When I was a child , I read from some of the finest writers from the early generation of Ghanaian writers . I still have some of their books on my shelves . Many a time , I ask myself who the next generation of Ghanaian writers will be as I pass by those books . The question of whether Ghanaian writing is on the rise or fall is by now cliché . Mostly probably , what we have not done much in the last decade or so are to explore spaces for placing our creative works . In this issue , we present writers from different generations with different tastes for aesthetics and are from different countries . Darko Antwi captures the immediate scene to the death of Auntie Araba , a persona . She is not only leaving but she wants a better , peaceful home for those left behind . The young writer , Adelaide Aseidu writes a fascinating story about career choices . Here are what we present : It is also worthy of mention that Aisha Nelson has joined us as a poetry editor and co - founder . Ehanom Review is now a monthly journal . We hope you will enjoy reading these works as much as we have enjoyed reading them . Let 's commune for yet another literary feast next month . Thank you and may God bless us all . I dreamt a dream . In the dream , I sat on a bench at the OPD . I was sitting among a small crowd of patients waiting to see the doctor . I didn 't know what day of the week it was . I didn 't know which doctor I 'm going to see . Neither did I know the ailment for which I was going to seek medication ; indeed , I had no idea why I sat there in the first place . Yet , I sat there . I sat waiting , waiting , waiting expectantly . A minor commotion at the doorway caught my attention . They were pushing a man on a stretcher through the crowd at the doorway . As they rushed past us , I rose to catch a glimpse . I looked down on the bloody man twitching on the stretcher and I started : it was I ! But I wasn 't alarmed to the point of stupefaction , and the initial jolt soon wore off . I joined them to push the trolley I was lying on . I don 't know why I decided to assist the hospital staff . We transported me into one of the operation rooms . Although I knew absolutely nothing about medicine , I got a vague sense that I should guide these medical staff . So I directed them to place me on the surgical table . After all the others have put on their surgical gowns , I also dashed to the dressing room and emerged in a green gown and face mask . I walked into the surgery room with my left hand gloved . I stood among the medical team and put my right hand in the other glove . All was ready for the surgery ! I got their message ! I picked a scalpel and moved closer to the table . They crowded around me . I looked down at me , lying there under the lights of the operating room . They had cleaned my bloody body . The chloroform mask was still over my nose . I lay there , as one in sleep . I made my first incision as gingerly as I would pick up a sleeping baby . I slowly dragged the surgical knife , still in the flesh , to create a little rift in the flesh . Then I slowly pulled out a damaged tissue . I made another incision , carefully , as though the life sustaining silver cord was under the very skin . I looked at the attendants and in their eyes , I read disapproval at my slow pace . But I still continued at the same pace . I picked out another tissue . The third incision I made was a long and deep one and I might have taken about ten minutes making it . Maybe they felt the pain vicariously or else I might have pushed their patience to its limit , for they grunted and mumbled inaudible sounds of discontent . I probed into the incision and cut out some flesh . Their throats thundered . A vein snapped and blood squirted out . An attendant yelled . Another shrieked . The ensuing protestation was rapid and unexpected . It was tumultuous . Some grabbed steel instruments and struck them against metal surfaces . Loud angry voices filled the air . A number of the attendants rushed at me , one brandishing a large syringe . Just at this point , the door gave way and people gushed into the surgical room , shouting . There was now a confusion of voices . The voices remained loud , but the emotions in them changed , slowly . They changed from anger to concern to sorrow . I was now totally perturbed . I couldn 't tell why they were now wailing . The noise coming from the attendants striking objects against metal surfaces grew louder . It was absolute anarchy in the surgical room ! I stood silent , still , as if thunderstruck , watching what was happening . The bedlam was unbearable . It rose above the wailing and the general commotion in the room until I felt my nerves firing dangerously away … I am jolted from the dream at the sound of men hammering nails into my coffin . Soon , they finish driving in the nails through the lid and the coffin is shut tight . I have been laid in state , in the large hall of my house . The wailings from mourners outside is loud indeed ! The lid of the coffin is made of glass . I look at the mourners through the glass on the coffin ; the mourners look back at me through the glass on the coffin . As I watch , I see many relatives and friends who cannot control the tears . Some are fighting hard to hold it back and others to produce it . One of