OTSOKRIKRI

We were in a Toyota saloon car, a lady friend of mine and I, returning from a meeting in New Ashongman. New Ashongman is an area in the Ga East Municipality of Ghana, West Africa. She was driving me to the main road to get a bus home. We were in a conversation. We talked about some matters, and the issue of excessive heat came up. We were in agreement that the heat was too much at that material time (March, 2017). When we were at the meeting it rained, and the main speaker then on the floor said that the rain was bringing a cool weather. However, no sooner had it stopped raining than the heat hit back. In the course of the conversation on the issue of excessive heat, my lady friend interjected the word “Otsokrikri”.

Otsokrikri is the Ga name for the month of March. Otsokrikri when broken into two parts gives one Otso and krikri. Otso means: you burn, and krikri denotes the intensity of the burning. This burning and its intensity relates to the sun. The interjection of my lady friend implies that March is the time when solar radiation is unusually intense to explain away the excessive heat. Yet we were agreed that the heat was still unusually unbearable as a global trend and issue. 2015 went down into history as the hottest year in history. Then came 2016 which was even hotter.

A reason for the trend we are experiencing is that manmade environment is steadily and progressively pushing the natural environment to its periphery. More concrete jungles are springing up, implying the replacement of vegetation. Some materials we use in creating the manmade environment retain heat, whilst the tree we cut could absorb sunlight in the process of photosynthesis.

Otsokrikri, just too much.