy, UCC former student Needs help urgently

Baffour Awuah Tabury

His student ID card

Baffour Awuah Tabury is my name, an old boy of Adisadel college and a former student of university of Cape Coast but couldn't complete due to a spinal cord injury I sustained in 2007 which left me paralyzed waist down, I was in my final year at the university reading commerce when it happened so I had to forgo my course.

My paralysis came about when I was knocked down by a car door, I was sitting in the car, when I go down about to close the door the car reverse all of a sudden and the door knocked me down, I became paralyzed that very moment, I was rushed to Effia-Nkwanta Regional hospital, there after x-rays was told I had a spinal cord injury which was beyond them so I was transferred to Korle Bu teaching hospital after 2 weeks there, all this time my urine and bowel (toilet) had seized so I was placed on catheter so the urine comes but the toilet still didn't come.

 

At Korle Bu teaching hospital further examination were conducted (CT scans, X-rays, MIR's etc) and it was concluded I had a T12 spinal cord injury, I was operated twice to decompress the spine to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots and second because I had hematoma after the first operation, after all the operation I was discharged to go to Effia-Nkwanta regional hospital to go and do physiotherapy.

The most devastating part of my story is that after the operations I still couldn't control my urine and bowel (toilet), I also had to battle severe pains, spasms, tingling and burning sensations which doesn't give me chance to sleep, since the injury in 2007, I can't boast of sleeping more than 3 hours both day and night due to the pains, spasms, tingling and burning sensations.

My injury has taken me to different hospitals, clinics, churches, herbal homes but didn't produce any changes in my condition.

Luckily about 3 or 4 years ago some American doctors came to Ghana, Takoradi, Fijai specific to do charity and a friend took me there, they examined me and told me of stem cell therapy. They gave me website address of a stem cell clinic in Panama, I was told to contact the clinic, I did so, was asked to forward my medical records, also filled some form for the medical doctors to go through, later I was mailed that I was eligible for treatment and the cost was $32,400, duration was a month.

Am calling on all old boys of Adisadel college (Santaclausians) to come to my aid to raise this money, my mom who have been financing my treatment is now totally out of funds. Please nothing is too small, show me the love that was instilled in us on the hill. Play up play up Santaclausians.

  

 

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Meet Peter Seshi, the Ghanaian Masters Degree Holder who Drives A Taxi to feed

Peter Seshi, Masters Degree Holder

Peter Seshi is a 41-year-old Ghanaian and father of two.

He holds Masters Degree from Coventry University in Oil and Gas Management, and he now drives a taxi around town to make ends meet.

Below is the story of Peter Seshi, as he narrated on Citi FM's Traffic Avenue program to Jessica Opare Saforo, host.

“I came back on the 7th of December 2012 which was the day of the election.

“When I came back, I had to look for a job. I went to all the Oil Companies, wrote applications here and there, you go and they tell you no vacancy; those who are a bit polite, they will acknowledge receipt but then you won’t hear anything from them. You will do a follow up and still no vacancy.

“I was unemployed and in the house but I had this car at home so I decided that while sitting around and doing nothing, why don’t I get myself doing something to at least make some ends meet. I decided to convert the car into a commercial vehicle. I went through all the processes, I sent the car to the mechanics, they sprayed it and I hit the road and started my work as a taxi driver.

“A lot of my passengers are surprised when they get to know who I am. But I check out the personalities and demeanor of my passengers before starting a conversation with them because not all of them are friendly.

“When I get the opportunity, I would want to do my PhD. Two degrees are not enough so at least a PhD. It will be my last stop.

“You will get so many options; you can go back to the classroom and teach; you can do consultancy services and all sorts of things.”

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My 25 Years As A Prostitute - Brenda Myers-Powell

Brenda Myers-Powell was just a child when she became a prostitute in the early 1970s. Here she describes how she was pulled into working on the streets and why, three decades later, she devoted her life to making sure other girls don't fall into the same trap. Some people will find Brenda's account upsetting.

Right from the start life was handing me lemons, but I've always tried to make the best lemonade I can.

