Email from Sandra: Blows over the Forbidden

I inadvertently passed the night on a hungry stomach in my sofa yesterday.  

My day had been awesomely busy.  

So as soon as I got home, I bathed Naa Atswei, fed her, played with her a while to make her very tired (because she sleeps very well through fatigue), and put her to bed.  

Thankfully, Obodai is somewhere in the Eastern Region, being trained.  So I didn’t have to do any dutiful cooking.  I just took a quick bath and pretended to be watching a programme on TV.  

In less than 30 minutes, I was knocked off into dreamland.  And the things I saw!!!

I saw a huge eatery set beside a very busy highway. The ambience? Very cool.  Its clients had the option of sitting on the benches made of solid Wawa boards placed under the breezy palm trees, or in the open dining area which was shaded by a terra cotta tiled roof.  

All sorts of traditional meals with an assortment of refreshments had been advertised on a chalk board which was located by the side of the path leading from the busy road into the eatery: tuo zafi, abom with ampesi, kokonte with palm, okro or groundnut soup, fufu with goat light soup, chicken soup, palm or groundnut soup, or akrantie, kusie, asroboa, and dankwansri light soup.

The owners seemed to have carved a certain business niche for themselves because the domineering clientele were civil and public servants, business men and women, ubiquitous taxi and trotro drivers.  Some of the men had come to enjoy their meals in the company of thick lipped Ghanaian women.   

Mode of serving was this – you would go to a another shed which was beside the open dining area, pick up a well washed asanka or ayiwaa, and then head towards the spacious serving kiosk which had the picture of the meal one wanted, posted on a board above it.  A female server whose every actions could be viewed from the compound was seated within. 

I saw a long queue of people from all walks of Ghana waiting their turn at the fufu base.  Among them was a small boy.  He was the 14th of about 30 hungry fufu consuming persons. 

 Surprised to know why he was the only male his age, in a queue of the grown, I asked him what his mission there was.  This was what he had to say in Twi: “my mother is pregnant and the only food she feels like eating is soft fufu with otwi nkwan”.   

I was about to question him further when a fight broke out at the front of the queue.  I saw a man throw a fist-filled blow to another who dodged.  

The dodger in turn flew a kick in the face of the blowman who also swerved that which would have let him cease from being a part of humanity, if he had suffered the kick.  

I saw two observers, instead of brokering peace, bring out their phones to film the fight to WhatsApp to friends. 

As the fight grew fierce, the confusion caused the orderly queue to almost become a disheveled crowd. The cause of acrimony? 

The man in suit and tie had crossed the queue at the front.  He was in a hurry to get his meal and return to his office for an all important meeting.  And what did he want to eat and get out of the place in haste?  Moderately hard fufu with okusie soup.  

Then a woman whom I learnt was the owner of the eatery came out of a room supposed to be her office to rain peace on the smothering clamor.  

Being a good orator, she spoke to the agitated men who knew their queuing rights well, and who were supporting the blow man, pulled the perpetrator aside by taking hold of the front of his trouser waist, and promised to give him a special treat. 

Apparently he was one of her best clients.  I heard him place his order with her as he walked away to take his seat on one of the benches beneath the trees. The woman’s action reminded me of a scripture, Deuteronomy 25:11-12, which says, 11 “If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, 12 then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her”.

I didn’t see myself as a part of the queue.  I kind of was monitoring happenings around.  Before the 20th person in the newly formed queue could be served, I heard the woman serving the soups shout, “I’m sorry to announce that dankwansri and asrobea soups are finished.  Please plan for other alternatives before you get here.   Thank you”. 

 I saw the faces of a few disenchanted fufu faithfuls turn red.  But none moved out of the queue.  The fufu centre smelled good; the smell of bush meat soup, each of which sat on its own flaming coal pot, engulfed the whole place with their every stirring.   

Suddenly, I remembered that it wasn’t too long ago we were told not to patronise bush meat.  There definitely was something wrong with these buyers, the proprietress and the workers at the eatery.  They were putting their lives in danger.  

A man who had finished eating his fufu and was polishing his teeth with one of the provided toothpicks on the tables shouted back, “my friend, go back with your crazy talk.  Who said that that disease will come to Ghana?”  I was shocked to realise his way of thinking.  Fine, the disease will not come to Ghana, and that’s our prayer.  But shouldn’t we be wise and vigilant?

I got angry at the man so much, I stretched out my hand to slap him.  Then I heard something like a police siren go off.  That got me waking up.  It was my phone’s alarm calling for me.  Time was 5:00 a.m.  and my day had began.

I have been a bit worried since waking up.  You see, I don’t dream often so when I dream, I kind of take it seriously.  What if it’s true … true that some chop bars or restaurants are indeed selling bush meat soups to their “bush-meat-or-I-die” kind of clients? 

Somebody with authority should start going round the 10 regions in search of eatery culprits ooo.  We don’t want trouble in our land.