Will I be mad?

part one

Asiedu returned home to Ghana on August 5, 1989 after spending fifteen years in Lagos, Nigeria. Not only has his attitude changed for Lagos life due to his long stay there, but his Nigerian accent betrayed his encounter with their ‘eba’ food, which is one of the common delicacies in Lagos. 

He did not come home empty handed as some of his colleagues who shunned their root when hunger visited their mother’s home did in 1983. The ingrate children came back when honey started over running their mother’s jugs. Most of them came willingly while others were evicted by their foreign mother who knows no suffering of the orphan. Ibo land laughed at the ingrates as they packed out in their multi-coloured bags which they bought on Lagos streets, popularly called “Ghana must go”. Their hospitable mother land received them warmly irrespective of their ordeal betrayal. 

Wealth was sparkling on Asiedu when he came. Old school friends and those he made at Lagos followed him like bees sensing the aroma of nectar plant. He lavished money on bottled drinks for his friends to demonstrate his monetary muscles. His extravagant spending on the streets of Cape Coast earned him so many friends. His siblings thought his wife and children would come to see him later after he returned from Nigeria since those who came earlier, their Yoruba wives and children followed them to Ghana. 

Five months on after Asiedu stepped his feet on the coastal soil, he did not even received a telephone call let alone a letter or mail from anywhere for his family to believe that he has a wife or children somewhere. He is still a bachelor just as he went to Lagos.

Takyi, Aseidu’s elder brother called him to his house one evening and had a chat with him. 

“As days go and come, you are not growing younger. You are rather advancing in age. Ever since you came home, we thought your children might follow you but we haven’t seen anything like that. Its high time that I sit you down to talk about certain things in life with”, Takyi seriously said, looking straight at his brother’s forehead.

“Thanks for your concern. I knew you would be talking about marriage. I decided not to marry a Yoruba woman because of their cumbersome customs. I want to marry a Ghanaian. I mean a Fante woman. Elders say that vultures spare the bones of old men so that they can tell the new generations of their generosity in rejecting the bones of the aged”

“You have actually spoken like a core Fante from the capital. You are a true son of our late father. The same elders say we don’t spit and lick it back with our tongues. As you have said, find one of the young women around and make family with. The friends you see today will disappear when your pocket becomes dry of money”

‘Bros’, I want to thank you so much for the brotherly love you have shown. As I said I have thought of it. I will get myself a wife”

After their conversation, Aseidu asked to leave. Most of the young women in and around Kotokuraba eyed the ‘Lagos Man’ as they affectionately called Aseidu. Some started making advances towards him. One of the ladies got attracted to Asiedu’s eye. Her name was Frema. She was an Ashante but her father teaches science at Mfantsepim secondary school where Asiedu attended for his post-secondary school education before going to Lagos to teach. She was slim and fair with obvious natural teeth gap partitioning her front incisors nicely. Her dimples were enough charm to attract any man searching for a wife. 

Asiedu saw her one evening after she had closed from choir rehearsals at Pedu Presbyterian church branch. She was going with her friend, Adoma, when he called her. The two went to him but Adoma excused them and went to wait for her some distance away. After a while, Frema came to her friend smiling. Aseidu told her to meet him at Spot Five restaurant behind the Robert Mensah’s sport stadium at Pedu junction. She told Adoma about what transpired between her and the Lagos man. She also laid bare their plans of meeting at Point Five restaurant. Point Five, is a restaurant for middle class people. The money that can buy ordinary water there can take you to any other spots for three good days in Cape Coast. The spot normally features politicians, business men and women and highly ranked personalities in Cape Coast. Adoma expressed interest of going to Point Five with her, but because Frema didn’t tell Asiedu of coming there with her friend, she told her to wait for another time. Adoma had heard of Asiedu’s profligate attitudes since he came back from Lagos. 

Early morning the following day, Frema who had completed a sowing course at Nash Fashion Centre after her middle school, dressed in a red blouse on mini skirt to show her dexterity in fashion, ready to meet Aseidu at Point Five restaurant as they have planned. Her red shoe matched perfectly well with her top. She clipped her hair at the back of her neck with rose flower as most of Cape Coast ladies imitate the white ladies around blindly. 

Although Cape Coast ladies are known to be playing with English language but Frema was different. She speaks her Ashanti dialect fluently with occasionally mixing it with her ugly accent in Fante. She picked a taxi to Point Five restaurant. 