I grew up in the 1960s on the West Side of Chicago. My mother died when I was six months old. She was only 16 and I never learned what it was that she died from - my grandmother, who drank more than most, couldn't tell me later on. The official explanation is that it was "natural causes".

I don't believe that. Who dies at 16 from natural causes? I like to think that God was just ready for her. I heard stories that she was beautiful and had a great sense of humour. I know that's true because I have one also.

It was my grandmother that took care of me. And she wasn't a bad person - in fact she had a side to her that was so wonderful. She read to me, baked me stuff and cooked the best sweet potatoes. She just had this drinking problem. She would bring drinking partners home from the bar and after she got intoxicated and passed out these men would do things to me. It started when I was four or five years old and it became a regular occurrence. I'm certain my grandmother didn't know anything about it.

She worked as a domestic in the suburbs. It took her two hours to get to work and two hours to get home. So I was a latch-key kid - I wore a key around my neck and I would take myself to kindergarten and let myself back in at the end of the day. And the molesters knew about that, and they took advantage of it.

I would watch women with big glamorous hair and sparkly dresses standing on the street outside our house. I had no idea what they were up to; I just thought they were shiny. As a little girl, all I ever wanted was to be shiny.

One day I asked my grandmother what the women were doing and she said, "Those women take their panties off and men give them money." And I remember saying to myself, "I'll probably do that" because men had already been taking my panties off.

"All I knew was the light in the trunk of the car and then the faces of these two guys with their pistol"

To look back now, I dealt with it all amazingly well. Alone in that house, I had imaginary friends to keep me company that I would sing and dance around with - an imaginary Elvis Presley, an imaginary Diana Ross and the Supremes. I think that helped me deal with things. I was a really outgoing girl - I used to laugh a lot.

At the same time, I was afraid, always afraid. I didn't know if what was happening was my fault or not. I thought perhaps something was wrong with me. Even though I was a smart kid, I disconnected from school. Going into the 1970s, I became the kind of girl who didn't know how to say "no" - if the little boys in the community told me that they liked me or treated me nice, they could basically have their way with me.

By the time I was 14, I'd had two children with boys in the community, two baby girls. My grandmother started to say that I needed to bring in some money to pay for these kids, because there was no food in the house, we had nothing.

So, one evening - it was actually Good Friday - I went along to the corner of Division Street and Clark Street and stood in front of the Mark Twain hotel. I was wearing a two-piece dress costing $3.99, cheap plastic shoes, and some orange lipstick which I thought might make me look older.

I was 14 years old and I cried through everything. But I did it. I didn't like it, but the five men who dated me that night showed me what to do. They knew I was young and it was almost as if they were excited by it.

I made $400 but I didn't get a cab home that night. I went home by train and I gave most of that money to my grandmother, who didn't ask me where it came from.

"These are not relationships, no-one's bringing me any flowers here, trust me on that - they're using my body like a toilet"

The following weekend I returned to Division and Clark, and it seemed like my grandmother was happy when I brought the money home.

But the third time I went down there, a couple of guys pistol-whipped me and put me in the trunk of their car. They had approached me before because I was, as they called it, "unrepresented" on the street. All I knew was the light in the trunk of the car and then the faces of these two guys with their pistol. First they took me to a cornfield out in the middle of nowhere and raped me. Then they took me to a hotel room and locked me in the closet.

That's the kind of thing pimps will do to break a girl's spirits. They kept me in there for a long time. I was begging them to let me out because I was hungry, but they would only allow me out of the closet if I agreed to work for them.

 They pimped me for a while, six months or so. I wasn't able to go home. I tried to get away but they caught me, and when they caught me they hurt me so bad. Later on, I was trafficked by other men. The physical abuse was horrible, but the real abuse was the mental abuse - the things they would say that would just stick and which you could never get from under.

"I've been shot five times, stabbed 13 times - I don't know why those men attacked me, all I know is that society made it comfortable for them to do so"

Pimps are very good at torture, they're very good at manipulation. Some of them will do things like wake you in the middle of the night with a gun to your head. Others will pretend that they value you, and you feel like, "I'm Cinderella, and here comes my Prince Charming". They seem so sweet and so charming and they tell you: "You just have to do this one thing for me and then you'll get to the good part." And you think, "My life has already been so hard, what's a little bit more?" But you never ever do get to the good part.

