Features
BEESIWA – Part 4
After managing to get just a little sleep, Beesiwa woke up early, and without saying anything to her mother, headed for Yaw Awotwe’s house, not to see Yaw, but in the hope that his driver would be kind enough to say something meaningful to take her out of her confusion. Fortunately they met at the entrance to the Estate, and she greeted him.
He nodded. ‘Uncle Paa Willie, may I respectfully ask you something? I’m in a tight situation. Please help me.’‘Go ahead’.‘You see, Uncle, Yaw has been more than extremely good to me. However, I have been in love with him for some time, and privately hoping that something would happen between us. But my mom warned me emphatically that Yaw was way above my class, and there were better girls waiting to catch him.
I kept up the hope for some time, then I gave up, took the advice he had been giving me, and started my own business. As you know he has been very helpful always. Unfortunately the frustration of losing him always weighed on me, and then Jeff showed interest, and made a big proposal, and even promised to buy me an estate house.
I discussed it with my mother, and she said I should accept Jeff’s proposal, and I did. I thought everything was going to go well, but at yesterday’s dinner, Jeff made the announcement of our impending marriage, and the response was shockingly negative. A few people applauded, and Yaw and Ebo Mensah rose to congratulate us, but the general reaction was bad.
So I want to find out whether there’s something I don’t know, so that I back out before I get badly hurt’.‘Beesiwa, if I didn’t know you I would have given you a diplomatic answer. But since I know you to be a graduate with a lot of good sense, let me tell you, straight up, that you and your mother have shown the worst form of judgement anyone can make.
Jeff comes to propose to you, and promises to buy you a house, and you drop all your senses and follow him? What work does Jeff do? Where is his office? Who does he employ? Have you met his parents or relatives? Beesiwa, you should be really ashamed of yourself. And please tell your mother that I have lost all respect for her. Let me not waste your time.
You and your mother, go and ask Jeff to show you his office, and tell you what he does for a living. Yaw was prepared to do anything for you. Anything. I said anything. And you turn your back on him, and follow this thief with the big mouth?’ Beesiwa opened her mouth wide.
‘Uncle Paa Willie, he told me that Yaw was in serious debt, and he had tried to help him in many ways. He said he would support me to become one of the biggest caterers in town, because he had very powerful contacts. Uncle Paa Willie, how come Yaw did not show any sign of affection for me? I would have never taken such a foolish decision if I had the slightest idea he wanted me’.
‘He takes his time with everything. He encouraged you to develop your talents, gave you money to start business, and brought in a girl to help at the house so that you would be free to make money. Why do you think he was doing that? He heard about you and Jeff a couple of weeks ago, and he said he felt very sorry for you, but hoped you at least knew what you were going into’.
So I’ve given you more answers that the questions you raised. I need to be going’.Devastated and weeping uncontrollably, Beesiwa started walking to the roadside to pick up a taxi. Then on an impulse she stopped, turned and followed Paa Willie to Yaw Awotwe’s house. Yaw saw her just before he opened the front door.
‘Beesiwa, I thought I have answered all your questions. What is the problem now?’‘I, I, I just want to say one word to Yaw. I won’t take more than one minute of his time’.‘ButBeesiwa, I have told you what you need to do. Why don’t you allow Yaw to go to work?’
You have already made your decision. I don’t see how he comes in at all’. ‘You are here, Paa Willie’, Yaw said from the hall. ‘Is there anyone with you?’‘Beesiwa is here. She says she wants to have a word with you?’‘Really?’ he said as he walked to the front door, and saw Beesiwa weeping. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Yaw, I want to beg you. Forgive me for everything I’ve done against you. I have always had deep feelings for you, and kept hoping that you would show some interest in me. But I realized that it was not going to happen, so I gave up.
Then Jeff started showing interest, and saying all kinds of things about you, and offering to marry me. I now realize I made a foolish decision. I was reacting to the disappointment of losing you, and I thought that because he was close to you he was also a decent man.
He said some really bad things about you, and because we knew him as a close friend of yours we believed him, and my mother and I decided that I should accept his proposal’.‘Beesiwa, I have a difficulty. Yesternight, in fact, only a few hours ago, Jeff was proudly introducing you as his wife, and announcing that you two would be getting married in two weeks time.
Now here you are, telling me that you have changed your mind. What do you want me to do?’‘I’m apologizing for the things I believed about you. After spending so much time with you I should have not accepted any of the things he said. I am really sorry.
The reaction of the people to his announcement clearly showed that there was something wrong, and when I went home I realized I had acted very hastily. And I came to see Uncle Paa Willie, and he told me a few things. I feel really terrible’. ‘Well, Beesiwa. You avoided a big bullet, so let’s thank God for that. If you had taken just a little time to get to know Jeff, you would have known the kind of person he is.
But now you know, so you can get on with your life. You have a business to run. I don’t blame you, but I certainly blame your mother. I don’t think I have the words to describe her’.‘Yaw, I want to ask a very big favour?’‘I’m listening’.‘I want to stop running the business, and come back to work with you’.
‘You know that doesn’t make sense at all. You have clearly demonstrated the capacity to excel in this business, and you are making good money. You want to stop all that and come back as my house help? That’s not right at all’.‘I would do anything to be around you. Please give me just one chance’.Yaw couldn’t hold back the emotions he had been keeping about Beesiwa.
She had made a very ridiculous, careless mistake by accepting Jeff’s lies and going so far with him. Fortunately she stopped just in time. He decided, from that moment, to take her as his lady.‘Okay. Stay here. Spend the day. I have to rush to keep some appointments. I will call’.That was how their relationship started. After three months preparation, Beesiwa and Yaw were married. As for Jeff, he got lost somewhere in the bush
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