Asiedu had already arrived at the restaurant waiting for her. He is a lanky man with fair hairy skin. His body stature speaks voluminous of rich handsomeness. He was in his traditional outfit showing clearly a Nigerian man. As soon as Frema got down from the taxi, he saw her and ran to pick her. They walked to the restaurant together. As soon as they sat down, one of the waitresses came to them with the menu sheet.

“What do have on your list?” he asked.

........to be continued.........

NO LONGER AT EASE

My land has betrayed my hopes

To my wicked foes
Laying ajar my hideout

To my devastators

Who pray for my failure

Wishing me shame

My root hates me than aliens

I sank deep in the pool of rue

Over my decision to see her shores

She knows no excruciation of her own progeny

She drove my love in her faraway

I regretted clothing myself with her identity

I wished I could spill out her eccentrics in me

I see her children with bitter heart

I anathemize her in my mind always

Singing her doleful songs

Oh! Mother of no love

Your children will forever run away from you

You terror of your own flesh

Feeding aliens with joy

While your offspring’s die in traumatize pains

I hate your name with my might

I hate your land with joy

I hate your identity with pride

You have turned my nights perturbing

I gnashed my teeth all day in horrible pains

I will tell the world of your wickedness

I will preach to the passing ears

About your hypocritical gimmicks

I inhale your coastal air with unfriendly will

You have slain my innate motherly love for you

I will trade you for nothing

To tell the world about my displeasure

I am no longer at ease with my land

YET TO DISCOVER (part one)

By Zadok Kwame Gyesi (Ghana's Achebe)

“Hmm”, Afful shouted as he stretched his arms after waking up from the big sofa in the hall. “Oh it’s almost 6:30am. I will be late for school today”, he said in a sober manner. He sat down on the sofa again and yawned audibly. After some minutes of relaxation in the sofa, where he had been sleeping for some months, he got up again to put on his shirt. “Eh! It’s not easy. The distance I cover to school every day is making me grow lean. I need a hostel around the school”, he said sharply. He walked towards the centre table to pick up his tooth brush. His leg hit the iron he had placed under the table. “Gosh!” He exclaimed. He picked it and poured some water into a cup after he had spread some tooth paste on the brush.

When he was about to leave for school, he remembered he hasn’t done his assignment. He came back to the room to look for the book he had written the assignment in it. Afful had forgotten where he kept the piece of paper he wrote the question on it. He always writes his assignments on pieces of paper. He scattered the heap of books he had arranged on his desk top table in search of the assignment paper. Luckily enough for him, he found the piece of paper in one of his voluminous Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing book.

“Eh! Eh! Eh!” he screamed. He found an old love letter he wrote to his girl friend when he was in secondary school. That was his first love letter to his first love, Ama Serwaah. He remembered the weeks he spent on this letter before he finally posted it. The first paragraph of the letter took him almost three weeks to write after wasting ten official papers as a result of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and transliterations. The letter recapitulated his past days in secondary school. He smiled and shook his head several times. He sat on the floor to read the first paragraph quietly in his mind. It reads:

“My dear sweet heart, Ama Serwaa, I couldn’t have afforded to enjoy the merits of my mattress this night. I looked at my clock and realized that it was almost 12:00am, the same time I first proposed to you on the phone. Your lovely face keeps panting in my mind. Honey…it’s been a very long time when we saw ourselves. But I can promise you on authority that I haven’t forgotten the good times we spent under that big tree. As the philosophical saying goes, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. Y

He called tears into his eyes after reading the first paragraph of the three page letter dated some five years ago.

“Life is full of surprises”, he said painfully.

She was Afful’s eye. She was the heart beat of Afful when they were in secondary school. Irrespective of the fact that they were not in the same secondary school, the use of phone and letters rubbed off the distance between them. He remembered some of the nice times he spent with her. They are no more staying together as lovers. He recalled some of the factors that brought their separation.

“This break up was unnecessary”, he lamented.

He was so effusive that tears rolled down his cheeks. He picked his handkerchief from his left pocked to wipe off the flowing tears. His heart was heavy with sorrow. He wished he could turn the hand of fate.

He looked at his outdated love letter again and shook his head.

“Hmm”, he sighed painfully. “My love has slipped off my hands”

He threw his assignment paper on the floor and screamed loudly.

“Oh my God! What have I done? Where are you Ama?”

