Remembering home

Yesterday, I stood in a queue in a shop waiting to be served. It is a shop that sells African but mainly Ghanaian food. I am not very good at shopping, not out of parsimony but because I detest queues. What gets my goat is getting to the checkout at a supermarket to be preceded by an old biddy with a trolley load who stands with her arms folded while the checkout assistant scans her shopping. Right at the end when she is told the amount due, she starts faffing about looking for her purse. You can bet your Penny Black, she won’t find her purse in five minutes.

She had all the time while her items were being scanned to find her purse but, oh no, she stands there like piffy on a bun. Not only that, she starts looking for her discount vouchers as well. Mighty Jehovah!

The alternative, which is not very good either, is the self-service machines. Especially, if you end up with a bad tempered one. The ones that try to hurry you up if you have not put the scanned item in the carrier bag within seconds, ‘Please place the item in the bagging area!’. God help you if you as much as touch the carrier bags, ‘There is an item in the bagging area, please remove this item before continuing’. It goes on to throw a wobbly if you have not done what it ordered within seconds by shutting down and calling an assistant.

I remember going into a supermarket once when the machines were first introduced. The shop assistant seemed so pleased and I felt so sad for her. She appeared to have been so brainwashed about how it was going to improve customer service, she had forgotten her own job security. Manufacturing has been kyboshed for service industry which is also being taken over by machines. It is going to do wonders for the balance sheets of these supermarkets but if every industry that can, goes that way, who is going to be employed to earn money to spend in the supermarkets? Imagine a world of automatons and redundancies.

Anyway, this shop that I was in, was not like that, as far as old biddies and self-service scanners are concerned, but it can get quite busy especially on Saturdays. I have been to the shop many times but not on Saturdays. I’m usually robotic. I hone into the precise shelf to get what I want, which is usually jerk seasoning for kelewele, pay for it and get out.

Yesterday was different in that I had gone to the shop on a Saturday. There was a queue and with time to pass, I made an effort to take more than a passing interest in some of the things available for sale beyond my normal parochial interest. There were kola nuts both white and purple/brown and that took me aback a bit. I wondered who would want to chew kola nut in England especially north of the Watford Gap? Not that there was anything wrong with chewing kola but it seemed odd to be doing so in England. I associate kola nut with the animated Hausa man in his fugu haggling over something or admonishing a small boy, 'Mutum banza!' So in a way, I was waiting for the Hausa man to appear in the shop. But that was not to be. There are some things that once removed from their 'natural' environment seem odd.

The answer came back to me instantaneously, me. I was the one wanting to chew kola nut north of Watford Gap and not the non-appearing Hausa man. I could not remember the last time I had kola nut or how many times I had previously had it. But it was something that brought back memories of our night watchman at home puffing away on his Tusker cigarette while chewing his kola nut. It was supposed to help keep him awake at night while watching our home. At the end of the month when he got paid, he went up market in his taste of cigarettes.

He smoked 555 State Express and I can to this day remember the radio advert back home for this cigarette, that debonair voice saying, ‘Three fives by state express’. I can also remember the watchman going to the kiosk across the road and asking to buy ‘fife fife’. Oh and Embassy with their jingle, ‘Embassy, the smooth way to go places’. Don’t ask me where. There were Benson and Hedges, Rothmans and who could forget Hollywud and if you really wanted to get down, nothing beat Gauloises.

So I decided I was going to buy some kola nut or goro. I was buying it for old time sake. There were other things that caught my eye like Hausa Koko but I was intrigued by bars of Key Soap, sachets of Omo, Pepsodent and Close Up toothpaste, ah not forgetting Lifebuoy and Guardian. I stood there shaking my head telling myself, 'I can't believe this!'