them comes in from the backyard , where she has peeled onions under her nose . She comes in with tears rolling down her face and her nose running . She comes in wailing , sobbing , screaming and losing her voice . She bursts into the room like a rushing wind and crashes heavily on my casket . She is dragged off . She howls , laments and will not be comforted . She kicks and screams ; she squirms and turns ; she asks to be left alone ; she wants to go with me to my grave . Her piercing screams soon bring people rushing into the room . And then I see a sight ! My wife stands over the coffin , clad in black . There cannot be a more poignant image of human misery than the picture she cuts ! The intensity of her anguish is not issuing forth in vocal effusions . She just stands there , weeping softly as the billows of sorrow surge inside her like ocean waves and like the ocean waves , she breaks in silent , soft sobs . My dead heart is pierced with grief . I cannot bear this sight . I cannot endure it . Will a dead man 's heart be broken ? Will he have to endure pain again ? The bitter thoughts fade as another stupor sweeps over me . The stupor transported me to dream - world again . Except that there was nothing fantastical about this land of dreams . This was my life . But I was not living it again , not even vicariously . I was only a witness to my life now . I saw me as a child ; a frail , helpless and an amorphous thing which was quickly taking form . I was whizzing over this landscape of my life . I saw me crying , eating , playing , schooling , falling down and falling ill , getting up and getting well . I saw myself running round and chasing things , singing , laughing , jumping , fighting … it was bewildering watching this from the perspective of a disembodied spectator ; there was no rest , no wait . Even when I slept . Even when I crashed from fatigue . The arrow had been fired and it only kept flying . That arrow was my life . I saw the friends I grew up knowing and the friends I made along the way , in the journey of my life . There were moments of carefree and careless play . My heart lightened at the bubbling laughs and I almost smiled at the mischievous pranks . As I grew to gain more understanding of things , sometimes I had flashes of insight into the things that extended to eternity . But all too suddenly , I was youth ; that giddy stage of life when almost all things are riddled with excitement . I found myself in the centre of the excitement . So I fought for causes and I designed grand plans and envisaged splendid futures . I could be a master of my destiny . And it was all in my power and within my grasp . I was going to be unstoppable ! I was going to be a force . I would be a giant . Yɛntie obiaa ! But soon the whirl of youth stopped , and when I saw , I had a wife and some children . I wondered at the speed of my transformation . My grand designs had all disappeared . I now marveled how I had fitted myself into a regimen I wouldn 't even have imagined in my adolescence . No matter how early I rose up , I wasn 't early enough : Finishing off office papers , getting the children up and ready for school , and crying , ' Sarah , my socks ! ' And then dashing off to beat rush hour traffic - sometimes missing breakfast - and getting caught up in it nevertheless . At work , there were many things to do and time ran slow , unlike the mornings when time just flew . Exciting moments at this stage were when work closed and friends met . We laid aside the burdens of work , and fiercely debated the latest issues in football and politics . There were also lots of laughs . Oftentimes , we did this over many bottles of beer . On one such night , the thought fell into my head , like a lead weight , that I was going to die . This wasn 't like the vague knowledge that we all have of the finality of human life . This particular case was a sudden acute awareness of my own mortality . It weighed so much on me that I withdrew completely into my broodings and was oblivious to the loud arguments taking place around me . When they couldn 't get me to respond to anything , one of my friends pushed me so hard that my chair toppled over and I went crashing heavily to the ground … I am jerked back to the present as my coffin hits the bottom of the grave . I can see my wife looking down on me from the mouth of the grave . She is surrounded by our children . Beside them stands the priest . Behind them , a large crowd of mourners ; some weeping , some wailing , others are listless and are waiting to go home . The priest is speaking . He narrates my life as he knows it . He says I was a good man . He says I loved God . He says that I always obeyed the voice of God ; loyal church member , ever ready to volunteer , ever ready to give to the cause of the church . He says I was a good Christian . I was transported from the cemetery to my death that fateful morning . I left home early as usual . With the children now in secondary school , mornings routines were no longer the feverish events that they used to be . But we also missed them . We only saw them twice in a month , when we visited them at school . I promised to take my wife out for dinner after work . I had wanted to pick her up from her workplace but she wanted to buy some things after work