Relief!

April ’09

Gladys has left. She came to the big city in search of glitz and money and the life she will live with us just doesn’t cut it. There isn’t much of a social life, there is lots of work and too many new things.

I don’t blame her. The last few years of her life have been spent idly or at the very least on her own schedule. She used to sell ampesi (boiled plaintains) in Obuasi. Then she stopped and spent her days in conversation, waiting for her guardian to find the money to put her in a trade or training. Eventually bored with the wait she came to Accra to seek her fortune.

During her first week here, I had a lot of errands to run with the children so we went out a good number of times. She reported herself happy to the aunt who brought her to me. But the happiness didn’t last long. Her second week was spent all at home. The third seemed to be going that way too. On top of which there were so many things she didn’t know how to do or use that I expected her to master.


Early Wednesday morning she came to me and told she wanted to go. She preferred work in a ‘chopbar’ or some other eating place she said. After work, she could do what she liked and that was more her style. We agreed she would leave on Friday. But her aunt asked me to let her stay till Sunday when she would have the day off and could return her to their hometown. She didn’t say it aloud but we both knew what she meant. She didn’t want to be responsible for her niece falling into prostitution. She wished to wash her hands off her officially and let the burden of her lifestyle in the city be upon her own head. I understood and told Gladys I would pay her on Sunday when her aunt came for her.

Ordinarily, when someone lives or works under my authority and they want to leave, I feel bad that I must have driven them away and I reexamine my interactions with them to be sure I am not the reason for their departure. I didn’t do that with Gladys. As I told her aunt, I had never lost money in my own home until she came into it. Within a week of her arrival more than two hundred dollars disappeared from their secret location. We are expanding our house and there are workmen about. They could any of them have taken it, I accept that. But they have all been working here for over four months. I have never lost any money.

So I couldn’t help but be more suspicious of her than of the old faces. And she had the irritating habit of not admitting it when she didn’t know something and would keep me waiting until I asked irritably about it then I’d discover she didn’t know what it was. I wasn’t sad to see her go.


I imagine it wasn’t all peaches and cream for her either. Being wrong and ignorant so often is unpleasant and can make a person feel insecure and unhappy. Veronica has harsh opinions of her employers before me. They were her first job. First jobs are hard on these girls. They are full of instructions, new lessons and new gadgets; impatience, irritated tones, raised voices and rules. I told myself I would get used to Gladys. She would pick up and we would get along famously. I didn’t really believe it but I like to think I give people a fair chance. So I braced myself to stick with her another few months at least and hoped I got over my hostility or that she gave me honest cause to sack her. Fortunately I’ve been spared the burden.

Finding somebody else can take over a month. I have gotten lazy from having two efficient women who know what I like manning our little station. Until I find and train somebody else, I will have to knuckle down and help out with the work. I’m not looking forward to that. But thank goodness Gladys has left!

One Goes, Another Comes.

January 09

Gladys has arrived in my household. She is replacing Christina who went away for five days for a funeral and later the same day she returned, was picked up by her uncle for a ‘purifying prayer session’. I gave her a day off for the prayer session. She called me the next day to say that, according to her uncle, it would take two weeks. My original decision was to fire her. But then I thought of her. She is a good girl: a young, simple soul with a good heart and few options. She does not give me much trouble. My children like her, I like her and she has little ambition or foresight of her own. I worried that if I sacked her, she would go to some other person who is not as nice to her help and who has no thought to her future and may live all her life hand to mouth or in want. So I waited the two weeks she asked and then another week. It has been a month and half now and there’s been no news from her. Having no other choice, I have sadly replaced her.

Her people won’t let her come back. For what reasons I do not know. I was told earlier by my aunt that some of these girls’ have relatives who do not wish them well and so shouldn’t encourage too much contact between her and her uncles. Maybe, another woman told me, the person who has executive authority over her has a child who has become a wastrel and will be damned if this fatherless child will do any better. I didn’t think that anybody would be so pettily motivated and so contrary to all the advice I’d received, I gave her a week off to visit her hometown at Christmas and made sure she had presents for everyone. I thought she would be homesick; this was her first job.

Once more I’m bending to the wisdom of the ages. Christina’s departure, it seems is a case of something close to this. She has been sent back to the village and left incommunicado. She took only two sets of clothes with her I’m told because she expected to be back overnight-or perhaps to throw sand in our eyes. And still has money with me. Neither her aunts nor uncles will pick up when Veronica or I call them. I feel a little responsible for what has happened to her. I should have let her be homesick. According to the theories I’m hearing it was her apparent prosperity that caused the ‘sikin pain’ that led to this pass.

