Features
Kesewah Afua ‘wa paase’ (she has passed)
MY mother told me a very moving real life story that she experienced as a child which caused her to know that indeed, God is real. She narrated to me how she began her primary school education.
First of all, she told me that it was providence that made her end up in school because the one who comes after her in the family died after a short ailment.
As a result of her death, her father decided to send her to school as a replacement because he could only afford to send only one child to school at a time due to financial challenges. She told me that due to the fact that she was suddenly rushed into school she could not write and when the exams was conducted it was a disaster.
Classes like 1A, 1B and 1C was taught by a teacher called Mr Ofosuhene. The A refers to those who could read, B refers to those who come after in terms of academic ability and the C was referring to people like Kesewah Afua, my mother, who were at the bottom of the academic ladder. Those were the days when surname was mentioned before one’s first name so instead of Afua Kesewah, my mother was called Kesewah Afua.
Teacher Ofosuhene writes on the board and the pupils in class 1C are asked to copy same on their slate. After the allotted time for the exams, the teacher calls each pupil to bring his or her slate to him. He goes through it and cleans the slate and writes the mark he awards on the slate.
He then asks the pupil to go back and sit down. Afterwards, he calls in some of the class 1A pupils to mention the mark written on the slate when the name of each Class 1C pupil is called out. The teacher then records the mark on his sheet of paper and then arrange the positions in class based on the marks obtained by each pupil.
The results are then announced at the assembly of the entire primary school, class by class. Those who did well were applauded and those who failed were teased with a resounding voice ‘Wa faili’ i.e. she or he has failed. That was the unfortunate case of my mom. The teacher announced that the following pupils have failed and started mentioning their names.
Whenever each name is mentioned, a resounding ‘wa faili’ accompanies it. What made it worst for my mom was that not only did she fail, but was the last in the group of failures and therefore the last in the class.
She told me that she started weeping uncontrollably from the school to their house when the announcement of the results came to an end and the school vacated.
She further told me that she wept the whole day from the time the results were announced and she heard ‘wa faili’ to the extent that her father list appetite for her evening meal of fufu and soup, which was his favourite.
His father always consoled her and in the days following this incident started to help her to learn how to write and read by using a cutlass as a ruler and creating straight lines for her to practice writing. School reopened and she went to school. Another exams time finally came and another exams took place. The mark that Teacher Ofosuhene wrote on Kesewah Afua’s slate was nine.
Then comes the beginning of her trust in God. She told me that as she went to sit on her chair after the teacher had written the mark she obtained on her slate, she heard a clear instruction that, “Kesewah add zero to the mark on your slate.”
When the mark was mentioned to the teacher he was surprised so he asked the pupil who mentioned the mark to bring the slate for him to verify. To cut a long story short, when the results were announced, “Kesewah Afua w’adi first, w’a paase” i.e. Kesewah Afua is in first position, she has passed.
That was in 1948 and years later, she wondered why she did not put the zero before the nine since she had not mastered the numerals. Again how come she was able to write the zero exactly like the teacher writes such that he could not detect that it was not her who added the zero to the nine?
That is God for you.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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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