Minced Musings – 1 May 2013

The good thing about being a politician in Africa is that you can always blame someone for your woes and non-performance: your predecessor, the past government, your detractors, the opposition, witches, the weather, imperialists, enemy forces, the ineffective civil service, the West, EU, neo-colonialists…the list and probable ‘enemies of your progress’ are endless. As long as you can blame, you will be fine. And, oh, you can also blame the electorate for voting you into office and giving you such an onerous task.

 

In the end, the blame goes back to the electorate, the common citizen, who is called upon to do more to make the politician more effective. To pay him more, to make worthwhile his sacrifice of leaving his lucrative and better paying job to serve the citizen.

 

As long as there is someone to blame, there is no problem.

 

With this backdrop, the art of promise making is fundamentally akin to shooting at the stars with arrows. If the target is not hit, blame the wind. Or the arrow, which maybe was under-weight. Or perhaps the bow that was used was tampered with by the opposing side.

 

Deadlines are put on wheels and made as mobile as possible. Promises are repeatable, new every month or at most every election.

 

Sadly, the politicians are not alone in this. The majority of us sing their tunes and hail them in this circus of dancing around the burning bush. Did the elders not say that he who gets a bad haircut should be blamed as well for not speaking during the barbering process? Oh, sorry, the citizen just got the blame again. But this is deserved.

 

Unless we wake up and demand more accountability, unless we challenge the words we are fed and question when told a harbour will be built in Obo Kwahu, until we come to the point where we vigorously upgrade our expectations of the performance of our political leaders, we will continue to be fed crumbs. And we will eventually be blamed for not asking for it to be at least mixed with peanuts.

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Eko Encounters: Motions In Mushin

31 August 2012

Last day for the family, who have been on their first Eko holiday. It has been a busy period still at work so I hadn’t had a lot of free time, but I believe the best of it for the children was that they got to see me daily, again. The boys have now started referring to ‘when Daddy used to stay with us’ when they recalled some past happenings. Food for thought for me.

So today I decided to leave early. ‘Early’ for a railway worker (my former boss’ description for technical/factory managers) like me means around 5pm, which again translates into 5-5.30-6pm, as I explained to my friend Hannah. But just as I was about to leave the office, Sam, my QA supervisor reminded me that we had planned to visit one of our colleagues who had been hospitalised. I take my promises seriously.

The address given was on Omowunmi Street, Phase 1, Behind Zone D Police Station, off Alafia Street, Mushin.

Neither Sam or Nasiru knew the exact place but armed with this, we quickly found the street and then in a matter of minutes, located the house number and our colleague, who was really happy to see us.

The neighbourhood reminded me of my growing up days in Kotobabi. But what is different in that even in the midst of narrow streets and alleys, street naming and house numbering works in Eko. I still can’t understand why even in the most urbanised parts of central Accra, a awake seller’s absence can jeopardised the directions one is given. The bearded slangburger who is in charge of Ama’s household, just as his predecessors, has failed to deliver the most needed street naming project for Accra.

Readers of Eko Encounters know that the okada and its ways is my pet subject, but today, the damfo (commercial mini buses, akin to trotros) won the day.

In the ever-present traffic, with the two lanes of vehicles going in opposite directions almost touching, such that I could reach out of my windows to kiss a passenger in the car on my left, the slim space taken by a one logologo line of okadas, a damfo stops abruptly on our left. The driver was alone in the mini bus. Quite unusual. Maybe he had closed for the day?

Immediately, the damfo behind him tried to push the faulty bus with its bumper. Reverse towing? The driver of the faulty damfo got down, opened his boot, takes out a stick to hold the tail door in opened position…

‘What is he doing?’ I asked my ever faithful Nasiru.

‘He wants to put fuel in the carburettor so that when they push it, the car can start,’ Nasiru responded, not missing a beat.

All of a sudden, other drivers surrounded him. There was no way they were going to allow him that luxury of time to tend to his car in that hold-up. About five good Samaritan folks, with interest in packing the man’s problem aside, came around and asked him to sit so they push. The other damfo driver got the cue, tucked the bumper of his bus against the back of the faulty one, stepped on the gas and started pushing! Away bus!

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Empower Series 65: The Power Behind The Platform Performance

In mid August 2012, I visited my old time friend Fafa Asiedu-Dartey. Amongst the many things we had to catch up on, we got to talking about the facilitation of the management retreat of a leading financial institution in Ghana that I had just done the previous day. I had actually come to Accra for that, from Lagos, and was returning to base that evening. Actually, this was the second such role I was playing in a matter of three months, the first instance also for a leading bank in Ghana.