I don’t need her help desperately. This is not why I’ve been trying to find her. They are not that difficult to find househelps. And as she didn’t even know what a mop was when she came to me she takes nothing irreplaceable away from my house. But she is endearing for both the goodness and simplicity of her mind and soul. So I wish she had stayed so I could have helped her make the most of her life.

Now instead she will spend her days in one village or another waiting for her uncle to find the money to put her into a trade or some form of training. She will wait vainly and then in disappointment turn first to one man then the other. By her third child, she will be old and tired from never being quite able to make ends meet. But she will also be unable to leave to find work, for who will mind her children and that will be the end of whatever good track she could have been on.

I wish for her sake she would shake off her uncle’s hand and do what’s right for her. She is, after all, the one who pays all her bills. The uncle does nothing for her and should not have any say so in her life. But she is village bred and the traditional moral authority of his position as her father’s inheritor holds more psychological power than her financial independence has.

Gladys is very happy to have got the job. She is 22, recently orphaned, with a 6 year old son, an irresponsible ex-husband and no skill. She came from Obouase, where her family settled to Somanya, from where they hail, from there she intended to come to Accra to seek her fortune. Her aunt whom I had tasked with finding me a replacement found out about her ambitions on a funeral trip there. Now here she is.

I feel terrible about Christina. She acquired quite a number of clothes in her eight months with us. She deserves to be able to take them with her. I was working on a Birth Certificate for her. It is now ready and lies in her bag. I do hope they will at least let her come back to get them. And she has money with me; money we were saving to open an account for her. I have told her people that I won’t give the money to anyone else. I want to put it in Christina’s palm myself and know that she got her due. I’m sure they would have come for her stuff already if they thought they could get at the money but knowing they can’t squander it, makes the prospect of facing me less worthwhile.

I do not understand why help and their families behave in this odd manner. She’ll be back tomorrow, then silence, then no one picks up your calls till you lose interest and find some other eager broke person desperately seeking employment to fill the position. Is it not simpler by far to say to me: I don’t want to work here one second longer. Give me what you owe me and let me be on my way’? It would certainly be more beneficial. I would have given her a farewell bonus. Instead they spent time meeting and thinking up stories they could use to come for her. How utterly pointless. I don’t run a prison. My gate opens to admit but it also opens to release.

I miss the oiled smoothness of my house run with two well trained staff. I also miss her. Otherwise, I am no worse for her exit. But she, is dramatically so for leaving. I hope her life works out for her. I hope her happy eagerness is not corrupted by an unnecessarily hard life into cynicism and despair.

Gladys is fresh from the village and completely untrained, as Christina was. It will be a long and often trying process to bring her up to par for my household. But she is determined to learn. The life her cousin has in our house has convinced her to win my approval and she is glad for the good luck she has had. O well. We have a saying in Akan, that it was the sudden death of the rich man’s goat that made the poor man’s soup full of with meat.

Ode to 'The Fine'.

January ‘09

I have tried varied ways; stern tone, joking tone, cajoling tone, displeased tone, lengthy explanations, everything but a can-can routine to explain to my girls that I hate being pressured to spend money. I like to be informed when things are running out, not when they are gone. I hate being told ‘Maman, there’s no fish’ ‘Maman, the boys don’t have any milk’ I really, truly hate that. I believe strongly, and have shared this belief with them, that only two professions afford a person the luxury of such an uncharted life and random spending; drug dealing and thievery. I have assured them also that they will be the first to know when I take up either trade. I will however insist that they ply it with me.

Still absolutely nothing got through. Week after week I would have my cheery mood dashed or a testy one aggravated by one or other of them, small voiced and sheepish-looking, telling me that there was no gas, no pork, no onion, no formula. It is never things you can do without till tomorrow either, like say oats or vinegar. No, it is always immediately pressing. It also always requires me slotting in a route I had not intended to use. No matter which way I was going, they manage to find something I buy in the opposite direction to demand. I buy diapers at the Mall and formula in Mammobi. If I were headed for instance to Legon, it could never be diapers that are we are in sore need of, it would have to be formula. Lord but it annoys me! I asked them once in the most patient of voices, ‘do your eyes roll upwards as you mix milk?’ ‘no Maman’ said Christina. ‘No Maman’ said Veronica. ‘So how is it’, I asked, ‘that you always seem surprised to be scraping the bottom of the tin?” I got a lot of foolish giggles but not a single coherent answer.
.
My life might have rolled along down this irksome path indefinitely had I not found a splendid cure. One morning as I was approached with yet another outstretched ‘we’ve ran out’ palm, I announced that it was the last time I was picking the tab on their irresponsibility. Thenceforth we would plan our every purchase; either with my money or theirs. If they told me something was going short, we had planned with my money; I would pay. If they let empty cans hit the bin before I was told, we had planned with their money; they would pay.

