Losing Respect for the Scottish

Yesterday the Scottish voted to remain hidden under the broad umbrella of England's United Kingdom and have their destiny as a people to continue to be determined by suited men in England

So I cast my mind back to Ghana's own struggle with colonialism. I spared a thought for the likes of Sergeant Adjetey who shed their blood for the course of independence.

I remembered Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and other great warriors who endured personal trials and even imprisonment just for the right to make our own mistakes.

And we have made many. Years after independence we are still crawling as a nation. But what nobody can ever take away from us is our pride and dignity as a people. Sometimes it is better to die with honour than to merely survive in comfort

And so it was with disgust that I saw grown Scottish men crying for joy for having voted their country into subjugation; to remain perpetually hooked to the apron of Big Brother England.

That was the day I lost respect for Scotland

Augusco and The Bishop's Candlesticks

Author’s Note – Though similar events happened in the St Augustine’s College, the story and characters in this book are all a product of the author’s imagination. Any offence is deeply regretted

The historical town of Cape Coast, founded by the Portuguese in the 15th century was the capital of Ghana before it was moved to Accra in 1877. The Cape Coast castle, a huge edifice of doom that sits with a royal elegance along the beech was where most slaves were held before their journey on the Middle Passage. Across the road from the castle was the Anglican Church. The road meandered between these two structures and dipped round mud huts inhabited by fishermen and dirt-littered beaches to the Victoria Park, complete with its bust of the famous queen. Along the beeches, the fishermen often sat smoking, mending their nets and singing the praises of the ninety-nine gods of Cape Coast.

The odd fisherman you saw approaching rather surreptitiously from the seaside had probably visited the natural water closet, for in many places, the beeches were sadly, nothing more than glorified toilets.

From the Victoria Park, the road led to the yellow Town Hall, a miniature version of similar administrative centres in the United Kingdom. From here the road crawled over the Fosu Lagoon, home of the god of similar name. Fishermen walked through this lagoon, trailed by baskets attached to their waist and holding nets which they hurled every now and again into the water to harvest the popular tilapia which, when matched with etsew, was a delicacy in Cape Coast . The road then sat quite frighteningly by the sea, separated from it by a narrow strip of sand with tall coconut trees till it reached the St Augustine’s College.

Established by Irish catholic missionaries in 1930, it is but

one of the several top secondary schools for which Cape Coast is famous. This all boy institution excelled in many things but had strong competition from bitter rivals and equally good schools like Mfantsipim and Adisadel College. And the girls, Holy Child School and Wesley Girls were not bad either. Because the St Augustine’s College and the Holy Child School were both catholic institutions, there seemed to be an unwritten agreement of friendship between them and indeed, the two schools co-operated in most things. A similar relationship existed between the two Methodist schools, Mfantsipim and Wesley Girls and so on. Every St. Augustine’s boy harboured a secret desire to have a girlfriend in Holy Child and vice versa.

Every Saturday, Augusco boys would troop in their numbers to Holy Child, all impeccably groomed. It did not matter if the shirt you wore or the nicely polished shoe was borrowed, you just had to be seen in Holy Child every now and again. Visit your sister; visit your aunt, your cousin or your niece. It did not matter. A visit was a visit, and you had to be seen.

They would go, and when they had run out of things to say, would relate events in Augusco over the past week – who had stolen what and who had been suspended. Everything that happened in Augusco was news in Holy Child. However, surprisingly very little news ever travelled beyond the walls of Holy Child. The girls basically kept quiet and turned the boys into laughing stock.

There was the occasional scandal generated from childish trivia and testosterone-fuelled stupidity. Five students from Augusco had decided one night to go to Holy Child and teach some girls a lesson. One of them had jilted his girlfriend and to get her own back, the girl had written to his friends to say he suffered from premature ejaculation. The boys had crawled up through the forest around the hilly Holy Child at around 8 pm when the girls had been at prep.

They had stolen quietly into the girls’ dormitory, lay on their beds and taken photos of themselves. They had then picked up souvenirs of panties and braziers and then, disguised in balaclavas, had headed for the classroom of the former girlfriend where they had forced the frightened screaming girls to stand on their tables and hold their ears. The nun on duty had heard the screams and run over but she had been overcome and forced to join the girls. After gesturing and posturing for a few minutes, they had bolted with their souvenirs. The girls had not been fooled. The authorities in Augusco had been alerted, an urgent roll call had been held and the five boys had gone back to school to find teachers waiting by their beds. Even long after they had been dismissed, they would sneak in every now and again to wild cheers and applause from admiring students. Thus were heroic status attained in Augusco in those days.

On your normal day, however, the relationship between the two schools was cordial and the Bishop’s Candlesticks, the school band of St Augustine’s, would often perform in Holy Child. This was an event everybody looked forward to. As the old St Augustine’s School bus bearing the famous musicians and their instruments laboured up the steep hills of Holy Child, leaving in its trail a thick fog of pungent smoke, the girls would run amidst wild feverish screams to meet them.

Ebo B!! B!! Ebo Ebo B!! Ebo B!!

This was Ebo Bentil’s day. The girls loved the shy, quietly spoken, tall handsome lead singer of the Candlesticks.

Ebo B!! B!!

The screams would continue as lesser men alighted and began unloading musical instruments.

Ebo B!! B!!

As the school prefect of Holy Child and a few senior girls would converge near the bus.

Ebo B!! B!!

As the great man would finally get down from the bus amidst deafening cheers, a broad but uneasy smile on his face, henchmen in tow. You had to be within the Ebo B circle of friends. I f you were a girl, you had to know somebody, who knew somebody who knew Ebo Bentil. He was monarch of all he surveyed.

Before the show began, the boys would go through the tiresome ritual of tuning their instruments. It would begin with the keyboards man playing one key after the other while the guitarist; neck craned and with a face contorted as if in pain would tune his guitar, stopping occasionally to gesture frantically to the over-enthusiastic drummer to quieten down. Sometimes the impatient girls would burst into song

“All we are saying don’t waste our time!”

To the melody of the John Lennon classic, Give Peace a Chance, to which the Augusco boys in the audience would respond;

Oooooooooh Saaaaas!!!!!!

Whatever that meant! B

ut it was all good-natured fun, inspired by the intense anticipation, with no harm intended.

Finally, silence!
The drummer would roll, and the keyboards man would begin the melody to the Bob Marley hit,

One love, one heart,
Let’s get together now
Feel alright

And finally the great man would appear, and we would struggle to hear his voice above the screams.

Ofinger Tiger, by virtue of his very close friendship with Ebo Bentil had become a sort of an honorary member of sorts of the Candlesticks. It had all started with him being the unofficial chief fan who had been content to be ever present at rehearsals and who helped to carry and arrange instruments. He had slowly gotten more and more influential in the group and soon he wanted to be on stage.

“I could do congas” he pleaded. “I know I am rubbish at it, but I wouldn’t play out aloud. Just pretend as if I was playing and put up a show. It would help.”

“That is nonsense really, Tiger, you might distort the sound.”

Sam Ampofo could not tolerate all this nonsense but eventually Tiger had influenced the other members to overrule him. So it was that on concert days, Tiger would stand by the conga, moving his hands as if he was playing but actually producing no sound at all. It was a skill he soon perfected, while his dancing and general showmanship would draw wild applause. So Tiger would stand astride the congas shaking his head to the rhythm and dripping with sweat till that special moment in all Candlesticks concerts that would go like this;

“Ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening tonight to the Bishop’s Candlesticks of the St Augustine’s College.” Ebo would begin

“We love you all and I know you love us too.

“We leave today with heavy hearts because you have been the best audience we have ever had anywhere, nationally and internationally.”

Wild applause

“I am now pleased to introduce to you the great talented young guys who form the core of our group. We have been playing together for 4 years, God wiling, there may be many more.”

Wild applause

“On bass tonight has been the man they call the guitar man. Ladies and Gentlemen, Johnny Guitar Cofie!!”

Johnny would strum a few lines on the bass amidst applause

“On keyboards. They call him the Ray Charles of Africa. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dicky Ray Samson!”

He would quickly introduce drummer Peter Davies and Sam Ampofo on lead guitar and then;

“May I have some silence in here please?”

Ebo would begin, and then turning to the band;

“Get it down guys, right down!” The sound would be lowered to almost inaudible levels and the audience would begin murmuring in anticipation.

“Finally, ladies and gentlemen, back from his recent tour of the Caribbean and Scandinavian countries, we are privileged to have in our midst, the world renowned percussionist, producer and arranger. Would you kindly put your sweet Holico hands together for Tommy Baby Tiger Garbah?”

This was the only time in the show Tiger would actually play, for this was his moment and it did not matter how he played. He would go into frenzy, pounding the poor congas into submission amidst wild hysterical cheers from the fans

“Baby Tiger! Baby Tiger!

“Someday, sometime, somewhere, we shall meet again. This has been yours truly Ebo Bentil on vocals. I love you all.” And the girls would rush on stage.

Colonialism- The Scottish Experience

Next week, the Scottish people go to the polls to decide whether centuries of oppression from the English should finally be brought to an end. I am not Scottish by any stretch of the imagination, but I know how I would vote if I was. The English have survived all their history through the mental and physical domination of others. Many Africans are still in a struggle to extricate ourselves from the vestiges of colonial dominance.

And aren't the English brilliant at this. It takes sheer genius to be able to convince half of the Scottish people, for that is what the polls predict, that a land as culturally rich as Scotland, with vast oil resources at their disposal; the land that produced Adam Smith, Thomas Carlyle, David Hume and some of the great thinkers in the world, would simply be unable to survive without "big brother" England looking over their shoulders.

It is simply a case of the English not letting go of the goose that lays the golden eggs, however sophisticated the arguments they put forward and the Scottish better beware. Suddenly the English love the Scottish so much and do not want them to leave. They are using all means, fair and foul to ensure that Scotland remains locked perpetually in this "mutually beneficial" association.

Which reminds me of a story a Scottish taxi driver told me when I worked in Stirling a few years ago. He said,
When The Lord was creating the earth, Angel Gabriel sat on his right. So The Lord turned to Gabriel;

"Gabriel" He said

"Yes my Lord" Gabriel said

"Gabriel, I'm going to create this one beautiful country you would be proud of" The Lord said

"Let it be, my Lord" Gabriel said

"This little country will be called Scotland and will boast the best barley and make the best whiskey in the world" said The Lord

"Let it be, my Lord" Gabriel said

"Oh this country, Gabriel, I'm so excited, will produce some of the greatest minds in Economics, Science and Philosophy ever known to man"

"Let it be, my Lord" Gabriel said

"Vast natural resources they will have, this country, Gabriel, and....

"But Lord, don't you think you are giving this one small country too much?" Gabriel asked

"Come on Gabriel!!" The Lord rebuked "I haven't told you who their neighbours are going to be!!"

Papa Appiah
Www.ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

The KNUST Diaries - The Aluta Years (8) - The Arrest of Kakraba Cromwell

We were still at home when the announcement came on national radio and television;

“The student leader Kakraba Cromwell has been arrested. This was following collaboration between the Ghana Police and Interpol. Kakraba Cromwell, a final year Computer Science student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, has been involved in drug trafficking………”

Of course the allegation was not true. We were dealing with a determined government machinery, desperate to destroy this man forever. He had been a thorn in their flesh for far too long. No, he had not been charged with any crime. He was not brought before a judge. That would have been preferable. He would have had the opportunity to defend himself. Instead, he had been held in seclusion and subjected to long periods of sleep deprivation. Anytime he had tried to nod off an alarm bell would sound off in his cell.

Finally, when the poor man’s spirit had been crushed and his mental resolve shattered, when he was so confused he could not get a single line of grammar right, he was paraded before the cameras on national TV. The very thought of it still makes me wince. He was well dressed, but the man sitting there mumbling like an alcoholic or a drug addict was not the usually sharp and witty Kakraba Cromwell we knew. Not by any means. But that was the picture they wanted to paint for the rest of Ghana.

“We have evidence that you were involved in drug trafficking on your last visit to London.” The interviewer asked, rather threateningly

“Eh?”

“In fact Interpol has been pursuing you for a while now. Is that not right?”

”I’m not… mmm”

“And we know you have been on hard drugs yourself” the man asked

“No”

“Mr Cromwell, you have never used drugs? Answer me!”

“Just eh… marijuana”

“We have the names of all the people you smoke with. Could you tell me?”

“Chairman …….eh …Gorbachov”

“Is that his real name!?

“He is eehh…..”

I just walked away. I could not bear to watch this anymore. I later learnt, that in his earlier days in the university, he had dabbled in marijuana but had stopped completely when he had become involved in students politics. I had never seen him smoke anything or even drink alcohol. Chairman Gorbachov never forgave him for this, despite concerted attempts to explain to him KC had definitely not been himself and it was possible that the interview had not been live at all but had been recorded over a long period and the film edited to do the maximum damage to his reputation. And boy did they succeed. People began to wonder what the fuss had all been about.

“If such are the men chosen to lead our future leaders, then I weep for Ghana” One newspaper had commented

When we went back to school, he had still been in prison. There had been a somber mood on campus. There had been a few mumblings about holding demonstrations to protest against the treatment of Kakraba Cromwell, but really, people simply lacked the motivation to do anything more of significance. A couple of minor demonstrations were held and people quickly went back to the comfort of their books. And of course, the feeding grant had been withdrawn. Not long after that, KC was released. There had been no Interpol, no judge, no trial, no jury, no official charge, just irreparable damage to a man’s hard-earned reputation.

