Village boy Impressions

1.   Some nights, when the moon is happy  Smiling broadly from its heavenly home.  A small crowd gathers in the yard;  Grandma, mother, aunty and the others  Not forgetting me and three smaller ones.  Akangriba the dog would be present  As is the cat who never quite got a name.  Baba is outside on the dampala [1]  With a neighbour for company   As the age-old ritual is being enacted,  And none can be left out:  A hand reaches into the big bowl  And grabs a handful of groundnuts,  Ka, ka, crack! goes the shells,  Hard-pressed between thumb and index.  Opened shells are clasped in one hand  Or dropped in a calabash nearby  And the ritual is repeated again and again.  Until our fingers ache, we the little ones. 2. Soon we find support in our teeth. A seed or two usually remaining To keep the jaws busy and sleep at bay. When this becomes too frequent, We earn a rebuke or two, And are driven off to our mats, Beside the cracking party, Under the gri

When the sun is high up,  And the adults are busy with many things, With our chores hurriedly done or abandoned,  We steal away with our little hoes  Wandering far into the farmlands  To dig along the ridges in the fields  And glean what we may or must,  For pleasure or necessity!  The pleasure being in fields abandoned,  When the rains stopped too early.  Or the yield is adjudged to be poor;  And the farmer is discouraged;  Then happily we come into our own,  For here there is great  reward.  But alas! When hunger lays siege,  And our mothers are too busy or helpless,  Our insatiable appetites are awakened. Then rich reward or not we come  And dig and scatter and peer at the earth  Like the fowls  search for woodworm  In the shrubbery  at home.  For any and every excuse  We are glad to grab a hoe and can  And head into the deserted fields  Where we dig and search and dig,  For the nuts the hard ground holds,  Returning home with full bellies,  Even to

1.         I beheld a jolly chap in the parkland;  In the warm sunny morning air.  With an old hat over his head,  An old bucket at his side,  An axe  over his shoulder,  And whistling a faintly familiar tune;  He wandered about to and fro  Collecting the dried cow dung.  I smiled in recognition and remembrance  As my heart rolled back the years  To when I went collecting termites. I also had an old bucket and a hoe  But alas! no hat of my own  As I marched into the scrubland,  With great eagerness or reluctance  Humming happy or melancholy tunes,  As my mood might happen to be.  A man returning to his house with a bucket of termites 2.         After the early rains, I go in search For crusts of clay  on the ground That shows where the woodworm lurks. There, I plant a pot of broken-up dung That will nourish and lure them To build and multiply for a day or two. And in the warm sunrise, I come To harvest and gather with my bucket!       The

“God chooses things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise and chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong” - 1Cor1:27 (my translation).   I visited a library for the first time in my life when I was 13 and in J. H. S 1. Then, my small stature coupled with the fact that I was new and not very confident restricted me to the children's section all through my adolescent years and even beyond. Nevertheless, I was really enjoying the stories in that section. My favourite story was;  "The Emperor's New Clothes ” by the Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen. I do not know exactly why it was my favourite then. Perhaps because it was so hilarious (the thought of a king walking down the street naked). Today, I remember it and love it not because it is so hilarious (for it is no longer so to me) but because it speaks volumes about society. I have come to learn a lesson from it that I can’t forget. The Pl

Cli-ing! cli-ing! cli-ing!  “Break time pleeeeaase!”  Went the school bell,  And the bellboy  together.  And all at once we bail out  Shouting talking laughing  Hailing jumping running  Rumbling like a turbulent stream. Spreading out into the compound  Like a flood sweeping across  The plains after a heavy shower  Delighted as  caged birds set free! Read: Village Boy Impressions - The Days of Bliss

Caught by the snow whilst outside; I was elated 1. Falling, falling, falling all around me  Like shredded cotton, the snow falls  And soon, the ground is a white foam I am ecstatic as a child in my first snow  What shall I do with it now I have it?  I scoop it in  both hands and sniff it  I roll it into a ball and kick it  I hug it but it is too cold!  And soon my hands are frigid  But I can’t let go, it’s my first snow! Soon the whole ground was white 2. I want to roll in it and squeal As the pigs do in the mud at home I want to take it home and say, “Look Mma, water from the heavens; Here, the clouds do not rain; They fall down to the ground!” But then how shall I carry it? No, I will describe it to her But what shall I say to describe it? Mma has no word for this alien miracle. No, I will just fill my own curiosity That is enough for Mma. A snowman was built the next morning 3. Now it’s too co

       “Feed the hungry,” said the preacher,  I listened keenly, feeling my tummy  As my mind raced back to those years  Long, long ago,  When it growled, gnarled and rumbled  And I squirmed in the attempt to hide it But how does one conceal hunger? It is a god-spirit  That possesses mind, body, and soul.  Gnawing, biting, burning, breaking.    The whole frame shudders in response  And the limbs are weak and wobbly The senses become rusty and dull.  All except the nose, yes the nose!  Which can smell the aroma of food  Over a two-mile radius! Read: Village Boy Impressions -  Election Mangana          Hunger makes a topsy-turvy world! Makes the mouth dry, The tongue cleaving to the jaw, The tubes writhing in agony, As if the enzymes work overtime, Devouring all in their path. The postbag cries in agony, With saggy and anaemic walls. Sleep becomes elusive Vision blur, Thinking horrendous, Talk abominable. The world stops spinning,

The sky is bare and barren tonight  The heavens are glorious and starless  Not a single cloud to be seen  A happy full moon shines  In all brilliance and delight.  The land is bathed in her light  As bright and clear as  day.  Read: Village Boy Impressions -  The Wailing Bride The title reads: The Reason Why the Chameleon has a Broken Head All are gathered before the house.  The children are awake and ecstatic  Sleep has vanished from our eyes  With the rising of the delightful moon.  Boys resume the afternoon game of ' socksball ',  The girls renew their  ampe  rivalry,  The little ones driving tin cars,  Others enacting ‘Dada and Mama’ scenes  To the amusement of the real ones.  Later, we start playing ' agbeli-gbeli ',   Yelling and racing round  the huts.  As are the children in other compounds Read:  Village Boy Impressions -   How to Help Ghana and Yourself Inquisitive chickens lured by the moonlight, Have bolted from their house.

         Goats are the most productive of animals  Growing rapidly and littering in pairs,  Triplets and even quadruplets!  And soon the house is full of goats  Braying and bleating everywhere!  If you but see them in the dry months,  You would love their shiny coats  And fine furs as they file in at dusk.  You wonder what they have been eating  Since the land is brown and bare.  But the elders of old have an adage:  “another’s hand cannot be oily enough!”  So even with the fresh green grass  Of the many rainy moons,  They are not as fair as with the dry grass  Fruits and twigs of the hot dry months.  All because they are tethered in this season,  And their food comes at the hands of us boys. 

Abelikpien! Abelikpien! Tell me, oh do tell! Where do you come from? You lie empty, dry, and desolate As many long rainless months go by Under cloudless clear skies by day And twinkling bright heavens by night. The parched harmattan blasts Leave you dry to the core And the pitiless sun roasts you Until your sands burn our feet So we wince and hurry Across your dry bed in the long months     Our fathers say you come from the 'forest' For no matter how much it rains at home, You are desolate and dry And at times with hardly a drop here You turn out in full flow Bursting at your banks. You are foaming and weltering, Chuckling and cackling downstream. And we; your worshippers, call out in glee “Hey, water has come to the river”! As we race to the hill To watch your rough waters race by   Sometimes you bring so much load Enormous trees that you uproot and carry In the mighty arms of your current Even the adults are scared