Features
Monsieur’s daughter —(Part 6)
Gladys opened her eyes, picked up the phone and checked the time. It was just past three. Quite a number of issues were competing for attention in her mind, even though Simon was just by her, snoring gently.
She had already given up on Simon’s laziness and general attitude. But money was becoming a problem. She had done her best to provide for the family, but in some couple of months the WASSCE results would be published, and Sarah would almost certainly be going to university.
How on earth was she going to find money for school fees, hostel accommodation, food and clothing, and pocket money? She was already excited about going to the university, assuming that her mother would find a way to provide her needs. There was almost enough time to start looking for money.
She would go and speak to her bank manager and the folks at the credit union, and she would speak to her friend Catherine with whom she had done joint contracts every now and then. But with the whole house financially dependent on her, it was still going to be quite difficult.
There was, of course, a very simple solution staring her in the face. David Asante. Monsieur. All she needed to do was contact him, and the whole problem, and maybe some of her other problems, would be solved.
But David was the one person she hated with a passion. She hated him for rejecting her, even though she and her family had gone and fallen at his feet to beg for forgiveness. He had stood his ground, dissolved the marriage and flown to Germany.
She admitted that she had made a big mistake. Simon came back to Ghana a few months after she had married David, and she had spent a few evenings in a hotel with him, just to catch some romantic breeze from the past.
He returned a few months later, and they spent another couple of evenings together. That was all. She had no intention of continuing the relationship with Simon. But word had filtered through to David, and he put an emphatic stop to the marriage.
That was quite heartless, and David deserved to be punished for that. She had no regrets, therefore, for telling him that Sarah was not his, but Simon’s baby. That was her emotional retribution for the rejection.
Using her wits, she quickly moved to get Simon to marry her and claim Sarah as his child. If Simon had only made a modest attempt at taking responsibility for the family upkeep, there would be peace. Unfortunately, the house was always in turmoil. She had come to accept the responsibility of taking care of Simon as one of his children.
She got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen. She opened the door and found Sarah seated in the couch, wide awake.
‘Sarah, why, you are unable to sleep? ‘
‘I was waiting to talk to you’.
‘Okay, Sarah. Talk to me. What’s the problem? ‘
‘I want to know who my father is’.
‘How could you say that, Sarah? You know who your….’
‘I want to know who my father is! For a long time I have been hearing the arguments you and Daddy have been making about me. I’m not stupid. Daddy doesn’t like me. I am tired of the confusion in this house. My friends are always asking me what the problem at home is. And I have already heard people saying things. If you won’t tell me, I will take everything into my hands. I won’t continue living like this. I’m tired’.
Simon appeared in the hall and sat down as Gladys stared at the floor.
‘Gladys, if you have anything to set your daughter’s mind at rest, tell her now’. Sarah stared at him.
‘Okay, listen. Your real father is called David Asante. He and I were teachers in the Western Region. He rejected you when you were born, but Daddy stepped in and claimed you, and has been in your life since then. You see, your father is the one who claims you and makes an effort to take care of you. You see, we are not a perfect family, but most families have problems. I’m very sorry for what you call the confusion in this house. Please forgive us.
We will try our very best to keep peace, not only for you but for your siblings too. Daddy and I have already started making plans to find money to take care of your needs when the WASSCE results come in. You are certainly a brilliant student, and we will make sure you go to the university and do something big in future.
I want you to remember, Sarah. Your father rejected you from day one. He hasn’t spent a penny on you since you were born, and he has not tried to find out how you even look like. Is that a father? And another thing. He was always into visiting shrines and the occult, and I don’t think you are safe with him. I would kindly advise you to take it easy for now, and concentrate on your university education. Later on, when you like, you can find him. I don’t know what will happen now if you make the effort’.
‘Sarah’, Simon added, ‘the truth is what your mother has told you. I’m sorry for anything I have said which may have troubled you. Please forgive me, and let’s stick together as a family, okay?’
She nodded and went off to sleep. They sounded a little convincing, she told herself. But she didn’t believe them one bit. She would go and see Ms Odame and present the new information to her. Perhaps she would help her get to the truth.
Later in the morning, she sneaked into her parents’ bedroom, picked her handbag and dashed into the toilet. She removed the phone and scrolled down, but didn’t find what she wanted. Then she took out the little notebook and opened it.
Quite a few phone numbers had been written in it. She scanned carefully, and there it was! David Asante. Her hands shaking, she copied it and replaced the handbag. At long last! Now she was going to confront that irresponsible man who had allowed her to suffer all those years.
Sarah knocked on the door of Ms Odame’s house.
‘Sarah! It’s so good to see you. I was just about to attend a family meeting. Please sit down while I fix you a drink’.
‘Madam, I don’t want a drink. Something happened this morning’.
‘Okay, let me hear it’. She listened as Sarah recounted the discussion she had had with her parents.
‘Sarah, you have suffered for far too long. We will solve the problem today. Give me a minute’, she said. She went to her bedroom and called Mr David Asante’s number.
‘Sarah’, Simon added, ‘the truth is what your mother has told you. I’m sorry for anything I have said which may have troubled you. Please forgive me, and let’s stick together as a family, okay?’
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
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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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