Victim to a peculiar Ghanaian form of cruelty

K1 – Koo, how do we Ghanaians rate ourselves against the people of other countries?

K2 – We are Numero Uno of course! Who can match us? In football, we nearly got to the World Cup semi-finals....

I am not talking about sport but our general standing in the world. You know, our sense of concern for others; our attitude to people....

Waste of time. The Ghanaian wants you to fall so that he can stand on your fallen body and laugh!!Haven't you heard of our famous "PH.D syndrome"? (Pull him down and you may be able to take his job!)

What's worrying me is that a person I thought was friendly to me; someone at whom I could even crack a joke....

Such as?

Well, I called him 'Prophet Elishah' because -- he has a bald head!

Hahahahahaha! And he didn't mind?

Well, he didn't seem to!

You are very naive! Have you forgotten what Prophet Elishah did when some children mocked at him as he was walking up a hill into the village of Bethel? They said: “Climb up, bald-head! Climb up bald-head!” And Elisha waxed so angry that he summoned “two female bears” to come and the bears tore “forty-two” of the children to pieces!

Phew!

Yep. And you called someone Elisha because he was a 'baldie'? Baldies don't like to be called baldies, you clown!

Well, one doesn't want to remember everything one reads in the Bible, does one? I mean bears tearing children to pieces. And this is a book that is supposed to teach people to be moral?

Ok, I'll let that go. But this your version of Elisha – what exactly did he do to hurt you?

Hmm – Koo, you can't believe this I called him on his phone the other day to discuss an urgent matter and wait for it! the network told me that I had dialled the wrong number!

Wrong number? In this digital age?

Right you are! Anyway, I rang the number again. I still got the “wrong number” message!

Maybe the guy had blocked you!

That's exactly the thought that came uneasily to my mind. For someone to block me from his phone! As if I was some jilted lover....

Or debt collector ....

Or some mere job applicant (!) ….

Charlie, you don't know how much it hurt!

So, what do you think made him do it?

Koo, I shall never know till I die, for, of course, I am never going to give him the satisfaction of asking him and making him know that I'd been wise to what he'd done to me.

Maybe he mixed up your number with that of someone else?

I couldn't care less, Koo. People who block the numbers of people who want to talk to them may have something to hide. But let's not dwell on that. I was just going to remark that as the country's administration is straining under the new political climate, a lot of rough-play is going on. People just don't know how to handle a difficult time.

The gossip boards are full of stories about “blood-letting” and worse in the ruling circles!

Is that why people who haven't died are reported to have died!?

It's wishful thinking all over the place. People who are not sick are described as being on their death-beds by tale-bearers who claim to have seen them sick; “fili-fili”!

Some are laughing at ministers whose names have not yet been sent to Parliament for vetting.

Others are laughing at the hangers-on of ministers whose names have not been sent....

And others are laughing at the fate of mnisters whose names have been sent but who are expected to be vetoed by members of the Appointments Committee!

If secret balloting takes place at the Appoitments Committee, then Charlie, there will be shocks! It's looking like a socio-political carnage, isn't it?

Tu bra!

Who said politics is a dull game?

Koo, pardon me but I have to move on to a serious subject for a minute. I've recently lost a lot of people I personally know. Of course, it's made worse by the fact that one doesn't know whether they were done in by Covid-19 or something else.

Yep another of our peculiarities in Ghana is that everything that can be turned into a “secret” is turned into a “top secret.”

Don't let's go there, please. Let me tell you about one of those I have lost. It's my very first-ever girl friend, AA.

She ditched you did she?

Yep. But I understood her reasons. Charlie, you don't know anything about life if you don't have the fondest memories of your first girl-friend. Besides, in AA's case, she was just taken out of our town by her parents and they never came back. It wasn't her fault.

What were her special qualities?

She was just so funny and so unpredictable! After she'd climbed into my room through the window, she would fight with me before she'd allow me to ….Before you ask, let me tell you that the window was a great ally of ours because my father's brother's old wife was a great inquisitor and had she laid eyes on AA, she would have quizzed her tears. You know: "Whose child are you? Have you gone outside the house yet? (Had your menstrual period?) Does your mother know that you out at night?" She would be smoking a foul-smelling pipe loaded with tobacco she grew herself ourtside our house, as she carried out this ruthless inquisition!

Hmmm! So that's why so many old women are reviled as witches? But tell me, if this your girl moved away from your town, how do you know she's passed?

Strangely, I was told by – er – er – er – another ex-girl-friend! She probably enjoyed doing that. Out of a long-held unfulfilled desire for revenge!

You must be as wise as an owl to have allowed an ex-girl-friend know about another ex-girl-friend and to turn round and report her death to youy? You didn't hide your former affair from you newer girl-friend? Are you by nature a serial monogamist?

Listen, it was all an accident. The ex-girl-friend who told me about AA's death was much younger than AA, and in fact used to run errands for us, as our “betweener”. But by the time AA left, this other lady had come of age, and since – apparently – she'd been eyeing me from a crush point of view at a young age, she effortlessly stepped into AA's shoes when AA left. Satisfied?

Tell me, did the new one also climb into your room through the window?

Charlie, don't make a meal of itI It was quite normal in those days. How I wish I wasn't practically a teetotaller now!! I'd get sizzled remembering AA.

Oh Koo, sorry! Sorry! Sorry!

Thanks Koo! Please turn away because I think I'm gonna spill some tears.