so we decided to rather meet at the shop . I never thought that morning would be our last time together . I had a meeting with the staff in the morning , and a board meeting later on in the day . I 'd prepared everything necessary for the meetings . I had the secretary yesterday send all staff copies of the agenda and other documents . I 'd already contacted the members of the board and made sure all was ready . I 'd even made sure that all was perfect for the night out with my wife . And so I drove towards my workplace , never to get there . My whole day was planned . I 'd prepared for the day ; the staff meeting , the board meeting , and the night out with my wife . But this was where my arrow struck the bull 's eye . My mortal journey ended there . And now I lay in a coffin . The priest has finished his sermon and has just given the shovel to my wife . She scoops a heap of earth and readies herself to hurl it on me . And suddenly , the weight of the fact of my death and burial falls heavily upon me , just like it had done that night with my friends ! This can 't happen ! I shout : She cast it , obliviously , to my protests . I see the earth hurling towards me , and I see my final doom furiously speeding towards me . Yet I see the sand falling upon me in slow motion , darkly portentous . As the grains rain on the coffin , I can hear the sound of each thunderous individual particle . Each grain sings a grim song , unmelodious and abrasive . They sing of untold terrors beyond the grave . They hum about vindictive spirits and of furies which can never be placated . They foretold of tortured souls ruing the day they were born . They conjure images of desiccation , of exquisite trauma which cannot be described , of spiritual wickedness beyond the most sadistic of human imaginations . They sing of a hell , and of the infinite love and mercy that had invented it . The song of the pieces of earth beating upon the surface of the coffin is breaking my ear drums . My wife hands over the shovel to the labourers who immediately go to work covering me up . I continue screaming , protesting , begging . My protests are in vain . I scream and scream . The only response I get from my wife and children is uncontrollable tears . The fools , I think bitterly , tears won 't save me ; stop them ! Let them not bury me ! With every falling sand particle , I sink lower and lower into the grave . I now see the mourners as if from a very great distance ; as if from the other side of a great gulf . Slowly , I see the mourners going away . I am almost gone , and my shrieks have now turned into an inaudible whimper . They scoop the last shovelful of earth and cast it , and I see the dread finality of my case . In that instant , visions of judgment burst on my sight . I see a Great White Throne , and of myself standing weak and sapless before it . Standing before the Throne , I hear the voice in me rise and start to utter something … I awoke suddenly from my sleep , drenched in sweat . It was the time of night when everything goes to sleep and it felt like a big blanket of stillness and silence covered the earth . Against the placidity of the night , I could hear my heart pounding furiously away . The sound of my beating heart howled in my ears . I looked around the dark room . I turned , and my wife lay silently by my side . The night was still absolutely still . My heart still hammered away . My head was heavy with thoughts and fears and sounds . I was gripped with terrors . I sat up until my heart stopped racing . I listened to the silence of the room . I wanted to hear the sounds of other lives . But all was still . Not even a single cricket shrilled . I listened for sounds of my wife breathing . The howling in my ears was now a faint throb . But I heard not a sound . I called again . And again . She didn 't sleep this deep . I decided to tap her softly on the arm to wake her . My hand touched the flesh of her arm . My hand touched ice . I swiftly recoiled and touched her forehead . Again , my hand was stung by the bitter chill of her flesh . My wife has died in her sleep . I leapt out of my sleep , screaming like a man escaping from deadly assailants . I sat bolt upright on the bench like a man who has just been revived by a defibrillator . Up above , the wind played lazily with the leaves of the mango tree under which I had been sleeping . I looked around me with wild eyes , scared that I may slip back into another bad dream . The fierceness of my waking scream brought the women in the compound house running towards me , concerned . Achola is seated by a small swamp . This is no ordinary swamp ; it has come about during a period of two weeks of non - stop rain which has flooded the land below the village where Achola lives . There are lots of flies around her because this swamp also has all the faeces and garbage from the village . It is a dumping ground . Achola does not seem to mind about the filth around her and she is not bothered when a house fly rests on her nose . She just chases it with a wave of her hand . The truth is that Achola 's village is not a village anymore . It is a camp - a simple collection of small makeshift huts in a large open area . The occupants like to call it their village though , because it is the only home that they now know . Each hut houses a family and is so small that a grown man cannot stand in it . There is one communal bathroom in the middle of the camp that serves almost thirty households , with latrines filling up faster than they can be dug . There is no room to fit a bed and each hut can only fit two small mattresses on the floor . The hut is the living - , dining - and bedroom all in one . Most of the time , the occupants are forced to eat outside their huts be ¬ cause of the lack of space inside . There are hundreds of these little huts with only about twenty centimeters between one hut and the next . The children hardly have space to play and make do with the open spaces near the bore ¬ holes and feeding area . Achola can see the trucks from a distance and she stands up to get a better look . She thinks that she is seeing badly when they disappear behind a hill . Achola shakes her head and sits back down . ' ' It must be a dream , ' ' she tells herself . Just as she is starting to believe that , the trucks appear and this time they are clear . Achola claps her hands . They are the food relief trucks heading towards her village . She has to hurry and tell her mother . Achola has to be early to be among the first people in the line . That is the only way that she can guarantee that she will get some food . She looks at Achola and has a serious look on her face . Under the dim light in the hut her mother says , " You cannot fail . If you do , we will die . " Life has not always been like this for Achola . She has not always sat beside a swamp covered with flies and she has not always been hungry and waiting for the relief trucks to bring food . In fact , it is not just Achola but the other people in the village as well . They have not always been sad and hungry . Begging and dependence are things that they were not used to in the past . They used to be a hard - working and peaceful people . Achola remembers living with her mother , father and three brothers in the village at the edge of the forest . They were one happy family and they never lacked anything . They had a whole home ¬ stead with three big huts and a little one in the centre . That was their granary and Achola remembers that it was always full of food . Her mother and father and two older brothers always worked really hard each time that they went to the shamba . Achola always stayed at home with another one of her brothers who was supposed to look after her . He was only seven - years - old and she was four . Their mother always left them enough food and water to last until she got back from the shamba . Their village was very safe , so there was no worry of anyone hurting or stealing the young children . Achola 's father was the chief of the village and he loved his people . He was a wise leader and a good organizer . He introduced his village to the idea of saving up their money and crops for a rainy day . It was normal for every compound to have food in the granary , but he wanted them to have food that they would have over and above that . Thus he encouraged them to plant more crops than usual , and when they were harvested he asked them to keep more food away for the dry season than they put in the granary for everyday use . When they sold their crops , he encouraged them to open up accounts in the local bank in the town so that they could save up their money . Not many people opted for this because the The best part of everything in her village was when there was a celebratory feast . There was always lots of food to eat and all the village came together to celebrate . Parties were always fun . The people were spoilt for choice as to where to go . Whether it was the birth of a child or a wedding party , the celebrations was just as big and just as nice . There were sad times too , like when someone died . People cried and everyone was very unhappy . There was still a lot to eat , but the mood was not as nice . Achola remembers all these things like they have all happened the day before . It was late in the night and they awoke to the sound of gun shots . People were screaming and there were lots of huts on fire . Achola and her brothers woke up and ran into their parents ' hut . Her brothers were also terrified and they ran to where their mother was . Their father started to dress quickly . He wanted to go and find out what was happening to his village . Just as he reached the door , her father heard footsteps and he stepped back towards his family and closed the door behind him . Not too long afterwards there was a loud bang on the door . The person on the other side was ordering them to open it . The chief stood back and gestured to his family to be quiet . He hoped that these intruders would leave . Instead the banging got louder , until they finally kicked the door in . A man came rushing in and he had a gun which he pointed at them . He ordered the chief to step outside . When the chief would not budge , the man turned to point the gun at Achola , her mother and brothers . He again insisted that the chief got out or he would kill him and his whole family . There were other men who entered and soon the whole hut was full of these violent strangers . They wore the same colour army uniform and had identical " Enough ! Get out , NOW ! " the man shouted even louder . He was