When people describe prostitution as being something that is glamorous, elegant, like in the story of Pretty Woman, well that doesn't come close to it. A prostitute might sleep with five strangers a day. Across a year, that's more than 1,800 men she's having sexual intercourse or oral sex with. These are not relationships, no-one's bringing me any flowers here, trust me on that. They're using my body like a toilet.

And the johns - the clients - are violent. I've been shot five times, stabbed 13 times. I don't know why those men attacked me, all I know is that society made it comfortable for them to do so. They brought their anger or mental illness or whatever it was and they decided to wreak havoc on a prostitute, knowing I couldn't go to the police and if I did I wouldn't be taken seriously.

I actually count myself very lucky. I knew some beautiful girls who were murdered out there on the streets.

I prostituted for 14 or 15 years before I did any drugs. But after a while, after you've turned as many tricks as you can, after you've been strangled, after someone's put a knife to your throat or someone's put a pillow over your head, you need something to put a bit of courage in your system.

I was a prostitute for 25 years, and in all that time I never once saw a way out. But on 1 April 1997, when I was nearly 40 years old, a customer threw me out of his car. My dress got caught in the door and he dragged me six blocks along the ground, tearing all the skin off my face and the side of my body.

I went to the County Hospital in Chicago and they immediately took me to the emergency room. Because of the condition I was in, they called in a police officer, who looked me over and said: "Oh I know her. She's just a hooker. She probably beat some guy and took his money and got what she deserved." And I could hear the nurse laughing along with him. They pushed me out into the waiting room as if I wasn't worth anything, as if I didn't deserve the services of the emergency room after all.

And it was at that moment, while I was waiting for the next shift to start and for someone to attend to my injuries, that I began to think about everything that had happened in my life. Up until that point I had always had some idea of what to do, where to go, how to pick myself up again. Suddenly it was like I had run out of bright ideas. I remember looking up and saying to God, "These people don't care about me. Could you please help me?"

God worked real fast. A doctor came and took care of me and she asked me to go and see social services in the hospital. What I knew about social services was they were anything but social. But they gave me a bus pass to go to a place called Genesis House, which was run by an awesome Englishwoman named Edwina Gateley, who became a great hero and mentor for me. She helped me turn my life around.

It was a safe house, and I had everything that I needed there. I didn't have to worry about paying for clothes, food, getting a job. They told me to take my time and stay as long as I needed - and I stayed almost two years. My face healed, my soul healed. I got Brenda back.

Through Edwina Gateley, I learned the value of that deep connection that can occur between women, the circle of trust and love and support that a group of women can give one another.

"After three years of healing and abstinence, I met an extraordinary man. I was very picky - he likes to joke that I asked him more questions than the parole board"

Usually, when a woman gets out of prostitution, she doesn't want to talk about it. What man will accept her as a wife? What person will hire her in their employment? And to begin with, after I left Genesis House, that was me too. I just wanted to get a job, pay my taxes and be like everybody else.

But I started to do some volunteering with sex workers and to help a university researcher with her fieldwork. After a while I realised that nobody was helping these young ladies. Nobody was going back and saying, "That's who I was, that's where I was. This is who I am now. You can change too, you can heal too."

So in 2008, together with Stephanie Daniels-Wilson, we founded the Dreamcatcher Foundation. A dreamcatcher is a Native American object that you hang near a child's cot. It is supposed to chase away children's nightmares. That's what we want to do - we want to chase away those bad dreams, those bad things that happen to young girls and women.

The recent documentary film Dreamcatcher, directed by Kim Longinotto, showed the work that we do. We meet up with women who are still working on the street and we tell them, "There is a way out, we're ready to help you when you're ready to be helped." We try to get through that brainwashing that says, "You're born to do this, there's nothing else for you."

I also run after-school clubs with young girls who are exactly like I was in the 1970s. I can tell as soon as I meet a girl if she is in danger, but there is no fixed pattern. You might have one girl who's quiet and introverted and doesn't make eye contact. Then there might be another who's loud and obnoxious and always getting in trouble. They're both suffering abuse at home but they're dealing with it in different ways - the only thing they have in common is that they are not going to talk about it. But in time they understand that I have been through what they're going through, and then they talk to me about it.

