A very dear friend of mine has told me often that everything we do in this world is ultimately for selfish reasons - that there is nothing that we do out of pure selflessness. As far as I am concerned we have not arrived at a conclusion on the subject.
A series of events that took place last Tuesday, December 23 brought this matter to the fore of my mind and I am yet to discuss them with my "selfishness theorist." That morning I was on my way to the village where I work, when I was slowed down by a road accident involving two articulated dump trucks carrying freshly excavated sand, and a taxi which had landed on its tires in a ditch.
As I passed slowly by I realised no one was dead or bleeding and all the drivers around seemed to have things under control. So, I decided to continue with my journey. However, a second thought made me turn the old Ford truck around to go find out what I could do to help.
This one change of plans led to the following: I took one of the passengers to the clinic at Senya-Bereku because her right hip was acting up and walking had become painful, got her some breakfast so she could take her meds, took her home to return the large basin of fish she had been taking to the market, and took her to Winneba Hospital to get an X-ray.
Now, at Winneba, I also got to renew the roadworthy certificate of the old truck. I had tried to do it in Accra the day before and thanks to the usual city traffic and the fact that it was close to the holiday season, DVLA had decided to close its gates to me at 3.00PM!
My accident victim did not mind waiting for a few more minutes while I got the checks on the vehicle done and couldn't stop thanking me when I brought her back home to Senya-Bereku with the knowledge that none of her hip bones had been broken, and that she was just terribly sore from the impact.
What an interesting turn of events. Support for "selfishness theory"?
DVLA = Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority
