‘I voted 7 times’

Christmas is coming in exactly 2 weeks from today and I know it is not going to be normal Christmas as we first have to clear the arrears created by fiasco 2020 Easter and then we will celebrate the Christmas wearing face masks. That brings to mind the positives and negatives of dating a rich girl who does not need transport from you. They are the best.

The main advantage is that ‘she can pay you a visit at any time unconditionally’ and the main disadvantage is that ‘‘she can pay you a visit at any time unconditionally’. The advantage and disadvantage appear the same but note the difference and you would advise yourself that indeed sin fascinates and assassinates! Let no girl deceive you that they will keep the friendship a secret forever o. When there is a small problem; they will use google map to locate your house and say hello to your wife.

So the Friday December 4, 2020 holiday which is a deferred Farmers Day holiday was cancelled like a situation in which you are with your wife in your room and about to ‘come’ and then there is a knock on your door. Ala! At this point, if you like go ahead and ‘come’! Friday’s holiday was then pushed to Monday December 7, the voting day.

Truth is, no one really does any meaningful work on voting days in the past. Fortunately COVID has come to give us a fine reason to tell lies that we are working from home after voting. Indeed, the psychological relief that you are actually off work was fulfilling and soothing.

My polling station is right at the back of my house. By 5am, I could hear people disturbing my sleep talking talking talking. They had started forming the queue to vote. I woke up at 7am and saw behind my wall a lot of people waiting to vote. They were calm and doing konkonsa among themselves while waiting.

I saw some nice girls also in the queue. Sake of that, I nearly went to wear T-shirt to come and join the line and watch though my initial plan was to go at 4pm so that when it’s even past 5 and not my turn, I would still be made to vote once I was already in the line.

Then I came back home to come and sleep. I woke up at 9.45am and when I looked over my wall, I saw only a few people around waiting for their turn. My first question was: ‘but where are all the people I saw here earlier?’. The response from one of the security guys that they had finished voting and left. Wow! I exclaimed. Then I asked how long it would take me to complete the process and they said 5 to 10 minutes maximum once they check my name in the register.

Then I came back home to eat my wife small and went. Sorry I meant I came back home to eat the food my wife prepared for me before going. The food was nice and slippery; it was okro soup with raw garden eggs!

At 11am, there was nobody in the queue. Then I took advantage to go and vote and fortunately for me, upon seeing my ID card, and in alphabetical order, it was easy to tell that my name would be last on the list; yes it was!

In a few minutes, I was done! So smooth. In fact the first time I voted was in 1996 and it was a long day. In 1996, I voted, in 2000, I did again. Then in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, I voted as a demonstration of my civic responsibility. Then the last one was last Monday’s which recorded the 7th time I voted since Ghana’s 4th Republic. Clap for me er, kpakpa…kpakpakpa…kpaaaaa!

Taking injections by especially boy children had never been a pleasant experience especially for boy children. Kai. The worst part is where the nurse would break the neck of the brown chloroquine bottle, put the needle into it and show it to you and pop small out of the syringe and do the thing ‘pew pew pew’. I don’t know why they did that; it was as if to scare you or the malaria away.

I vividly recall a day in 1985 when one of the greatest Ghanaian medical doctors of all time, Dr Soborjor (may his soul rest in peace) attended to me when I was just 10 years old. Prior to prescribing an injection for me, he asked whether I was allergic to chloroquine and I answered YES but he still went ahead to make the nurses inject me because he knew I was lying! Injections? Hmmm!

About two decades ago, I met a first year medical student who was an intern in one of the hospitals. I think as part of their training during internship, they are to learn how to give injections to patients.

Two weeks after I went back to the same hospital I was told the guy had been sacked by the hospital authorities. Reason? He was asked to inject a certain woman who had a very huge back bigger than that of Moshisha’s and instead of focusing on the syringe or the flesh to inject, he was standing there laughing at what he was seeing to the amazement and amusement of other patients and paramedics. That was the end of his medical career o.

The hospital authorities reported him to his university authorities for unprofessional ‘internship conduct’. He is now a music sound engineer which is another great career.

Some time ago, a guy was reported to have commented on radio why he could not be a medical doctor and cited the reason being the fact that he could not stand to treat women. I think I have the same reason for not choosing medicine as my profession especially in the specialized field of gynaecology. Kai! Like the profession go spoil, I suwear! Hahaaa!

I am currently in my village in Adafienu enjoying mpesi and borbi tadi. It feels so good eating these types of food that make life healthy rather than all these useless oil food we buy from some restaurants and think that we are the best in town.

On that trip to Aflao, I still remember Daadia who joined us in the 23 seater Nizzan orvan bus that brought me all the way from Weija to my village.

We were about 23 passengers on board the trotro bus from the Aflao station in Accra. Daadia, who claimed she sells dried fish at Aflao came all the way to Korle Bu to seek medical care. When we got to 37, she asked me to do her a favour. She asked me to wake her up when we reach Tema round-about as she was feeling drowsy from the medication administered to her at Korle Bu.

The understanding to wake her up when we get to the Tema roundabout was clear. Unfortunately for her I also slept off and by the time we realized, we had already reached Ada. She was fast asleep too but when she woke up at Ada_Kasseh junction, she was disappointed in me for not waking her up at the Tema roundabout.

I apologized profusely for causing her but offered to give her money to go back to Tema Roundabout; she refused and insisted rather strangely that the driver should send us back, all of us passengers on board to Tema roundabout before she would disembark.

From Ada to Tema roundabout is quite a distance and reversing and coming back was going to delay everybody. We eventually succumbed to her pressures and allowed the driver to make a U-turn. She didn’t even mind anybody and was totally unperturbed when some passengers openly grumbled.

Finally we got back to Tema roundabout expecting that she had reached her destination and so should be getting down. She only pulled her hand bag and asked everybody to be patient with her, picked some medicine and swallowed it with pure water and asked the driver to make a U-turn back to Aflao. She explained that when she was leaving the Korle Bu T. Hospital, the doctor asked her to take that particular medicine only when she reaches Tema roundabout! In fact the doctor warned her not to miss the Tema roundabout before taking the medicine. In my own understanding, it was bcos by the time she reaches the Tema roundabout, it would have been one hour p3p33p3. Ao, sukuu? Hmmm!

Did you know that that woman has her finger inserted into the indelible ink bottle just before voting? That should have made big news but I didn’t hear it anywhere.

Ghana is a great country. We hate to see a brother, friend, neighbor die from violent incidents. After all 4 years will soon come for those who couldn’t make it this year.

We love Ghana the way we love our cars. You know why? When there is a little problem with your ONLY car, no matter how broke you are, you would find money to fix it. No be so? Hahaaa!