Fafa asked me when it all started, and how I had become such a resource. A pause, and I responded that it started way back from the first major talk I gave in Ghana National, perhaps in 1993. Now I can’t remember which club, society or church group invited me, but I was in Upper Six and it took place in the assembly hall. I have always been a collector of quotations and anecdotes, and I recall that the speech was full of them. It turned out to be disjointed and I could feel that my audience didn’t have any attachment with what I was sharing with them. I wasn’t sharing my experience, I was just reciting what others thought. I still have that picture in my mind. I am certain that it was that day I learnt that the best speech or sermon is one that infuses one’s own experiences.

Reflecting further after my chat with Fafa, I realised that actually I didn’t give her the right answer. The starting point was earlier.

I was a quiet reserved guy right up to form five, who loved to stay in the background more than infront. Though I had some responsibilities as class prefect in preparatory school and as dormitory monitor in during O Levels, I remained mostly shy and afraid of speaking before large people.

I continued to sixth form in Ghanacoll, and was active in the Scripture Union as I had been always. The time came for appointment of SU officers and our patron Mr Gordon Egyir-Croffect called me to his office. The news he gave me surprised and frightened me: they wanted to appoint me as the Secretary and Financial Secretary for our SU. Me? Thinking back, I don’t know how Croffectus was able to convince me. One position was scary enough, and the most challenging was not the Financial Secretary role, which was a support, in-the-background sort of role. The Secretary was responsible for taking minutes when the Executive met (I honed my writing here) but that wasn’t the toughest part. The Secretary was responsible for facilitations and for making announcements anytime the entire congregation met, three times a week. The first time I addressed them in the theatre in the Red Block, I shook like one of those Ghana flags the boys sell in traffic, atop a moving car. I recall later realising that I couldn’t remember what I actually said that evening. That day marked the break from my stage fright and shyness, as I wrote in my book Excursions In My Mind, in the chapter entitled Shyness Is Not A Virtue.

Small beginnings.

When I got the invitation to give a talk and organise a team building activity for a bank in June, at the forum of their top management including their board (they were three speakers, I was the only Ghanaian), I was asked how much I would charge. I went blank! I responded that I had been doing it for free for churches, groups and para-christian organisations. Those were the preparatory stages.

John Maxwell speaks about three stages in a person’s career: learning, earning and giving phases. I have used this many times in my discussions with young friends of mine. At the learning phase, the focus is not on money, but on getting depth and breadth of experience. Averagely, this lasts for about ten years. Then one moves into the earning phase where you decide and chose which roles to take and make some bucks too. The final phase is where people like Carnegie, Rockefeller and now Gates got to, where you go chasing after legacy, giving to society.

The problem with most of us is that we don’t spend good and quality time in the learning phase and rush on, half-baked.

The quality of the performance one has on the big stages of life is usually determined by the quality and quantity of preparation time spent off the stage. Consider the life of Jesus. All he did and is mostly captured in the gospels happened over three and a half years, in his thirties. It took him thirty years of preparation off-stage before he got onto his platform. Churchill, Lincoln, Mandela: they all had baking time, time in the oven of hard preparation. Nkrumah had years in prison and also in the trenches before becoming Prime Minister and President.

One person whose life challenges me when I think of preparation time is Dr Mohammed Ibn-Chambas. For ten years, he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then he was appointed, again as Deputy Minister, for Education for three years. In these supporting roles, he learnt. When the break came, first with ECOWAS as President, and now with the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States as Secretary General, he was ready.

 

When I shared this piece on Facebook, my friend Kwabena Antwi-Boasiako added his insight which is too apt to edit. I quote him verbatim:

 

“My late Dad called it the ‘kyeekyee-soosoo’ phenomenon, which means going through pain first (kyeekyee) and then enjoying the fruits of those pains (soosoo). It involves sacrificing for tomorrow, going through the apprenticeship stage, focused on how best you can develop yourself instead of what you will get today. This stage is like cultivating the land. Harvest almost always follows.

The opposite is ‘soosoo-kyeekyee’, which is enjoying at the beginning and then suffering in the end. Sadly, we the youth of today are not prepared to bid our time, we want to drive the latest cars and eat in the best of restaurants now.

At the workplace, for instance, we are much more concerned with short-term gains and thus engage in fishy deals. We sometimes get what we want overnight. Unfortunately for us but fortunately for society, our gains do not live long because we get caught, dismissed and sometimes, imprisoned.

Life, they say, gives back to you what you’ve sacrificed.”