So far, we have 13 girls who have graduated from high school and are now in city colleges or have gotten full scholarships to go to other colleges. They came to us 11, 12, 13 years old, totally damaged. And now they're reaching for the stars.

Besides my outreach work, I attend conferences and contribute to academic work on prostitution. I've had people say to me, "Brenda, come and meet Professor so-and-so from such-and-such university. He's an expert on prostitution." And I look at him and I want to say: "Really? Where did you get your credentials? What do you really know about prostitution? The expert is standing in front of you."

I know I belong in that room but sometimes I have to let them know I belong there. And I think it's ridiculous that there are organisations that campaign against human trafficking, that do not employ a single person who has been trafficked.

People say different things about prostitution. Some people think that it would actually help sex workers more if it were decriminalised. I think it's true to say that every woman has her own story. It may be OK for this girl, who is paying her way through law school, but not for this girl, who was molested as a child, who never knew she had another choice, who was just trying to get money to eat.

But let me ask you a question. How many people would you encourage to quit their jobs to become prostitutes? Would you say to any of your close friends or female relatives, "Hey, have you thought of this? I think this would be a really great move for you!"

And let me say this too. However the situation starts off for a girl, that's not how the situation will end up. It might look OK now, the girl in law school might say she only has high-end clients that come to her through an agency, that she doesn't work on the streets but arranges to meet people in hotel rooms, but the first time that someone hurts her, that's when she really sees her situation for what it is. You always get that crazy guy slipping through and he has three or four guys behind him, and they force their way into your room and gang rape you, and take your phone and all your money. And suddenly you have no means to make a living and you're beaten up too. That is the reality of prostitution.

Three years ago, I became the first woman in the state of Illinois to have her convictions for prostitution wiped from her record. It was after a new law was brought in, following lobbying from the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, a group that seeks to shift the criminal burden away from the victims of sexual trafficking. Women who have been tortured, manipulated and brainwashed should be treated as survivors, not criminals.

 There are good women in this world and also bad women. There are bad men and also good men.

Following my time as a prostitute, I simply wasn't ready for another relationship. But after three years of healing and abstinence, I met an extraordinary man. I was very picky - he likes to joke that I asked him more questions than the parole board. He didn't judge me for any of the things that had happened before we met. When he looked at me he didn't even see those things - he says all he saw was a girl with a pretty smile that he wanted to be a part of his life. I sure wanted to be a part of his too. He supports me in everything I do, and we celebrated 10 years of marriage last year.

My daughters, who were raised by my aunt in the suburbs, grew up to be awesome young ladies. One is a doctor and one works in criminal justice. Now my husband and I have adopted my little nephew - and here I am, 58 years old, a football mum.

So I am here to tell you - there is life after so much damage, there is life after so much trauma. There is life after people have told you that you are nothing, that you are worthless and that you will never amount to anything. There is life - and I'm not just talking about a little bit of life. There is a lot of life.

Source: BBC

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20+ Things Everybody Must Know About Life

Image source: michaelbarata.com

As I woke up this morning, I was very much refreshed mentally and physically. But what I was lacking was the inspiration to write something and put it across to the world. So I kept thinking thinking thinking... until something came to mind. See below. 

From my little experience in life, I have learnt that life in itself is an intricate phenomenon. And age does not bring wisdom; observation and learning do. As the saying goes, “Observation brings wisdom”. Yes, it is true. I believe the person that coined this quote had a shit load of experiences about life. Everyone has his or her own perspective about life and how they understand certain issues that come with it. However, not everybody has good observational and learning skills. Therefore, they fail to know the tricks and secrets embedded in life and how to navigate safely. 

These are 20+ things I have come to know about life. Enjoy 

1. When you are nobody to the world, you are somebody to your family – no matter what. “Blood is thicker than water” . Never denounce your family especially siblings and parents.

2. Your life is limited. You will not live forever. However long, you will one day die and be forgotten. It is a fact and cannot be changed. Start to live life the real way.