getting an ¬ gry and he started walking toward her father as if to hit him with his gun . Acho ¬ la 's eldest brother ran forward to protect his father from harm . The man with the gun hit her brother on his head and he fell screaming , onto the floor . He had a deep cut on his head . He writhed for a while and then he closed his eyes slowly as he breathed his last . He was dead . There was a scuffle as her father ran to his dead son 's side . Her mother set Achola aside as fast as she could and ran towards her husband and son . The man with the gun then hit her father in the stomach and he fell over . Achola and her remaining two brothers stayed still and huddled together in the corner . If the wall could open up , they would have entered it . Achola closed her eyes . She thought that maybe if she did not see anything then it was not really happening . There was another loud gunshot . One of the men had shot into the roof to silence them . Her father was then dragged outside along with her two brothers . They fought and screamed the whole time . Achola was holding onto one of her brothers as they took him away . One of the men kicked her and she fell against the wall and she hit her head . That was the last that she could remember ; she had blacked out . Achola awoke to hear her mother crying as one of the men violently raped her . Achola sat up and crawled to the furthest corner in the room . She stayed there , crying and burying her face in her hands . When he was done ravishing her mother , the man began kicking her even though she begged him to stop . When her mother could cry no more , she rolled herself into a ball . The man spat on her and gave Achola a sly smile before leaving the hut . He was a young man that they knew from the village . Achola sniffed . She could smell smoke . The hut they were in was on fire ! She ran to her mother , lifting her by her arms and dragged her from the hut . All around them the homestead was burning . The granary had already burnt to the ground . The next morning everyone who had escaped the attacks gathered in an open space in the forest . They were now homeless and very frightened and hungry . Their homes had been burnt down and their domestic animals and poultry had been taken . Whatever they were wearing on their backs was all that they had left . The rebels were everywhere and no one was safe . Now that they could not farm anymore , they had to depend on the free food that the relief trucks brought them . They did not have the luxury to pick what food they wanted to eat , in what amount or when they wanted to eat it . They tried planting vegetables at the entrance of the camp , but there was only so much that they could plant . For a people who had been used to owning vast pieces of land and large granaries filled with food , this was as good as death itself . Achola is now 12 years old . Eight years have gone by since the war started . All she can think about now is her little brother and her mother . Her moth ¬ er gave birth after their father was taken away . When Orach was born , Achola heard the midwife tell her mother , " No matter what , he is still your child . " Right now the rains are falling hard and even the little crop that some people have planted around the camp is rotting underground . The people are starving . The roads have been washed away and now it takes a long while before the trucks get to the camp . They tried to use helicopters to drop food but because most of the ground is covered in water , the food got wet and was spoiled . The trucks of food that were sent out were stuck on the bad roads for days . They could not Since her mother is too ill , Achola has to go all by herself to get food from the relief trucks . Their hut is at the end of the camp and the food is being served at the other end in an open field . Achola has to move fast now that the news of the trucks is spreading throughout the camp . The other people are also hurrying to get there early so that they can be among the first in queue . Achola holds her containers as firmly as she possibly can and joins the other people along the way . It is a battle that can only be won by the fastest . There are so many people and they are all pushing and trying to run faster than those around them . Some people elbow others or trip them . In the commotion , Achola is hurt . She falls down twice and hurts her knee . No one around her pays any attention and they all run past her , some of them jumping over her . Many a child has been known to be trampled to death in such a scuffle as this . Achola stays down for while so that she can compose herself . When she does get up , she cannot run as fast as she was running before . Her mother 's words echo in her head : " If you do not bring back food , we will all die of hunger . You must not fail , Achola . " Meanwhile , many people have now gathered at the serving point and the trucks have arrived and parked . There are security men keeping the people at bay and ordering them to get into a queue before they can be served . The serving begins and the people at the front can already see that the food is little . In the past they got as much as a sack of beans and a sack of maize as well as a ten liter tin of oil . Now they are lucky if they are given a small bag of rice , a