After my facilitation of the second institution’s management retreat, their new HR manager asked me what other training modules my company gives! Company? I did it with my pal Kofi Akpabli. Well Kofi, that is a message!

Other opportunities continue to emerge, but it all started from that small beginning, and that fiasco of my first speaking appointment. I am still off-stage, still learning.

How are you using your time or chance off-stage? Will you be ready when the platform beckons?

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Eko Encounters: Why Sweat Elsewhere?

27 June 2012

Pro Patria!

As I made my way to work this morning, my thoughts turned, as usual for this week in particular, toAfrica. I have been musing this week aboutGhanaand today I added the country I consider my second home –Nigeria.

I have been working here in Eko permanently for almost three months now. I am not new to Amalaman. Since I started working with Unilever after school in 2000, I have been visiting here for about fourteen times before moving here permanently. My first visit to Amalaman was in January 2001, and it was for a conference in Ogere. Interestingly, my first trip out ofLagosin April this year was toIbadanand we went by Ogere and right by the conference centre – nostalgic. In 2009, I stayed here for a full month.

I have been telling my colleagues at work, Mr O and Mrs B especially that when I read the papers, especially The Punch which is what I subscribe to at work, I find too many negative words being used, to much pessimism.

Just as an example, I have now picked, randomly, the Thursday June 14 2012 edition of The Punch. The words and phrases that jump at me: scandals, bribe, suspicion, rot, stinks, emergency, warns, recession. This is just the front page, I have not opened it yet. There is, however, one positive story – Man, 80, bags B.Sc in Sociology (that was so inspiring).

I ask my colleagues why.

When I come to work during the week and also move about during the weekend, I never regret being inNigeriaor working here. I love it. Challenges nevertheless.

Another argument I always have with my Nigerian friends – I tell them they have a romantic view ofGhana. Usually when I hear such statements as ‘Oh, it is not like this or that inGhana’, I challenge the speaker and ask ‘Have you ever been toGhana?’ Three times out of four, the person hasn’t been. It is not all that rosy in my homeland, we are all on this road to development, and have our challenges.

After my first degree and my statutory (second) National Service, I worked for five years in Ghanabefore going to the UKfor a year’s masters program. This was between September 2005 and September 2006. I submitted my dissertation on the 15 September, stayed for two weeks to help with the Welcome program for International Students and to tidy up a few issues and I was back in Ghana on the 2^nd October 2006. I had resigned from Unilever before going for my studies and as at the time I returned, there was no firm offer from Unilever to take me back. A Ghanaian friend based in theUK asked me why I was returning toGhana, and why I didn’t like it in theUK. As a typical Ghanaian, I answered him with a question, querying him in return why he was in theUK and why he didn’t like it inGhana. I will state my reasons for returning home so soon, later in this piece but before that, allow me to share a statement a senior colleague made to me.

I had got a Chevening scholarship to study atNottinghamUniversity. As I considered my options, I went to consult with Adlai Opoku-Boamah, a senior manager at Unilever who had just recently returned from theUKon a similar scholarship. His advice was simple: “Nana, if you want to be a big man, come back home.”

I saw the development in theUK, I have seen the development inSouth Africaand since returning from my studies, I have been to other countries where the level of advancement is far above what transpires inGhanaand other African countries. I saw how hard people, including many Africans, are working in theUKto make that country prosper and become what it is. And I asked myself, Why sweat somewhere else?

Why sweat my youthful years away building someone’s village and not mine? Why put my shoulders to a wheel that turns another economy whilst the one that has my umbilical cord tied to it travels south? And in returning toGhana, I was returning toAfrica, to the continent that needs the resources to grow.

We berate the whites for slavery and argue that the slave trade took away all our energetic and productive young men and women. Are we not practising a voluntary trade today?

One of the issues that tickle in the wrong places is when my brothers and sisters living abroad visit home for a week and lament about everything and see nothing worthwhile to commend. Who should stay behind and build?

I was in school with a number of Nigerians, who stayed back. Try telling them to come back home to help, and it will be like selling amala to a Chinese man. How else canNigeriagrow if all the top brains are going out for studies and not returning? How canAfricaimprove if we don’t want to stay, sweat and swim against the tide of under-development and turn our economies around?

 

Who is to give the hope back? Who is to change the language we use? Who is to enervate us, inspire us, bring us the va-va-voom? It will not be the politicians, I can guarantee you. It will be us, the ordinary citizens.

Why sweat elsewhere when I can sweat on the continent, and stay in a betterGhana, a betterNigeria, a betterAfrica?

Why sweat elsewhere?

