Waiting for a ‘Dear student, your student loan has been
paid’ text message was the most depressing moment of my life. It was as
depressing as waiting for ‘dumsor’ to end, or for our nation leaders to reason,
or for Liverpool to win an EPL title, or for the moment you would successfully
make it out of the friend-zone. In certain instances, it seemed as impossible
as the tarring of my manhole-prone Fodome road; more like waiting for a train
at the airport. Akuffo Addo may become president of Ghana someday, but that
goddamn payment of students’ loan text message may take forever to come. Why
should money I would definitely payback take this long to come? I wondered.
Nothing pained me more than the fact that all the money I was expecting would
be used to pay off debts, leaving only a meagre rest for my personal use. Just
last weekend, I had received a letter from Dzigbordi (the girl to whom I’ve
been betrothed) telling me about her father’s deteriorating health, and that
she needed money to add up to what they already had, to seek treatment for the
ailing man. Considering the grammatical impotence of her letter, I wondered if
Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey really meant what he said about girl education. But I don’t
blame her. Her level of education was just adequate to get her betrothed to me
(or vice versa). I really didn’t like her. I had heard her father owed mine
some money, and so our betrothal was some form of collateral.
“Man, body dey?”
My very good friend, Yusif, patted me on the back to
awake me to my present setting. It was then that I remembered we were sitting
in front of Independence Hall purposely to look at the young ladies that
strolled by. Because I wasn’t in my usual mood, I hadn’t taken notice of those
enticing cleavages, the tempting imprints of their womanhood on the leggings
some of them wore, and the seductive wobbling movement of their gargantuan
backsides.
“See, abeg, make una forget this people jorr.”
“Which people?”
I asked; not sure whether he was asking me to forget the
Students’ Loan people, or the lecturers whose courses I had trailed, or
Dzigbordi’s family people who kept calling my Siemens phone to demand for a
portion of my lean Students’ Loan, or my landlady who constantly abuses my
dignity because of common light bill, or the sitting President, John Mahama,
who we didn’t know (for all this while) was suffering from dead goat syndrome. Yusif
was the only non-Ghanaian friend I had. Inferring from his rich authentic Pidgin
English, you don’t need to be told he was a Nigerian. How he became my friend, only
my Fodome gods know. Having a friend like this who advises me to just sit and
stare at girls, or to buy panties for Sally (the girl at church I’m crushing on),
is as questionable as my landlady responding to my greeting. I can swear that
my mother would slaughter me should she finds out the kind of company I keep in
school. But Yusif and I flowed.
“Ynkↄ
bush,” he proposed.
I followed him. We walked in silence till we got to our
usual wee smoking base where we met some other guys who had taken wee-smoking
like gyming (going in turns, round after round, variety after variety). It was
a place we called G-spot, a cemetery, located in the bushes several meters
beside the Evandy hostel. The atmosphere was enough to make you high.
“Efo, this one na higher grade. Make una try am see. Your
mind no go dey for that village girl en calling wey she dey call call you.”
I sucked the roll.
The
next day, Saturday, was another slow and boring day. As to how I got to my
room, I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t heard from Yusif all morning. Maybe he was
unimpressed about the fact that I’ve been smoking weed for this long yet my
confidence still suffered from erectile dysfunction. My roommate had already
gone for a church program. He was a fine young man. I particularly admired the
way he took God serious. But me, I was a dead Christian. I had given up hope on
myself that I could be consistent in church, so I never tried. Maybe once a
while, I would show my face in church and instead of paying attention, my stare
would deviate towards Sally. She was beautiful, had a nice smile, was fair (you
know how Ewe guys have a thing for fair girls), and took the things of God like
it was the World Cup. But you see, I believe I could quench the Holy Ghost in
her with just a kiss. But where was my confidence? I couldn’t even talk to her
yet alone imagine kissing her. She seemed always happy, and was a chorister.
Maybe I should join the choir, maybe not. Well, if they smoked wee at choir
rehearsals, I would join them…
I
went to the extension (what in KNUST parlance is called balcony). My roommate
had boiled some pathetic jollof rice. As usual (without permission), I scooped
half of the left-over and fed my lean stomach. I ate slowly just to waste time.
Then the door opened.
“Can
I come in?” A young man peeped in.
