Wednesday 12 August 2015

Of a hustler-turned-SHS teacher and Taliban’s favorite quote



 
Kyereh-Yeboah Victor
“God is great,” so says Kyereh-Yeboah Victor, a Division Two League referee and Social Studies teacher at the Berekum Presbyterian Senior High School.

“At the back or inside of every book that I have bought is written ‘God is great’,” Victor hinted. He says that is his motto.

I have personally been on the same campus with him at the Berekum College of Education. We sat in the same classroom and slept in the same hall, the Nicholas Hall.

I learnt of his struggles back on campus but never got to know him better until I recently engaged him in a WhatsApp chat. After reading and listening to him tell me how he hustled to the position he is now, I did not question him any further on his chosen motto. I couldn’t agree any more.  

“I started my basic school at Abusuapԑadeԑ L/A Primary School at Abusuapԑadeԑ, a community in Dormaa Ahenkro West of the Brong Ahafo Region,” he narrated.

Victor says that was in 1988 and he completed Junior High School in 1997 at Kojo Kumi Kurom L/A JHS, also in Dormaa Ahenkro West.

It was after his JHS education that life twisted his head for him to see his heels. Like Syria’s refugee children in Lebanon, he became an adult before his time; he had to fend for himself!

Victor tells me he became confused on his direction to climbing the ladder of life.

“I realized my destiny was in my hands and that I must work a magic. I looked for a job at Kojo Kumi Kurom as a druggist [at the Onyame Akwan Drug Store]. I worked there for over a year but had to quit the job due to poor working conditions,” he added.

Victor would now move to Mmirengyaa, about 10km away from Kojo Kumi Kurom, to till a land for the cultivation of rice with his God-given strength.

“God watered my 15 acres rice farm. I came to settle in Berekum (Brong Ahafo Region) with the proceeds of the farm to learn a trade. This was in 1999.”

He says he learnt carpentry, specializing in roofing of buildings, which took him to places including Baakoniaba in Sunyani and Akyem-Aprade, Eastern Region.

All this while, Victor had the intention of continuing his education but needed to plough and save cash just as the ant saves food for the future.

Carpentry, according to Victor, was/is as difficult as pulling a string of hair from the nostrils. He had to, at a point in time, kiss his tools a goodbye for school.

“In 2002 thereabout, I made a return journey to Dormaa Ahenkro to a village called Santaso. Here, I worked as a labourer on people’s farms earning GH₵100 per month.”

Victor’s parents, both cocoa farmers, had promised him of their support should he be able to gather some amount of money for his schooling. Apparently, in the 2003/2004 academic year, he applied and got admission at the Methodist Secondary Technical School (MESTECH), Berekum. He needed to make a comeback to Berekum. However, he had to live with a foster parent.

“My comeback to Berekum was very hard.”

Surviving through turbulent times, he managed to complete his SHS education and gained admission into the Berekum College of Education in 2007.

Completing the teacher’s college in 2010 and realizing the need to climb high the ladder of education, he enrolled in the Valley View University (VVU), Accra-Oyibi campus, to study Bachelor of Education, majoring in Social Studies.

Luck shone on him after his VVU course. Guess what. He got the opportunity to teach at the Berekum Presbyterian Senior High School. That is exactly how he ended up as a teacher there!

Away from education, he doubles as a [class two] football referee of Ghana’s Division Two League; a passion he said he started in 2009. On August 3, 2015, he officiated a match between Reformers vs Bectero at the Sunyani Coronation Park.

Currently, he is the Public Relations Officer of the Berekum Municipal Referees Association. He is inspired to do more in spite of the less he has.

Mr. Enoch Kyeremeh is a teacher in Dormaa Ahenkro and a close friend of Victor’s. When I contacted him on whom Victor is to him, he said, “I always tell him to celebrate every blessed day as a special day for he has passed through hell to be where he is now.”

At the recent ranking of the richest people in Ghana, Kyereh-Yeboah Victor’s name was not on the list. It won’t even be on the list of the richest people in Berekum alone. But… he is thankful to God for how far he has come in life.



In one of Akwasi Ampofo Agyei’s (Mr. AAA) songs titled ‘Time Changes,’ – which, however, should have been ‘Times Change’- the legendary highlife musician of blessed memory told a story of a teacher.


The teacher, in the said song, told his pupils that they should not be surprised should they see him in the near future working as either a truck pusher, basket seller or even a pastor for times change.

Indeed, times change but what we will become at the end of the changes in times is determined by how we approach issues in our lives. Victor approached his with vim and vigour and counted on God to see him through hence his motto- God is great.

The terrorism group, Taliban, has a favorite quote, “America has the watch but we have the time.”

While you are motivated by Victor’s story to press on in life, be reminded not to force God to run you through life with the speed of a duiker.

Pray and do your best possible in your chosen field or towards what you want to achieve. Most importantly, wait on Him and relax. You have the ‘watch’ BUT… let God tell the ‘time.’ 

It takes just a day for the moon’s light to melt down the darkness of your sorrows.
Lest I forget, Victor says I should tell you he has not stopped dreaming. He wants to graduate to the status of a lecturer and an international referee of repute someday. 

By Solomon Mensah

Writer's email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com
Twitter: @Aniwaba