Not two weeks later I’m sitting behind my PC, enjoying the voyeuristic pleasures of Facebook, when Christina comes up to me. She bears the glad tidings that Vini has run out of milk. ‘Well then’, I say, ‘we must buy some and since you tell me after its finished and before my admission that I have indeed set up my own little cocaine academy ore become Mansa the Dread Highway Robber, you must have had this on your budget.’ I made each of them cough up GHc7.50 and we bought the milk. I then thanked them profusely for feeding my son, purely to rub it in. How they sulked! They spent several days with a weight in their gait and a glower, all of which was water down my back. I was not at all daunted. When I received the next shopping list, it came with the notice ‘Maman, we’ve just opened Vini’s last tin but one.’ I smiled to myself. As we say here, otwiaala!

Some time last year I bought a set of twelve glasses. They lasted about two months. Kofi bought us a new set, also twelve. They lasted three months or something like that. One evening, looking at the last two glasses we now possessed I grumbled crossly about wastage, and a conspiracy to embarrass me when I have guests. It was my fault, Kofi told me, because there was no punishment for such carelessness. Why exert yourself to avoid it when all you need do is utter an apology afterwards. It needn’t even be sincere. I saw his point.

We had read about Bisphenol A leaching into warm milk from plastic bottles and had promptly switched Dovie to glass. In the pre-Vini preparations, Kofi had had to buy some more since the girls had not left unshattered even one for Dovie to pass down. ‘They cost 4 cedis each’ I told the girls, ‘you break it you bought it.’ That first month they broke three. When I paid them I presented their bills. ‘You owe me eight cedis for bottles and you owe me four.’ I didn’t deduct my due at source. I gave them their total earnings, then made them hand over my bottle money themselves. They were very amused. They thought I was just making a point until I pocketed the money and walked off. The crestfallen look on their faces was too delicious to describe and its memory even now entertains me. I heard one ask the other if I was really going to keep it. I didn’t catch the answer, I didn’t need to. Of this I am certain; smirking hasn’t been this much fun in years.

We use a set of eight I bought at the Mall currently. They are very large and I love them. Kofi has infected me with a hatred for ‘drinking out of thimbles’. The more like a cauldron a glass is, the fonder we are of it. These ones hold about a half litre each and are therefore greatly loved. A watered down coke on ice- twist of lemon if possible (it adds even more to the look than it does the flavour) - has never looked colder or more able to quench thirst, I assure you. It has been four months and I haven’t lost a single one yet. Our elders say advice does not change people, only trials do. It appears also that the only thing that dries slippery hands is bills.

Speak no evil

January 09

The boys are bonding well. This pleases me greatly. Dovie has taken to his big brother role easily-far more so than I was led to anticipate- and I make a conscious effort to not make either one feel too special. In my zeal not to make Dovie feel replaced, I was starting to give him far more attention than Vini got. But because I didn’t let my help touch him- he was too young- and I took care of him myself, he hadn’t started to feel it yet. Fortunately I caught myself before it became our set pattern.

Dovie has, after a slight ripple in the waters, gotten used to me or his papa playing with his brother. To my amusement he has yet to understand or accept that his grandparents are Vini’s too and gets a bit put out if they seem too enthralled with young Master Vini. When the baby cries, Dovie often pats him on the back, or will rock him in his bouncy chair. He used to beat on Vini a lot more till his father started doing unto him as he had done unto his brother. He would smack Vini’s face and Kofi would smack his. He’d cry, we’d hug him and that would be the end of it. He soon stopped thinking it was fun to whack the kid. I still occasionally have to scold him for hitting his brother but all in all we are in a good place.

I am lucky that my son was so young when his brother came along. I’ve thus had a chance to learn some things that I would have paid heftily for if Dovie had been older at no extra sweat. Top on the list of these is the effect the careless talk that abounded before Vini was born would have had on him.

