I know the title sounds unbelievable but I’m not kidding banku (a Ghanaian local dish) showed me how to be humble, not that I’m a proud person. No! Far from it. I learnt something more about being humble to people younger than you. Those who know me will probably tell you that they see as a humble person but this local dish taught me some lesson I’ll never forget about humility. Stick with me I’ll show.
In the family I’m raised in, it’s made up of me, being the eldest child and son, my cousin Ben who has been with us since when was seven, my two younger sisters and of course, the parents. In my house everyone knows how to cook by age 12 and I mean COOK. Yeah! My mom made a habit of getting us to the kitchen and giving us instructions about how to prepare the food and then she’d leave. She would always tell us the story of her big brother who went abroad and called then and said, ‘he wished he had studied how to cook.” I remember cooking as young as 12-13. When I usually tell ladies that I cook, they are go like, ‘Yeah right?!” I don’t know why it is so hard to believe. Just come and live in my house for three days and I bet you momma will get you cooking things. 
It has always been a bone of contention as to who’s the best cook in the house among the children. We all knew the same recipe from momma so it was really hard to tell who was. So as time went on, we’d measure it by the one who knows how to prepare different foods that the rest didn’t know how to. My cousin, Ben had always been blabbering about me being the best in academics and computers but he claimed he was the best chef in the house. Well you couldn’t fight it he was the one who knew how to prepare a particular dish I hadn’t learnt how to yet. Ben lived with our grand-ma for some time and she showed him how, my mother hadn’t taught us yet for one reason or the either. So yeah when you always went outside the house and learnt a new recipe and it was good. You classified yourself as best. Yep Banku! But before I get there I have to tell you something. As an individual I hate it when people say I can’t do something. I hated when he always said he was the best chef and I go like, “okay on what criterion?” Then he could ask, “do you know how to prepare Banku?” Then I replied loudly, “that’s the only dish you are basing it on” and he would smile and say, “well yeah but you don’t know how to either” and of course I didn’t but my pride took the challenge on.
My mom had asked someone to prepare Banku for the evening’s dinner and got up and went to try it and oh my God! I made a mess of things. But even in the mess, I thought it will all get okay. Apparently I had put too much water in the mixture and so it wasn’t getting hard. It became like porridge. I remember Ben woke up and when he saw it, he said, “it will never get hard!” but I was resistant and said it would. And he left. After ten more minutes the mixture just wasn’t getting hard enough to be called Banku so I called him, “Charle! The banku isn’t getting hard oh.” I had to finish. I was running late, my parents were bound to get back any time soon and that thing still looked like porridge. He came and told that the same thing happened when he started the first time, he had put too much water in it and grand-ma shouted at him but should how to correct it later. So I watched him put more of the raw corn dough into the mixture on fire. I just watch this younger cousin of mine teach me how to do this thing. I was so made humbled by the experience. Here I was, being a little proud about doing something hadn’t taken time to learn and my cousin teaching me how to. I don’t know if you understand but if you know this cousin of mine, he in a way looks up to me and some of the decisions I make mainly because I’m older than him, so me now having to learn from him was new but humbling. I know it made his head swell but I didn’t care. I learnt a lifelong lesson. It doesn’t matter who the person is before you whether he’s 7 or 70 years you’ve got to be humble. Humility doesn’t mean looking down on yourself. It means there are certain things you don’t know in this life, you have flaws but you are willingly to learn from whoever teaches you whether he’s 7 or 70.
Guess what? Just two days ago, we ate Banku and guess who prepared it. yeah Me! Ben wasn’t even there to eat some. Before he came home it was all gone. Yea you might think that now Ben and I probably know how to do all the same dishes but I know he still taught me how to make this very one. In my life and in cooking somewhat, I have taught Ben certain things about certain dishes and different things but I don’t think I can ever compare it to the value I learnt from him. And Yeah…I was humbled by banku.
