“Nuka ei ledzordzor?”, Jemima asked her driver and bridal team in the sweltering heat of the Tema motorway. It was 2pm and she was three hours late for her wedding ceremony, an event she had prayed and fasted for for the last half a decade. The question was borne off the last vestiges of patience she had left and she hoped against hope that a favourable answer would come forth.
“O tu motorway, obe Airport kpli sodzawo le exercise wor”, replied her best friend. That was not the answer she wanted and the last pieces of her calm fled her, how could this be happening now? It had to be her hometown folks, a different breed of witchcraft from those who wished her harm. After all the years of abuse and ostracisation due to her unmarried status, they still wanted her to continue her years of famine in the land of spinsterhood.
Growing up, she had had no grand dreams of being wedded, unlike her sisters who played dress up and loved to play barbies who went on to wed. Jemima loved legos, climbing trees and burn challenges with her Papa. Daavi Adzo, loved all her daughters and supported them and Papa Komi, loved his babies with equal zeal. Daavi, a mathematics teacher at the local senior high school, taught Jemima advanced mathematics from age 10 when it became obvious that the primary school lessons were no longer challenging the pre-teen.
Ama, the first born married at 20 to a local up and coming pastor so filled with the spirit that he believed that a woman’s place was solidly in the kitchen and behind a man. Filled with pride at snaring such a well to man, Ama became a devout wife and soon popped out one baby after another. Daavi Adzo and Papa Komi supported her as best as they could. The marriage ceremony was attended by long forgotten uncles and aunties who danced a little too vigorously and laughed a little too loud. Towards the end of the event, Torga Mensah cornering Jemima, asked: “It is your turn soon, where is your young man?”. Jemima had no answers as she had been dedicated to finding a college for early admission.
“When will the motorway be reopened?”, David asked the approaching policeman. “One or two hours”, he replied. Jemima started crying her make up off at that point. Thoughts of the $10,000 dollars plus comments from her sisters and extended family finally broke her down. “It will be fine, I bet the pastor will wait for you”, her best friend assured her. All the money she had planned for extended world travel had been poured into a wedding to a man she was not even sure she wanted. She wept for succumbing to the pressure from her sisters to find a man, the quiet defenceless of her parents against the spinster label as she turned 40 and the taunts from the extended family. She was tired of it all, perhaps the motorway closure was for the best!
myrandomramblings808 