‘Look at you, playing so happily, mwah, you don’t even know that you’ll be dethroned in a few months poor boy. Mwah, mwah mwah.’ ‘You go on and cling to your mom and don’t let me carry you some. In a few months she won’t have a moment to spare for you then you’ll see’ ‘O Dovie, why are they dethroning you so quickly, your mean parents.’ They didn’t mean anything by it. It was only thoughtlessness that made them speak so. No one expects it to damage the child. But I shudder when I think how it would have affected Dovie had he understood more language then.
Even if he had had no strong objection to the existence of his brother, being constantly told by so many people of so many walks that something dreadful would follow the baby’s arrival would definitely have made him- as would have anyone else- rethink his generosity.

I was slightly annoyed by the suggestion that I would neglect Dovie because of Vini. But partly because I didn’t want to make strident claims and find out that everyone was right; there was after all only so equally a human mother could love her children and partly because I was a little shy to take on people who I know are full of good will for me and my family, I let it slide. By the time the potential impact dawned on me and I decided to put an end to such talk, he had heard a good number of calls to resentment. Luckily for us all he didn’t understand a word of it. He was too busy trying to figure out why heeding a ‘bra mummy’ could sometimes lead to a hug and other times to the loss of that fabulous new toy he’d picked up from the corner and was just about to taste.

Now that Vini is here, everyone seems to have lost interest in this topic that, only months ago, was pressing to comment on and a good thing too! Lately Dovie is ever surprising us with his comprehension of language. If those careless words were bandied about now, though he might miss the nuances the words have picked up in their evolutionary journey, he certainly would get the general message. I’m thankful I did not have to tell the adults; people, who are mostly good parents themselves, not to say things they must have said a hundred times before with no obvious catastrophe ensuing. And there’s nothing like slapping somebody down to kill their joy in your children. I’m glad, so glad I was spared the necessity.

But like we say, if you pass by someone’s window and hear them advising their child, stop and listen, you might be the wiser for it. So this lesson I’ve learnt, luckily only as a concept, I pass on to everyone who would hear. Do not let anyone tease your child that their unborn sibling is replacing, dethroning or usurping them. The cost is steep, the effects permanent. If they can’t think of anything genuinely harmless to say, let them take a cue from Dovie. ‘tja’ and ‘na na na’ can be the foundation of some very deep conversations.

Never again another Tylenol through my lips!

January 09.


I’m a worst case scenario imaginer. It is not that I’m a pessimist. It is that I have a wildly hyperbolic imagination. It can take anything, however innocuous, and blow it up into a catastrophe that would make the stoutest heart quiver. For instance if I call someone important to me four or five times in one evening without getting a response, I break out in a deep fear that something horrible has happened to them; they have had an accident or are alone and unconscious in their car by the wayside or in a bush. It could never be simply that they were asleep, though it was only eight or that they just didn’t feel like talking to me.

I had a boyfriend once who cheated on me. After a good deal of brouhaha and cartloads of hurtful words in both directions, I decided to give him another chance. Only, thenceforth every time he didn’t pick up his phone I envisioned him with the other woman telling her how much he loved her and asking her to be patient; he would dump me he just needed time to break it to me gently. Within twenty minutes of dialing his number I would be furious with him, and poised to leave him. When we met or spoke, I would bring up the ignored calls, looking for signs of deception, so I could walk. Often he would respond with something like ‘I was still in that meeting’. –the presentation of which I had helped him work on -or ‘O sorry baby I was asleep.’ Then whoosh out would go all the hot air and I’d be weak from the pent up anger, but would play it cool so he would have no inkling what had just happened. If he went out of town I imagined they were hosting a first anniversary party at a hotel and all his friends were there. I was the only one who didn’t know about them in all Accra and was therefore a standard joke. Again I’d plan some elegant yet melodramatic way to dump him that would make the list of the ‘top ten ways to dump your man.’ Eventually the tension of such a high adrenaline life got to me and I got out.

The point I’m endeavouring to illustrate is what a James Bond my imagination is. Imagine then, if you can, my utter horror and the madly spinning flight my mind went into when early Tuesday morning last week, I came back into my bedroom from a quick dash to the car to find Veronica –my help- taking half a 500mg tab of Tylenol from a smiling Dovie’s mouth. To this day I do not know how it is I didn’t go into cardiac arrest. He was sitting sprawled on the floor with the bottle of easily a hundred pills lying scattered around him. I grabbed him and, in a most un-first-aidy move, held him tightly to my heart crying ‘o Dovie, o God.’ When I remembered the urgency of time, I stopped squashing him and looked into his mouth. I considered giving him water, then decided against it. Some poisons require water but others milk, and yet others orange juice, I recalled foggily from a long ago Girl Guide Camp. I didn’t want to complicate things so I left it alone.

