Got Lost Before?

This Monday turned out to be the most unplanned, annoying, fun-filled day. Just relax a bit; I’m going to let you on it in a little bit. It’s crazy, it’s big… You ready? Ohh come on calm down ok ok…I SAID calm. Ok just teasing you a little bit.

              It started all last week, no probably even the Friday when I ended this semester and she asked me whether I would be able to come meet her. Well, I would have just I hadn’t thought of it yet. Opps…my bad! She? She’s is my girlfriend…who else? Anyway, she even initially felt I would probably not want to come see her because of the distance but trust me with the experience I had on Monday, distance isn’t going to be a problem anymore, I’m damn sure of that!  Well she kept wanting me to come see her especially last week, she had moved to her Aunt’s place at Spintex, a little closer to where I’m staying. I live in Dansoman. (The places are tows in Accra, Ghana. – if you are familiar with Tema, Accra, Dansoman, Spintex places in Ghana, this one will thrill you but I promise it will be the same even if otherwise)

               I called my friend, Plange from school, we were what you call room-mates back in high school, and his birthday was Friday. He said he was going to have a little get- together of some few old pals back from school and some of his friends on this very Monday I was going to see Vida.

               Normal day, normal life on Monday: I had to go to the bank earlier to get some money to buy petrol for my car. You ever had the feeling before on the road that you were supposed to use one road especially but everything points to use another tough you don’t really know where you are going, and a bit confused with the directions given. I’m I making sense. Ok, I’m saying, that Vida, my girlfriend, was directing me to her Aunt’s place, right? And then with the directions she gave me pretty matched with what I already had in mind but was all wrong. You know what she said. I should pass by the Accra Mall and just follow the cars. You know where I ended up? In Tema! I hadn’t been there before, Tema I mean…but you know the signboards too I saw pretty much agreed with her direction and my assumptions, and went on the Tema motorway instead on going to my right to Spintex and you know the damn thing about motorways they are so long that you have to be driving at 100mph if you really want to get somewhere. Somehow I felt I was lost…when I had gone through three roundabouts instead of the just one she mentioned. I called her and I told her I was at VALCO roundabout and she told me to go a little forward to KPOGAS… Ok…a little revealed nothing like coming to KPOGAS, I called later to say I have ended up in some Presbyterian Church in Community One. Guess what she said, “ohhh Edwin you’re in Tema.” Darling please…as id I don’t see that written all over. “Wait, a sec. did you pass in front of Accra Mall or by the side.” Ohh I pass the front. “But I meant the side, I told you to follow the cars.” Now, tell me guys how the heck I’m I to think the when someone says passes by a building, you pass the side and not the front, the front is more logical, right…and ohh the cars in front of me were all going to Tema.

                  So I’m like, “ohh boy I’m going back home, that’s if I even find my way back.” Bida, goes like, “you’re going home.” I was so pissed that was so lost, and not that but soooooooo far away from where I had to go to. I mean if you get lost near where you are supposed to go meet someone, that’s ok but this was way off course.  The craziest thing too was I was coming back trying to get back to the Accra route and hey I seek, to Akosombo, and I was actually on the road…Jeeeeeeeeeees! I could take that being lost this far out but on the road to Akosombo, that’s hopeless. At least turning back abruptly through the traffic, a sign board led me out. You know what, an advice, always, always, look at those one too many signboards, IT HELPS!

                   Back on the motorway, I resolved anyway to go see her…I don’t like failing at anything when I can make t right…but that right didn’t come easy. It meant I had to top up the tank again. Yea sure, I mean come on! Tema-Accra…I had to get petrol again. If you in Ghana you would know that most people will consider Accra-Tema as travelling! Anyway, I managed to come down before I saw her in the long run and of course the road to her house was so shorter then Tema, certainly!

