My Life on Mars

Lately I have been thinking a lot about life on Mars.

All Mars photos courtesy NASA

Not the possibility of some semi-petrified microbial remnant, trapped in ice or rock. But about real humans — Earthlings — eking out an existence in a hostile, impossible environment. I found myself on line looking up lists of great science fiction movies and thinking of a pair of movies that came out back to back a decade ago: Red Planet and Mission to Mars. 

But I’ve also caught myself thinking of Sinclair Ross’s book, As For Me and My House. 

What’s the connection? 

Dust. Lots of dust. 

In Ross’s book, set in the dust bowl, Mrs. Bentley watches the prairie dust build up against the windowpanes, like snow. And the increased accumulation is visible, measurable in real time. 

For decades, movie astronauts that found themselves on the red planet battled small, giant, or dead Martians. But in more recent fair, they also battle with dust: desiccated, powdered matter. Dust becomes the true enemy, seeping into equipment essential to sustaining life and returning to Earth. 

Like Mrs. Bentley I can watch the dust grow around me. I sweep my desk clean in the morning and by noon leave trails in the new dust as my fingers move across the surface.

And while my computer certainly is not as important as one on Mars would be, I have experienced dust related malfunctions. 

A year ago I was warned the disk drive in it would soon be dead from a two-fold attack. Dust gets into moving parts that literally grind to a halt and it also forms opaque layers on optical readers. So far, the disk drive is hanging in, but other ports have filled with dust, causing temporary malfunctions. 

The power supply, USB devices and the headphones have all failed of late. 

Like my computer, my nose, eyes, and ears have all failed as well.

It has not rained in over a month. And probably won't for another month. I've indicated in previous posts, there is not a lot of grass or other vegetation in our neighbourhood. The roads, the paths, empty lots, many yards are bare Ghanaian red soil. I pad around the neighbourhood on soft red dust.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a real desert country — in the Sahara, not two countries down wind from it. Tens of millions of people do; millions of Ghanaians grow up with this dust, and deal with it on a daily basis. The means of coping are everywhere, and probably largely unconsidered by Ghanaians. As dealing with snow is just something Canadians do.

At dawn each morning I hear the neighbours sweeping the walks and driveways. The family in my boy's quarters also follows this dawn ritual. And on our morning walk, the dust in front of shops has been neatly swept, always in a herring bone pattern. Paint brushes are sold in great quantities in shops and by street vendors throughout the city. Most are not used for painting. Instead, every taxi driver has one out at every red light, dusting the dashboard of the car. The slats on my windows, and the sills below, require regular micro-sweeping.

This is Ghana's winter, dry and unforgiving. I've grown up and lived in one of the most water abundant patches of the planet. What would it be like to live in a real desert?

Ghana

Mars

Or, what it would be like to colonize Mars?