By Solomon Mensah & Ralph Dinko
 |
| Shot & directed by Fahd Mahama |
Day was inching closer to
night. Not long after the sun had bid the night farewell, those who had gone to
their farms were about returning. By now, most farmers were almost done with either
clearing portions of weeds under their cocoa farms or stocking their baskets
with foodstuffs.
The people of Kaedabi make
their village as busy as the anthill. Probably, it is just to while away the
boredom. The typical village that it is, Kaedabi is under the Sunyani
Municipality; miles away from modern infrastructure; as far from modern
infrastructure as it’s from Sunyani. One has to board as many as two buses from
Sunyani to Kaedabi!
Whenever the sun crawls from
the east to the west, fireflies become the source of light in the village. However,
children of Kaedabi don’t worry their heads over being exempted from enjoying even
the crumbles of the national cake. When households have finished eating their
evening meals, those from nearby cottages including; Wonterefo, Kurosua,
Nsagobesa, Kyaase Kurom and Tieku Nkwanta throng the market square of Kaedabi
to play; to enjoy their own definition of national cake.
Yaw Anane is a
student-journalist at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Accra. Should he be on
vacation at Kaedabi, the euphoria at the market square intensifies. It very
much does. He would tell the children stories (with varying lengths) about big
cities. The most exciting of all such city stories has been that of city dwellers
occasionally going to have fun at the beaches with loved ones.
Today under the mango tree at
Kaedabi, the village’s stammerer has temporarily abandoned his table-top call
center to hurl stones at a he-goat.
”You-you-you come here again
and you will see,” he warned.
It was not the goat he was
chasing. A group of three young women stood chatting at the well, which sits
few meters away from his call center, and he would do everything to eavesdrop
on their conversation.
One of the women, a dark skinned
maiden with curvy shapes, accidentally turned to scratch her back only to see
him spying on them with his jaw dropped! Impulsively, Gyasiwaa hurled her
plastic bucket at him but it missed him narrowly causing him to fall in the
grips of the other two women.
“Wofa Amponsah, please do not
plead for him. Let us beat him up till he drops dead today,” the women on fire
angrily said to a man who tried interceding for the nosy stammerer.
“This has gradually become
his character and they must teach him a lesson today in front of all the people
of Kaedabi,” a mud-complexioned woman observing from afar shouted on top of her
voice.
It was after Wofa Amponsah
had convinced them that he needed his services at the call center that they
spared his life. He was panting profusely but wished he was never let go anyway.
At least, he had found heaven between the sizeable breasts of Gyasiwaa where
his equally sizeable head had comfortably being seized.
“Ha..ha..halooo Sah, my name
is Pa..Pa..Paa Kwasi but you can call me PK, a space-to-space vendor. Your Uncle wants to speak with you.”
“My Uncle? Which of them and
from where are you calling me from?”
PK corked his right thumb on
the mouthpiece of his phone and murmured to Wofa Amponsah, ‘Wo..wo..Wofa. This
is the reason why I hes..hesi..hesitated placing your call for you! Aa aa aaba!
I said it. Should he always ask who I am?”
Amponsah sat in a chair and
cocked his head for his right temple to firmly press against his huge radio set.
He tried mounting it on his right shoulder but it fell on the ground. He picked
it up from the ground, blew air to clear off the dust on the radio set and he
whisked the phone from PK with his left hand.
“Who or what might have done
the world such a great harm? Eh? I wonder why these unfledged birdlings whom we
begot now trample on their elders with the feet of arrogance. You better watch
your tongue next time, my son!”
“So..so..sorry Wofa, I … I
didn’t mean to disrespect you. I was just com.. commenting on lawyers and their
long talk of ques-tionings. He had already started asking me many questions.”
On the rock that lies close
to the mango tree that shelters PK, Amponsah goes to stand and flings the phone
in all directions for a stable mobile network.
“Woo.. wofa, from where you
are sta..stan..standing, I should think there is network signal on the phone.”
When PK drew near to where
Amponsah stood, he realized he had turned the phone upside down with the
receiving end of it glued to his mouth.