                  Seeing her, her lovely face and all that brought a sudden calmness…although she could be annoying and sweet as well…love that! She had redone her hair, now some light brown colour now (you know me and the hair)…she looked beautiful but she was always like that…nothing taken. Well after some time, she agreed to go with me to a friend’s party…Plange’s? remember? At least she met some of her old school mates. Party was small but was full of laughter and much talking from me and pictures, tons of food…still wish I could have finished what I was given. (I hate those things with parties, you just can’t eat a lot, your stomach miraculously is full though you know normally, you eat more than that ) In the long run the day was fun for me…I mean hey a day spent with friends is cool but Vida alone is incredible now add that to the equation of friends!

 

You know what being lost, now thinking about it was actually fun. I remember this guy who was selling in Tema, I asked him where KPOGAS was and he said, “not far from here, just go straight and it near ECOBANK” Dude I was lost in some place KPOGAS couldn’t have been…and mind who you ask for directions too, huh?

 

Lessons from the food

               I just finished eating and pounding some local Ghanaian dish, ‘fufu’. Actually I ate the food a few days back. I started this script with the first line and I had to abandon it. Well, sorry but I’m now having the time to write this. As if you do care. Don’t try to act all emotional with me. Okay fine! You want me to say it right? You are really going to make me say this? Well, off the record, if you didn’t care you won’t be here reading this. Did someone ever tell you that you never did care? Aaaah! Don’t let it bother you; they don’t know you well enough! Okay! Ok! Ok! Let’s go back to the well reason for writing this.

               For those foreigners to this food, I will give you a brief description of the way the food is. Fufu is a local dish of Ghana, my country. (Hmmmm I was somehow surprised when I went over to Cote D’Ivoire last year, the food was also eaten by them. Maybe it is a West African, but that’s not the point here I want to draw. Stick with me on this on again, keep your eyes on the letters and not the imagination of the food itself.

                  Well ‘fufu’ is made from boiled plantain and cassava, or boiled yam and cocoyam or boiled plantain and cocoyam. It can be mixed with any other two substances in the same category. Note that, usually the first listed mixture is the more popular. Hope you get the drift. Good!  For the purpose of our discussion (is this even a discussion? It’s me talking here. Surely it becomes I discussion if you comment) and what I ate that day I’m going to go with the more popular; plantain and cassava. After the cassava and plantain is boiled, it’s pounded. That’s where the main work is!

                  Process: The little cooked and cut plantain pieces are pounded in a wooden mortar (well maybe I could show you a picture one day) and the device use to do the pounding is called the pistil ( a long wooden stick which comes soft and flat at the end…I hope I can use you a picture too). So in case of the ‘fufu’ I ate we pounded the plantain first and then after the cassava. After that too we pounded both together to make the food soft and smooth. A delicacy which is eaten with soup; that day I ate with light soup. Yum-yum! Okay! What did I tell you; concentrate on the letters, not the food!

                    Now to the main reason I brought this thing up. You know there are two people that prepare this food. One does the pounding, usually the man, and the woman does the turning of the mixtures in the mortar whiles the pounding is going on. If you have seen this being done, you could get scared if you don’t know how the woman turning or stirring the mixture is able to dodge the heavy pistil that is driven into the mortar. All you could say then was probably that the woman is good, but it is rather an art.

                       I started pounding ‘fufu’ since I was 12. Trust me when I tell you that even now I get tired when pounding but experience over the years has made things easier a bit. You pound, you sweat, and you get tired. I recall an uncle of mine saying one day that he has stopped eating his favourite dish, ‘fufu’ because he doesn’t know why you have to get so tired when preparing it. All through since 12 I thought and I realized that the way the man gets tired in pounding , I’m so sure…in fact I know that he uses up all his energy and only gets the same percentage or less of the same energy replaces, never more! Maybe you could be deceived to think that the satisfaction from eating the delicacy gives so you so much more energy. Many people, who think they have eaten so much, end up sleeping right after eating. Bad habit! And energy wasted!

