Victim To A Peculiar Ghanaian Form Of Cruelty?

K1 – Koo, how do we Ghanaians rate ourselves against the people of other countries?

K2 – We are Numero Uno of course! Who can match us? In football, we nearly got to the World Cup semi-finals …

• I am not talking about sport but our general standing in the world. You know, our sense of concern for others; our attitude to people…
• Waste of time. The Ghanaian wants you to fall so that he can stand on your fallen body and laugh!!
• What’s worrying me is that a person I thought was friendly to me; someone whom I could even crack a joke with…
• Such as?
• Well, I called him ‘Prophet Elisha’ because he has a bald head!
• Hahahahahaha! And he didn’t mind?
• Well, he didn’t seem to!
• You are mad! Have you forgotten what Prophet Elisha did when some children mocked at him as he was walking up a hill into the village of Bethel? They said: “Climb up, bald-head! Climb up bald-head!” And Elisha waxed so angry that he summoned “two female bears” bears to come and … the bears tore“forty-two” of the children to pieces!
• Phew!
• And you called someone Elisha because he was a ‘baldie’?
• Well, one doesn’t remember everything one reads in the Bible?
• Ok, so this your version of Elisha – what exactly did he do to hurt you?
• Hmm – I called him on his phone the other day and the network told me that I had dialed the wrong number!
• Wrong number? In this digital age?
• Right you are! Anyway, I rang the number again. I still got the “wrong number” message!
• Maybe the guy had blockedyou!
• That’s exactly the thought that rang through my mind. For someone to blockme from his phone! As if I was some jilted lover (!)…
• Or debt collector (!)…
• Or a job applicant (!) …
• Charlie, you don’t know how much it hurt!
• So, what do you think made him do it?
• Koo, I shall never know till I die, for, of course, I am never going to give him the satisfaction of asking him and making him know that I’d been wise to what he’d done.
• Maybe he mixed up your number with that of someone else?
• I couldn’t care less, Koo. People who block numbers may have something to hide. But let’s not dwell on that. I was just going to remark that as the country’s administration is straining under the new political climate, a lot of rough-play is going on.
• The gossip boards are full of tales of “blood-letting” and worse!
• People who haven’t died are reported to have died!
• People who are not sick are described as being on their death-beds by tale-bearers who claim to have seen them sick; “fili-fili”!
• Some are laughing at Ministers whose names have not been sent to Parliament for vetting.
• Others are laughing at the hangers-on of Ministers whose names have not been sent…
• And others are laughing at the fate of Ministers whose names have been sent but who are expected to be vetoed by members of the Appointments Committee!
• It’s a virtual socio-political carnage, isn’t it?
• Tu bra!
• Who said politics is a dull game?

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Koo, pardon me but I have to move to a serious subject for a minute. I’ve recently lost a lot of people I personally know. Of course, it’s made worse by the fact that one doesn’t know whether they were done in by COVID-19 or something else.

• Yep – in Ghana, everything that can be turned into a “secret” is turned into a “top secret”.
• Don’t let’s go there, please. Let me tell you about one of those I have lost. My very first-ever girlfriend! She was called AA.
• She ditched you, did she?
• But I understood her reasons. Charlie, you don’t know anything about life if you don’t have the fondest memories of your first girlfriend. Besides, in AA’s case, she was just taken out of our town by her parents and they never came back. It wasn’t her fault.
• What were her special qualities?
• She was so unpredictable! After she’d climbed into my room through the window, she would fight with me before she’d allow me to …
• But if she moved away, how do you know she’s passed?
• I was told by – er – er – er – another ex-girlfriend!
• An ex-girlfriend told you that another ex-girlfriend of yours had passed? You didn’t hide your former affair from you new girlfriend? Are you by nature a serial monogamist?
• Listen, it was all an accident. The ex-girlfriend who told me about AA’s death was much younger than AA, and used to run errands for us, as our “betweener”. By the time AA left, this other lady had come of age, and since – apparently – she’d been eyeing me from a young age, she effortlessly stepped into AA’s shoes! AA was so fond of me that she used to climb into my room by a window – to prevent my old granny at home noticing her and asking her inquisitive questions!
• A girl who climbed into you room by a window? Wow!
• Charlie, I wish I wasn’t of the booze! I’d get sozzled remembering her.
• Oh Koo, Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!
• Thanks Koo! Please turn away because I think I’m gonna cry a bit!

By Cameron Duodu