Fizzled football dreams of talented Cecilia

It was a sunny and busy Saturday in Ghana’s capital, Accra, where most people travel to their various destinations by means of public transport popularly known as “Trotro”.

As one of the country’s affordable means of public transport, these privately-owned vehicles mostly with males as conductors fuelling the notion that it was a male dominated terrain.

At the Osu-Labadi trotro station at Kaneshie, the situation was no different when several male conductors were calling out passengers to fill up their buses. I was however attracted to a particular Nissan bus owned by Mr Samuel Ahiakpor ,with a female conductor. He later told The Mirror that she had served him for over a year.

Female conductor

I decided to ride with the Nissan bus as the last passenger and engaged the female conductor in a conversation which I marvelled at her narration.

Miss Cecilia Mensah, a 23 year old junior high school (JHS) dropout, who lived in Kumasi in the Ashanti region till she was 12 years, recounted how she had to relinquish her dream of becoming a footballer due to financial demands.

According to her, it was her dream to become one of the country’s best female footballers, but that dream was cut short when her mother’s daily wages at a kenkey house could not cater for the family.

“I ran away from home at age 12 in search of my mother. My mates in school kept telling me the man I lived with was not my real father, I was tired of the name calling and needed answers.

“It was a difficult time for me as I helped my family to cater for my other siblings by engaging in menial jobs,” she recounted emotionally.

Ladies club

Through her cousin, she met her mother in Accra who was unable to afford her JHS fees . Cecilia however decided to join the Samira Ladies Football Club to train with them.

“I felt joining the club would help me support my mother but it wasn’t the case, that’s when I decided to enter this bus conducting business,” she added.

She described herself as a great defender who was often praised by the coach during her five years of playing for the club.

Suddenly, that excitement faded away when she began to share her two-year experience as a bus conductor.

“I had some male friends who introduced me to this business where I would be paid on a daily basis because the football club was not helping me financially,” she said.

Experiences

Cecilia revealed how she was sexually harassed by the first driver she worked with. It was a very difficult moment for her but she had to quit the job after it became unbearable.

“My master asked me to sleep with him, he was married with kids, I didn’t see how I could sleep with a married man. One day, he asked me to bring his food to his bedroom but I left it on his table and never returned,” she recounted.

Her experience as a bus conductor in the first six months was scary, but she needed to support her family and after some time she found another driver to work with.

Cecilia described her new driver as a good man who has helped to take care of her family since commencing work with him.

“I hardly make much in a day. I have to do three rounds with my master.

I usually get GH¢30 or GH¢35 out of which I take GH¢6 and give the rest to my mother for my siblings,” she said.

Football dream

Despite being out of football for a long time, Cecilia continues to have a soft spot for the sport she cherishes so much. However, her current situation has influenced her decision to learn how to drive in order to transport passengers to their destinations one day.

“It was difficult in the beginning, having to wake up at 3 am to join my master at Kasoa. We work till about 12 mid-night, and my son doesn’t see me till Sunday.”

“There are times we sleep in the bus along the road till the next day just because our vehicle developed a fault.”

She was however looking forward to going back into football if she could secure funding for her upkeep.