                          Lessons: I have already told you I started when I was 12. If you ever begin pounding ‘fufu’ you would discover bruises in your palm, at the ends of your fingers, but then you still continue, why? Surely because I know I’m going to eat something sweet at the end of your tiring work. Point of note I never finished pounding. How could you think I could? At 12 years I didn’t have the strength to continue moving the pistil up and down, up and down, boi! my dad had to finish it off. What I learned at that young age? In whatever trial and mountain in life, you are bound to get hurt at the beginning. You never get it easy at the beginning unless of course you never start. The Bible says it best; the latter is greater than the former. The man pounding, you remember is sweating, perspiring whiles hungry. You still have the same lesson of persevering through difficult times. The hungry man pounding his heart out on the food knows what he’s going to get at the end of his work. Who said, “He that shouldn’t work, shouldn’t eat?” I guess the Bible was right. In the long run it makes me think about another life value here; you have to have a goal. You have to set a target! Chances are if you don’t set your target and goal, your ‘fufu’ is not going to be pounded and that success you so much want in life will not be achieved. You know what the goal does to you? Just like the man who is pounding ‘fufu’ it motivates you to go on.

                    The last lesson I will touch on will be on trust. I told you that if you see the way the woman turns the mixture I our mortar, you will be scared, because of the way she manages to swerve the on-coming the pistil, and she does that steadily till she ends, not getting injured. That’s the virtue I learnt watching and pounding the fufu being made. You realize that if there’s no communication and trust between the woman and man the food will never will be made. I will leave that to you to make you own deduction.

Wow! All that from making a dish! No! Not just any dish, my favorite dish!

 

Retelling The French Voyage Pt. 1

                       I’m sitting here in the parlour downstairs – my aunt’s and uncle’s house in Abidjan watching some French comedy. You know, since I came here, honestly I have realized that the French people don’t make those nice movies like the Hulk, Spiderman, Stomp the Yard, and the other English thrilling movies. If they do show those movies, then it is dubbed in French voice. Jeeeeeeees, I don’t know why but like 80% of their programs are so boring. Well, you can’t blame me I miss the fun programs on Ghana television. You can’t blame me, home is home, right? Hahahh! I just laughed at some very stupid French comedy. I guess they do have something too.

 

                        Well, I have less than 48 hours to return back home after almost a year outside her. Okay! Right now I want to go through some Ivorian experience before I fly out. Where can I start from? Hmmmmm, someone said if you don’t know where to start, start from the beginning. So I guess the beginning will be how I got here. Well I came here first by bus, a government run service called STC. Since it was my first time, I was going to be an experience. I came with my Uncle, Isaac. Damn! The journey was so long.  I left the house at around 4am, the bus left at around 5am. You wouldn’t believe it but I got home to Abidjan around 8:30 pm. My buttocks was finished. Of course there were stops on the way but then it was my first time. All I had to resign myself to, was that probably my bus ride was less longer than for many others. You know I loved about the whole bus ride? The green scenery! I never had a chance to see all the way from Accra to Elubo and through to Abidjan. I saw it all, name it; water bodies, strange buildings, houses, languages, boy! I saw a lot in the long journey. I think once a while people should just take the bus ride to the nearest country. Boi! It is adventurous, but you know what? I will leave that to you to decide. Don’t say I didn’t tell you that you are missing on lots of things.

 

                       The language? Ohhhh! I know that’s was the main reason I chose to come here. The French language was another one! Yea, I did French back in school from Grade 2 to Grade 9 but that was a long time ago! Well I could remember the “ Bonjour” “Merci” and all the other small expressions. Jeeeeez but my French teacher was talking slowly, these people sure weren’t! Right in the bus, there were so many people who spoke French; others both French and English. Inside my own country I left like a stranger in the bus. Even my uncle called a friend of his in Abidjan on the way. Gosh! I didn’t understand anything. I tried! Who told you I didn’t! Like I said, my French teacher was talking slowly, besides all I needed back the in school was to learn what I had been taught and answer questions on it. Guess what? Final exams, I had an A. Here was I in the bus with bilingual and francophones and I didn’t know nothing! What the heck was I doing back in school then?

