I feel the earth move under my feet...

I’m quite sure all of you are more than familiar with the terrible earthquake that occurred in Haiti. Heck, if I know about it in Ghana I am sure everyone in the whole world knows about it. The Ghanaians heard about it all right. And for some reason, someone decided that Ghana was next on the earthquake hit list. A mass panic started one particular night (a few weeks ago now) that the earthquake was coming to Ghana that night. And in some places, it wasn’t an earthquake but some form of explosion that was imminent. During the middle of the night, the house parents here were getting phone calls from people telling them they had to get their children out of the house. In town, families were waking up to knocks on their doors to get out of the house. Whole communities didn’t sleep all night for fear of the impending disaster. Many sat around and listened to the radio waiting for some news. From some reports, apparently some people went so far as to claim the earthquake had hit Accra and various small towns between here and Accra and that it was headed our way. The whole panic was spread by mobile phones-no radio or tv report ever spread the story, and yet everyone across the entire nation heard that some tragedy was coming. All while I slept unaware of the mass hysteria sweeping the country. When I woke up at 4:30 to go jogging with the house parents I noticed in Fetteh that many of the people were awake earlier than usual and listening to their radio, but didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until I arrived at school that I learned about the whole situation. The director, Fred Asare, was receiving phone calls all night long from concerned individuals begging him to evacuate all the guests and children. I found it quite amusing the next day to learn about the sleepless night due to the unfounded rumors about earthquakes in Ghana.