BY THE FIRESIDE-Story Time
Posted by Saddat Adutwum | Posted in Culture, Education,
Ghana, a country the size of the state of Oregon, sits 100 miles to the north of the equator in the great continent of Africa-the cradle of human civilization. This country originally called the Gold Coast has seen great kingdoms rise and fall. It is here, in the lush far reaches of the Ashanti region of the country, that I grew up with a father who was a sagacious chief. My mother was always the one who got things taken care of around the house while my old wise grandmother, the custodian of the traditions and mores of our village ensured that the stories of the village were passed on to us. Together with other members of our clan we lived in an adobe built house on a large compound.
For most part of the year, the weather was hot and humid except during the dry season when winds from the Sahara Desert blew throughout the country. In the mornings of this dry season called the harmattan, our entire household usually sat by the fireside in the middle of the compound to warm ourselves from the chilling winds that occasionally sent one's lips into a shaking frenzy. On such extreme cold days we were excused from our early morning water fetching trip from the village stream.
On this cold, dry and windy morning, Grandma was for the most part of the morning sleeping and no one had bothered to wake her up. This was one of the few mornings that she did not wake up early. Mom did wake up very early to assemble and light the firewood in the middle of the compound as she usually did during the cold season. As the warming embers of the fire grew hotter and hotter, so was everyone's desire to get a better seat around it. Therefore, no sooner had I taken my seat than all my siblings and cousins joined me. As we shuffled and haggled in a circle around the fireside, we saw grandma slowly walking with her feeble body resting on her walking stick. Grandma's hands were shivering from the vagaries of the cold and dry Harmattan weather. As she spoke you could hear some tremor in her voice as if the cold winds were sapping all the energy out of her lungs. Coming out of her adobe walled room with a thick mahogany door she beckoned to me to bring a stool for her to sit on. I quickly dashed to the kitchen and lifted her stool, which was much taller than that of the children. As soon as I brought her stool, we rearranged our seats next to the burning fire to grant her more space so that she could warm her frail looking hands, hoping that she would feel relieved soon. As was the practice in the village, an entire clan usually shared one home and it was not unusual to have groups of people clustered around early morning and late evening fire in the middle of a compound.
As soon as grandma was seated and had regained some of her strength she began what had been the practice in the family-story telling. It is by the fireside that she always told us all the stories I know now. One of these stories was how the entire village was burnt to the ground because they performed a funeral ceremony for a young man who was yet to have a child. This was a taboo which the village never recovered from, according to grandma. All buildings in the village were razed to the ground overnight by a raging fire. About ten children and five adults were burnt to ashes because they couldn't wake up early enough to run away from the wrath of the fire which the villagers believe was wrought on them by the gods. Gripped with fear, we sat silently wondering why the gods could be so wicked.
As if that was not scary enough, grandma recounted the story of Kojo, the cripple who walked after the people of the village first saw an airplane flying over its skies. "It was an unbelievable site to behold" grandma chuckled as she kindled the burning firewood close to her so that she could continue to feel the warmth of the fire. It was about twelve noon on Monday; a day the village folks could not go their farms because of a death in the community. The deceased had been laid in state and the entire community was there to mourn with the bereaved family. "Then we began to hear some strange sound coming from afar. It was a sound we had never heard before. Soon pandemonium broke as everyone began to run helter-skelter. When we lifted up our eyes to the skies we saw a silver colored bird flying over us. It was the scariest moment of my life", grandma said. She continued that in the midst of the commotion, Kojo, a young man aged about 12, who had never walked before due to a polio infection, stood up and started running. According to her, Kojo walked from that day hence. "What did you do Grandma after all this?" I asked. "We ran to the palace of the village chief".
As it's customary in most Ashanti villages then, the fontomfrom (talking) drums began to sound soon to announce an emergency. Fear had gripped everyone including the chief of the village and his elders. A bad omen again? They said to one another in utter disbelief. Soon the chief priest of the village, the only one who could speak to the gods, began dancing to the tune of the drums, asking everyone to be calm. Hours thereafter, as they sat in the palace in utter disbelief of what had befallen the village, a merchant from the village who had travelled to various parts of the country arrived from one of his travels. Upon hearing what evil had befallen the village and the fact that the entire village had assembled in the palace he wasted no time in rushing to the palace.
As he stood at the center of the compound of the palace he asked permission from the chief to address the entire village. He informed the village that indeed what they saw was nothing to be afraid of. The flying bird was an airplane, a flying car designed by the white man to facilitate travel from one place to the other and he told them he had seen a few of them in his travel to capital city of Ghana, Accra.
