Useless Column: 'Wedding in the shrine'

This is from me to you oo, Aisha poripori@yahoo.com. Aisha only reminds me of the then favorite programme ‘FROM ME TO YOU on Unique FM. Some people got life partners from this programme. It was such a delight to wait to hear the voice of Daavi Fatymah Quayennor and Dr Jewu Appia. A fantastic programme it was! Aired between 9-11pm Sunday nights on Radio Ghana, I never missed my radio set at the time.

I nearly got a life partner from that programme too. I was single and young so I wrote a letter to the program expressing interest in a lady who was looking for a ‘young, energetic, caring, handsome and responsible single man’ to settle down with. Wow! The only thing that disqualified me was ‘handsome’ because I know myself but I still gave it a try.

To my surprise she replied to my letter and we exchanged contacts. At the time there were no mobile phones with which one could send pictures of how you look like so we were operating ‘in the dark’. Come to think of it, how did we survive all this while without whatssap and other social media platforms?

I admire plus size ladies so I was glad when she described herself in the letter as plump. I should have asked for other features that go with this description of her!

We scheduled to meet at Ablantie Spot. I waited for nearly 30 minutes I was waiting for her. She was coming from the Tema direction and I lived in Chantan near Lapaz. At each point that she alighted from a car, she would call me and tell me she is coming to give me a gift that cost ‘200’.

I kept calling her too to be sure she was on course en route to the spot. In fact, I had been dreaming about her. That feeling that happens to you when you fall in love with someone you are yet to meet and can’t sleep, ehernnnnnn! That one some.

Since we didn’t know each other, I asked her to call me as soon as she reached the entrance of the spot or else there was no way we could identify each other. Then I saw somebody coming. OMG! Carrying on her head was a bunch of plantain and in her left hand was a chamber pot moving towards the entrance and trying to call me and glowing profusely in sweat under the load. I think she was coming to impress me with gifts. Ei! I could immediately tell she was the one.

I just switched off my phone, walked past her and awayyyyyyyyy! Later, I changed my chip! How manage! This my ‘almost-wife-to-be’ had just come to visit her people in Tema from some remote Ghana and wanting a husband. Me? Plantain? Chamber pot? On head? God forbid! Come to think of it can you eat fufu with plenty goat meat, fish, snail meat, crabs, shrimps and all the things that make eating feel good in a brand new never-used chamber pot that costs 200? Don’t think about it, just buy another brand new one.

Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t speak any other local language apart from Zipi language. Even though I had lived in a zongo before, I could not speak that language. Living in a zongo is one of the best experiences that some people missed out on. It was in a zongo that I learnt how to speak Hausa and a few different languages small small. ‘Degodia’ in Hausa means something else in Ewe; you can ask any Ny3bro friend; me I don’t want problem! Just ask an Ewe friend but the person should not be a lady o, yooo!

Have you also noticed that no matter how small and interconnected zongo rooms may be with ‘interesting wiring’, you would never hear of fire outbreak? If you have not lived in a zongo before, you would never know how nicely cow meat and sheep meat can taste. E bi Zongo fire wey dey burn am!

So I left that my Tema girl o. Brand new chamber pot to do weytin with? When somebody who has never been married before is advising a married couple as to what to do in marriage for it to work, I laugh aaa and enter guest house! Such a person will often tell you what he or she has watched in movies or read from books. Did you know that every married person can write about marriage from their own perspective even after 3 months of marital experience!

In my village, you can’t say ‘for better for worse’ in a shrine and do otherwise o. To be on the safer side, just say ‘I will manage’ – a manifestation of the fact that some of us as Christians we fear the shrines more than we fear the Bible! Small thing, I want to quit because ‘my partner did not meet my expectations’. Expectations? Even if you have to live with your partner for 70 years together, every day and its own surprises will pop up whether you like it or not.

I think it is advisable to marry your ‘enemy’ instead of your friend. When your enemy does things you don’t like you are not surprised. But when your friend does same to you, then you go like ‘what a shock!’ Oh yeso.

Your ‘enemy’ is the one who does not pretend when in courtship with you but shows his or her weaknesses that you feel you cannot handle when you get married. Your ‘friend’ is the one who hides all those weaknesses ‘just to beat immigration’ and shows them only after marriage once he or she is settled! I once read an article somewhere I can’t remember. It was on Social Psychology and I learnt from it that one of the best strategies to resolve conflicts between two people is to put them together.

When two enemies live together for a long time, they become the best of friends. The reverse may however, not be the same! True? Well, let’s give it a try especially now that we have come to the reality that when two friends live together for some time as husband and wife, they become the worst of enemies at certain times in their lives and if care is not taken, the union hits the rocks because of trivial things! But what is this miracle about marriage? Sometimes everything seems so sweet sweet sweet and other times too, as if you are living in the same room with the devil himself or herself. Is the devil a man or a woman? Just asking o though I think the devil is a man.

It is perhaps one of the reasons I am often very happy when people fail to invite me to weddings nowadays. In the past 5 years alone, anytime I meet ten of the people whose weddings I had attended, chances are that when I ask of their partners, 3 would tell me: ‘Charlie, the ‘thing pascal o’! That ‘for better for worse’ thing is the biggest deception during declaration of marital vows.

It has lost relevance and the earlier churches expunged it from marital vows the better! ‘I do’ should also be replaced with ‘I will try’ or what do you think? Tomorrow, I have to attend the funerals of 4 people.

The oldest deceased person was 67 and the youngest was 14! Have the best of the weekend and remember, our journey together on this earth is like joining trotro from Kasoa to Accra. Some of your seat mates will alight at Weija junction, some Mallam junction, some at Odorkor and some others, Kaneshie and only a few may reach the final destination, Accra. Be nice to them when you are on board the same trotro because you may never see them again.