Kofi came back from the cafe and I told him. He said quietly that that was how a childhood buddy of his had lost his hearing. ‘he’s little o, he’s so little’ he said in sad grave tones looking at Dovie. I don’t have to tell anyone who knows me even a little that I promptly started crying. ‘Dovie.’ I called. He ignored me. ‘Dovie! Dovie!’ I started freaking out and went to him shook him ‘Dovie’. He looked up puzzled touched a hand to my teary cheek and smiled. ‘tja’ he shouted and went back to his game.

The boys had a weighing appointment so I had planned to make one trip of it. Dovie would see the doctor then we’d go and see the nurses for the weighing. After learning about the hearing loss incident, I began worrying that it had been the wrong thing to do; that I should have left with him immediately and come back later for Vini. I said a quick furious prayer that it be not too late.

Poor Veronica. I called for her. She didn’t respond, I called again, no response. I yelled her name out like a drumroll and when she got there I turned to her, a volunteer for the weight and stress of my fear. ‘why do you always make me shout for you, do you think I’ve nothing better to do with my energy. Who told you our neighbours like to dance to your name. Ah I’m sick of you.’ I yelled. I rushed us through the dressing up and hopped in to the car and driving a little too fast, a subdued Veronica, worried me, sleeping Vini and a happily playing Dovie set off for the clinic.

There was nothing the matter with him. It seemed he hadn’t eaten any. He had only just managed to put that half in his mouth when Veronica came in. A baby reacting to a drug, I was told, did so within seconds of consuming it and left one in no doubt as to what was happening. I was so relieved I had to sit down. My knees were weak.

It is true that I had left the bottle on the dresser but he really shouldn’t have been able to reach it. I’m willing to swear a week ago he couldn’t have. That’s the trouble with babies, they grow so fast that some of the changes are nearly imperceptible to one in constant contact. It was not physical development that gave him access to the pill bottle; it was an increase in mental capacity. The bottle was indeed too far out for him to reach. But the bottom drawer was slightly open and his smarter-this-week-than-last brain told him that if he used it to climb up he would get to it. And it was right.

Practically everyone in the clinic, nurses, the doctor, the pharmacist, the receptionist, other mothers, ventured to tell me not to put bottles on low shelves; to construct a wooden cabinet box and put it high up on a wall, never to leave him alone in a room with pills or bottles. It grated; all that admonition, it burnt. I could feel me get prickly inside as people gave me how to be a good mother advice. As if I didn’t know how. I already have a medicine box alright. Mchew. But I couldn’t say a word. If I were doing it so right, why were we there? How did he end up with Tylenol in his mouth. So I stood by smiling through gritted teeth and saying ‘o I say. Children; take your eyes off them for a minute…’

I was happy to get home. He was fine. It was over. I sent Veronica to buy me a coke with more money than she needed and when she came back, I sheepishly told her to keep the change. It was my way of apologizing. She had had such a bewildered look on her face. And indeed, what had she done? Had it not been for her, Dovie might actually have had time to bite into the pill. She really hadn’t deserved the yelling. Though she is in the habit of pretending deafness, she knew we were going to the hospital so had packed the boys’ bag and gone to change when she was summoned with the bellow.

Dovie, like they promised at the clinic, is right as rain; full of energy and joy and hearing complete. Veronica has since been restored to glory, I’ve outlived my shame and all is quiet on this front. Lately the exaggerator is being put to better use. No longer am I wasting energy worrying that Kofi has had a flat on a deserted road when his phone’s off. These days me and my imagination expend our energies exploring the possible dangerousness of every little thing invented by man; matchsticks, pens, pen tops, even padlocks. When Kofi tried to take my lip gloss from him the other day I nearly said ‘o let him have it what harm can it do.’ At once my imagination answered. An event flash of Dovie with my lip gloss thick on his eyelids holding one eye shut, and being prepped for emergency surgery and I quickly agreed with him. ‘Give me that you’, I said, swooping down to snatch it. All his protests and tears didn’t so much as move a cord in me. How could they, filled as I was with smug satisfaction that I had thwarted the eye disaster that had surely been coming.

only fools never change their minds.

Having been thoroughly scolded this weekend by all manner of persons for the folly of exercising my freedom to end my blog, I’ve come to see the wisdom in their viewpoint. Even I have to admit it sounds a tad silly to say I closed it to start another when there’s no tax on the number of blogs a person can have. Plus my children really do comprise roughly 70% of my fascination with being alive. So I will start that other blog soon. But I’m happy to announce that I’m still learning on the job.

curtain call.