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Book Review: Tales from Different Tails – The Mirror

Book: Tales from Different Tails
Author: Nana Awere Damoah
Pages: 145
Publishers: Multipixel
Reviewer: Caroline Boateng

A BALANCED diet of witticism, proverbs and narrations, all interwoven into a tight delightful story.

This is what Tales from Different Tails by Nana Awere Damoah affords the reader.

This fresh addition to Ghanaian literary works is classic in that Nana Damoah manages to hold his readers’ attention by engagingly re-telling the story of our daily experiences.

The experiences of being cheated by a bosom ‘Kweku Ananse’ (a crafty man), the experiences of the first taste of independence and love in second cycle institutions, the first real state of confusion at heart that comes with the experience of love, relieved by Akua, one of the characters.

Tales from Different Tails also satisfies the human urge for revenge. The reader will experience the satisfaction with the downfall of Kweku Ananse, who won the heart of his friend’s beautiful fiancée by craft, but then had to lose her when his machinations were exposed.

However, the subtle theme of restoration, when all seems lost and an individual has even given up, is interwoven in a story of pain of Randy, a.k.a. Zagidibogidi, hardened by circumstances of life and subsequently softened the restoration of the Saviour, Jesus.

The different tails tell the stories of the teeming youth in the streets of cities, lives like in difficulty, destitution and despair of the future, with Kojo Nkrabeah representing all those who, due to circumstances, find themselves living on the streets of Accra and in slums.

Nana Awere Damoah’s style as a writer is easy. He envelopes the reader with his proverbs and finishes up his art with memorable witticism that leaves the reader deep in thought of the wisdom of it all.

For instance, most readers, particularly women, would agree and smile when they read his words, “A man thinks he chases a woman, to win her; but a careful observer of the oldest game in life knows that a man chases a woman until she catches him.”

Nana Awere Damoah treats social ills in a fast-paced, dramatic, almost hilarious, but poignant manner.

Flirtatious married women and betrayed wounded husbands who become enraged beasts, excursions through the city on local commercial vehicles (“trotros”) and the attendant “wahala” (troubles) such as breakdowns and discomfort from “big Markola mummies” and mates who are experts in what the author terms “Kweku Ananse mathematics,” or “substitution by shifting around,” that is, ripping off passengers by charging exorbitant fares, or confusing them with change on their fares, are some of the different tales that will engage readers.

In all the different tails, the tales of life’s principles are told.

Tales that assure readers that life has a way of working out its own complexities in the end, that evil does not pay, that love conquers all and that even when one has compromised his or her life with evil, there is restoration.

Nana Awere Damoah’s book is a good read and recommended for all readers.

It is a handy pocket book to be pulled out easily and enjoyed everywhere as one waits for an appointment. It is for the youth, grown-ups, the light-hearted and those wanting some relaxation from an intense day.

It is available in all leading bookshops in the country or can be obtained by contacting the author at ndamoah@yahoo.co.uk

Source: The Mirror (http://www.graphic.com.gh/mirror/index.php), Saturday June 16 2012

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DNA musings – 22 June 2012

Two thoughts on my mind this dawn:

Musing #1
Listening to Peace FM this dawn and just heard this advert for a pastor: ‘God doesn’t move unless he passes it through those He has called and annointed…’ and it goes on to mention a pastor’s name, with a nwomkro song to the honour of the pastor playing in the background. This deceit of the people of God must stop. Christ came, and He died and the curtain to the holies of holies was torn so we can have direct access to the Father. Much as you may need a fellow christian (note I didn’t say a priest or a pastor or a bishop) to help you with advise etc, NO ONE is set to be your intermediary to the Lord. That was way before Christ and we should be careful not to go back to those days. Don’t be a lazy christian!

Musing #2
To my lady friends especially: when choosing a life partner, consider this: “Can he manage it if/when I become a successful career woman? More successful than him? Can he cope if I become more successful and known careerwise than him? When it gets to the point where he could be known more as my husband than me as his wife?”

Good morning and have a blessed weekend.