He had arrived in school one Sunday afternoon and in true Ghanaian traditional victory celebration style, a white cloth had been placed over his shoulder and white powder sprinkled over his head. Mr Simpson had offered libation to the gods at Always Around, invoking Aboagyewa’s curses on the people responsible for this.

‘May they suffer gonorrhea” he had said, amongst others

KC had then been followed by a handful of students all the way to the eighth floor, Gladys by his side. I saw the hallowed look on his face. I cast my mind back to the confident young man who had stood at the forecourt not long ago waving to all sides of Unity Hall. I knew something was lost and that Kakraba Cromwell would never be the same again.

The least we could do, his friends on the eight floor of the Unity Hall, was to try to lift his spirits. We went round and took contributions from everybody and organized a little party on the floor for him. I was asked to give a little speech on the night but before I could speak, Chairman Gorbachov had gotten up to speak uninvited.

“I am happy to welcome my partner in crime KC……” He didn’t look like he was joking. It left a bad taste in people’s mouth.

I gave an emotional speech relating my encounter with him on the first day. I talked about the way he cared about everyone on the floor. And it was true. He would get up in the morning literally going from one room to the other checking that people were alright or just having a chat. He was a great man but above all, he was a good man. “I promise you, nothing can bring down a man destined for greatness” I concluded to warm applause.

That was the last of students’ politics as we knew it at the time. There would be no major strikes ever again. Kakraba Cromwell, he quietly completed his examinations and found himself a job somewhere in Accra. The man we once thought was going to be president of Ghana, had been sunk into eternal oblivion.

The KNUST Diaries - The Aluta Years (7) - Kakraba Cromwell v JJ Rawlings!

“We shall overcome

We shall overcome

We shall overcome someday

Oh deep in my heart

I do believe

That we shall overcome, someday”

The solemnity of the occasion had been simply overwhelming. All the students in the KNUST had gathered in the Great Hall. We all wore red headbands symbolizing our anger and our determination to fight to the bitter end, come what may. We had simply had enough. The Aboagyewa choir was in attendance. Mr Samson had his blue suit on. Kakraba Cromwell walked unto the stage, and all hell broke loose.

“We shall overcome!” he started amidst wild cheers. He had a stern look on his face. I don’t know how he did it, but in situations like this, he would suddenly be transformed into another person. He would be nothing like the jovial KC on the eighth floor of Unity Hall. This was a different KC from the one I knew.

“We shall overcome because we derive our inspiration from incidents of history. From Amritsar to the fighting warriors of Zulu, we know that in the end, good always triumphs over evil…..”

I don’t know how successful the Zulu warriors had been but students enjoyed this kind of oratory. Believe it or not, some of the girls were actually starting to cry. He went on to explain the rationale behind this intended strike action by students. Since the Rawlings Government had taken over power from the democratically elected government in 1981 through the barrel of the gun they had continually shown their disdain for students. This was not helped by their strong conviction, that the illegal opposition forces as they were at the time, were quietly courting student support to destabilize the government. They hit the students hard. One after the other benefits previously enjoyed by students had been withdrawn. The straw that broke the camel’s back had been a recent announcement that the monthly feeding grant that had previously replaced regular meals, was now going to be withdrawn as well.

“Today, it is not merely a fight for our feeding grant. This is the time to prove to this government, that students and Ghanaians at large can no longer endure a rule by decree and perpetual threats from the barrel of a gun. It is time for us to be allowed to exercise our democratic right to choose, who should run affairs in this country.

“……We have a road to travel, a war to fight, a story to tell. Someday, generations of KNUST students yet unborn will look back to us and say, thank God almighty, somebody was brave enough to fight our course! God bless you all!”

And we all broke into song. It had been a Sunday evening. The plan had been for us to stay away from lectures till such time as the government rescinded its decision and quite ambitiously, also announced a timetable for the return to multi-party democracy. It was a nationwide strike involving all tertiary institutions in the country. Next day, nobody attended lectures. We all marched amidst drumming and dancing, carrying a coffin with the Provisional National Defense Council inscribed on it to the KNUST junction, setting it on fire. That evening, news filtered through to us, that the then Secretary for Education, Afua Sutherland, had come to the University and was currently at a meeting with the Vice Chancellor, Prof Kwame, in his office.

By this time, most of the students had had enough for the day, but I joined a group of students, mainly Aboagyewa singers and we marched with our drums to the Vice Chancellors office. We knew the moment we got there the story was true, for there were a couple of soldiers armed to the teeth in front of the building. We set up our musical equipment in front of the soldiers and started singing. Not long after that, Afua Sutherland bravely appeared with Prof Kwame signaling to us to keep quiet so she could speak to us. But we sang even more loudly;

“Bend down Afua Sutherland

So we see what’s underneath

Its circumference and diameter

Before we slip it in…….”

She patiently tried to be a good sport, but soon realized she could not get through to us. She hopped into her car under armed protection and was gone. A couple of days later, all tertiary institutions in the country were closed down and we all had to go home.

the KNUST Diaries - The Aluta Years 6 - The Idea of Breasts

You were said to have “grabbed” in the KNUST when you got a female visitor and especially when they stayed on for a few days. There were two ways of grabbing. You could grab internally or externally. An internal would be a student of the university. The external was anybody from outside. There were no written rules, but deep down, everybody knew it was more "prestigious" to have an internal rather than an external. An external could be anybody, let’s face it. She could be the prostitute from the shady sides of town or the little girl from the school down the road. It would be most inconvenient to your room mate when you grabbed. He would become the object of abject ridicule as he fleeted from room to room, looking for places to spend the nights.

Internals hardly stayed overnight, unless your room mate happened to be out of town. They would come for an hour or two when your room mate would pretend to be studying elsewhere and the burden could be shared between the two suffering room mates.
On the other hand, externals were more likely to stay longer. Sometimes, however, these externals would go shopping while we were at lectures and prepare the most sumptuous dishes for both room mates. Then, it was not that bad.

Normally, though, there was nothing worse than climbing eight flights of stairs only to realize your own room was locked from within and then finding on knocking, a half naked body, especially one with a face as red as Zak’s, popping out to say:

“Charley, I grab oo? Do you want to pick a few items?”

Shit! Shit! Shit! Take a few items and go where? It could be rather unsettling and then a bit annoying if they then stayed for more than a few days. Guys have been known to "grab" just in retaliation to treatment they may have received from their room mates.

“Don’t worry, yours is on the way” Zak would teasingly whisper to me

But it had been a doomed prophecy. For, one day, as I approached Unity Hall, I had been met by a mate who had told me I’d got a visitor. There seemed to be some urgency in his voice. I’d run up the stairs to find her waiting patiently in 428. Zak had already “picked a few items” and disappeared from sight. It was Florence, a girl I had, in all honesty, met only briefly in Cape Coast. I was a bit surprised. She had written to me a couple of times when I first came to KNUST and always reminded me she might pop in sometime to say hello because she had friends in Kumasi. But it had been a while now and she had not written to say she was actually coming.