Thank you everyone who ever read this blog for not crushing my belief that my children are exciting and I’m fascinating and all that. Thank you for the pleasure your caresses to my ego have given me. I hope you each get to enjoy the depth and dimension that parenthood adds to your existence. I am closing this blog now.

I intend to start another soon. I want to do something with all the random thoughts that pop into my head. Although I’m sure I will yap about the oddest things, I hope I can have your company there.

A Human In His Own Right.

December ’08

Vinyo is a handsome baby. Everyone says that. Not that I could think any differently even if a report from the World Independent Commission on Beauty stated the contrary. But it is still nice to be part of the majority. A lot about his looks reminds me and everyone else of Dovie. They look quite alike. I thought it cute initially that everyone remarked how like his brother he looked. But it didn’t take long before it began to irritate me.

People would exclaim that he was Dovie’s brother indeed and then either do a quick compare and contrast essay or stamp everything about him as ‘he is really Dovie’s brother’. For instance the fact that he is a big eater confirms that, ‘he is really Dovie’s brother’. He has dimples, again because ‘he is really Dovie’s brother’. ‘Where is he?’ ‘He’s asleep.’ ‘O he is really Dovie’s brother’. ‘What beautiful hair he has, he is really Dovie’s brother.’… It is making me wonder what I ever did to make the whole world doubt my fidelity to my husband; I feel almost relieved that that particular secret concern seems to have been put to sleep. Of course no one is saying how he really is Kofi’s son so it is possible all I’ve proved is that my children share a father and not necessarily that I have taken ‘forsaking all others’ to heart.

Dovie is a handsome boy, a darling, everything a little boy or rather a big baby his age should be. I would be the first to shout it from the rooftops. But the subjugation of Vini’s personality to his is completely unacceptable. It is early yet, when he is older his own traits will be established. I feel though that if I allow this ‘Dovie’s brother’ nonsense to go unchecked and unremarked it will be so deeply entrenched that he will always be assessed in reference to Dovie. ‘He’s a good athlete, unlike Dovie.’ Or ‘he doesn’t do as well in music as Dovie.’

No observation made about Dovie was preceded or followed by a comparison. He didn’t have to be fair unlike my ex boyfriend’s son or smarter than Kofi’s one night stander’s daughter. He was just fair or smart or cute or funny. And Vini deserves the same. He is no less complete a baby.

I am not saying, never anyone dare mention both their names in the same breath. I have no objection to any comments about the similarity in looks. ‘They really look alike’ does not offend me. It is ‘he is really handsome, just like Dovie’ that does. Why not ‘what handsome boys they are’? What’s wrong with ‘your sons are heavy sleepers both’? Why must his personality stand in relation to his brother’s?

Some things are difficult to refrain from commenting on I concede. It is impossible not to notice that both my babies are big boys; that Vini is bigger than Dovie was at his age and his face is a different shape than Dovie’s. But that’s where it stops. Behavioral comparisons will not change what they are and will only serve to make them resentful of each other and the makers of said juxtapositions.

And I will not permit it. I refuse to have my sons made to feel insecure or inferior just to satisfy somebody’s desire to share an idle observation. I have officially outlawed comparative statements among my peers. I have yet to find a respectful and tactful way to do it with the adults. I’m working on it. I’ll soon come up with something.

I was a shy child and I was clumsy. It was not too difficult to acquire complexes. The unintentional unkindness of being compared with my nimbler elder sister, tidier cousins, less talkative peers soon took its toll. I am the only left handed person in my family. I have 2 sisters, 23 cousins, 1 nephew, 7 uncles and an aunt and not a one is left handed. But thanks to my old folks, I have always been inordinately proud of it. They never let people bully me. Despite the negativity attached to the left hand in our culture they found a way to make me unashamed. In class one, my teacher tried to force me to be right handed and it soon began affecting my work badly. I was failing miserably at right-handedness and the anxiety of facing another day of failure was making me lose interest in school and schoolwork. As soon as my mother found out what was going on, she descended on the school authorities and told them to stay away from her child. ‘God made her left-handed’, she said ‘and God doesn’t make mistakes’

I myself am sometimes guilty of the sin of comparison. Occasionally I catch myself thinking ‘Vini is stronger than Dovie was at this age’- like it makes a difference to anything. When I do, I chastise myself severely. So I recognize from my own experience that it is not always easy to avoid the greater than/less than speech. But I am making conscious effort and anyone who wishes to be part of their life better make one too.