3. Friends come and go. Your best friend today can be a stranger tomorrow. Be okay with it. It is normal.

4. Even your good friends will secretly not want you to be ahead of them in life. No matter how good you are to them they will still harbor an iota of envy for you. This kind of envy/hate is inborn and cannot be changed.

5. Any friend that appears too good to you is fake. They just want to impress you so you like them – so they can get some benefits from you. The moment those benefits cease coming, they tend to talk about you to others. Be careful and watch them closely.

6. Your greatest help will come from strangers.

7. If you are too good or nice to people they take you for granted. But be good anyway.

8. If they have disappointed you once, don’t be around them for them to disappoint you second and third time. Be wise.

9. Success is the greatest revenge. Strive for it.

10. Don’t be foolish and ignorant to think that everybody likes your matter.

11. If they talk you about others, they will definitely talk others about you. Watch your tongue.

12. Some people are still around you just to feed your enemies with every update about life.

13. You enemy rejoices when you suffer.

14. Your enemy will always wish you dead before your greatest achievement/success in life. Take cover.

15. If they don’t like you they don’t like you. Change and forget them.

16. Money makes girls horny.

17. Karma is a bitch and fucking real; so be careful what you do in life.

18. Anything that is against your conscience is fraud.

19. Don’t live life with people who don’t speak up. They will confuse you.

20. Money is life. See how rejuvenated and happy you become when you are so broke and money falls into your hands. And see how sad, dull and suicidal(worst case scenario) you become when the situation is reversed.

More soon..

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Read how this careless Fresh IPS Graduate almost died by car accident

Somethings you take for granted can cost your life---an account of how this fresh graduate from Institute of Professional Studies(IPS) almost died through car accident just for acting carelessly.

On the 13th of April this year; at 9pm in the evening, I was all alone in my younger sister’s shop working on my blogger blog layout and all of a sudden I started dozing off around 10:30pm so I paused, closed my laptop and packed all my things; ready to go and give myself some sleep for the night. I then locked the shop up and begun to walk to my pathetic room for sleep. And for your knowing, the shop is in the compound of our house.

Upon getting to the middle of the distance to my room, I heard the sound of a car over speeding on the road which is only a house away from my house. I stopped for a very short while – might be 5 or 6 seconds to just continue to listen to the sound the over speeding car; because it sounded weird to me for a car to be cruising at such top speed at 11pm in the evening when most of the street lights are not in proper shape so they are not giving off light. I then overlooked it and begun to continue my very short journey to my sleeping chamber.

At about 11:10pm, when I was just some few steps to the interior of my room, I then heard again from the road a greater sound of a car impacting another. So I was asking myself; what is wrong now? I just continue walking to the point I realized that the door to the corridor leading to my room was locked; since it was late in the night they don’t have to leave the doors open so as to keep intruders away. I have to call my elder brother to come and open the door for me to pass. When he finally came I told him what I anticipate has happened on the street. He then sighed and went back to his room. I also went straight to my room.

After I had put my things down, I did not sleep but headed out to the supposed accident scene. And lo and behold, it was a crash as I suspected. The collision was between an ash saloon car and a yellow sprinter car.

Upon careful unofficial investigations into the matter that night at the scene, it was established that the ash saloon car is the same car I heard over speeding on the road some few minutes past.

And lest I forget, the road on which the accident occurred is a narrow single carriageway.

According to eyewitnesses, the sprinter car tried to overtake a parked taxi car. While in the process of overtaking, the taxi moved causing the sprinter to make a head on collision with the saloon car which is on its lane and already cruising at a top speed.

The saloon car was occupied by two young men of which I know one of them. Their car to me is old and has no seat belts. Trust me; they had to go through the strongest head impact in their life that night. In the collision, the air bag of the driver burst causing him to hit his head against the windscreen so fucking hard. Damn. He nearly went unconscious. His partner suffered the same fate. They were both lucky they did not black out and just die.

The windscreen of their car is not cheap. It is of high quality and durable. In my view, it is the windscreen that saved their pathetic lives that night. Otherwise, they would have come out of the car through the windscreen onto the road. Who knows what would have happened to them then? The sprinter might have run over them or they would hit their bodies hard against the ground; onto the curbs; into the drains; and get physically deformed or just die afterward. However, the windscreen of their car got totally damaged but did not crush or break out.