bag of flour , a bag of beans and a small tin of oil . This time , there are no tins of oil . There are small two liter bottles , a bag of flour and half a bag of beans . Some people start to complain . This food will not last very long . Achola finally arrives and she finds that the queue is so long that she cannot even see the people serving the food . The sun has now come up and it is quite hot . Some people are seated on their containers because they are too weak to stand . Agatha is in charge of the food distribution . She walks through the queues , looking at her watch and then at the people in the queues . Then she looks at the food in the trucks and back to the people in the lines . Each time that she looks at her watch , Agatha appears to be impatient , but when she looks at the food remaining and the number of people in the lines , the look of impatience turns to worry . The food will not be enough and the people are too many . There are people who will die of hunger . Just then , there is commotion at the serving area . There is an old man at the front of the queue who refuses to leave even after he has been served his share . He is weak and frail and is asking for more food . The man serving tells him that they cannot give him any more food . The old man pleads , saying that his family is sick and they cannot come and queue up . It does not matter what the old man says after that , the serving man will not give him more . The policy is that they can only serve the people in queue . His family will have to come for themselves . If they gave everyone their family 's share then the food would have already been fin ¬ ished by now . There is so much pushing that the old man starts to get scared and moves away . There is panic at the back of the queue where Achola is . Word is circulating that the food is finished . The crowd starts pushing toward the truck and the security men have to hold them back . Achola is worried ; she is thinking about her moth ¬ er and her brother . The queue is getting shorter ; there is hope that everyone will get some food even if there is not much left . The beans are finished now and people are getting only flour . Achola is even more worried now ; her heart is beating very fast . There are only about twenty people in front of her . Surely she will get something to take home to her mother . At the very least she should get flour that she can use to make porridge . The serving stops all of a sudden . There is no more food and the people are told to leave and go home . Agatha promises to be back soon with more food . " I will come back as soon as I can " , she tells them without even looking at them . By now , Achola is realizing what is really happening and she starts to run after the truck . She is crying and mucus is flowing from her nose . The truck slows down and Agatha sees Achola from her window . She gestures to her driver to increase speed . She does not look back except once , when she sees Achola on her knees , searching for any remains on the ground where the men were serving . Achola is crying hysterically now . She can hardly see the few beans she is picking up . She has no food to take home . She is tired and depressed and afraid of going home . She stops at the swamp and sits . She looks around her , sees nothing but filth . Achola puts her head down . It is throbbing from the hot sun . She falls asleep and wakes when the sun is going down . She has to hurry back home . The government soldiers will be patrolling the camps and they do not like to see people walking about at night . They will not be happy with her and they have been known to lock up people who they think are spies , even if they happen to be little children . She tries to run , but her knee is throbbing even worse than it before . She can only walk with a limp and it is a long while before she actually reaches the camp . Achola hears moaning , it is not uncommon to see people moan in the camps . Somebody dies almost every day . The moaning increases as she approaches her family 's hut . She freezes . She drops the empty container and runs inside . People have gathered around and the hut is full . Achola pushes past them . She takes one look at the bundle of wrapped clothes in the middle of the room and she drops on her knees . Orach has died . Her mother sits motionless next to the body . She looks like she has been crying all day . Two women are sup ¬ porting her on either side . She looks up and sees Achola and holds out her hands to her . Achola walks straight into her mother 's arms and buries her head in her chest . She cannot help but cry . This time her mother does not answer . She is numb and she is staring at the bundle beside her . She is so weak that she can barely hold Achola in her arms anymore . The two women want her to rest and they take Achola away from her . Achola still wants to remain with her mother , but the women will not let her . One of them gestures to another person in the crowd to come and take her away . Her mother lies down slowly . She is too weak to cry , but anyone can see that she is mourning inside . In the camp , when someone dies , they do not hold long vigils because there is no food to feed everybody . So early the next day , Achola accompanies Orach to his final resting place along