Features
BEESIWA —Part 3
‘Okay. I’ve heard you’, Beesiwa said. ‘Give me some time to think about it, and let’s talk later.’ Jeff drove her home, confident that he had virtually won her over. Yaw would not like it one bit, but Beesiwa was now his. He had taken Beesiwa away, just when Yaw appeared to be making some moves. This was such a sweet victory.
Beesiwa called her mother, and after thirty minutes they decided on Jeff. ‘Jeff is much older and wiser, and we now know he is much wealthier. Go with him. There is no guarantee that Yaw will choose you. In fact, he is already in a relationship with the doctor, so why should you hang around when he doesn’t even recognise you? And now we know that he is not as successful in business as we thought. So don’t waste time. This is your life.
Take the opportunity. Let Jeff come out clearly and do what needs to be done. Yaw has treated you well, but you have also been faithful to him’.
Within a couple of weeks Jeff and Beesiwa had sealed their relationship, and one evening Beesiwa asked Yaw if she could have a word with him. ‘Yaw, I have decided to go out and work on my own. I will stay for two weeks, that is, to the end of the month, so that we can find a replacement. I would like to thank you for all that you have done for me. I am very grateful’.
Well, that’s very surprising. But it’s fine. I have been encouraging you to go out on your own, so I guess I shouldn’t be really surprised. Okay. I will think about the replacement issue. I might ask my cousin Jenny to come and stay here for a while.
I’ve discouraged her from travelling to London, because she’s quite capable of doing something on her own. So I’d rather bring her to look after my stuff while I find something for her to do. So, I am also very grateful. You’ve done quite a lot for me, and I’m happy you are going out on a high note’.
Although Yaw tried to hide his disappointment, Beesiwa noticed it clearly. Was Yaw interested in her after all? Unfortunately she had already committed herself to Jeff, so she could not even think about changing her mind. Moreover, Yaw had already started talking about her replacement. She wished she had not heard those negative things about him.
They had had quite a good relationship, but she now knows that he was not quite the successful businessman she thought he was. What other secrets, she wondered, was he hiding? She told herself that she had made a good choice.
A few days after Beesiwa stopped working with Yaw, his driver, Paa Willie, called him, sounding excited. ‘Hello sir. You won’t believe what I am seeing with my own eyes, right now!’‘Okay, Paa Willie. Tell me what you are seeing, but please calm down a little. I can still hear you’.
‘Sir, I just paid for the take-away lunch for the guests at the office, and as I sat down to wait for it I looked across the other side, and saw Mr Manu, Beesiwa and her mother, Auntie Mensima, eating. They seemed to be celebrating something, because there were bottles of wine on the table, and they were dressed as if they were celebrating something’.
‘Wow. That’s very surprising. Maybe Jeff and Beesiwa have started doing some business together, or they have signed an agreement. That will still surprise me’. ‘Sir, I think there is something going on between Mr Jeff and Beesiwa. My worry is why Beesiwa will get into any relationship, business or personal, without informing you. I’m worried for her.’ ‘Well, Paa Willie.
Maybe we will hear something later. For now, let’s keep it to ourselves. I hope Beesiwa is not getting involved in something she will regret sooner than later’. Yaw reflected on the news for a while. Beesiwa had certainly made a bad choice. Perhaps, he would understand her if he knew the context in which she made the decision.
Maybe Jeff told her a pack of lies, and promised her the moon. But being the educated, well brought up young woman that she was, why didn’t she ask for time to think about the proposal? Did her mother have anything to do with the decision? Jeff was a big mouth, but no substance. His father’s haulage business was doing very well until the old man died.
Jeff had run down the company and sold most of its vehicles. He then made a lot of noise about going into estate development, but had started five houses and sold them before they were completed. For the last several years, he had sold off the bulk of the fifty acres left by his father, and was desperately trying to find something profitable to do before the lands run out.
Unfortunately, his lifestyle and his mouth were not allowing him. He and Yaw belonged to a group of university contemporaries in business who met at various homes and clubs regularly, but Yaw limited their friendship, if one would call it that, only to socialise over beer and food.
Jeff didn’t like that. Initially he thought that Yaw was protective of Beesiwa, but he later realised he was developing feelings for her. He decided to deploy what they called ‘Takashi’ at the university to grab Beesiwa before one could say Jack. It was past ten.
Some thirty guys and their partners were gathered for the bimonthly dinner of the Business Friends group. Most people had finished their food and were topping up their drinks, and the DJ was about to invite them to the dance floor. Then the MC said ‘ladies and gentlemen, our brother, Jeff Manu, wishes to share some information with us. Over to you, Jeff’.
My dear brothers, and your partners, I would like to make a brief announcement. I have recently asked my girlfriend, my sweetheart, Beesiwa Arthur, to marry me, and she has kindly accepted my proposal. So I am announcing that Beesiwa and I will be having our wedding in two weeks. Of course, you will be receiving invitations in the next couple of days’.
There was a respectful clap of some hands and some expressions of joy, but others stayed silence. The DJ took the microphone, and invited friends to react to the announcement. Billy Ocran expressed his delight that his buddy Jeff was getting married, and wished him and his partner a very successful life together. Yaw took the microphone next, and said, ‘I am really excited to learn that Jeff and Beesiwa have found each other and are planning to get married.
They are two great individuals, and I know this is going to be a successful marriage. Let’s give them a round of applause.’Jeff stopped in front of the house, and Beesiwa managed to share his embrace and what appeared to be a very warm goodnight kiss, then she rushed into her mother’s room and collapsed tearfully. ‘What’s the problem, Beesiwa?’‘
Mama, Jeff announced at the dinner that we are going to get married, and that they will all receive invitations in the next couple of days. A few people reacted nicely, but most of them were shocked. Mama, there’s obviously something wrong. And what makes it more confusing is that Yaw was one of the two people who congratulated us. Something is definitely wrong’. Get some rest, my daughter. We have a long day ahead. I will speak with Jeff tomorrow morning. There may be something that needs to be thrashed out. Maybe you are overreacting
By Ekow de Heer
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