Why would anybody hand wash things with bars of Key Soap or Omo? This time, definitely not me. With cheap washing machines increasingly putting laundrettes out of business, who washes anything by hand these days? I could, with some imagination, see people bathing with Key Soap. Why they would do that, I could only hazard a guess. But there must be a market for them otherwise they wouldn’t be on sale. It was perhaps a testament to people not severing their domestic ties with home. Moments later, I thought I was being too harsh. Maybe people who bought these things were trying to live their present lives through past familiarities. Do I not do the same when I listen to the music of Koo Nimo, Sweet Talks and Grace Afrakomah? Why do I, in spite of the availability of cocoa butter, smear myself with shea butter from home? I was no different.

To my right was a stack of ‘sugar’ bread that had only arrived from London the night before. You could smell something that set them apart.

Unconsciously, my eyes started scanning the fridge nearby for Planta and Blue Band margarine. There were none, not yet. My memory screeched back to the four o'clock bread seller at Adabraka selling bread and 'borta'(butter) usually Blue Band margarine. In the bad old days, what you got for 'borta' was lard.

Staying in Adabraka, you could get French stick by appointment and I am not being rude. I also saw St Louis cube sugar, in the blue box. It will cost an arm and a leg but it oozes class. This country has been overrun by granulated sugar(Konko sugar) that you really get cube sugar in posh homes or posh hotels. Somehow, you can't beat the feeling of crushing this sugar in Hausa Koko. Should I get Hausa Koko, should I get St Louis sugar? We'll see.

Usually, when I go to the shop on Saturdays, it is to get Ga kenkey. I go early to avoid the queue. It is usually at about nine o’clock and I am there before the shop opens. The kenkey is still steaming. If I am lucky, the fish and shrimps have also just come out of the frying pan. It is a quick dash home for brunch. For under £3.00, I could get two hefty balls of kenkey, some fish and Kpakpo Shitor. I bet people in Osu Ashantay or Bukom will think I am a lucky so and so. Well I am!

I am partial to gari, shitor and corned beef, a throwback to my boarding school days. In those days, it was Cape Coast gari. Now or more recently, it is Ijebu gari that I am partial to in spite of Ijebu Shakes. Ijebu gari I like with okro soup with ogbonor increasing the viscosity. This makes eating the gari and soup an art form. Lately, I have noticed something new, vacuum packed banku and Fanti kenkey. I think a marketing somebody will come along and brand it. I have already thought of a brand name for it, ‘Osugyani’. I have not tried the kenkey yet and have no intention of doing so when I can get the proper stuff ready to eat. I tried the banku last night and there was a reason why. How times have changed. I remember the times when kenkey in England was like a product of the prohibition. You had to know somebody and it had to be made to order.

There were no corn leaves to wrap the kenkey in before cooking so the kenkey was wrapped in tin foil. The result was never quite the same because it was mixed with other things but you had to make do. Now you can get kenkey made in Manchester on tap like you get on streets in Accra. It is steaming and wholesome. I am waiting for the day when we will get our own version of Osu Ashantay or Bukom in Manchester and there will be a street lit with osono with dozing women from Ayalolo selling kenkey and fried herring, snappers, octopus, pork and turkey tails. It beats fish and chips hands down every time. However, it will not happen in my time because, apart from health and safety issues, hopefully by then, I will be in the real Osu. Maybe, I am speaking too soon.

Maybe in the not too distant future, the Chinese would have made the British balance of trade figures so despicable that they would have thrown health and safety to the wolves. That is the only way to compete with the Chinese.......I hope to heaven it does not come to that. Somebody ought to maintain standards. The British? Nah, not from their track record. Ahead of me in the queue was a West Indian man trying to get his hands on some Alafia bitters. I could tell he was West Indian from the depth of his patois and not his dreadlocks. These days there are so many dreadlocks about, you cannot tell the false prophet from the real one.

Especially the African ones with their pretend Estuary English. I would not touch bitters with a barge pole. Then again that’s me being me. He seemed a regular buying dokonno(as they call kenkey) and bitters just like buying fufuo and Guinness in Kumasi. I wondered if his ancestors were from Kormantin via Accompong(Achampong) Town. It can really be a small world.

