'Three Young Candles In The Wind': A Tribute
By Benjamin Tawiah Feature Article | Mon, 29 Sep 2008
| 
 A Man who mostly moves with old ladies in his younghood must not wonder if he is fatherless in his old age. - By: Atwima Kwame (Duisburg)  |
In Oldbrook, a not-so-rich suburb in the Buckinghamshire city of Milton Keynes, sits a typical brick work that is mostly mistaken for an ordinary residential facility. The structure is patterned after the usual architectural designs in cosmopolitan Britain, so it is quintessentially British. But for the inscription on the apron of the facility, many a passer- by would not dare give it a glance and mostly, folks would pretend the structure is of very little use, compared to the pub next door. But every so often, a local resident who has lived in the area for a long time and witnessed the construction of the facility, would stop in front of it and repeat to himself the words that have been so mundanely plastered in front of the building: 'What on Earth are we here for?' That is when it strikes you that the ordinary-looking brick work is a House of God. Suddenly, you begin to notice that all along, there has been a symbol of the Christian cross sitting on top of the building. Even if you are a carefree freethinker, you leave the location of the structure thinking about the effect of that profound question on your very human existence. A bit of Catharsis set in, and you can't help but ask the question one more time: 'What on Earth are we here for?'
Over the past week, I have found myself asking that question for the umpteenth time. I have also asked the same question on behalf of two good friends, who as I pen this tribute, have lost their power of speech, along with all other sensory organs, to death. I had made a normal telephone call to my family in Ghana, and had spoken to my youngest niece, who at three years keeps asking paranormal questions. She doesn't sing any nursery rhymes to me, as her other siblings had done when they were young; instead she acts like a ventriloquist, speaking in the voice of her mother: 'Uncle, when are you bringing your wife to Ghana?' That is when my father grabbed the receiver and reported the death of Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu to me. He doesn't follow politics, being a reverend minster, but the man appeared genuinely worried about the minister's death, and as is typical of him, had started asking those searching questions that at once underscore the meaninglessness of life. He had rendered in Fante a line that was so similar to the Shakespearean dictum, that all the world is a stage, with exits and entrances. We are all merely actors, playing different roles; you leave the stage when you finish playing your part, to paraphrase the bard. “Everybody here is crying, and I am crying too”, he said.
If he were alive, Shakespeare would perhaps have to rewrite the part about all the world being a stage. Actors exit the stage after they have finished playing their part, and they exit through the exit doors; they are not dragged off the stage when they are still in character; when the audience is still watching. That defies the rules of the theatre business, and the world is certainly no stage. At least, not at this stage, when a young, brilliant minister of a developing country is taken off the stage before the climax, making what should have been a comedy a veritable tragedy. In the world of the theatre, where they are no small roles, only small parts, it is usually satisfying that those who set in motion the wheels of the rising action, have a part to play, even a small part in the climax. In this case, Baah-Wiredu would only have to watch from beyond the stage the action he and other players had set in motion. Well, maybe the world is a stage after all.
But my father was to shed more tears. And this time, my mother would help in the crying. I had also called home to report the death of two of my classmates, one of whom was known to our family. My friends would often come home to break bread with my family, and one of them, Joseph Kwoffie, would later stop coming over at weekends, because the compulsory morning prayers in my house ate into the time of our first class. That boy never joked with his time. My mother had learnt some bits of Pidgin English from my interactions with friends when they came visiting. Whenever she served us food, she would add “Chaw dey there”, to say that there was more to eat when we needed more. And Kwoffie, the son of a former UAC employee, loved Banku and fish very much. Later, his parents would visit us from Kumasi, where they lived. The father passed away before he would gain admission to University of Ghana. My entire family attended the funeral. My mother would later remark that Kwoffie's mum was very beautiful.