Yep! But trust me I had to make extra effort to understand and speak the language. Even now I am not perfect. I remember telling a friend of mine yesterday that I understand like 100% and speak like 80%. Those figures should even be reduced a bit. LOL.  Did you say why? I’m surprised at you. I have been here for less than a year, maybe 10 months at most and you think I know everything. It wasn’t like I came to school here to study French, nope! So everyday I learn something new. I remember the first time I went to church. Yep! You guessed it! It was a French church. How the heck was I going to understand was the preacher said? Before, it never crossed my mind; after all, my uncle spoke French. Unfortunately Isaac too was an usher, so he could never have time to translate. Well, I just decided in my mind to follow the crowd, though I would be seconds late on doing what they do. I just decided to sit there and pretend like I heard everything. Luckily, my uncle made some efforts. There was this girl being ushered in by my uncle and he asked her if she could speak English. She answered. “yes!” Wondering, my uncle asked if she could translate for someone. She didn’t answer she threw her right hand, asking who it was. My uncle pointed at me and somehow I smiled at her. Of course I had to. Then she refused. Well, asked my why? Maybe because I smiled too much. Probably I should have frown my face that day. Well, she later went to her seat and asked some other guy, much older than her, to translate for me. Well, so calmly the guy came to take his seat near me. I was glad at least I would be able to understand what the speaker was saying. The guy told me after sitting, “I’m Elvis.” Certainly I told him my name. Well he did translate. Not the perfect English, but Elvis was so far better than me compared to speaking someone’s language. He was French and he didn’t speak so perfect English, sometimes mixing a few tenses but he was good. I thought he had done so well to study English in a French country, unlike me who couldn’t make a clean conversation in French. Well he helped me, I helped him. Sometimes he corrected my mistakes in the French language, and me, his.

For the young woman who didn’t want to translate, I later learned her name was Stephanie. She was studying English in the university. She was just in her first year I heard. So the thing was she wasn’t so perfect, maybe couldn’t speak in a clean conversation like me. That’s one characteristic with the Ivorians I don’t really understand. They turn to laugh at a foreigner who makes a mistake in French, so even with the little English they knew they couldn’t speak. Why? Certainly, because they think the Anglophones will laugh at them. Those mocking would have discouraged me if it wasn’t for people other bilinguals and francophones who advised me. Like my Uncle said, “ I’m here to learn your language, I don’t care if you laugh at me, after all in the end, I know your language, and you don’t speak mine!” Well said uncle!

So I went from learning the small phrases, to the main two days a week of French lessons, one hour each day, with a very good French teacher normally called Tonton Pierre, I made it to where I am now, though still nowhere but somewhere.   You won’t believe I even lead a bible study meeting in French. Yeah!

 

                          The food? OMG! The second or so day I came here. I accompanied my uncle to go and buy some food. The call the food, “Atieke,” the main delicacy of the people. I remember watching when the food vendor was putting the food into a take-away. It looked like rice from afar. When I got closer, surely I thought I saw “Gari” – a local food in Ghana. If it was gari I was seeing, where was the stew or something in that category to go with it? All I saw the guy putting on the food was fish, that smelt so nice, and omg! Did the guy just sprinkled only green pepper on the food and hand it to us? Puzzled, I questioned my uncle as to what that was. He revealed that it was just like our gari back home.  With our gari, after deriving it from cassava, we fry it. But these people steam it with water. Well…I can’t deny the food was nice. When I was eating; I can recall the watch man, Jean, shouting that, “On mange ‘garba’ avec les mains” In translation, we eat garba with our hands, and I was using a spoon. (don’t get confused, I know I said atieke, now I’m saying garba. Well in a raw state, it is called atieke. When it is prepared by the men, with just their green pepper, it is called garba; amazing many people prefer that, to the nutritious one made by women with more vegetables and stew, which still retains the name atieke.) Get it now I hope! There are other foods, but lets stop on this, at least that’s the main diet of the people. I recall some people telling me that Ghana isn’t a nice place. Why? Because there’s no atieke. Yeah right!

 

Adom the graced #2

If you have read the first script on my cousin, I told you I will fill you in more on stuff on the amazing stories on her. I remember so many people telling me that all I just wrote on her was mainly about her hair. I wonder what people are going to say this time.