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Eko Encounters: A Missive In May [Part II]

15 June 2012

 

Dear Aferba,
Sorry it has taken quite a bit to continue this missive. It was partly intentional, and partly due to circumstances within my control. That means the reasons are both intentional, no? First of all, as I reflected on the years that I have so far shared with you, I caressed the memories all by my own and almost hid them in the crevices of this heart touched by Simpa affection. The serendipity of my discoveries during this excursion in my mind, as I opened and walked one gate of thought after another…my entire being soothed with gratitude of who you have become to me…the tales the signposts on this journey into time whispered into my ears. I caressed the memories and then I knew that I would love for you to hear them too, especially as we approach the tenth year in marital school.
So let me continue from where I paused in Part 1, the night of 16 July 1999. Since I am writing now from Eko and do not have access to my journal and letters, I will do my recollections from what has become embedded in my coconut.
The day after, I felt much at peace and still in dreamland. I am sure I wrote a note to you that morning, that would be quite typical. But it was that weekend, it must have been Sunday, that we took a walk on the road from Africa Hall through Commercial Area, down by the Catholic church over the bridge, and round the roundabout close to the main UST gate and up the road by the UST Primary into the lecturers’ estates. We just spoke about our future and our dreams. We came back to your room and I ate food in your room for the first time. All I had taken since I had been visiting you for over a year were drinking, especially Malta Guinness J

 

I also got to meet Ekua your roommate, officially as your boyfriend. Ekua had been very supportive and encouraging. I tell the young friends of mine: if you want to know how a lady appreciates you and also want to gauge how the chances of your proposal, assess how her friends relate to you! If she has been telling them good things about you, they show you maximum respect and accommodate you well! Ekua was going out with your brother James and was to later be your maid-of-honour and James’ wife. Anytime I visited, way before 16 July and you were not in the room, Ekua would insist I wait, and frantically go looking for you! Good signs, good hints folks!

 

I also got introduced to your friends, notable amongst them Debbie (in whose room we used to go and chat a lot), Yaa Le Poks, Ma Ly, Helma, Eunice and those I already knew in 40 – Fafa, Joyce and T-dear.

 

 

In the days leading to 16 July 1999 when I proposed to you and you graciously and boldly accepted to take a risk with me, when all I had to my name was a promised first degree (degrees are awarded and not earned, we always reminded ourselves at KNUST), I was careful to let you know that I came from very humble beginnings. Right after your acceptance, I wrote a letter to my dad (who would inform my mum) that I had found ‘someone worthy to be Mrs. Damoah’ and that I wanted to bring her over to see them at Wasa Akropong.

 

That was an intention that was soon fraught with implementation difficulties. It was in our final year that academic and facilities user fees were introduced in the University, the beginnings of the policy of getting students inGhana’s public universities to contribute to their tertiary education. By this time, my dad was out of active service, retired and farming and it was proceeds from chop bar at Wasa Akropong that was supporting me mostly, augmented by the allowance from the SSNIT loan. My siblings contributed as they were able, from time to time. I can never forget the struggle to get the first tranche of the user fees in 1998. I had to hold on for awhile as my siblings pinched and scraped to support to raise the amount. I usually tell friends that if that policy had been implemented earlier than my final year, I may have dropped out of the university, and I always thank God that I had to pay it only for one year. My friends never fail to remind me of how I used to go to the Asafo market fortnightly for my supplies of food stuff – rice, gari, yam, palm oil, bush meat, et cetera – from Wasa, sent through the commercial vehicles from my holy village, especially those of Mr Nemi, and left with the station masters, notably old Mr Gyamfi, who I would later in life ensure I visited anytime I was in Kumasi, to express my gratitude for days gone past…anyway, I digress, couldn’t help it.

 

The reason for this long detour was to just make this point that when I decided to take you to see Bombayand Mama, I was broke! I was expecting some money in the week of the proposal but somehow it delayed. But I had already told you that we were going to Wasa, since we were completing our papers the week after the 16^th, and my hometown was about 4-5 hours away fromKumasi, via Obuasi and Dunkwa-on-offin.

 

That was when I took my first major decision as your boyfriend – I asked you for money! Less than a week after we started going out! Thinking back, I laugh sometimes at how I may have come across! This boy who had just audaciously asked me to commit my future to him and he even doesn’t have money to take me to see his parents! I would have found it incredulous, but more amazing is the fact that you actually indulged me!

 

So in the week after we completed the university, we went to Wasa Akropong to seeBombayand Mama. I could tell that you were not used to the hard travel on that rough road leading to my holy village. Those days, the road fromKumasito Obuasi was terribly bad, and cramped in a Benz-207 bus for hours wasn’t something a Simpa Fanti woman had been exposed to. I was a veteran, having started travelling to Wasa in the 80s when a journey from Takoradi to my village could start at 2pm and end after midnight, when Tata buses could get stuck in manholes on the way. Unfortunately, the situation still persists today in 2012 between Tarkwa and Akropong and the situation on the Dunkwa-Akropong road is even worse.