Joseph Kwoffie (he had no alias but those of us who were very close to him called him Kyeremanteng) had grown to be a very handsome gentleman. At 6ft 4inch, bubbling with energy like fresh palm wine (a simile that he loved so much; something Mr. Pierre Ankomah, our English master, had taught us) he was full of promise and actually promised everything that was promising in life. When he entered University of Ghana, I was in my second year, and I had organized a few friends to 'pond' him in one of the ponds in Commonwealth Hall, where I was resident. He later found out that I had organized the 'shaboro', as we called the kind of baptism that required that the victim stayed longer in the water. He didn't like his course of study very much; he had wanted to do law, so he could work with his senior brother, Francis Kwoffie, then a celebrated lawyer who was doing very fine in Kumasi. We encouraged him that university education was not exactly structured to give graduates a vocation of choice; it is an academic training that could very well make a genius out a twit, the discipline he pursues notwithstanding. Besides, he could always do a masters degree in a discipline he fancies.
He made a very high upper second class, a grade that was good enough to get him a scholarship to a good university in the west, if he had bothered to apply for any. But Kyeremanteng was destined for other noble pursuits. He got married to a beautiful lady. And whenever friends visited his home, they joked that he was a fine example of the old joke that beautiful women usually love foolish men. But he was no fool; he had put together a strong family, and had produced a fine copy of himself, in the form a lovely son. He doted on his son. He loved his wife. Life was good. Then disaster suddenly struck. He wasn't fat; in fact, he was quite athletic. So we were shocked to hear that he was battling diabetes at a very young age. It was so bad that at a point he couldn't walk, and when he walked he rested his heavy frame on a walking stick. Soon, he would depreciate to be as thin as I was when we were in secondary school, only that mine was natural. His' was a combination of disease and something nobody could comprehend.
News of his condition spread like bush fine in the harmattan, another simile he loved. Friends who were close to him would often visit and give him some money. Those of us abroad would once a while phone him to check how things were panning out. Professor Enoch Effah Damson, a mate of ours who teaches computer science at University of Akrong, Ohio, USA, would later visit Ghana and report that our friend's condition was deteriorating, so we must do something about it. Another good friend, Albert Peprah, also resident in the USA, would express a similar concern. I phoned Kyeremanteng about three weeks ago, and I promised to send him some money. He thanked me profusely in advance and pronounced God's blessings on my life. He had also told me that he had heard that I have been able to develop my interest in writing, but in his condition he hasn't been able to read any of my articles. I was caught in the usual routines of life in London, and delayed in sending the money. Then last week, a dear friend in Ghana, Afful Edwards, telephoned to drop the bombshell: “Kwoffie is dead”. He was only 34.
The tragic bandwagon would drop further bad news about another young candle in the wind. We had nicknamed him Dr Faustus, after a play we had read at the School of Performing Arts. Raphael Zinnah-Kurung was a bookish fellow, and he made no apologies about that. He would come to class quite late most of the time. And whenever he walked in, one thing was very noticeable: a pile of fat books he carries in an old bag. Often the books weighed him down a bit. But he came prepared, because he was always reading something. And it was evident in his scholastic demeanour and the intelligent questions he asked. He was known even to some great writers in Ghana, including Amma Atta Aidoo. We had hosted the writer to get some insight into her work. The playwright had done a great deal of talking, often explaining away why her female characters behave in such a weird way, as if to tell their male characters that women are better doers than men. There, Raphael sprung the surprise of a life time. The question he asked Amma Atta Aidoo, which got the writer clapping for him, is still fresh on my mind. “Madam, you seem to infest your female characters with a great deal of power, often making then outdo and undo their men, but in the end they don't seem to win; they lose. Anowa lost. What, then, is the statement they stand for? Is that blind feminism?” Mr. Alosius Denkabe, the Head of the English Department at the time, even clapped for the questioner.
Dr Faustus had made life the hard way. Unlike many of us, he knew where he had come from, so he took his studies seriously. He took God even more seriously, so we were not surprised when we later heard that he had left the employ of the VAT service and had become a full time evangelist. He had gotten married, and like Kwoffie, produced some children, to make the fret and the weariness of this unintelligible world count. But, you see, that is how unintelligible this world is. A good friend, who was always in the company of Raphael, Akwasi Kankam Afrifa, an information and protocol officer at the British High Commission, Accra, is the one who reported his death to me. The deceased's phone number had called him repeatedly, and he had received it, shouting the usual terms we used to trade in at university, until the voice at the other end spoke. It was not Dr Faustus; it was one of his brothers. “Raphael is dead; I was calling to inform you.” “There, Ben, I froze; I couldn't believe it. He had had it tough, now that things are shaping out fine for him, death snatches him. It is not fair”, Afrifa would say to me.