Well you by now, you will already now, I’m in Abidjan staying with her, though I will be leaving back to Ghana in a few days. Now back to her.

She has been my closest friend yet still a family relative in this country I found myself in. I recall one time during the beginning part of this year; I told her she is my sister. Guess what she said? “No! We are only cousins, not friends” She said that laughing. I remember her elder sister also making the comment one time, when she said I was kind of like, in her own language, bothering her. She said making those female hand gestures, “you and Adom (the woman in question) are friends, but you and I, are family!” I just stood there stunned. Maybe it was true but I have never really taken the thought like that before. But then come on folks! We were all cousins! Why the distinction? (I didn’t ask you for an answer; I know! )

Adom, my cousin, sister and friend… of course she’s a growing teenager with all those moods swings, which is very interesting to oversee… I prefer to call her woman, not a girl! In the long run she’s going to be one, if not already! Going back a little into time, I know I have really been worrying her. How do I know? She always tells me, but apparently she tells that to almost everyone, I bet you will be on that list soon!

Well it was this one day as always when I asked her to make some food for me, being as polite as always. Oh my God! You know what she told me, “ Go and prepare it yourself.”

“Ohhh!” I can see you almost saying that! I told her that I could but I just wanted her to prepare it for me. Shocked to the core when she told me, “then you aren’t hungry!” So unfair, you think? No! Because in the end I still got my food, she prepared it! Most at times when she is doing stuff for me, mainly cooking, she tells me, she isn’t going to do it the way I like it and she is going to add all those things I detest. You know how times our sisters get and with Adom, there no difference. It makes you kind of want to get close to her and when you do get close to her she says, “Don’t touch me!”

Hmmmm, with the don’t touch me issue. I mean what’s wrong with touching your sister’s hand, is there a problem. Sometimes I think it is one of those stages of teen years because my biological sister, Edwina is just like that. “Don’t touch me! It is not for you!” The latter part of the statement firstly sends me into a laughing jamboree but then when the show is over. I ask her, in this context Adom, “Me, your brother I can’t even touch you and then someone who at this moment we don’t even know, can! Hey… I mean you have a sister, have you ever had the moment with her before (if you are a brother). The whole little things with your siblings can blow your mind off.

 

The Ant’s Strength

If you are a Bible person or a Christian, you may think you already know what I’m going to talk about. Okay pal! I’m know about the ant’s wisdom in preparation and leadership, but this time we going to revisit the insect, so small yet full of wisdom.

The principle here is simple: have you seen an ant ever gathering food before, across your wall, or some place else? I’m sure you have. If you haven’t go check your kitchen, as neat as it is you will still find one “hunter ant” searching for food. If you have seen ants carrying food before, you would have notice that: the ant most of the time, if not all the time carries stuff bigger than it. Yeah! What are you waiting for? That’s the principle.

When the knowledge dropped in me I realized something about us humans. Yes! You reading this script right now, I’m talking to you. So many times, in our lives we comes face to face with obstacles, trials, temptations, mountains bigger than us, however we want to describe it in other words. When these difficult times come what do we do? Do we blame God for allowing it to happen to you? Do you blame your father or mother? Do you blame your friends? Maybe your teacher even, for not teaching you well enough? Look face reality, things happen all the time, if you haven’t face a difficult time before, then maybe we should check the death records if you are dead (just kidding); but then what’s important is that we have to come out of it. Yeah so why did I bring the ant into all this at all?

That little creature faces the toughest challenge of its life trying to gather food, thinking of it how much do you suffer to bring food in? The food falls but the ant picks it up, putting the heavy stuff on its back once again, shifting it slightly, and changing its style. It never gives up! If it feels it can’t go on, if goes in for help, and a string of ants come and start breaking the stuff into bits. They never leave it there; they take it all in, little by little until they are done. As soon as they are done, they go searching for the next big pile.