He got up from the floor and moved to where he had plucked his phone to electricity. He wanted to call Ama. He had stopped communicating with her for almost four years. Fear clamped him down. Afful scrolled through his contacts and came to Ama’s number. He dialed it and quickly cut it. He dialed it one more time and cut it again. He puts the phone down and took a deep sigh.

He hit his phone with a pillow. Afful picked the phone to read some of the old messages he had exchanged with Ama. The first message he saw was the message he sent her a day after their break up. It was of few words due to his anger at the time.

“Call you back”, the messages read.

He checked the message which she also sent him before this reply. The message read: “My dear one, let nothing separates our relationship. Remember the promises you made to me on that day. The day, I felt the beauty of nature. The day, I realized the true reflection of your love. The day, I felt the reality of womanhood and praised the amazing strings of love melodies. I believe that you will reconsider your decision to part me, my dear one. As I write you this message, I am on the island of grief. I see the future with regret. But whatever might be the case, I know, only time will tell the true story of our relationship…I love you Afful, the man of my heart”.

This message weakened his appetite. He scanned through the message inbox to read more of her messages. He couldn’t afford to bruise his emotional pains with any of her messages. Ama writes like a romantic poet.

He dialed Ama’s number again. Unfortunately for him, the voice machine picked and said, “This number is temporally unavailable”. He was shocked to the marrow extremities. He decided to dial the number once more. The response was different this time round. “This number is not in existence”, the voice machine said. Ama had stopped using the line Afful used to call her on. He lost control over his emotions. He was sweating all over irrespective of the early cold breeze in his room.

He opened the photo gallery on his phone to look for Ama’s picture. Upon seeing the picture, he covered his face with his palm. He brought the phone closer to his mouth to kiss the picture.

“My love, forgive me”

He looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was getting to 7:00am. He folded the letter and kept it in one of the pockets in his jacket which hangs on the wall.

He quickly booted his desktop computer and started to type his assignment. While typing, he was still remembering some portions of his dated love letter. He turned the computer off after he had finished typing and printed the soft copy out.

He put the hard copy of his assignment in the black rubber file he picked on the centre table. He locked his room and left for the bus station to pick a car to school. Because it was Monday, he stood at the bus station for almost half an hour before getting a vehicle. Many people came to the bus station to board cars to their various destinations as well. He struggled with the passengers over cars at the bus station before he finally got some dilapidated Benz bus.

In the bus, he sat close to the driver’s conductor affectionately called “mate”. When the mate was collecting fares from the passengers and it got to Afful’s turn, he put his hand into his pocket and picked some paper money. He gave the mate money without looking at it.

“Hey! The mate shouted. “Are you alright? Look at what you have given me?” he said angrily.

When Afful looked, it was the piece of paper he wrote the assignment on it.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t see it”

“Sorry for yourself. What at all are you thinking about this early morning?” the mate replied him loudly.

Afful took his wallet and gave the mate real money. All the passengers on board were looking at him while some were smiling intermittently. He felt embarrassed.

When he got to campus, his colleagues have already submitted their assignment and the lecturer too had threatened not to accept any late submission of work. Due to Afful’s humility and good relationship with the lecturer, he accepted his work.

Afful wasn’t in his usual mood in class that day.

“What is it, Afful?” Akua, his close friend asked him.

“There is no problem, ok”, he said softly.

“No. You don’t look happy; tell me if there is a problem. Your worries are my worries. Please, let me know”, she said passionately.

“I will tell you but not now; let’s make it after lectures”

“Ok I hear”, she nodded her head.

He sat quietly on the seat Akua had reserved for him. He was still thinking about Ama Serwaa. His mind was out of the class. Akua touched him on the shoulder when the lecturer asked him a question. He didn’t even know he was the one that the lecturer was talking to.

our absence in my life has created unfilled vacuum of sadness in my heart. But the word which you left for me has always been my solace. I remember you telling me that ‘out of sight does not mean out of mind’. Although we are separated by geographical distance, but I strongly believe that the web of love will keep us under one roof. Ama, tell me to run and you will see me flying. Dear, tell me to hope and you will see me jumping. Your lovely face is my pride. Your name is the sweetest song I have ever heard. How lovely it comforts my soul when I am in distress. I have inscribed your name on my heart. Ama, the epitome of beauty and fountain of love, ‘Obibini broni, ah medo na wo wa hei?’ Sweet heart, this is just the opening of my letter. Before you even take time to read the full length of this lovely couched letter, I humbly ask you to give it a kiss. Kissing my letter means kissing me. … Ama Serwaa, the queen of beauty, ‘Obaa sima, medo wo papa’”, Afful completed the first paragraph.