There was more bad news to come. As I telephoned a friend of Dr Faustus', ASP Cephas Arthur, to tell him of this tribute, the bandwagon dropped news about another young candle that joined the wind over the weekend. A team of police officers had attended a funeral in Cape Coast. On their way back, ASP Essel, a regional Auditor, was killed in an accident. So, the Oldbrook Church keeps asking: “What on Earth are we here for?”
Benjamin Tawiah is a freelance journalist. He lives in London.
Email: btawiah@hotmail.com, quesiquesi@hotmail.co.uk.
Over the past week, I have found myself asking that question for the umpteenth time. I have also asked the same question on behalf of two good friends, who as I pen this tribute, have lost their power of speech, along with all other sensory organs, to death. I had made a normal telephone call to my family in Ghana, and had spoken to my youngest niece, who at three years keeps asking paranormal questions. She doesn't sing any nursery rhymes to me, as her other siblings had done when they were young; instead she acts like a ventriloquist, speaking in the voice of her mother: 'Uncle, when are you bringing your wife to Ghana?' That is when my father grabbed the receiver and reported the death of Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu to me. He doesn't follow politics, being a reverend minster, but the man appeared genuinely worried about the minister's death, and as is typical of him, had started asking those searching questions that at once underscore the meaninglessness of life. He had rendered in Fante a line that was so similar to the Shakespearean dictum, that all the world is a stage, with exits and entrances. We are all merely actors, playing different roles; you leave the stage when you finish playing your part, to paraphrase the bard. “Everybody here is crying, and I am crying too”, he said.
If he were alive, Shakespeare would perhaps have to rewrite the part about all the world being a stage. Actors exit the stage after they have finished playing their part, and they exit through the exit doors; they are not dragged off the stage when they are still in character; when the audience is still watching. That defies the rules of the theatre business, and the world is certainly no stage. At least, not at this stage, when a young, brilliant minister of a developing country is taken off the stage before the climax, making what should have been a comedy a veritable tragedy. In the world of the theatre, where they are no small roles, only small parts, it is usually satisfying that those who set in motion the wheels of the rising action, have a part to play, even a small part in the climax. In this case, Baah-Wiredu would only have to watch from beyond the stage the action he and other players had set in motion. Well, maybe the world is a stage after all.
But my father was to shed more tears. And this time, my mother would help in the crying. I had also called home to report the death of two of my classmates, one of whom was known to our family. My friends would often come home to break bread with my family, and one of them, Joseph Kwoffie, would later stop coming over at weekends, because the compulsory morning prayers in my house ate into the time of our first class. That boy never joked with his time. My mother had learnt some bits of Pidgin English from my interactions with friends when they came visiting. Whenever she served us food, she would add “Chaw dey there”, to say that there was more to eat when we needed more. And Kwoffie, the son of a former UAC employee, loved Banku and fish very much. Later, his parents would visit us from Kumasi, where they lived. The father passed away before he would gain admission to University of Ghana. My entire family attended the funeral. My mother would later remark that Kwoffie's mum was very beautiful.
Joseph Kwoffie (he had no alias but those of us who were very close to him called him Kyeremanteng) had grown to be a very handsome gentleman. At 6ft 4inch, bubbling with energy like fresh palm wine (a simile that he loved so much; something Mr. Pierre Ankomah, our English master, had taught us) he was full of promise and actually promised everything that was promising in life. When he entered University of Ghana, I was in my second year, and I had organized a few friends to 'pond' him in one of the ponds in Commonwealth Hall, where I was resident. He later found out that I had organized the 'shaboro', as we called the kind of baptism that required that the victim stayed longer in the water. He didn't like his course of study very much; he had wanted to do law, so he could work with his senior brother, Francis Kwoffie, then a celebrated lawyer who was doing very fine in Kumasi. We encouraged him that university education was not exactly structured to give graduates a vocation of choice; it is an academic training that could very well make a genius out a twit, the discipline he pursues notwithstanding. Besides, he could always do a masters degree in a discipline he fancies.
