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Every show has a side-show. But some side-shows have the potential to take over and become the main show. Take the case of tourism. Ghana sets out on a lofty mission to promote tourism because we are richly endowed with all these fine things we desire to eagerly show off to the world and make some good cash while doing so. This year, we are even lucky to have been selected as the country host of World Tourism Day! Oh, Ghana is beautiful oh! Then, the tourists arrive! In this century, they are more likely to enter through the Kotoka International Airport, clutching on to the tourists weapon of choice: the camera. Their welcome? Forget the welcome signs. An all-star line-up of young people, holding what would be in the eyes of the new arrivals, bizarre items, giving hot chases after moving vehicles in the hot tropical sun, to exchange their wares for petty cash. First impressions, they say, are very important. Every city, town and village in Ghana has a hawking corridor where everyday, young people risk their lives in pursuit of petty cash which do not constitute an investment into their future. Two critical assignments for hawkers and non-hawkers alike, but especially for decision makers. Take note of all hawking corridors around you. Also, develop the habit of counting hawkers, taking note of what they sell, how they sell (the dangers, desperation, and tiredness), when they sell (peak and low times) as well as the crowding/over-crowding at certain points in the hawking corridors. Last week, I actually set out to count youth street hawkers in two corridors during the late morning (9-10 am). While driving and flowing with the speed of traffic, without stopping, I counted 489 in just one hour ten minutes. At several points enduring my self-inflicted assignment, I missed some of the hawkers behind and between other moving vehicles. But this week, during a busy drive through a short hawking corridor, what I had all along considered a minor road as hawking goes, I hurriedly counted fifty plus youth hawkers in less than ten minutes. I imagine that if all youth hawkers are counted between the morning hours of 7 and 10 and evening hours after close of work between 4:30 and 7 pm, with all roads leading to and from the business district of Accra from Teshie/Nungua, Adenta/Madina, Mamprobi/Korle Bu, Kaneshie/Busiashie, Kasoa and all the other road arteries, we would have mind-boggling figures. I dare say that thousands will be counted in just one day. Add Kumasi. Add Sekondi/Takoradi. Add Tema. Add Tamale��.. Local NGOs throughout the country, in collaboration with the decentralized assemblies (Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies), should take up this task of going on youth hawkers� counting swoops so we can get a grasp of this troubling phenomenon � of the thousands of young people who are mortgaging their future just so they can make petty cash today while risking their lives today. By that, the future of this country is also being mortgaged, making nonsense of our half a century old political independence. These are what the tourists see, first and foremost, before they head off to the so-called �tourist destinations� of unpredictable beach-front step-over free-range droppings, the water-falls and the gorgeous mountains. And then, the tourists interact with all the hospitable folks of the land of our birth. And, most of all, they snap pictures � first, the mental pictures which become glued to memory, and then the photographs which mostly remain digital and can be pasted on the Internet forever, into eternity. By such photographs, our unenviable position as a Third World country is entrenched. In recent weeks, there have been talks about branding Ghana. The increasing number of young people hawking on our streets will be a factor in brand Ghana. Their bold presence on our streets defies being painted over even by the largest branding paint brushes ever invented. A freshly white-washed grave contains rottenness! In refugee jargon, most youth hawkers can qualify as �internally displaced persons,� displaced in their own land with dreams aborted and/or deferred. But there is something gallant about children; about youthfulness. Even despite their regrettable station in life, youth hawkers manage to hold up cheerful faces and smile at their customers, probably more at tourists than hard-crusted locals. There are two schools of thought about whether we should patronize the wares of street hawkers. The first argument rests on an avoidance strategy: that buying from them only encourages them to return to the streets because they view hawking as a great opportunity. The second school of thought holds that buyers should keep hawkers busy and productive or else they�ll constitute a band of night visitors to rob and share the possessions of the privileged. I buy from them because I admire their entrepreneurial spirit. Here is the part of the matter of the youth hawking phenomenon which makes my skin crawl. No children of the movers and shakers of our society are likely to be on the streets (unless that child is the product of a contested or unclaimed pregnancy � in the case of the male �movers and shakers� of society). The other matter that bothers me because it makes absolutely no sense is that the leaders of our society are well-travelled people. They have seen, and know what is good and sensible. I digress: Interestingly, there appears to be a gender dimension to items sold by street hawkers. I�ve observed that �pure water�, �bofrot�, plantain chips and peeled/sliced pawpaw and sugar cane are sold mostly by girls. I can�t help but wonder: was there ever a meeting of some sort to discuss and agree that, �hey, girls should not sell wallets! They are reserved for boys.� Or, did the youth hawkers agree one morning before brisk sales began, �boys should not sell bofrot. It�s not manly enough!� �Selling bofrot might negatively impact on manhood. This is just a deep thought. Now, about a nagging problem of mine. What are the toileting habits of youth hawkers? When they have to go (as we all have to go at some point during the day when nature calls urgently, either for the soft or the solid), where do they go? Our sanitation problem will remain unsolved if this nagging national problem of streetism is not solved. We are breeding a generation of hawkers, hucksters and peddlers. As a country, we must answer the youth question, once and for all. That�s the only way we can truly set out on the path of Independence. Just having the right to cast a vote every four years is a mockery of independence. By the 55th anniversary of Ghana�s Independence, this story should be told differently. That is only two years and six months away. Yes, we can do it and save this country from the mockery of tourist stares; and mostly importantly, do right by our youth, our future.