I will stand in defense of my children’s distinctiveness. Anyone who tries to warp their self esteem and confidence, even if by accident of careless talk, will feel the unrestrained sharpness of my tongue, famed even when tempered for its acidity. The exception is with the adults. This method cannot be applied to them without social sanction both for myself and for the children I am using it to protect. For them I’m polishing my tact. When such statements are made, I will politely but firmly state my displeasure. If it is dismissed airily as complaints by the young often are here, I will not make a fuss. I will hold my tongue. Just be sure you say your fondest and most earnest goodbyes when the kids are leaving you. Chances are you will never see them again.

Breathe iiin…aawwttt

December ‘08

My sons are away this week. They are spending it with my Uncle Alex and Aunt Margaret- with whom I used to spend weekends as a child and who happen to be the sitting president and first vice president of the Dovie-is-a-wonder foundation, a not-for profit organization based in Tema. Everyone tells me how lucky I am to have such help; they don’t know how right they are. I am; I truly am. They have been wonderful. Not only do Dovie, and now Vini as well, spend days at a go with them being overindulged, overfed and adored, Kofi and I also get the royal treatment whenever we are there. In fact we spent the first 3 weeks post-op with them and were waited on hand and foot; a major factor in how it is I recovered so quickly and so completely. It is, without a doubt, because we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us that we stand tall.

So this week I’m traipsing around Accra masquerading as a young, single, childless woman and I’m loving it. It has been a delightful and most effective way to de-stress. Of course, the delightfulness lies primarily in it being an impermanent and voluntary situation I can reverse with a simple hour long drive. I doubt I would be rhapsodizing were it otherwise. The time our sons spend in Tema has proven very good for our relationship. My husband and I are all over each other. Sharing a space without our children takes us back to our dating days (when we lived in iniquity and the wicked pleasure that is bestowed by vice). That revisit gives our relationship a shot in the arm that helps it to thrive. With nothing to distract us from ourselves, we get a chance to enjoy each other thoroughly. The first night we didn’t go anywhere or do anything special, we both just slept- a full night’s sleep, what a total luxury!

This week I feel so free. I can walk faster without the baby hanging in front of me, I can go to the ‘corner-corner’ retail heaven where I shop in Mammobi, and I can go out and do everything I have to super-coordinate when the boys are home spontaneously. Its divine. Being frazzled and bothered takes away a lot of the joy in being with your children. So whenever I need me time or we need us time, I send them off. While they are gone I get to refocus on what’s great about them and miss them. Often some incident will inspire a wave of ‘child-sickness’ that makes keen the desire to bring them home, and by the time they get here, we are both in love with them again. (This time it was a Pampers ad with newborns and a cute toddler at the mall.)

The first time I took Dovie over to Tema, he was three months old. All week I was excited he would go away. I was too young to be held hostage by motherhood I said. I intended to celebrate to the full my temporary relief from my responsibilities to this very demanding master. Kofi and I made great plans of chilling, clubbing and sex and couldn’t wait to get them underway. But when the weekend finally came along and I took him over, I found myself unable to leave. I dallied till it got late and Auntie Maggie actually asked me to go home, at which point I began to cry. I cried all 20 some kilometers home and by the time I parked I was bawling. That first night was spent in a swirl of self-pity and loneliness and melodramatic misery. Kofi, to his credit, rallied and tried to seem to be having fun but Dov’s absence was so tangible he couldn’t keep it up. Eventually he abandoned the effort and joined me in the pits of gloom and we spent the first night extolling the incomparable virtues of our son.

By the time we woke up though, we were both better and starting to feel keyed up by the possibilities the weekend held. Not having to get up to feed or change or soothe during the night did a good job of drying my tears and cheering us up. We spent the morning just lying about taking pleasure in being alone together. Then, naturally, we moved on to said ‘great plans of chilling, clubbing and sex’. I cried again the first time the holiday extended from a weekend to a week.

Now though I’m a pro, an old hand. I can take them there, give a kiss to each, hop in my car and bugger off, singing all the way to Accra. I no longer need to spend a few days psyching and bracing myself to send them away. My decision to ship them off this time was made impulsively on Tuesday morning. So completely at ease is my family in my Uncle and Aunt’s home, bless their hearts, that I didn’t need to give even an hour’s notice.