with a handful of other people from the camp . The burial ground is near the swamp at the edge of the camp ; the place where she always goes to think . Her mother is too weak to go and bury Orach . Achola believes that the death of her brother has made her mother even weaker . Achola lets her tears flow freely as she sees them lower Orach into the small hole which is to be his grave . He has lost so much weight that he looks like a 4 - year - old child . Achola buries her head in her palm . The next few days are very slow . The villagers have contributed a small amount of food . . Sometimes her mother refuses to eat . She tells Achola that she is not hungry . Achola knows that this is not true . . She does not want to let her only remaining child die of hunger . Soon all they have left is porridge . They share one cup a day between the two of them . By now the people in the big city have begun to worry about the people in the camps . It is on the news on every single TV and radio station in the country . Even those people who did not ever care about the war in the North are moved when they see the starving people . While everyone around her returns to their normal lives , Agatha is never the same again . She cannot get Achola out of her mind . Normally she is able to go to the camp and leave again without feeling a thing . She has never felt attached to anyone or let her emotions get in the way of her work . That day when she drove away from Achola has left her breaking inside . Seeing Achola on her knees scratching for food broke her heart . She knows that there is nothing that she could have done , yet she feels terrible . The whole journey back home she thought about that weeping girl on her bleeding knees . made her picture her own child begging for food . Agatha is worried that she will not find Achola alive the next time she goes to distribute food . She does not know whether there is still food in the stores to distribute anyway . There is a rumor going around the camp that the trucks will be back with food . It is almost three days since Achola has eaten the last porridge and she can barely stand up straight . Instead , she crawls on all fours just to get around the hut . She sits in a corner and puts her head in her palm . She feels so faint , almost like she is floating on air . Her mother coughs and turns on her side . She is breathing heavily and all Achola can do is stare in her direction . Her mother coughs again and stretches herself out . She breathes her last . Achola starts to cry . She cannot get rid of the lump in her throat . She is crying but no sound is coming out of her mouth . She starts to crawl slowly toward her mother . Her joints hurt . She cannot see clearly . The room is dark , but she knows that her mother is lying in the middle of the hut . She calls out to her ; no answer . It is almost dawn and Achola can hear the sound of the trucks . She thinks she is dreaming . She has now reached her mother and she lies down next to her . She is cold . She slowly closes her eyes and puts her hands around her mother . The trucks come to a stop and the food is off - loaded . This time there is enough food for everyone . The people are excited ; they do not fight to be at the front of the queue . They just stand where they can and slowly move forward . The serving goes on peacefully . Achola is helped to the feeding area by an elderly woman . They walk slowly , Achola almost being dragged along . Achola reaches the truck and falls on her knees . Agatha runs towards her and catches her just as she is about to collapse . Achola takes one look at Agatha and smiles as she tries to talk . She says slowly , " I am on time today … " Then she closes her eyes and lies limp in Agatha 's arms . Achiro Patricia Olwoch hails from Gulu , in Northern Uganda . She has written four books to date and is in the process of self - publishing her first book , A War Song . Achiro bases her writing on real life situations , but adds a twist of imag ¬ ination to each and every story . She writes because she would like to make a difference in her community through the different stories that she has to tell . Achiro has also written for film and the stage . One of these plays was produced on a radio show in Los Angeles . She presently writes freelance for In Kampala online magazine and bspirit , the SN Brussels inflight magazine . Most recently , Achiro 's was nominated onto the International Women Playwright Conference 's management committee . G . Edzordzi Agbozo is an MPhil English Linguistics and Language Acquisition student at NTNU . His poems appeared in Glass Warriors , ( 2012 ) , Euphemism , Department of English , Illinois State University , USA ( 2012 ) , Silent Voices , a poetic lifeline from Slavery to Love ( 2012 ) , The Premier Magazine , Volumes 6 ( 2009 ) , 7 ( 2010 ) , 8 ( 2011 ) , 10 ( 2013 ) and the Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace ( 2014 ) among others . He also performed poetry at the vigil night of the state funeral of the late President J . E . Atta Mills of Ghana ( 2012 ) among many other public poetry performances throughout Ghana . He also won the University of Ghana Community Excellence Awards ( Creative Arts Category ) in 2012 and was named in the long list of the Ghana Poetry Prize 2013 .