Features
Waakye Girl – Part 1
David noticed her only a few days after she joined her mother and sisters to sell waakye at the joint where he dropped his sister on his way to work. “The girl was a drop-dead beauty,” he told himself.
She responded politely to his greetings, even though her two sisters bared their teeth, obviously because they wanted to protect her from predators.
One day the elder sister followed him to his car and told him politely but firmly,
‘Sir, my sister has been bethrothed to a young man, a graduate like you, so please leave her alone. Maybe you don’t mean any harm, but I just want to let you know, just in case.’
‘Okay, madam’, David said. ‘She is certainly very beautiful, and I admired her, but I would never have meant her any harm. Still, thanks for advising me. The young man who got her is very lucky’. She walked away, unimpressed with his long talk.
He continued to buy from her for over two years. She was always polite and friendly, and in days when he bought several packs for his colleagues, she carried them to his car. He never got over thinking that whoever had won the girl was indeed very fortunate. Perhaps he was well known to the family, or even from the same town.
The fact that her sister had come over to drop a ‘friendly warning’ showed that the connection was very close, and they were not going to allow any nonsense to happen to it. One day he asked him her name, and she followed it up by giving her his number.
‘I’m sure you can remember it easily. 2044 244 240. You can just call once in a while to say hello. Please don’t be afraid of me. I don’t mean any harm.” She flashed a bigger smile and assured him that she would call. She said her name was Stella.
One afternoon she called him. He could tell she sounded a little distraught. ‘David, please, I need some advice. Can I meet you anywhere near the joint? It can be very early in the morning, say by six thirty, or in the afternoon at about three o’clock’.
‘Six thirty in the morning is fine, but I can come over this afternoon, if it’s okay. I can stop at about fifty metres from your joint, in front of the bank’. ‘Yes, that would be fine. Thank you very much’.
She was waiting and she joined him in the car. He moved to the car park, to avoid prying eyes. She thanked him for making time to see her and went straight to the point’
‘David, I have no one to help me that is why I am talking to you. You see, my parents agreed with a young man from our home town that he would marry me.
He appeared to like me, but I soon realised that he was more interested in having sex with me than marrying me. My sisters and parents kept pushing me into the relationship, saying that he is one of the few people from our town who has been to the university, so this is one chance to get a good marriage and have children who would have a good future.
Due to their pressure I went into it, even though he has only promised to marry me. It is obvious that he does not love me, and I have realised that he and his friend call me ‘Waakye Girl.’He goes out and comes late, and on two occasions when I complained about this he slapped me.
I told myfamily but they were of the view that such problems were normal in every relationship, so I should have patience. You see, the truth is that I don’t love him, and he is only interested in a sexual relationship with me. Sooner or later he will drop me. I have tried to explain this but my parents just don’t agree’.
‘Okay, Stella. I see the problem, clearly. Now, here’s my advice. You must never allow him to lay his hands on you, not even if he is married to you. So next time hetries to assault you warn him that you will report him to the police. Maybe he already knows that your parents will not pursue charges against him, so he does not fear that.
In any case, resist him whenever he makes the attempt, or leave the house. Your parents should not allow this. Please, let me know how things develop. Things might change. He may realise how lucky he is to get a girl like you. And please, delete all call records and messages you make to me.’
She called him three weeks later. ‘David, I’m afraid things have not improved. A few days after we spoke, I went to him when he was preparing for bed, and told him that I had problems with his late hours, with his manner of speaking with me, and with the beatings.
He gave me a very nasty reply. He asked me to go and ask my father if he does not beat his wife when she misbehaves, and reminded me that in our town beating is the accepted means of disciplining your wife. If I did not want him to beat me, then I should behave myself, and he concluded that many girls from my hometown would be happy to be living with a graduate like him.
The next day he slapped because I asked about a girl who had come to the house to ask of him. I went and complained to my parents, and they came to the house, but he was very rude to them.
He asked my father if he never beat his wife, and advised him to take me away if he did not agree to the discipline he is enforcing in his home. He started raining insults, and my dad advised that if he spoke one more word of insult, he would rather discipline him, and he kept quiet’.
‘Ah, so he fears something. Great. Let’s see if the fear of your dad will get him to behave himself. But Stella, allow me to say this. You are a very beautiful girl, and you have a great future ahead of you. If your man has made it so clear what he would do to you in future, perhaps it would be a good idea to leave the relationship and get a good education.
You already have a good WASSCE certificate. There are university courses for working people. Even if you continue the relationship, I suggest that you pursue education as a priority.’
‘Thank God I spoke with you, David. I will take this up very seriously. Next time we talk, the story will be much different.
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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