This was a bit tricky. I had not expressed any interest in her verbally but perhaps she had read into my body language. But then again, I was still so shy, that if I was going to have a girlfriend, it probably would have to be somebody who simply decided to have pity on me.

When I had finally recovered from the initial shock,I had taken her down for dinner and a couple of bottles of beer. As we made our way back up to the eighth floor, I found myself in deep thought. Did I have to presume that she had come to share my bed and have sex with me or did I have to ask her “officially”? Did I have to give her my room and sleep elsewhere at least for the first day or so before things developed properly between us? We entered 428 and closed the door. I sat on a chair, in my own little world, considering what to do, beads of sweat collecting on my forehead, when she had started undressing, right before me, slowly and deliberately, till she finally hopped out of her panties completely naked and came to sit on my lap in the chair.

Idea

The idea of breasts is all there is left on your bust

Lust-laced love smashed to smithereens

Wistful memories all there are left to make up for both time and beauty lost in breach

Now we are beyond the teething stages of love and trust, necessity and survival dictate the terms;

And so everything is solid and real, tea and pee, food and shit

I have been accused of bad breath; it is indeed nothing of the sort,

Just the stale recall of mutton savored in a mouth of unwashed dreams

After the initial novelty had worn off, Florence’s frequent unannounced visits became increasingly difficult to handle. For, I was a student. I had no personal source of income. I only depended on the little pocket money my family were kind enough to give me. Having a girl stay over was expensive business when the girl was not in a position to contribute anything financially herself. Soon, I had had enough of all the sumptuous Fante meals she cooked in the evenings when Zak, and just lately, Capito, would come in and devour, making comments of approval as they did so;

“Charley, this be proper Fante whopper” Capito would say

“Charley, I no be small” Zak would add, smacking his lips

And where had Capito come from? Why had he suddenly become a friend of mine who had to come and eat every evening?

“Oh aren’t we waiting for Capito?” Florence had started to ask whenever the guy was not around.

Bloody hell, wait for him, to come and board freely, all at my expense.

And that was not all. Florence was an extrovert who enjoyed her evening outings and booze and dance. There was always one activity or the other on KNUST campus. There would be a jam somewhere, a play at the Great Hall, a disco at Club B, somebody’s birthday party and so on. But they all cost money and one had to pick and choose which ones to attend and which to ignore. So on this particular evening when I had changed into my pyjamas after our evening "communal meal", Florence had confronted me.

“Why are you in your pyjamas?” she asked

“Oh, time to sleep.” I said, tactlessly

“Sleep! Is that it? I stay here all day and cook for you to eat in the evening and you just want to come and sleep.”

“But what do you want me to do Florence? I have an exam tomorrow. I haven’t really finished my preparation, so I want to sleep and wake up at dawn to read”

“Oh ok. What about me? I should just be your slave here and just cook for you and your friends, is that right?”

“Be reasonable Fl…..”

“Be reasonable? Didn’t you promise we would go to that Republic Hall jam? Didn’t you know you would be writing an exam the next day before you told me that?” she was really angry

“The truth, Florence, is I’m just running out of funds.”

“Why don't you borrow from Zak?” she asked, to my utter surprise

“I just can’t afford it Florence” I said, controlling my anger

“You can’t afford it, but you can afford to shag” she was getting simply outrageous now. There was no need to respond.

“You are being very mean, very mean and ungrateful.” She continued

“Why that?” I asked

“You are being mean. You should be thanking me for teaching you how to have sex!”

“Oh?” I was lost for words

“Oh? You think I don’t know that you were a virgin when I met you. Thanks to me you are shagging now so you can afford to be ungrateful”

I began to believe this girl was just crazy and I had to ignore her and go to sleep. The more I ignored her, the angrier she became till soon she was shouting, almost at the top of her voice. It must have been obvious to those outside that something was wrong because there had been a knock on the door and Capito had come in.

“Charley, what’s going on? Are you guys ok?”

Florence’s answer had been to start crying, when Capito had taken her arm and led her to the balcony to try to calm her down. They stood in the balcony for over an hour while I tried in vain to go to sleep. I had exams to write. Capito had then come over to my bed;

“Charley, if you don’t mind, I’ll just take her over to the jam and buy her a bottle of beer, just to calm things down” he requested.

At this point I could not be bothered. I really wanted her out of the room so I could breathe again. She was suffocating me. So had they gone together, Capito and Florence to the Republic Hall Jam as I tried to sleep.

Bang bang bang!! There was a loud knock on my door. I opened the door, it was Zac!

“Hey what is happening? Why have you left your girl with that twat? Go and see how they are behaving at the jam. I would go for my girl if I was you!”

Bang, bang bang!! There was another knock after Zac had left. I opened the door. It was Samions

“Hey why have you left your girl with that twat? Charley, go for your woman oo!”

I was too numb to do anything. I had not even known Capito was a twat. I ignored my friends and tried to sleep. The two came back quite late, a gleeful, mocking look in his eyes, a satisfied one in hers. I could barely sleep the whole night, let alone wake up to prepare for my exam. As I opened the door to go for the exam in the morning, I heard her ask behind me;

“What time will you finish?” It was a strange question from someone who was barely talking to me.

“Well, we start at nine and it’s a three hour exam so will be here half twelve thereabout.”

The exam turned out to be more difficult than I could ever have imagined. I had not prepared well either and my mind was all over the place following the previous day’s incidents. After an hour and a half, I had done all I could. There was no point sitting around pretending any more. I submitted my paper and walked straight back to my room. Florence was not there. I went to check in the bathroom and toilets. There was no one there. Capito’s room was just opposite the bathroom and I can almost swear I had heard voices in there, but when I knocked, there was no response. I knocked again and again, there was no response.

I went back to my room and took a piece of paper;

Hi Florence,
I am aware of all that is going on. I’m going out. I’ll be an hour. Make sure you leave the room before I come. I don’t want to see you anymore.
Papa

With that, I went out of the room. I wandered aimlessly round the university to while away the hour. In my heart of hearts, I wished she would not go. I wished Florence would tell me a lie, any lie at all “I was in Capito’s room, but you had been mean to me. I didn’t want to see you. No Capito was not with me, I had been alone” Anything would have sufficed. I didn’t want to lose her. When I returned, however, Florence had taken down all her photos from my wall and left without as much as a note. I never saw her again.

"Idea" is reproduced here by kind permission of Kwame Okoampa Ahoofe

The KNUST Diaries -The Aluta Years (5) - Examination Stupid!!