UNCERTAIN

I am asked to answer the conundrum riddle of time

When grey hair hid under fog of fear

I am speechless in the mist of vociferous

Hearing conflicting voices of soprano and baritones

Ye peddlers of glittering idioms

Unveil your uncircumcised truth in your parables

To naked ears

For it’s begging for hearing

Unfold your tongues ye seers

For its worthiness decays with time

I am all ears

I need no interpreter

Preach ye teachers of divine

For thee is the hour

Don’t let me go astray

Before you rained flood of sacrificial prayers on my motionless decay

YES! They wrestle with confusion when I laughed under cold waters

And wizened when I glibly breathe comfortably in smoke

Behold, this is the naked truth

To Zion he flies (Kofi awoonor)

Floating on the pool of tears 

I journeyed my cause to the land of the voltarians 

Where a son of a creative mind was taken captive 

Into the land of silent majority 

His mission soul was devoured by the pellets of the rebel barrel 

In the hands of the nefarious insurgents of Alshabab 

Indeed the paws of death clamped him down 

The ideal son of the imaginative mother 

His motionless body was swaddled in linen 

Our hearts missed a beat upon hearing your sudden transition 

Are we somniloquying? 

Or seeing a mystical trance with our eyes widely opened 

Oh! Our son has been sent by the ancient terror of unknown origin 

In the diaspora you walked over waters of grief to our boneless fathers 

You saw the nakedness of death 

You wrestled hard to escape its horrific clenched fist 

Yet it spilled its destructive icy spell on you 

It stole you away from our slippery hands 

Forcing you to join the train to Zion unwillingly 

REST! Son of the soil 

REST! Commander of the pen 

I hum your restless soul with poetic threnody and drums 

In your memory I rediscovered your impacts 

On global minds 

Mourning your soul with heavy hearts 

Weeping bitterly over your departure 

We are still fighting our conscious to believe your death 

Safe journey professor Kofi Awoonor to ‘Odumankoma’s’ abode 

Due! Due! Due! 

Baba na wu! Baba na wu! Baba na wu! 

May your soul find a place in the heart of father Abraham

WORKERS OF NIGHT

Dragging us on rocky grounds

Infusing frustration pills into our veins

In a distorted appearance of their diabolic disturbance they hum war dirges

Crucifying us in the name of concern

Lynching our souls with lamenting strikes

Slamming us seriously with sucking sigh

Tearing our souls open with their blood sucking teeth

Projecting through their pupil the soaring sight of wickedness

They pride themselves with terrorism

And drink from the cup of immorality

And play with anger

Leading us spiritually into the sanctuary of abattoir

Dancing round log fires in the dawn clouds

Who are these slaves of ancient rebel?

Clad in nudity

And bow before the nefarious sons of marine?

Yes, they are the workers of night

I COME FROM AFRICA

Africa o-o-o-o-o Africa, Africa o-o-o-o-o-o Africa, Africa o-o-o-o-o-o Africa

I come Africa

• The land of tropical warriors

Land of great thinkers

Land of unlimited resources

Land of culture

Land of abundant hospitality

Land of strong men and women

Land of respect

Land of hopes

Home of humility

Yes I come from Africa

The land that sit on gold and go hungry

Land of giants and yet were sold into slavery

Where we condemn our culture

And praise foreign customs with pride

Where we hate ourselves than aliens

Where we are described by the pale skin as symbol of poverty

Where politics is the only way for success

Where servants pay tax for the comfort of masters

Where we are taught how to use borrowed money

Where the ancient intruder derives his wealth

Where we see no positivism in our selves

I come from Africa where one day we shall be over comers.

THEY WERE ONCE WARRIORS

They were once warriors

Like the tripartite they fought along

Like the trinity they aimed at a goal

Like the hat trick, they teamed up

In their tents they suck their figures assiduously with pain anguish chest

In their world of misery they wrestle with agony

They trumpeted their sorrowful inscriptions on their hearts

The wailing bitter cry of the darkled barrel gun paralyzed them with fear

Their velvet were soaked with their heart pouring deluge

The villainous countenance projected on their mind the epitome of cruelty

They suffered the tortures of grief

They quench their thirst by licking dew on the slanderous dawn leaves
They were led into a scene of suffering

In their tremulous voices they sang dirges of regret on the tips of their dying tongues

They shared tears of naked agony

Grief sank deep and heavily into their hearts

They were once warriors