Just as I was drifting, a man asked me to allow him room to get to the non-alcoholic malt drink. I could tell from his accent that he was Ghanaian. I must admit I am not a fan of these malt drinks. The only attraction to me is the smell equivalent to what the hawkers at Kejetia call 'arse kenkey', ice kenkey. If you listen carefully ice cream get the same treatment, 'Yesss arse cream.' Piles, anyone? I am weary of food targeted at groups by makers who don’t like the stuff. Especially when the stuff does not originate from that ethnic group. Two cases in point, these malt drinks and evaporated milk. Why do the Europeans who make these products not market them to their own people? Is it because they know it is not good for them in large quantities, yet we lap it up. Why do European evangelists go round Africa holding crusades when they cannot get their own people to go to church in their own countries? Beats me. I had a peep in his basket and it had Geisha canned mackerel, Titus sardines and Exeter corned beef or corner beef as some folk are known to call it. He was an elderly man in his late sixties. I found myself asking, where is his wife, where are his children? I am used to seeing old white British women dragging their shopping trolleys with difficulty behind them and asking where their children or grandchildren are. I did not think I would have to ask these questions of an old Ghanaian man.

Maybe that is the cue for me to look homewards. I also wondered why he would buy these brands at these higher prices when the supermarkets sold different brands even their own brands at a fraction of the prices. I was not trying to do the shop owner out of a living, it was just out of curiosity. I could remember the taste of Geisha and remotely that of Titus but could not remember Exeter. As I looked into his basket, I felt I was succumbing to some near atavistic intuition to buy Exeter corned beef to see if it was worth the premium price. I usually avoid things in cans if I can help it but exceptions are allowed.

The Geisha mackerel and Titus sardines were putting ideas into my head; Geisha, kontomire abomu (I think when you say kontomire or spinach stew, you lose some of the taste in translation) and apim, Titus and egg stew with yam. Decisions, decisions. Maybe that will be another day. I was heading for a fish farm after the shop to get some fresh trout for my soup. As my thoughts were rolling, I caught the fag end of a conversation of a Ga couple in their twilight years behind me in hushed voices. They had not arrived in this country yesterday. I am sure that when they left Ghana, Joe Dakota was in short trousers. You could tell such people by the way they dressed.

There was nothing wrong with the way they were dressed. She wore slacks

and he a frown on his face for the many unfair years in England. It was such a giveaway. I was sure they had been rumbling in the background like Liberal Democrats in a Tory Coalition. No, in the case of the LibDems like yapping dogs. The sort you would want to send away with fleas in their ears.

I had not taken much notice of the couple but when the shop went quite, I did. My ears pricked up when I heard them use the word, ‘Amlalofoi’. Then I paid more attention to their conversation. They were expressing their discontent with the present government. Join the queue. They spoke exquisite Ga not a word of English in their conversation. I wanted to turn round, look at them again and acknowledge them but I could not find the reason to do so. I had also not paid much attention to the music in the shop. It was Wulomei and ‘Omane Aba’.

As the song went on, I thought, how so very pertinent the words were to those in the Diaspora who bothered to listen and understand them. I must have got caught in the music so much that I did not realise the queue had moved. From behind me came a voice, that of the Ga man in English, ‘Excuse me, can you please move on.’ ‘Sorry,’ I apologised and quickly shuffled on. Then they switched to Ga again, ‘What is wrong with these foreigners?’ asked the man ‘He might not be a foreigner,’ said his wife. ‘If he wasn’t, he would have moved on.’ Were they talking about me? Now I had the real urge to turn round. In hushed voice, her wife said, ‘I’ve told you about these things that you say. It is alright to say what you like in the street but not in such confined places.’

