Author: Saatoe

My earliest memories of you begin at age 5

The two Mensahs, young and old

Father and first love

I remember the first time I saw you, this is for young Mensah

You were a war chocolate glazed best friend and confidant

I still believe you were sent to ease my pain at the discovery that I could not be a boy

We laughed, danced and planned many futures

I remember innocent homework sessions and silent laughter

Know that I dream of a parallel universe where you never left

It has never been clear to me how I knew, at so tender an age

You were strong, loyal and pretty fun for an old man

Nobody ever told me but I thought of you as my father in the most crucial ways

I saw bravery in your step and a gleam in your eyes

As you played with us kids

I also remember your brother’s heartbreak at the news of your passing

You were everything to me, a safe haven; hede nyuie

TO BE CONTINUED….

“Calm, composed, quiet, …”

These words have been attributed to me more times than I can remember

I suppose you would be all of those things after nearly 20 years practice

At age 5, I was none of these things

And my cousin’s head met a rock during a brawl

The guilt lasted for a few months

The 11 year old was none of these when she wept for her mother every night

At 14, not being calm or composed meant a fight with my father’s girlfriend

That which denied me the comfort of my best friend for nearly a year

By 16, I was fully committed to being stoic and unfrazzled

This commitment went out the window and for that, I missed seeing my grandmother’s face

I forgot to look over at her seat after the car crash, only focused on my hurt and pain

She died a day later and by then, I was in an ideal state of calm

Watching my father and uncles cry themselves clean, I did not shed a tear

I was a rock all the way through the funeral and I cherished this

After all, nobody had the energy to deal if I should fall apart so I didn’t

Until my mother told me the lack of tears meant I was not saddened by my gran’s demise

I broke then, but that was another lesson learnt

I learnt then that the flip side of being seen as self collected and calm are words like

“Cold, distant, hard hearted..”

I fortified my walls against them and on my best days

Nothing ever ruffles my calm

“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!

Do we ever escape the cages in to which we are born
Or are we destined to toil within the boundaries imposed without our consent
How free are we really?
First the family, then society at large
Determines our fate
Very little is left to happenstance
I feel no matter how we toil,
We are doomed to be the result of all the external influences
This, to me, is both man’s greatest tragedy and victory!

It’s been a tough year for me. I have been sad and empty through most of it, I suspect its low grade depression. The last time I remember feeling like this was in 2011 when I was mourning my inability to do my masters studies due to financial constraints. I prayed fro death in those times, hoping to die in my sleep in order to still qualify for heaven.

This time, I can’t pinpoint the cause. I suspect going home and being disappointed by my parents pushed me towards my old friend and the need to be emotionally balanced at work doesn’t help. I also think I have taken on too many diverse friends and there are few safe spaces for me in my own life. I need to clear my head and figure out what it is I need and want without all the noise.

Yesterday, I had drinks with two of my most cherished friends and the talk was about relationships, one is engaged and the other happily married for nearly 20 years. There was a lot of talk about me being more generous to boys and more patient and encouraging them to change. But I don’t really have the energy to invest in anybody right now. I’m mostly tired and just working at being enough for myself.

I am so tired of investing in people, I barely keep it together and while I am happy for them in their lives, I wish they let me live mine. There have been moments where I’ve lived fearlessly and been ready to invest in others but not right now. Now, the thought of surviving in joy even alone is enough to sustain me as I can’t see things getting better anytime soon.

I hope I get assigned a psychologist soon, I have too much to say and I find myself censoring around everybody, who wants to hear me talk about being constantly depressed all day? I even bore myself on occasion, just want a vacation from my own damn head. Thing is I have everything I ever wanted and I am grateful. I’m just tired of it all. Church is not enough anymore, I am drifting away from God and the Bible too. I am scared of not doing my job properly but everything is hazy and foggy, I can’t lose this job because it is the only way I remain in Norway.

I would take a month long vacation from it all if I wasn’t so scared, go see a private psychologist if I wasn’t more worried about money, tell my parents how they really make me feel and tell me friends to leave me alone.

Yesterday, I went to a club/bar to dance

There were boys, no matter how studiously I avoided eye contact

They said words like exotic, beautiful, cute and pretty

Those words and their attempts to chat me up

Left me cold

I know that I am beautiful, cute and pretty; exotic washed clean from memory

The words mostly reminded me that there was no more space within

To fill with empty compliments from boys

I failed a paper today. It was one of those results you see coming a mile away.

This is my first academic failure and it worries me. Not because I failed but the time required to rewrite and resubmit. Between my full time job which exhausts my non-work hours and two other courses, I barely have the time to breathe these days.

As if I was not tired enough, I made a trip back home where it’s warm, sunny and social. Met my fantastic friends but the noise and exposure to so many people eroded the sense of calm and peace I have striven to cultivate over the past three years.

Everyday is packed with things to do and I just want to rest every now and then. The sad thing is I love each and everyone of my activities, except one course which I take purely for work and integration reasons.

I am told that I had a mental breakdown at age 11

I don’t have a clear memory of this event but the things I remember inspire fear, joy and many other emotions I prefer to leave unexamined

I remember standing in the compound of my junior high school and not knowing why I was there

I remember missing and wishing for my mother without ever seeing her

I remember locked joints and psychiatric hospital visits with the doctors saying: “there is nothing wrong with her”

I remember the fear on my father’s face every time I repeated the same joke to him

I remember getting to my home village and not remembering the why

I remember fetish priests and white cloth sourced by my grandmother

I remember herbs, fasts and devout men of God

I remember lost memories of the time and an inconsistent mind after

I remember failing at school that year because I could not recall my lessons

Sometimes, I miss that time. My mind was unbounded and my tongue was unbridled.

Other times, I wake up in cold sweat when I remember the forgetting

I am afraid to go back to that time for that fear

What does it matter if the constant exposure to a large crowd of people makes me feel like there are bees buzzing in my head

And these same bees carry dark thoughts to me in airplanes

I can not go back to that time

I will not go back to forgetting

I was a fiery, temperamental child

The kind who spoke her mind readily when angry
So consumed my her anger that she cried with it

And her words came out in short staccato bursts

Filled with hurt, pain and impatience

With time and enough reprimands by parents and well meaning relatives

I learnt to channel this anger inwards, waiting for it to cool

And break it down to impersonal debates, which could be regarded

As intelligent discourse, because passion only inflames

Doesn’t make sense if you want to be seen as intelligent

In trying to make my words worthy of intelligence

I lost my voice, for a time at least

Until a boy uttered words that made me forget to hide

My passion away in a dark corner of the room

The spark I thought I had lost flamed anew and I took off the gloves

Punch after punch I threw, I did not care for the blood and the sweat

He made me so angry that I forgot that I had to remain detached for my points

To be considered intelligent

And just as a boy made me forget, other boys came by to remind me

That I had lost the way and their respect

I listened as they spoke, once again showing me the door to my own prison

And I replied: “no more hiding”

I am tired of holding in the so many scrapes and bruises formed by thoughtless actions

I am tired of making a leash around my own neck to fit into the box created

For me by so many others

I will no longer bury my words within my heart and douse my own fires

For your convenience

I am done!

Aww, you must miss your family

There is a pause

And in this space of time,

I wonder if anybody ever misses a tornado

Or a hurricane sweeping a well ordered life

Into tiny smithereens of chaos

Leaving one emotionally incapacitated

But nobody expects the truth

Only an answer permitting them to go on with their day

So I smile and reply: yes, I miss them.