What kind of human being wastes so much time just for the opportunity to spend six years with these tight-assed motherfuckers called medical students? I despised my mates from the very first day. They took themselves too seriously. A few were too full of themselves. I loathed the mockery in their eyes, the little patronizing gestures;

“We all know why we are here!” I had heard one proclaim angrily; and what had they been arguing about? Something to do with what time we could come and cut up dead bodies or something as stupid as that.

I decided within the very first few weeks that this was not for me. I had found myself in an environment, where everyone else seemed cleverer than me. I just did not fit in. I must admit I often felt a pang of jealousy. I had always been the kind of guy who was quiet in class, but this time, I began to lose completely, the ability to contribute to any discussion whatsoever, for fear of humiliating myself. I hated lecturers who tried to force everyone to contribute in class. I would simply stay away from their lectures. As my mates saw less and less of me,they began to joke, that they had forgotten I was in that class.

“Charley how be?” Zak, the quiet mixed race guy in my class approached me as we entered the Unity Hall after lectures one afternoon.

He had later admitted to me, that he had seen me from his balcony with Kakra C and all those African Hall girls and had thought; wow, this guy is in my class, he would be a good friend to have. He had jokingly expressed later, what a disappointment I had been to him.

“Which room are you in?” he had asked

“428” I said

“I’ll pop in sometime”

And that is how it had started, my friendship with Zak. He had been as good as his word. He had come up and invited me for a drink in the little bar we had, next to the Dinning Hall. On the way we had passed by his room on the second floor. I only then realized how lucky I had been to be on the eighth floor. Life in the “trenches” was tough. Zak for instance shared a room with two other first years. There was no furniture at all in the room. Not a single bed. They all had little mattresses they would sleep on and roll up in the morning. Despite the still impressive environment at the time, the deterioration in the KNUST was far deeper than I had ever imagined.

He had attended Mfantsipim School. They nicknamed him Zakoto.

“You’ve heard that song, Zakoto” he asked

“Koto ma me nhwe wo to……” I started singing. It meant, literally, bend down and let me look at your bottom.

“Zakoto Zakoto baby” He joined in. “Yeah, when I was a first year in Mfantsipim, one of the seniors had taught me this song and forced me to sing it before everyone else. They probably thought it was funny this little “white” boy was singing a song like that.”

He had been born in Germany to a German mother and a Ghanaian father. His father had once been a lecturer in the KNUST and they had indeed returned to the university campus from Germany when he was a little boy. Growing up as a mixed race boy, by his own admission, had not been without its challenges but his dad had done a good job, thoroughly indoctrinating him so he saw himself more as a proud tribal warrior than a German.

I liked this guy. He was honest, said it as it was and there were no airs or graces about him. I also told him about myself. I confided in him the difficulty I was having fitting into anything Medicine. I told him about my music and how I hoped to pursue a career with that rather than Medicine. He didn’t look that impressed.

“Take it day by day and let’s see how it goes” he had advised

Much to Modibo’s chagrin, Zac all but moved into our room on the eighth floor to escape the horrors down below. We started to study together, though that would also not be without its challenges. For all he needed to do was read a book once or twice to be ready for exams. I had to read it, and again and yet again, and make notes, and read the notes, twice or three times and he still would do far better than me, the twerp! He was ever present at lectures and took very good notes in excellent handwriting which he would give to me to copy. And he was always there to lend me support, explaining bits I did not understand to me. I do not know whether I would have coped, had I not met this guy.

There was often a distinct transformation in the KNUST atmosphere as examinations approached. Even the "Always Around" became unoccupied as people started to burn the midnight oil. At about 1am somebody would stand on their balcony in Unity Hall, when the atmosphere was quiet and serene, and shout at the top of their voice;

"Guys go and sleep so I can also sleep. If you don't sleep, I wont sleep"

"Kwaaasiaaa!" People would respond almost in unison.

Then there would be a short period after that when the noise levels would go up as people conversed a bit and then silence.

I approached the first year exam with trepidation. In our first year class were six guys who had been repeated from the previous year and so the tension in the environment was palpable. I felt particularly nervous, considering what would become of me if I was repeated in first year medical school, at a time I did not have a musical contract yet. I probably did not sleep more than a few hours in the last couple of weeks. Zak had gratefully taken over my bed, snoring away while I laboured in the night. I would try to wake him up every now and again to ask him this or that.

"Charley, put off the light make we sleep!" he would sleepily blurt

"Kwaaasia!" I would say

In the Medical School, we always got our results before going home on holidays. In fact, our results were always released a day or so after our final paper. I did not have the courage to go and wait around the department for the results as everyone else did. They would stand around the block as the bosses gleefully held the meeting where they decided the fate of everybody; who deserved a distinction, who needed to be be dismissed, who ought to be repeated and who had to be given a chance to rewrite the exam during the holiday. As they waited, they would watch as the refreshment trolley, with soft drinks and kebabs and pastries would be drawn in to refresh the hungry bosses as they decided our fate.

There would be the odd rumour, for instance, that the reason why there had been a delay was because nobody had passed Anatomy or something silly like that. Every now and again they would see somebody approaching with some papers from the general direction of the meeting rooom. They would crane their necks to see what it was and hiss in disappointment as the person passed by to get into his car. By now the examination questions would have been thoroughly discussed with some “Mr Know All” believing his answers were akin to the marking scheme.

And then there would be the moment when the results finally arrived, and people would shout and hug each other in wild celebrations, taking no notice of the guy round the corner for whom these results meant the end of a medical career. I could not cope with all that nonsense. Zak had gone. On his way back, I had heard him right from about the fifth floor when he had started shouting out for me at the top of his voice as he laboured up the stairs. I had rushed out to see my friend as I had never seen him before, all flushed from excitement and exhaustion;

“You are through!” he said

The KNUST Diaries - The Aluta Years (4) - Repu Waakye

“Who is there?” Modibo shouted, half asleep.

There had been a knock on our door very early in the morning on a Saturday.

“Open that door, kwasia!” a voice said

I was soon to learn, that in the Unity Hall, insults were much a part of everyday language. Kwasia meant, an idiot. We actually insulted each other as a way of showing affection. So a friend you had not seen for a while might say hello to you with “Kwasia like that!” when you would also respond “kwasia like that!” With our manly status thus firmly established, we could then quite comfortably engage in the female stuff like hugging and so on.

“Kakra C” Modibo murmured, rubbing his sleepy eyes and opening the door

He was dressed in a pair of track bottoms and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off to expose his quite impressive deltoids. He looked quite sweaty and had either been on a jog or had been exercising in his room. In his hand was a bottle of water.

“You guys go pump?”

“Charley, not today” Modibo said, drawing his cover cloth firmly over his shoulders. He was also into a bit of body building but he would pick and choose when and how to exercise.