I look at this little creature much bigger than we men, but its courage, strength, and not-giving up character is much bigger than our understanding. Hey! Doesn’t it just push you to move on? To go pass the so called THING that’s stopping you? Look at the mountain before you, my friend, you better start climbing it. You may think because you are single mother and moving in between jobs, you can’t take care of all those children. No! My mum, you can, like the ant piece by piece little by little, you can bring it all in. That difficult time you are facing can’t move if you don’t move it. If our friend, the ant doesn’t move the large chunk of stuff, it will never move. My father, my brother, my mother, my friend, my sister, start moving that load, walking over that mountain, and fighting back. Think about how to move on and MOVE! Stop staring at that load and fight on, it may seem difficult, a very heavy load, it may even fall, but like the ant, pick it up again and change how you carry it. If you can’t any longer, don’t give up, call me from your next door I will help you hull it in.

Little be little, piece by piece, you can hull it all in. You will be over that mountain. That difficult time will later turn to be a stepping stone for another person when you are telling it to another A moment you will smile over, because it made you stronger. Don’t give up! There’s more ahead! I have a saying that, “It’s never impossible; it’s just that you don’t know how-to, yet!” Now you know, take the principle from the ant, “HULL IT ALL IN!”

 

Canteen – Not for food!

I was just thinking about my day; reflecting. You know something special that happens all the time. My mind, straying in my thoughts fell on one part of the canteen where I work. All of a sudden, you will think I’m a chef, but that’s not it. Specifically I write down the name of the students who have bought meals cards in the office, and then I make sure they don’t overspend the already paid money per day by their parents. Trust me, it is not as easy as it sounds, and that’s just one part of my day’s work.

I don’t want to talk about the students and what they eat and all. Let’s just shift the focus to the workers there. Ok there are four workers there, all women. First is one old woman, called by the workers “Auntie”, not the way you know how to pronounce it, maybe I’ll show you some other time. She is the eldest of all those working there. She from my country just like the three, but have been here for some time so they speak French too, but we always speak our local dialect, she isn’t too much into English. The next eldest woman is the woman we called Aunt Araba; amazing today was the first time I noticed my uncle calling her Aunt Afua. Well, she a little older, maybe in her middle 50’s. Unfortunately she just lost her 30 year old daughter in some horrible situation, so she has become a little quiet now! But she is a very nice person nonetheless, just like all of them; we have occasionally quarrels about some other workers in the canteen, sometimes she against me, most times for me! There are also two others, strangely almost the same height, both short, the youngest of the others. I honestly don’t know the ages between them, so I’ll start with the one that calls the other mother, who is Dorcas. She just like my mother, I take her as one. I remember when this years mother day, I gave her something as a token of the love she has shown to me. Besides my biological mother as far away in Ghana, and she herself told me before coming, that in life we meet other mothers, and so we should acknowledge them as such! And so here is the woman, I call mother. She’s has so much energy! I remember one time teasing her and saying, “You don’t ever get tired!” I knew she was so tired that day, but then she laughed, “So you mean I don’t get tired?” in our local dialect. That day she told me all her story, I was stunned, I guess I really didn’t know my mother well then, she had been through a lot! A whole lot! But yeah she walks around, ding her daily work as if nothing has happened to her, amazing! She controls the canteen and all that happens there. Some call her the matron. I think it is true, though she denies the “title” though we laughs over the title al the time.

And there’s Mary, the youngest I’ll say. She has some character, maybe because she doesn’t know my age. She is older than me for sure, she’s the kind of person that will get you smiling because she asked you to do something and later, she tells you are so rude for everything you do. She’s a bit, what I can say irritating, but it doesn’t matter, I can handle it. We always quarrel a little over useless matters. Today for instance, she gave me her CD to burn some music for her, told her I’m going to keep them and not return them. That became a big argument! Then I go like, “Hey learn how to talk gently.” She says nothing and smiles, but she has taken it in. But trust me, few seconds later you will see her going about the same shouting of things that don’t matter. One time she told me, I like worrying her too much, what an irony?

Thing is, wherever you are, you just got to love the people for who you are with. Live and share the love!

Amazes me! We went to the canteen in this script but not for food! I don’t believe it! How did we miss the food?