As for the sprinter driver, he was in the company of two other men believed to be his friends or maybe people he just picked up from the road to drop. A moment after the collision, he came out of the car with his hands on the head while saying, “As for this it is my fault.”

But other eyewitnesses blame the accident on the taxi driver for being shylock and not willingly allowing the sprinter driver to overtake him. Because then, they believe the taxi driver saw the saloon car approaching with top speed. He did not even stop to share a word after the impact, he just moved on and went his way. I guess he might be saying, “To hell with them. Next time do not overtake and over speed.”

Others too blame the impact on the guys who were using the saloon car. Saying, “If they were not over speeding they would have been able to allow some time and space for the sprinter driver to get back on his lane – knowing well that the taxi driver did not allow him to overtake.”

Aside the sprinter driver’s conceded self-blame, eyewitnesses believe that he was dozing off so he did not even see the saloon car approaching. They also say, the driver of the saloon car seems to be applying brakes but the sprinter keeps approaching unconcerned.

While we were still at the accident scene, around 11:40pm sharing our thoughts and shifting blames on what has just happened, some two guys appeared from nowhere and revealed that they were at the junction looking for car to their destination, they luckily saw the sprinter car approaching; which appears to be going in their direction but one of them said “when we stopped him to pick us he did not mind us – he went off. That was just about 30 minutes ago”.

And do not forget, the accident happened at 11:10pm.

So others were also saying, “If the sprinter driver had listened and stopped to pick up the two guys who were at the junction looking for car to their destination, the accident would not have happened.” Because then he would have allowed some time and space for the taxi car to move without the overtaking; and the saloon car to pass before he gets there.

However, there is this man who strongly believes that if the sprinter driver had listened and stopped to pick up the two guys, he would have come and kill them in the accident.

The guys who were in the saloon car were quickly taken to a nearby clinic for a short medical treatment to their injured foreheads and necks.

After the treatment we had some exchanges with the driver and he revealed that even the car is not his and the owner did not know he has moved his car and do not even know the car has been involved in a near fatal accident. I am free with him, and because of this friendly relationship, he sometimes gives me the car keys for me to clean and keep an eye on it for him. So he left the keys with me this time.

Convo between me and the saloon car driver

So I asked him, where were you in a hurry to and you are driving at that speed? (I thought they were going to pick some girls to come and #at.

Him: We were going to buy food for my friend’s sister.

Him: I never knew this is how accident is. When I came out of the car I could not even see anything.

He then looked into my face and said: Bro, so I was coming die?

Me: Yes!!!

And then everybody went like hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… Just for responding yes to his question.

Me: How much did you spend on the medicals?

Him: The only money I had on me was GHS 20 ($5). And the medical expenses was GHS 60 ($16), so I had to borrow from somebody I rarely know who leaves in that area. It is a private clinic,             and you know the "cash and carry system", you pay before you are taken care of.

Me: What work do you do?

Him: Hm. I am a security guard at the fuel filling station down there. I have managed to do a course at Institute of Professional Studies (IPS). I graduated just yesterday and I will be leaving Accra for Takoradi. (I think he said Takoradi – I am not sure, maybe I have forgotten).

Me: Takoradi? For what?

Him: I have got a job at a bank there to do.

Me: And you nearly died?

Him: Hm. I don’t even know what to say. I am shocked.

But then he was wearing his security attire. He then went into the accident car and brought out his graduation dress. It is white and neatly folded.

Revealation from the sprinter driver

According to the people who were in the sprinter car with the driver, they said the driver told them that "the car is a company car and I will be going to Tema harbor tomorrow dawn with my boss to clear some goods for the company. It is urgent. So I am driving fast to the house to have some short sleep and return to pick my boss at dawn. Now look at what has happened to the car. The engine is damaged."

Finally, in order to avoid the Ghana Police Patrol Team from spotting the accident cars on the road, they have to quickly move them off into hiding.

This real story is a bit confusing but try and understand.

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