“Wait for me” I said enthusiastically

“Just come up to the ninth floor” he said, pointing upwards

I quickly dressed in my shorts and t-shirt and ran up the one flight of stairs to the ninth floor. It was a large open area with water tanks at opposite ends of it. It was so airy. People came there to study, or just to relax and enjoy the views of the university from a higher point. Some people used the place to pray, polluting the eight floor with loud inconsiderate tongues to the chagrin of the students. But the ninth floor had room for everybody and people simply minded their own business. At one end, near the water tank, were a few crude body building equipment and a bench. There were other guys there as well; including a gentleman nicknamed General Golbachov who was, like Kakra C, a final year Computer Science student. The two of them were also very good friends. They were all very welcoming.

“ You pump before?” General Golbachov asked.

I was soon getting tired of this question. My body deceived everybody and they wouldn’t believe me when I denied, till I got on the bench and shocked them with what little weights I could press.

“You don’t need bodybuilding. You are macho already” he said

“Ajimoto!” the guy doing the bench presses at the time would utter intermittently between his teeth, sweat pouring down the sides of his face

“No pain no gain!” the others would respond in support

I liked the company of these guys. I also really felt honoured, being in first year, and with everything I had heard, to be in the company of a guy like KC.

“Charley, we for go chop waakye” KC said

It was the Saturday ritual for the bodybuilding guys. We would descend down from our tower after a good workout and stroll across the road to an area behind the Republic Hall where a lady sold waakye in the morning. This was proper good tasty northern waakye, rice cooked in boiled red beans, with the stork from the beans lending the rice a reddish hue. Sometimes, they reinforced the colour with a sprinkle of some dried local herbs. The waakye was served with goat meat stew and a specially prepared shito black pepper sauce. You could purchase some add-ons, like a bit of pasta or spiced gari to sprinkle on the rice and if you really wanted to go “rich”, buy a boiled egg to sit on

top of it all.

.

Soon, KC would not go anywhere without me. I would occasionally go with him to visit his girlfriend in the African Hall. They were very close, Gladys and KC. In fact, they were almost like a married couple. Anytime we visited, three or four other girls would come into the room. Martha would come as well. Martha, the slim black beauty with a smile that radiated joy and happiness, caught my eyes. They would often come along with bottles of some soft drink or other and biscuits. Then they would stay to chat. And they would chat till we finished our meal and got up to go. It must have been a bit annoying to Gladys but she never showed it. Could they not have some time when they would be together, just the two of them, enjoying a meal? But then again, there was a price to pay for having a popular boyfriend.

People naturally started to presume, that I was spoilt for choice of girlfriends. They could not be more wrong. Despite the facade of a confident macho man,I was very inexperienced and diffident. I really fancied Martha, for instance. But I was scared. I still harbored that childhood fear of getting it all wrong and having the girls point at me as the guy who fancied so and so.

So I sat in my room and poured out my frustrations on paper.

Martha,

Had I but a few sugar-coated words

I would sing as loudly as do the birds

To pierce your heart and make you see

The love that burns deep within me

Had my heart been but a little book

I’d have opened it out for you to look

And see the love written out in gold

More convincing than any story ever told

If you would but look once into mine eye

Then you would know, I tell no lie

For you would see the flames of the inferno

That burns day after day, my poor soul

I folded the poem, put it in an envelope and kept it in my pocket the next time we went to Africa Hall. I kept my right hand in my pocket, holding on to the envelope and looking for that one opportunity when I would discretely slip it to Martha without making a fuss. It stayed in that pocket, burning my skin like fire, wanting to pop out. The opportunity came. There had been chants of Oooooh ooooh! Yes, the girls did pond each other, but it was always such a spectacle, everybody had gone out to the corridor to watch except, you guessed right, Martha and myself.

She pretended to be reading the magazine in front of her, but would intermittently raise her head to look into my eyes. I sat there; hand in one pocket, beads of sweat gathering on my forehead.

“Martha!” I managed to squeal out, a bit too loudly

“What?” She wasn’t being rude. She had a sense of humour.

“Nothing” I said, losing my rather fragile confidence instantly

She looked at me again.

“Are you alright?” she asked, not expecting an answer. “It’s a bit too hot in this room.”

She put on the fan for me and left to join the others to watch the ponding. I sheepishly followed shortly thereafter, my hand on the poem in my pocket.

The KNUST Diaries - The Aluta Years (3) - Aboagyewa

Bang! Bang! Bang!

There were loud bangs on my door and as I stood up, rather startled, and before I could take a step, the door had flung open and a burly young man had walked in, followed by some boys carrying his luggage. He seemed to be in a hurry.

“Modibo” he said, extending a hand “your room mate”

We exchanged pleasantries. He dumped his luggage unto his bed, then seeing the brand new t-shirt I had left on my bed, he had exclaimed, rather dramatically;

“London, London, London!”

He had pumped his two fists vigorously as he said that. Then, just as quickly as he had come in, he had left. He lived in Kumasi and there was no point coming in on a Saturday. He had brought his luggage and registered, but he was going to go back home and would be back Sunday evening to prepare for lectures.

It was dark now and the courtyard was well-lit with little electrical bulbs in the grass. They were beautiful. The ritual of people arriving continued throughout the evening. I had had enough by now. I had been sitting on the balcony all day. I went to lie on my bed to rest. Then just as I was beginning to nod off, I heard the sound of drumming from the “Always Around” and then shortly, the singing had started. It was the famous Aboagyewaa Choir. You see, there was a little naked female statue in the courtyard. It was said, by the students, to be the goddess of Unity Hall. The students had named her Aboagyewaa and subsequently formed the choir to sing her praises. And they sang beautifully, except that the words of all the songs they sang had been replaced with the most vulgar lyrics one could imagine. It was all light-hearted stuff but the people in the choir, took their job rather seriously.

“And in that hole” the leader was singing

“And in that hole” an enthusiastic response from the choir

“There was a prick” the choir leader

“There was a prick” the choir

“It was a very huge prick” the leader

“It was a very huge prick” the choir

“That you ever did see” the leader

“That you ever did see” the choir

And then everybody,

“The prick in the hole,

“The hole in the ass,

“And the black hair’s all around

“The black hair’s all around.

The singing continued. Every now and again a lone voice in the choir would shout

“praise the Lord”

And the choir would respond

“alleluia”

There was no way I was going to lie in bed with such beautiful singing in the distance. I quickly descended to the ground floor and to the "Always Around" to take part in the singing. It was fun listening, but it was even more fun singing along. I began to notice the main characters in the group and in particular, an elderly bearded gentleman in a blue suit who sat quietly but would every now and again interject with shouts of “praise the lord”. His name, I was later to find out, was Mr Samson. He was a mature student, having come to the university after several years of teaching in secondary schools. His dry sense of humour, had won him many friends. He took the Aboagyewaa choir so seriously; he always wore a blue suit, just to sing.