Aside from the restoration of connubial privileges, very little I’ve done in this breather week is in and of itself exciting or fun but I’ve had such a blast doing them. I’ve painted parts of the walls in the bathroom, much to my help’s amazement- no madam paints anything, least of all a bathroom. I’ve wrestled Kofi (shocking poor Veronica nearly out of her wits – the boss and madam are ‘fighting blows’), I’ve followed him around on some work errands and just generally fluttered around the city like an unfettered bird.
Kofi has missed the kids in an o-I-wish-they-were- here way. I haven’t, not yet. I miss them in a pleasant what-lovely-children-we-have way. But because I have now learnt to share my children, because I know, accept and feel no shame in needing time off from being the central force in two little people’s lives, and because Uncle and Aunt are so very good to them, I don’t waste much of my holiday time thinking about them. I use it for what it is intended; I think about me.

By Sunday, I will have missed them sorely in a-come-home-to-me-my-children-let-me-hold-you-and-never-let-go way. Typically, on the morning of their return, I bug Kofi from the moment my eyes open for us to set out. ‘Aren’t we going to get the boys, its getting late’ I whine. Yes, I do have the time of my life on my holidays. But I enjoy their ends perhaps even more than I enjoy their beginnings. I will be as glad to be with them in 2 days as I am that I am not tonight and they will have a better mother for it.

The First Anniversary Of Grandparenthood Jam.

November ‘08

Having finally accepted that I would not budge on the birthday party issue, my parents decided to have one for Dovie themselves. They told him-not me- to call up all his friends and invite them to a jam on the Saturday after his birthday. Unsurprisingly, they said it to my hearing, seeing as that is far more likely to yield result than a ‘two-man’ with Dovie. ‘Mum, he has no friends’ I said patiently. ‘Just you wait and see’ she replied airily, ‘we’ll have the best children’s party ever’.

During the week of the party, I saw and spoke to my parents about four times and each time there was some comment about how fun the party would be and what a bore I am, preceded or followed by a snort. On Saturday, we turn up dutifully outfitted for a children’s party. Daddy is supervising the canopies, Mum has blown up balloons when we drive in. The kitchen is stocked with paper plates, Styrofoam cups, balloons, pop-out whistles, toffees, chocolates, biscuits and a big blue teddy bear cake. She even had the food catered. She also told every invitee to bring a child along. There was every indication that it would be a great children’s party. I was humbled and touched by how much effort and expense they had gone to mark my son’s first birthday and anniversary of our parenthood. And I was almost ashamed that the children’s party for Dov was, contrary to all I’d sworn, possible.

Uncle Alex and Auntie Maggie were the first to arrive at about one thirty, with no child in tow. Then it was two, then two-thirty, then three. At nearly four we gave up the wait for the kids and set up the cake table. Then surrounded by grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, Dovie cut his cake or rather his parents cut his cake and he crumbled the parts nearest him. At about six, the first children arrived- they were 11 and 12. Dovie had, as to be expected, exhausted himself and was fast asleep. The greatest children’s party ever ended up having six children –with only 2 being under 10.
We did all have a blast though. After the cutting of the cake, it was renamed the first anniversary of grandparenthood jam and became an openly adult party. All pretense of interest in the token six little people was given up. They were left to amuse themselves and the party broke up into generational caucuses; the grandparents out on the lawn, the parents, uncles and aunts in the living room and the token six running around.

Even though I was proven right about the childrenlessness of the party, I am very glad my parents did what they did. It was heartening to see that all these older people would clear their day because of us. Indeed it was a very nice reminder that here, people are members of groups, nobody stands alone or with just their nuclear family. Everyone has a clan of family and near family with whom they belong. I found a warming comfort in the certainty that our joy was theirs too and that they could all be counted upon in our times of trouble to be our net. Of course, that also means all these people will at some point annoy us with unsolicited advice or insist that something we have decided not to do is the only way to ensure a child’s mental health. Still it is very good feeling, a worthwhile trade-off.

To some extent, all the people who came are good for our marriage and the stability of our home. Not because of any grand contribution they will make to it but because they will be concerned and disappointed to see it dissolve. While this is not enough to keep me in an unhappy marriage, it certainly holds sway over my parameters of what is forgivable. I suspect the same is true for Kofi. The concern for the equilibrium and happiness of the children of a union is very Ghanaian and is manifest largely in the social support and subtle pressure young marriages receive. It is a trying thing indeed, the process of convincing all the parties who helped the union to be formalized to aid in its dissolution. One has to be very unhappy or much wronged- which interpretation in these parts often does not include adultery- to get support and help.

Like all Ghanaians, we too are a part of a complex setup defined as family and not determined by blood. The many presents Dovie received and the party that broke up shortly before midnight attest to that. While the visual reminder of said network has neither convinced nor inspired me to resolve to have 1st birthday parties for my second son and any yet unborn children, it has made sharper my understanding of our place in the great circle of things.