 

So to Akropong we went, and my parents, who had always trusted us to make our own decisions concerning our partners, hit it off with you. EspeciallyBombaywho started calling you ‘darling’ and bought a cooked egg for you – one of his ways of showing deep affection. The kids of today don’t appreciate the role an egg used to play in days of yore. You got an egg on special occasions, and when it was riding on the crest of a mound of eto (mashed plantain mixed judiciously with palm oil), it was like the Akwasidae had come!

 

In Akropong, I could clear see the extent you went to fit in and accept the conditions in my village home which were no where nearMatahekoCastlestandards.

 

We came back toKumasiwith the blessings of my parents. I have tried to remember if I paid back the money I took from you; I think I did, considering that I insisted that it was a loan.

 

That first action, that open discussion with you about a difficulty, especially about money, was the beginning of our frankness with each other, and formed the foundation of our openness about finances, and our ability to budget together, etc. I still encounter couples who insist that each person’s finances is sacrosanct, and only discuss house keeping money. Or the wife is responsible for the food in the house and the husband for the school fees. Each is at liberty to decide what to use the rest of the salaries as he/she wished. A couple that can discuss finances dispassionately can discuss most issues with the same honesty.

 

We both came toAccraafter July. Again I can’t remember if we travelled together, I believe we did, on an STC bus from the station close to the old site for A-Life Supermarket, Adum.

 

Soon after, I made my first visit to your home in Mataheko and to meet your dad. Dada was waiting for me in the porch and I joined him on one of the seats. He asked me a barrage of questions – who I was, my parents, their occupations, where they came from – and ended up with a question that has remained in my memory till today: “What does happiness in life mean to you or how do you define happiness in life?” A real philosophical question but one that is loaded and captures the essence of life. Dada didn’t give any facial hints as to how I was faring in this first interview J but the sure sign that I had passed was when he called the house help to get me a bottle of coke and allowed me to enter the house to see you!

 

Needless to say that I spent most of the break before National Service started in your house, visiting.

 

I went back toKumasito start my national service as a teaching assistant (TA) at the Chemical Engineering Department of KNUST. You stayed back inAccra, and started doing locum in Mega Pharm at Nyaniba Estates, near Labone.

 

We exchanged a lot of letters and those I will revisit some day. Dapaa, described by my friend Bernadette as ‘the ever-faithful Dapaa’, who was to be my best man at the wedding, and was my fellow TA and room mate, used to walk from Katanga to the Senior Staff Club to make calls at the phone booth. Those were the days when the Ghana Telecom phone booths reigned and mobile phones were very scarce or gargantuan! And it was interesting standing by one of those phones in a queue and overhearing people’s conversations. It was part of popular campus myth that woe betides you if you were caught in a phone booth queue in Africa Hall. There was a chair in that booth and the ladies could sit and chat for long periods at a time. So much so that, sometimes the credit on the call card could get finished and this lady, who might already be getting on your nerves for wasting your time, could come out of the booth and say ‘Hello, please my credit is finished, can you loan me your card to just finish this call?’ Annoying, but you learn to smile in Africa Hall, who knows J

 

I heard the story once of aKumasiburger who was shouting in the phone booth, apparently the person on the other end of the call wasn’t hearing him well.

 

‘Yes, Akwasi, I said Akosua has been impregnated by Boat. Yes! Boat! Boateng, Boat! B, B, I mean B for Apple!’

 

So Dapaa and I would go to the booth at the Club house, close by the street on which I proposed to you. I believe there was this popular soap which was showing on TV then – I can’t remember which it was: Esmeralda or one of those. And you loved watching. So sometimes, when I didn’t get the timing right and called, I could sense that you were not paying attention and I would ask if you were busy watching the soap and if you said ‘yes’, I would ask you to go finish watching and we would both hang around to call again. Eish, man tire before! Dapaa was also dating Maud then, and I would have the privilege to be the MC at their wedding years later.

 

The second major act of yours that touched me was when you sent me a sizeable amount of money so I can add to Dapaa’s contribution to be able to cook and cater for my family and friends when they came for our congregation/graduation in March 2000. Dapaa and I went to the market and bought our items, Maud and her friend Sheila came a day early and helped us cook throughout the night and we had a feast. Again, I was able to share my struggles with you.

 

This second epistle is already becoming longer than I envisaged but the memories keep coming, see? In the third instalment I will go on to the next milestone which was my birthday in 2000 when Joyful Way held a concert on campus UST, when I turned 25 and in the same month started working in Unilever, and the days following.