The story was told of when the Aboagyewa choir was travelling to Cape Coast in a bus and had stopped at a service station for a break. When they had all settled to continue their journey, three women had approached the driver. Their car had broken down and they wanted a lift to Cape Coast. The students had encouraged the driver to allow them in. The women had hopped in and sat by the elderly man in a blue suit, perhaps for some crumbs of comfort in what appeared to be a bus full of rowdy young people. As soon as the bus had moved, the singing had begun in earnest. The women had been horrified by what they were hearing. One of them had turned to the silent elderly bearded man in a blue suit on her right, to express her anxiety:

“Sir, are we ok? Who are these people and where are they going?”

“Oh never mind Madam” Mr Samson had reassured her “we are all students from the KNUST. We are just going to Cape Coast to find some women to fuck.”

Early next morning, I had been woken from my slumber by loud banging on the rails on the staircase and shouting on the corridor.

“Ooooh, ooooh oooooh!!

As soon as I opened my door to find out what was happening, I was grabbed. To my left and to my right I could see other guys with long faces being held. I presumed they were all first years as well. We were all marched to the pond in the courtyard, Kwame Nkrumah’s pond, the one with the red fish. It was “ponding” time. We stood in a queue as one after the other, we were dropped in the pond and our heads quite dangerously submerged till we were almost out of breath before being released. The guy in front of me was shaking uncontrollably. He called out to one of the seniors;

“Charley, I don’t think I can cope with this. I have an allergy”

“Hey!” The senior had shouted “Guys, listen to this guy, oretutu brofo. What was it? Alleeee…. what? Take him away and give him the treatment for that!”

He received the worse ponding of all. But the initiation was over, and we knew, that as long as we did not step on any toes, we would be free from ponding for the rest of the year. But then, Modibo had arrived that evening and quite casually expressed dissatisfaction at having missed his room mate’s initiation.

“Ooooh! Oooooh!” he had started

There were seniors popping up from every corner in response to the chant. The worse one could do in a circumstance like that was to give any resistance. You were far better off taking it in your stride and praying that it would be over soon.

The KNUST Diaries – The Aluta Years (2) – Kakraba Cromwell

I was met at the reception of the Unity Hall by a porter who told me I was going to be in Room 428. I took my bags and turned right to go to my room in Block B of the Unity Hall. I passed by a notice board on the right, descended a couple of steps, admired yet more exotic plants and paintings on the walls and turned left. Room 428 was in the inner row of rooms on the eighth floor. But the elevator was broken. In fact it never worked in all the time I was in the Unity Hall. It is often said that the greatest evidence of the paucity of our practical knowledge as compared to our theoretical knowledge was the fact that an institution like the UST, renowned for training the country’s electrical engineers, could never get their own lifts to work.

So I had to carry my bags, one after the other up to the long flight of steps unto the eighth floor and into room 428. These rooms had clearly been designed by Nkrumah to be occupied by one student. I put my bags down and had a look round. The toilets and showers were very neat but there were not many students around. There was a large room that had been designed for washing and drying but which would later be converted to rooms while I was in the university. On the ninth floor was an open area, with equipment for body building and everything else.

Over the week, I had visited every corner of the university. I had been to the swimming pool. I could not swim, but it was nice to just sit there sipping a glass of cold beer and enjoying the atmosphere. I visited the School of Medical Sciences. It was the newer of the two medical schools in the whole of Ghana at the time and a few of the departments were still under construction. I walked by the Great Hall of the University and into the huge University library. I strolled along the roads to all the halls of residence, comparing them to the Unity Hall. It simply felt so good to be here. I eagerly awaited the arrival of everyone else over the weekend.

On the day I had woken up early, had a shower and a quick breakfast and then gone to sit on the balcony of my room on the eighth floor with the day’s newspapers and a story book, looking down at the entrance as one taxi after another arrived. There had been shouting and hugging and even more shouting and hugging as friends reunited after three months away from each other. I felt the quiet serene environment change, bit by bit, as more students arrived, into a noisy rowdy heap. I noticed that once people got their bags into their rooms, they would go straight unto the balconies to do just what I had been doing all day, watching as their friends arrived. I watched as the balconies slowly filled up. I listened as weary steps laboured up the stairs to the eighth floor and doors opening to my left and to my right. Occasionally there would be loud shouting as some very popular bloke arrived.

“Kakra C!”

People shouted from their balconies as he stood at the forecourt, arms aloft, looking up with majestic elegance at one block and then the other, while the poor taxi driver patiently waited to be paid. I watched as he finally turned to pay the taxi driver, got a couple of boys to carry his luggage, entered the “Always Around” and disappeared from sight into the reception area. Still, there was the odd faint shout of “Kakra C” away in the distance. My room happened to be next to the staircase. I listened as the intermittent shouts of “Kakra C” got louder as he made his way up the stairs. I began to hear this deep confident voice responding to the adulation.

“Charley, how be?” he would say to people as he came up

My curiosity got the better of me. I came out of my room to stand by the rails on the staircase to see if I could catch a closer glimpse of him. He landed on the sixth floor;

“Kakra C!”

He proceeded unto the seventh floor

“Kakra C!”

Then he turned unto the stairs coming up to the eighth floor, and I was suddenly face to face with the great man. He was a tall, dark muscular guy who seemed to have spent a fair while in the gym.

“Charley how be?” he extended a hand to me as people popped out of their rooms to say hello. I didn’t realize so many occupants of the eighth floor had arrived.

“You de pump metal?”

“No” I said

“Are you sure?” he asked. He obviously did not believe me, having confused my fatty biceps for muscle.

He moved on to say hello to others before making the slow progress down the long corridor to his room at the very end, stopping many times along the way, to check who had arrived and who had not. People simply do not become popular by chance. In fact, they worked hard to maintain their popularity. Perhaps, for these people, like Kakra C, all this extra work it took to remain popular came naturally to them. That is what made them different. Within a minute, Kakra C had succeeded in making me feel as if he had been an old school mate. It took special skill.

‘Kakraba Cromwell!” the guy next to me said, a mixture of adulation and respect etched on his face.

“Akoholu” he said, as we shook hands

I chatted to him on the corridor for a while. He proceeded to tell me everything he knew about Kakraba Cromwell. He was one of the leaders of the National Union of Ghana Students who had been a thorn in the flesh of the military dictatorship of JJ Rawlings for a few years, organizing numerous student demonstrations. He was particularly known for his eloquence and oratory and students loved listening to him.

“Charley, couple of years ago, wow, people start to get angry say things slow down with the NUGS” Akoholu said “Them organize this massive congress at the Great Hall. Everybody was there. Legon guys, Cape Coast everybody. Then KC get up, he start speak. Then the people wey make angry, Charley, them start cheer!”

He gave me a short version of what had become known in folklore as the KC speech, the KNUST equivalent of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream.” There had been no proper records and what he was purported to have said actually varies, depending on who was telling the story. Over the years people had taken the poetic license to add and subtract as they deemed fit, perpetuating the myth of the great man.

