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Mu Chen
Student @ University of Abuja
Student @ University of Abuja
FACELESS: THE FACES BEHIND THE STREET
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yesterday, I left Faceless at the point where the streets were beginning to feel less like a setting and more like a character.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Now, the people begin to speak.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Amma Darko's Faceless is about 236 pages in the Sub-Saharan Publishers edition, spread across 25 chapters.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">But the number of pages doesn't really prepare you for how much life is packed into them.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">There is Fofo.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">There is Baby T.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">There is Maa Tsuru.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">There is Kabria.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And then there are the countless children whose names barely matter to the people passing them on the street.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">One moment that stayed with me is the conversation surrounding Baby T's death. Fofo struggles to understand how everything could have reached that point, asking:</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>“So Baby T is dead?”</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">It is such a simple question.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">But sometimes a simple question carries an entire world inside it.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Because behind that question is a sister trying to understand how someone she knew could suddenly become a body people were talking about.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And that is where Faceless begins to hurt differently.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The book is not only asking us to look at street children.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">It is asking us to look at what happens before a child reaches the street.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The home.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The parents.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The choices.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The neglect.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The people who knew something was wrong.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The people who could have intervened.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And perhaps the people who thought someone else would.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Even the police response to the discovery of bodies carries a disturbing coldness. In one scene, the attitude is reduced to the words:</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>“Bodies are found at all kinds of places…”</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">A sentence like that can pass quickly while reading.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">But pause there.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">What happens to a society when a dead person's identity becomes less important than the fact that another body has simply been found?</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Maybe this is why the title Faceless feels bigger than one person.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">A face gives someone identity.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">A face makes you stop.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">A face makes a stranger become somebody.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And when that face is destroyed, forgotten, ignored or never properly seen in the first place, perhaps the person becomes easier for society to overlook.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">I am still reading.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And there is still much more behind Fofo's story than what I have said here.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Maybe the next part should finally ask the uncomfortable question:</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>What really happened to Baby T?</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; ">And more importantly...</p><p style="text-align: justify; "><br/></p><p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Who was responsible?</strong></p>
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