So they were talking about me after all. I started to wonder what about me that made them think I was foreign. I did not have ‘Opanin nni wo fie’ haircut or dreadlocks and I was not wearing a yellow translucent singlet. I stood there wondering what about me that would make anybody think that I was anything but Ghanaian. I must have been so preoccupied, I forgot about their conversation or argument which no doubt carried on about me. It was soon my turn and to my surprise, the owner of the shop appeared at the till. He is usually not there and when he saw me he decided to take over that we could have a chat. He is a Ga man I call him Otublohum Ankrah and he calls me Kokofu Ankrah. It is banter between the two of us.

It all started with a conversation or argument a long time ago when I said that Ankrah is not a Ga name originally. The original Ankrah was from Kokofu sent by Asantihene Osei Kwame in the 1770s as resident commissioner to look after Asanti interests from Osu to Prampram. He married into the Otublohum Family and had a son, Twumasi Ankrah. It is from him that the Ankrahs of Accra descend. That is why in Asanti, the name Ankrah tends to be preceded by Twumasi. He did not have it then and I am sure at the back of his mind, he is still not having it. He will do, one day. I have stopped myself many times asking him why his sister is called Serwaa. We have had our conversations about the link between some of the Bannermans of Bukom and James Town and their link to Manhyia. Also how for a long time Manhyia use to track them. That fascinated him.

So Otublohum Ankrah took over the till. He speaks to me in Ga and I speak to him in Twi. To any onlooker eavesdropping on our conversation, we must be like a Mandarin and a Cantonese having a conversation in Chinese. Invariably our conversations are about home. Because there was a lot of traffic behind me, I did not wish to take his time this time and especially the couple behind me. As a parting shot, I asked him if he had thought about opening a shop in or relocating to South Sudan. It will not be long before Ghanaians appear there, if they are not already there. He could steal a march on them. That creased him badly. As a note of caution, I told him an old Arab saying that went like this, ‘When God made the Sudan, he laughed’…….I wonder why.

Oh, I bought some nkati cake and wapi, for old time sake. I have given up buying guinea fowl because no matter how hard I try, suya-wise, I cannot get it to taste like the one at Amakom Roundabout. As I turned to leave, I said good bye to the old couple in Ga. They both smiled. I was sure he was not going to make presumptions in the future. When I came out of the shop, I sort to answer Dostoevsky's question, 'Is there really a chemical bond between the human spirit and a man's native land which makes it impossible to break away from one's country and, even if one breaks away from it, makes one come back to it in the end?' On current evidence, yes there is. Maybe not chemical but sentimental. I don’t know about the soul. Maybe we go to the shop to assert the old Akan saying that no matter how bad your teeth may be, they are the ones you lick. You could replace them with dentures but they may never feel as comfortable as your own rotten ones.

Me buying the kola, the man with the Geisha and against all rational reasoning, the people buying the Key Soap. In their case I could not determine whether it was a chemical imbalance or their bond was stronger than the rest of us. Whatever the case might be, we were all rekindling our relation with home and reasserting our pride in who we are no matter how small. Even for the Ga couple behind me, maybe coming to the shop to speak Ga to Otublohum Ankrah was their way of keeping their link with home.

On a treasured note, the reason why I was in the queue yesterday was because I had a dinner date last night and I was getting Tilapia to go with my (vacuum packed) banku which I incidentally got for nothing because Otublohum Ankrah wanted me to try it. My verdict? Suck it and see, as they say.

As to how the date went, I think I may have found myself my ultimate ugly woman. It is early days yet and I will let you know if I have found the woman who will let me sleep peacefully in my bed. When she left this morning, I was playing Commodores’ ‘Brickhouse’. She was built like a (something) house and, it was certainly not brick, with love handles to boot. As I said, it is early days yet. But…….she might just be it. I may just have picked my Kofo’dua flower. Oh, by the way, I did get the Hausa Koko, and the St Louis sugar. As I crushed the sugar in my koko this morning, it brought back memories of crushing the sugar in my koko in my childhood days back home. With it a smile too…..memories, they say, live with you.