 

Let me pause here, my love, as I reflect today on our 10^th wedding anniversary. As I have said many times, you decided to embark on this journey of foreverness with me when all I had, all I could boast of, were my dreams, my passion, my aspirations and a promised first degree. God has brought us far by grace and you have been the power behind every performance I have been able to churn out as a career engineer, writer, author, speaker, minister and citizen vigilante (apologies to Martin Amidu). You have given me space to develop and quietly prodded me on, with your unique way of telling me that I am able.

 

On this day, I wish to appreciate the tutelage and mentorship of my mum, late dad, our siblings, Damoah and Richardson families, Auntie Marina, Eric & Maud Eshun, Mr & Mrs Duke Awoonor-Williams, Efua Baawah-Frimpong, Mr & Mrs Isaac & Joy Ashong, Kofi & Doris Ankamah-Asamoah, Ace & Josephine Anan-Ankomah, Sammy & Ama Ewool, Romeo & Josephine Djan, Dan & Jemima Agamah, Frank & Louisa Gaisie, Victor & Charlotte Adjei, Auntie Aba Turkson, Dan Adapoe (who was our driver for the wedding), Kwasi & Emefa Dako, Albert & Jackie Danquah, Gideon Cann (who has been helping us at home and with the kids right from about a month after our wedding), Auntie Mary (nanny to our children), members of our couples’ fellowship (Adentwis, Aryees, Bondzies, Roberts, Gordons, Hanson-Norteys, Ofori-Attas, Nyamikehs) and numerous friends and family who have been there for us, and helped us on this journey.

 

I am grateful to God that he has blessed us with three lovely children – Nana Kwame (Bombay), Nana Yaw (Apusika) and Maame Akoah (Shishi).

 

This is in appreciation of your love and to your health and to many more years ahead of us. Together we have surmounted the challenges that marriage brings in abundance – the silent wars and all, hehe – but we have come far and we keep maturing. I love you so much, and thanks for taking me, just as I am, and for making a gentleman out of this simple Wasa boy.

 

I loved a girl and she is Vivian.

 

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Eko Encounters: Mainland Maneuvers

29 May 2012

Today is Democracy Day in Amalaman and a holiday. Nasiru is off on holidays and Sundays and yet I needed to go to work. My driving on Sunday 27 May, though just 3 km radius within Ikoyi, had given me some confidence. Our elders advise that if a man who has chewed the gong gong threatens to do same justice to the accompanying stick, you better get him a calabash of water or better still palm wine to wash it down. Doubt not such a man. Or woman. However, the one who starts cracking the shell of a snails has the potential to graduated into splitting that of a tortoise.

The previous day as we returned home from Ilupeju, I took notes of the main landmarks on the route. A signpost here saying straight to Saki, pass under an Etisalat billboard, exit right where it says ‘To Lagos’, drive under a footbridge, keep to the middle lane, etc. Rough notes.

My intention was to set off early, again using the Aferba Principle as described in the post of 27 May. The rains muddied that plan. I had realised that when it poured in Eko, the normal deviates a bit from the datum. So I tarried.

My control tower gave the all clear around 9.30 am. I set off from home, and made a stopover at a hotel close by to see my pal Ngoni. I was quite familiar with the route to Ilupeju after the tale of one wrong turn. Within 20 minutes I was in the office.

It felt good! Of course being a holiday, traffic was light but it was now the mainland I had driven to! The drive on the 3rd Mainland bridge was particularly enthralling.

My return trip was done around 3.30 pm. I studied my notes on the route again. This was the first time I was doing it all on my own, after taking particular attention. As I drove home, recollecting the landmarks and turns, I realised for the first time how well the directional signage on the highways were helpful, and that I could depend on them totally. Signage that showed with lanes to keep in, where the exits were, and to where. Impressed I was. Can someone inform the Bearded Slanger in Kenkeyman to come and learn sometime to implement for once?

Not bad for the attempt on Mainland driving, even if I say so. After all, the agama lizard says if no one will praise him after landing from a fall from the tree, he will praise himself. Small small, the old lady will carry water up the hill, as my friend Nana Asaase the linguistic poet would say. In any case, even the ant reaches its destination.

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Eko Encounters: And He Drove…Me!

27 May 2012

I have already written about my vow never to drive in Eko. That intention actually goes against one of my cardinal principles: never to say never. My colleague Mrs B had already told me I would be driving in Eko before the year is out, to which I giggled. No way, I told her.

The Akans say that when it gets to the crunch, the white man, the Obroni, speaks Twi. My former Unilever colleague Emmanuel had invited me to a lunch in his house with our former boss and other colleagues, and his house is at Ikoyi. Well, not too far from where I am living presently. Nasiru doesn’t work on Sundays. So my options are actually two: to drive myself or to go in a cab. Forget an okada!