I
asked him to come in. From his sharp look (tie and shirt, and a small handbag),
I correctly guessed he was a Jehovah Witness who had come to (as usual) tell me
about God’s kingdom, but wouldn’t tell me what it takes to get there. He sat on
my roommate’s bed and talked. The only thing I heard was “Please try and go to
church tomorrow. God loves you.”
My
Saturday evenings were comparatively boring. On one or two occasions, I would
meet the landlady’s daughter and we would go for a walk. But mostly, I feared
being with because she was underage and was just in Junior High School. The day
her obese mother would grab the two of us together, Yusif would have a tribute
to write. Her name was Fawusia. Like her mother, she was stout, busty, and had
a bleached skin. She was spoilt beyond repairs. Had it not been for the scary
things I had heard about premarital sex and a prophetess who had once told me
that my first premarital sex would bring me an unwanted baby, I would have
donated my virginity to her long ago.
Yusif
would say, “Forget that prophet…Make una no make slow for that chick.”
“I
want to stay a virgin till I marry,” I would say.
“Shun
dey tok me that virgin shit. Which boy you hear say e be twenty-two wey e be
virgin?”
I
would be mute, bowing down in shame.
“You
kiss before?”
No
answer.
“Waa
see. This boy na jon boy ohh! Sometimes I dey wonder how you den me turn friend.”
No
response. He would then signal me to come closer. I would obey, like a lamb. He
would put his left arm around me, marijuana defining his breathe, and then put
his right hand in his breast pocket for two condoms.
“You
go fit go two rounds abi?”
I
would sigh weakly.
“Oya,
collect the thing before I ask you to pay me back all the money you owe me.”
I
would collect them, and then forge a smile which would please his soul.
“Good
boy. Make una no disappoint me ohh!!”
Not wanting to spend the evening inhaling
smoke or being with Fawusia, I decided to blow time by challenging a few
friends to FIFA. So I went to campus, wasted the little money Yusif had given
me on snooker and FIFA, and then waited patiently for hunger to humble me to retire to my room; my mind still
debated whether or I not I should go to church the next morning.
Sunday morning came like a
trosky going to Kotei. Time to weigh the pros and cons whether or not to appear
in church. I had several reasons not to go and just one reason to go; to become
like my roommate who was already up preparing for service. Like every other
undergraduate guy, I had this one trouser I was passionate about. I took it and
gave it an ironing. After bathing, I wore a blue-striped shirt, my favorite
trouser, and my shoe then went to church. I had scanned through the crowd to
spot Sally. I found her, glimmering in indescribable beauty. Throughout the
sermon, I was just rehearsing how I would talk to her after church. The
preacher’s message was inherently long (another reason why I didn’t like going
to church). Had I been high that morning, I would have gone to push him down
the pulpit. But he was lucky for the several things that prevented me from
creating a scene; my attentive left eye on Sally, and flirty right eye which
roamed searching for feminine thighs to feast on. At a point or two, I battled
with sleep.
I
pushed the wooden gate that led to our compound house. All activity on our
compound stopped at the sight of me. My mom came out of the kitchen where she
had been grinding pepper. My father, paused the journey his right hand was making
with a morsel of fufu to his mouth which was wide-opened. He put his hand down,
and gave me a serious look.
“Selah?”
My mom called.
“Whose
daughter is that?”
“Daddy,”
I said.
I
signaled Sally to come out and show her beautiful self to my astounded parents.
She gave my unimpressed parents a smile, and said “Hi”.
“What
does that mean? And who is she by the way?”
“Daddy,
it’s a greeting.”
“Greeting!
I see! Wait for me… I’m coming…”
He
gently pushed his food table back, adjusted his cloth, and went inside. He
reappeared a few seconds later with his hunting gun, and fired a shot into the
sky. Sally shrieked in fear and we fled. I could still his curses behind us.
“Useless
son! You should have waited for me to come and respond to your greeting. How can
you come home with a witch? NOUN-SENSE! Come here again with that girl and you
would see if I would rearrange your face for you…”
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ…
I woke up when I heard
them sharing the grace. I wiped my sweaty forehead, and sighed, thanking God it
was only a dream. The lady sitting by me whose thigh my right eye had been
monitoring looked at me as if to say, “Are you Okay?”
…TO BE CONTINUED…