“Sometimes, sometimes, the reason our friends of the four-legged bearded variety stop in the middle of a fight and retreat briefly, is not because they are running away, but it’s so they can come back with even more vigour, smashing the enemy, destroying them forever.

“Sometimes, in life, it is better to learn when to fear, how to fear and how much to fear, lest we should squander, all we have fought together for.

“Sometime in the future, you may come across a wall gecko. It may be sitting its somewhere, thinking its own thought and nodding its head. Remember, it will merely be reminding you, that whatever I have said here today is true, its true and its true” he had concluded, nodding his head in time.

Kakra C! I watched as the great man finally disappeared into his room

The KNUST Diaries - The AlutaYears 1 - Kumasi Here I Come

      I had not been impressed by Kumasi. I still remembered Kumasi, somewhere in the little crevices of my mind from my transit through the city as a five year old. Then it had been a garden city. The Kumasi I saw when I went to the University was nothing but a dust bowl. It was a town where all buildings had developed a brownish hue from the dust in the atmosphere. You dared not wear white clothes to town. You just might not be able to wear them ever again. And even when you wore dark clothes, your hair would just about give you away as having been into the dust bowl. The dust irritated your eyes, your nose and everywhere else. They irritated your food. When one bought kenkey and fish from the roadside, one could just about taste dust in the background. I am serious. You knew you were eating Kenkey ala dust, Kumasi style.

      People held handkerchiefs to their nose in the centre of town. Others made knots in the four corners of their handkerchiefs, turning them into berets to protect their hair from the dust. In Kumasi, just like everywhere else in Ghana, one travelled by hired taxi when one could afford it. If you were a poor student, you travelled by tro tro. The tro tro in Kumasi was different though. These were huge wooden trucks with tree rows of benches at the back for passengers. It took special skill to get unto these trucks, even for young people, never mind the old ladies. Still, life got on somehow.

      And the reason for all the dust was the roads, once beautifully tarred, but now deteriorated to the point, where they were nothing more than laterite passages, lined by “red” people and “red” everything else. I was still in Kumasi when JJ Rawlings government had suddenly seen sense and commenced the process to restore Kumasi to its renowned status as the second city of Ghana and the garden city of Africa. There had been a sudden transformation when every single main road in Kumasi had been asphalted. The dust had disappeared almost overnight, paving the way for the new Kumasi with double lane roads and flyovers. I was in Kumasi when those hideous articulated trucks were banned from conveying humans in the town centre.

      I still cannot remember clearly why I decided to go to the University one week before it re-opened officially. Perhaps, I had been too eager to get back into school after all the years wasted at home.  But that was what I did. My mum had happily helped me park my things. Every now and again she would remember something else that I might need. This was actually the very first time I was going completely away from home, for, while I had spent some time in boarding at St Augustine’s, my home had been up the hill from the school. We had heard stories of occasional water problems in the University so my mum had bought me an embarrassingly large plastic jelly can to fetch water if there was a crisis. Thankfully, I didn’t have to use it much all the time I was in the University, but it found other uses. People used to borrow it to buy pito.

      I arrived in Kumasi at about four o’clock in the evening. I got down from the Government Transport by the main road at the UST junction. I parked my bags into a taxi that drove along a circular road and under the gate designed in the shape of a traditional Asante stool, into the UST. There was a sudden change in atmosphere once one drove under the stool gate. There was not a single speck of dust in the atmosphere. One was met by the international swimming pool on the left and exotic African plants and flowers everywhere. Statues celebrating the lives of illustrious ancestors and alumni were scattered all around inspiring a certain academic zeal just as one entered that environment. You see, when Kwame Nkrumah had built this university, it had been his idea to create an African version of Harvard or the MIT. Years of neglect had ensured that many facilities had deteriorated and yet, one could still see the vestiges of that great plan in the sheer sizes of the buildings, the artificial forests and the beauty of the environment. I fell in love with the UST.

      It had been only a short drive to the Unity Hall, two mighty eight storey buildings, linked by a dinning hall with a basement kitchen at the far end. At the entrance was a small enclosure with benches on either side so one had often to walk between these to arrive at the reception, a rather daunting task for females, who would always have to contend with indecent comments from guys. With time, the girls would start to fight back. On one occasion a girl who was wearing a red dress was entering the hall and one guy on the bench had shouted “Fabulous” because the local football club Fabulous Kumasi Asante Kotoko, played in red. The girl had looked straight in the guy’s eyes and responded “your balls!!” There had been cheers and laughter. We liked that. Guys were just as happy to take as to give.

      They called that small area “Always Around” for, it did not matter what time of day or night it was, there would always be somebody sitting there. It also served as a quick meeting point prior to embarking on demonstrations. It was said, though with a hint of exaggeration, that this was the place where governmental overthrows were engineered. One turned left at the reception for Block A and right to Block B. There was a courtyard enclosed by the two blocks, the dinning area at the back and the reception at the front. This was beautifully adorned with trees and decorative ponds with little red fishes. It is true, that the man, who had built the mighty Akosombo dam for Ghana, never did things in halves.

       Each block consisted of two rows of rooms on each floor with a corridor in the middle. If one got an outer room, their balconies overlooked large trees. But they enjoyed more privacy. If one got an inner room, one could stand on ones own balcony and enjoy the community feel of the place and all the funny little activities that went on almost nonstop in the courtyard and the parking area in front. There was less privacy though. The people in the inner rooms in the two blocks could communicate with each other at the top of their voices. If one was not careful with ones curtains, people at the right level could easily be privy to ones nefarious nocturnal secrets, and call every one else to share in them.

      While the basic infrastructure and the surroundings were still impressive, most other things were a far cry from what they had been in the days of Nkrumah. The dinning hall for instance had been privatized and the food sold there was so expensive, that few students could afford to go there regularly. There was thus a rapid turnover of businesses which often went burst. For long periods, there would be no food sold there at all. Instead, most of the students kept stoves on their balconies and cooked their own meals, exposing themselves to fire hazards. When they could not cook, they would go for lunch at Auntie Georgina’s little hut at the back of Block A.

      Auntie Georgina sold fried plantains and beans half of the year and when yams became cheaper, would sell boiled yams and spinach stew with the rotten smelly boiled tilapia “kobi” that was a delicacy, reserved for those who could afford it as an extra. The smell within the kobi head was especially attractive to houseflies and eating then became a battle between driving away flies and putting food in ones mouth. In the evenings, students could choose from a variety of food in the parking area. The cheapest was “kokonte,” prepared from dried cassava powder, and light groundnut soup. To make it even cheaper, the soup was prepared with pig skin only. Kwame Nkrumah must be turning in his grave. This was hardly the Harvard he had anticipated, with students eating kobi heads and driving off flies. Then, they had three free meals for the day in the plush environment of the dinning hall, with Horlicks and biscuits room services in between meals. But there you go.