He made a very high upper second class, a grade that was good enough to get him a scholarship to a good university in the west, if he had bothered to apply for any. But Kyeremanteng was destined for other noble pursuits. He got married to a beautiful lady. And whenever friends visited his home, they joked that he was a fine example of the old joke that beautiful women usually love foolish men. But he was no fool; he had put together a strong family, and had produced a fine copy of himself, in the form a lovely son. He doted on his son. He loved his wife. Life was good. Then disaster suddenly struck. He wasn't fat; in fact, he was quite athletic. So we were shocked to hear that he was battling diabetes at a very young age. It was so bad that at a point he couldn't walk, and when he walked he rested his heavy frame on a walking stick. Soon, he would depreciate to be as thin as I was when we were in secondary school, only that mine was natural. His' was a combination of disease and something nobody could comprehend.
News of his condition spread like bush fine in the harmattan, another simile he loved. Friends who were close to him would often visit and give him some money. Those of us abroad would once a while phone him to check how things were panning out. Professor Enoch Effah Damson, a mate of ours who teaches computer science at University of Akrong, Ohio, USA, would later visit Ghana and report that our friend's condition was deteriorating, so we must do something about it. Another good friend, Albert Peprah, also resident in the USA, would express a similar concern. I phoned Kyeremanteng about three weeks ago, and I promised to send him some money. He thanked me profusely in advance and pronounced God's blessings on my life. He had also told me that he had heard that I have been able to develop my interest in writing, but in his condition he hasn't been able to read any of my articles. I was caught in the usual routines of life in London, and delayed in sending the money. Then last week, a dear friend in Ghana, Afful Edwards, telephoned to drop the bombshell: “Kwoffie is dead”. He was only 34.
The tragic bandwagon would drop further bad news about another young candle in the wind. We had nicknamed him Dr Faustus, after a play we had read at the School of Performing Arts. Raphael Zinnah-Kurung was a bookish fellow, and he made no apologies about that. He would come to class quite late most of the time. And whenever he walked in, one thing was very noticeable: a pile of fat books he carries in an old bag. Often the books weighed him down a bit. But he came prepared, because he was always reading something. And it was evident in his scholastic demeanour and the intelligent questions he asked. He was known even to some great writers in Ghana, including Amma Atta Aidoo. We had hosted the writer to get some insight into her work. The playwright had done a great deal of talking, often explaining away why her female characters behave in such a weird way, as if to tell their male characters that women are better doers than men. There, Raphael sprung the surprise of a life time. The question he asked Amma Atta Aidoo, which got the writer clapping for him, is still fresh on my mind. “Madam, you seem to infest your female characters with a great deal of power, often making then outdo and undo their men, but in the end they don't seem to win; they lose. Anowa lost. What, then, is the statement they stand for? Is that blind feminism?” Mr. Alosius Denkabe, the Head of the English Department at the time, even clapped for the questioner.
Dr Faustus had made life the hard way. Unlike many of us, he knew where he had come from, so he took his studies seriously. He took God even more seriously, so we were not surprised when we later heard that he had left the employ of the VAT service and had become a full time evangelist. He had gotten married, and like Kwoffie, produced some children, to make the fret and the weariness of this unintelligible world count. But, you see, that is how unintelligible this world is. A good friend, who was always in the company of Raphael, Akwasi Kankam Afrifa, an information and protocol officer at the British High Commission, Accra, is the one who reported his death to me. The deceased's phone number had called him repeatedly, and he had received it, shouting the usual terms we used to trade in at university, until the voice at the other end spoke. It was not Dr Faustus; it was one of his brothers. “Raphael is dead; I was calling to inform you.” “There, Ben, I froze; I couldn't believe it. He had had it tough, now that things are shaping out fine for him, death snatches him. It is not fair”, Afrifa would say to me.
There was more bad news to come. As I telephoned a friend of Dr Faustus', ASP Cephas Arthur, to tell him of this tribute, the bandwagon dropped news about another young candle that joined the wind over the weekend. A team of police officers had attended a funeral in Cape Coast. On their way back, ASP Essel, a regional Auditor, was killed in an accident. So, the Oldbrook Church keeps asking: “What on Earth are we here for?”
Benjamin Tawiah is a freelance journalist. He lives in London.
Email: btawiah@hotmail.com, quesiquesi@hotmail.co.uk.
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