When we got married in June 2002, I had an Opel Vectra, my first car. I loved that car; I felt it was a Mercedes. I remember sending a mail to my classmates from Tech via our class mailing list to inform them about the car. From memory I recollect that I thought the steering was power-steering. By the blessedness of technology and my archives, I have been able to retrieve that mail:

From: Nana Damoah

Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 7:54 AM

To: Classmates

Subject: Declaration

Anuanom,

God has been good to me for all these years. This year has begun on a good note for me. By His grace, I now drive a 1992 Opel Vectra 1600cc engine. I am still getting used to it, and enjoying it with my wife-to-be. Features include 15″ alloy wheels, Power front windows, Power mirrors, Central locking, and nice steering (almost power, though I am not certain yet).

So, praise God with me.

Another information which is already in the public domain is that I am planning to marry on 15th June this year. I am giving you all very very advance notice, because you are special.

God bless, and keep the Spirit. More blessings are on the way for all of us.

HETCB

 I am laughing so hard at the mail, 10 years down the line. My signature then was a fleeting nickname my classmates had given me: His Excellency The Chilling Brother.

Vivian had learnt how to drive but wasn’t really practising. I was in the Quality Assurance Department of Unilever then and use to travel on trade visits every quarter, going away for a week at a time, covering the entire nation each year, visiting the key distributors and the markets to assess quality in the trade. When I left, the car was packed in the garage and Vivian who was then working in Accra (we lived at Lashibi) walked from our home in Community 18 to the junction, and had to pick series of public transport (taxi and trotro) to get to work. The first day of that week, she really had it in traffic and got home late. On her way home, she decided that it made no sense to have a car at home and be struggling to get a car to and from work! That evening, she cleaned the car and the early on Tuesday, she set off to work, very early so she wouldn’t encounter much traffic. By the Friday when I returned from my trek, my wife had become an expert driver.

This morning, I decided to use the same approach. Sunday is not noted for heavy traffic. So though the lunch invitation is for around 1pm, I drove out to find the location, and realised how much I miss driving!

Tentative first attempt. I will drive to and from Emmanuel’s house again this afternoon. Let’s see how quickly Mrs B’s prediction comes to pass.

Eish, Eko o ni ba je!  

Ah, o baje ti!

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Eko Encounters: Nasiru’s Breakfast

26 May 2012

I had a dinner with my former boss yesterday, and we really had a good time, chatting from about 6.45pm till late, about 11.30pm. My driver lives about an hour away, if there is minimal traffic but could sometimes take him 2-3 hours, and it was also too late to let him go home. So I asked him to spend the night in my sitting room. This morning, I asked him if he wanted to go home and come back, since I wanted us to go out toVictoria Island for some shopping today and perhaps pass through the office. He reminded me that today is Sanitation Saturday and therefore cannot move between 7 and 10am. I, therefore, needed to get him some food, breakfast.

‘Do you know how to cook?’ I asked him.

‘No,’ he responded.

His wife cooks for him, he explained.

At work a couple of weeks ago, we got into a discussion after one of the cleaners in the office admitted that he didn’t know how to iron! Ah, I explained to my colleagues, in Ghana, ironing is one of the key jobs of a young man when growing up. For me, I learnt how to iron even the intricate kabas of my mum and sisters.

As for cooking, even though I grew up with four sisters and older brothers and didn’t have the responsibility to cook for the family, I was responsible for fanning the coalpot, picking up saucepans and also washing the dishes etc as mum cooked. I also had to use the tapoli to grind the tomatoes and pepper in the apotoyiwa or asanka. By so doing, I learnt by observation. From time to time, mum would ask me to stir the stew and taste for salt level, and so on. In the University, I cooked for myself as I didn’t have enough funds to be eating outside all the time. I went to the market at Asafo to shop, my parents sent me foodstuff from Wasa Akropong – yams, plantain, kontomire, fish, bushmeat. It was cheaper this way to fend for myself.

Many of my mates in Tech cooked as well, though some were lousy. I remember a colleague who wanted to cook jollof rice. Paddyman started with water, then added Frytol to the boiling water, next to join this emulsion was the tomato paste and then the pepper, with generous helpings of Royco cubes. The rice got it along the way. Suffice it to say that he ended up with a suspension of rice in oily water!

Nasiru got me thinking again this morning. Is it that the average male Amalamanian is brought up not helping with any house chores at all, across the various classes? This is worth an investigation.

I just finished preparing some breakfast for him to eat. Bon appetite, Nasiru.

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