Features
Marriage palaver – Part 2
Sikaman is always a hot ground for the bachelor who has to sweep his own room, fetch his own water, clean the bathroom, clean the dishes, and of course cook his own banku.
But cooking for instance, does not present much of a problem since the bachelor can forever procure food in the form of Hausa koko, koose, waakye, kenkey and shito, as well as roasted groundnuts from sellers who are constantly playing hide-and-seek with AMA authorities.
The typical bachelor who becomes an incorrigible patron of wayside food peddlers is normally malnourished due to obvious reasons.
Apart from the fact that most food sellers do not give a damn about quality, it may also happen that in the locality of the bachelor, there are only kenkey sellers.
For eight years running, the bachelor devours kenkey in all its forms and ramifications: kenkey and shito, mashed kenkey with sugar, fermented kenkey (a favourite of alcoholics), and kenkey with pear. The dessert is usually iced water.
If the bachelor’s mother does not take pains to visit him once a fortnight to prepare him ‘home food,’ then of course he will sooner or later die of ‘kenkeymatics,’ which is a disease that attacks bachelors in the Accra Metropolitan Area.
Some bachelors, however, run their home like a pseudo-marriage enterprise. The bachelor has a girl-friend who comes and goes as and when her services are needed. She often spends the night if there is no risk of an earthquake resulting from the clash of rivals.
BACHELOR
However, it become rather expensive running a bachelor home with a commuter girl-friend who must be paid fat allowances for cooking, washing, dancing, sleeping and of course, romance. And if you refuse to provide her with a full-shoe, full-dress, full-chicken and full-jelly curls during X’mas, you’ll never see her tail again except in your dreams.
As it were, it is better to get married because a wife does not disappear just because you cannot afford the ‘fullness’ of everything. Marriage is, therefore, the ideal thing, but how many bachelors can afford to marry without going bankrupt?
In some parts of Northern Ghana for instance, if you don’t have four cows it means you can always be assured of dying a bachelor-boy. This is rather unfair to those who do not rear cows and therefore have to purchase four cows with hard cash before getting a wife who will start misbehaving the next day.
In spite of the problematic nature of Sikaman marriages, research has always indicated that married people live longer than their unmarried counterparts.
The reason is quite simple. Married life is the most ideal for an adult. In marriage, contrary to most opinions, one is more relaxed, has time to pursue ambitions, and eats balanced diet and much more. Married people are always disciplined and responsible and are rewarded accordingly.
It is, therefore, rather unfortunate that certain marriages are more disastrous than ‘bachelorships’ or ‘spinsterships.’
The process of getting married itself is a time-consuming venture, and is not achieved in a single day. It starts with courtship which is the beginning and, therefore, the sweetest part of it.
Boy and girl are usually encased in a dreamland savouring love for each other. Some girls so admire their tall handsome boy- friends that they keep worshipping them and forget about God.
Some boys also bow to girls who wear spectacles. And both parties want to put up the best of impressions. Hot-tempers are regulated with safety valves; the best clothes are worn during dates, and the daintiest of manners are exhibited.
During this period, the males miraculously have an inexhaustible supply of cash and the females are also poised to receive gifts before they reciprocate one way or the other, Love letters are written with chosen words that evoke love and overpowering sentiments.
Then comes time for a proposal that is if that had not preceded courtship, because some men propose marriage long before they begin courting.
Proposing marriage can, however, be an awkward part of the whole show, especially when the man is not too sure about what the girl’s response will be.
The faint-hearted aspiring husband, therefore, takes a good measure of mahogany-bitters to sharpen the edge of his tongue with which he is going to deliver the message in phonetical tone.
That way, the girl can never refuse, because with some Oxford accent backed by alcoholic power, the proposal becomes the sweetest music in the ear of a maiden.
Alas, the engagement is no joke. A mediocre engagement ring is around GH¢15,000, and that is only a fraction of the estimated expenditure. Apart from the presentation of several items that run into many thousands of cedis, the groom must hold a reception for people whose stomachs are specially designed for engagement parties. Such well-wishers accommodate every drinkable from palm wine to champagne and will digest anything especially left-overs.
It is, however, often tragic for the groom when invited guests and well-wishers do not donate the money value far and above the equivalent of what they eat and drink. And of course, some quick- witted guests will donate according to the quantity of beer, chips and jollof rice served them.
An engagement party, therefore, becomes a refined chop bar where you pay according to what you are served.
When the engagement ring is put on the girl’s finger, a certain magical change occurs within her which would be shown in fine colours im mediately she gets under the same roof with the man.
And true like hell, problems begin from the financial angle.
The man feels that although he has not yet wedded the girl, she is now a wife who will understand matters when he cannot afford a full-shoe in the face of rising cost of living and the inability of many corporations and companies to pay the minimum wage.
DOMESTIC
Grudges and grievances are stored in the heart. The woman begins to nag and the man may feel misunderstood. When tension rises to breaking point, he must start boxing training for the eventual showdown.
That way he’d not be found lacking when it comes to vying for the domestic kenkey weight championship title. If the husband is a southpaw, the situation becomes very dangerous.
Happy marriages are rare in Sikaman. Two out of every five marriages do not travel the entire distance. It sooner or later runs out of steam because of fighting, nagging, infidelity, womanising, arrogance, interference of in-laws, and chop- money palaver.
My pal Robert Kempes Paani Ofosu- ware observes that happy marriages are those that are run with plenty of cash and everything flowing around.
According to him, “Nagging, fighting, arrogance and infidelity on the part of the woman will cease or become minimised when the house is adequately provided for and the wife is enjoying material wealth.
Contrary to this school of thought, Nii Odai TT, alias Goukouni Weddeye says that money per se is not an important factor. An arrogant and disrespectful girl, he notes, will persist in her obstinacy whether or not she is offered a million cedis, in other words, some girls ate congenitally stubborn and, therefore, incorrigible.
Dear reader, which of these schools do you sympathise with?
This article was first written on Saturday June, 2, 1990
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
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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’
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