PK gently stretched Amponsah’s
arm, opened his palm for the phone to lie prostrate in it and directed him on
how to talk on phone; that which has become a ritual whenever he comes to PK’s
call centre. When the call to Lawyer Gyamfi was finally restored, Wofa Amponsah
broke the news to him.
At Kaedabi, the lawyer’s
hometown, his senior brother who served as the chief priest of the land’s
shrine had passed on. Per tradition, Gyamfi was to succeed his brother and take
over the seat as the new chief priest of the village.
The elders of Gyamfi’s house
after appointing him as the successor to his brother and heir to the throne of
the shrine, have had their decisions approved by the gods of Kaedabi.
“What? A whole me a chief
priest? The lawyer and flagbearer whose fame is felt across the length and
breadth of Ghana to be the new mouthpiece of the gods and the people of
Kaedabi? Where will be the place of my Bible after ascending that fetish throne
not to even talk of my hard earned professions? Never! Wofa Amponsah, you know
I have every right to reject such an offer?”
”Reject, you say?”
“Please… please, you are my
uncle, Amponsah. I don’t want to engage you in any legal tussle for threatening
my peace and freedom of association. It is either the gods are mad and confused
or you elders of Kaedabi still go for meetings and conclude matters in words
spoken in honor of palm wine. I had nothing against my deceased brother but I
am sorry I can’t succeed him.”
“Gyamfi! You dare not speak
evil of the gods and elders of Kaedabi.”
Gyamfi hangs up the phone.
Minutes later, he tries calling back Amponsah but he is repeatedly told, “The
mobile number you are calling is either switched off or out of coverage area.”
The lawyer’s bereaved mother
would need some amount of money to serve her visitors who keep pouring
condolences on her. He had, therefore, wanted to tell Wofa Amponsah he would be
sending him some amount of money to be delivered to the woman gripped with
sorrow.
Few months ago, before the
funeral of the chief priest, Gyamfi had sent home GHC2, 000 but when the money
got to Kaedabi, Amponsah who usually took the parcel from the Kaedabi bus
drivers did the unthinkable. He was supposed to take his portion of GHc300 but
gave Awo Yaa only GHC1, 200 while the remainder found its way into his pocket.
That day, he bought a
calabash of palm wine for everyone who happened to have been present at Ataa Adwoa’s Palm wine Bar. It was
rumored at Kaedabi that he even left an amount with Ataa Adwoa for those
drunkards who would come to the bar after he had left.
Later on, when Gyamfi found
out, he threatened Amponsah on phone. He would let the police arrest him for
his deceitful ways. Amponsah apologized.
Gyamfi’s money had to go
through a series of transits of bus drivers before eventually getting to
Amponsah. “Awo Yaa has come of age,” Gyamfi groaned. “Even walking to the
bathroom is a headache to her. If she were active on her feet, Amponsah would
have never touched my money, again, at first hand.”
Just when Gyamfi was about
inserting his phone into his pocket, Amponsah called back. “… Gyamfi, it is not
that I betrayed you as you say. I tried telling the elders that your professions
won’t allow you become the chief priest. But …’”
“But what? And you say the
elders have summoned me home? Right? Hmmm! Little did I know that rushing back
to Accra after the funeral worried the elders that much. Emm … I will be
traveling to Ohio …”
“Oha … what?” Amponsah sought
to find out where that was.
“You always make me laugh
even when anger dawns on me. Ohio is in the States; I mean in the Whiteman’s
land.”
“Ah yoo!”
“Wofa, do well to tell the
elders I will be coming to Kaedabi on the second Saturday of next month on my
return to Ghana. Extend my warmest greetings to Awo Yaa.”
“I will,” Amponsah chipped
in.
“Assure her that when I come,
I will return to Accra with her as she has always wished.”
The
call ended. Amponsah smiled. Money had been made mention of. He would obviously
have his share in the amount of money he would be receiving from the lawyer.
Email:
annoyingthegods@gmail.com
The story continues in
episode II. Watch out!
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