One of our readers suggested I change the name of the blog
to “The Silent Blog” and how apt that would be taking into account the fact
that the last one written was in May or so….
Anyway I’m back and once again during this period Ghana lost
his president who is to be laid to rest today, my his Maker grant him peaceful
rest. Juju continues to go from “kill for” Zuma to ‘Kill’ Zuma, we had our
first double amputee compete in the able bodied Olympics, Jackie Selebi
unsurprisingly was granted medical parole, it snowed in Joburg, but like
properly for the whole day like you were in Europe or something, such a ripper.
Then NASA sent a probe to Mars, yet our government cant send textbooks to
Limpopo, soo shameful.
Greetings friends. Now I know you all are bored of hearing
about the text book crisis, but it’s a crying shame that’s what it is. August
and some kids haven’t gotten textbooks, or blind kids getting full sighted kids
books. What grates my cheese though is the fact that people are just dumping
these books in velds or burning them instead of delivering them to those in
need. This I understandeth not!! Also when we were at school we used to have
hand me downs, so the year before someone would have your text book, write
their name in it, end of the year they hand it back and the next year gets it,
and it was fun for me to know that Carla Ferreira once had my Afrikaans
textbook J.
Doesn’t the system work like that anymore?
People are asking for heads to roll over this, fine but then
what? Will the kids get their books faster. What needs to happen, in my humble
opinion is we need to go to the root cause of this travesty, an honest review
and report of what went wrong needs to be performed and those in the wrong
should be reprimanded and lasting steps need to be taken to ensure that this
never happens again. In my mind this cant be such a difficult thing. You know
how many schools, how many pupils, how many subjects thus how many books, you
know when the year starts, you know how much money you have. Order waaay before
time, it gets printed, it gets collected, you deliver to the schools, come on
now? I heard that interview when the president blamed Verwoed, boss how about
some leadership here, say we messed up and we are really trying to sort this
out, blaming Verwoed? Well then this should have been an issue since 1994 then
and not just 2012! Useless!!
A few weekends ago, I was involved in one of the most
beautiful ceremonies I have ever been a part of. I guess I am biased because it
was the traditional wedding of my youngest bro Nana and his lovely Mama-Aso. To
me it was more than their union it was the little bit of tradition that I
learnt. Being raised as I was, born in Accra, raised in the Transkei, I have
very little knowledge of my roots so this was as much a celebratory process as
it was an educational one for me. Ghanaians follow a maternal line, which makes
sense, because there could always be doubt about who the father is but never
any question about who the mother of the child is, so anyway, my mother’s bloodline
is linked to that of royalty in some shape or form and the boys in our family
have a stool in a village called Amoman, where we are heirs to the Amoadon
Stool of the Asantes. A don being a bell. I think all Africans have a very
similar tradition when it comes to marriage. So let me break it down for you to
the best of my ability. The process began with my bro going to my pops and
saying, pops, this one, she is the one, so you must go and perform the
Knocking. Now what the knocking is, is a process, where my pops gets an elder,
and he and the elder go to the in-laws with some gifts etc. and basically the
conversation goes along the lines of if you see my son walking in the streets
with your daughter, do not be alarmed, because here is the story, if they
accept it then the story continues.
Time passes and the story becomes even more love filled and
a date is set for the engagement/traditional wedding. Before this happens, the
bride to be’s family sends a list of requirements, Bible, ring, booze, cloth,
cash, and a whole lot of odds and ends, my sisters, moms, aunts and co would be
able to tell you more about that. So we get all that together and march off to
her folks house. So we all headed off to Maritzburg, where her folks live, the
night before, we, ok the ladies were up all night wrapping the gifts in such
beautiful baskets etc. we just sat around and irritated them so much that we
decided it was best we leave and go have a drink or plenty.
We all met at the hotel where my brother’s side of the family
were staying early in the morning, stacked the car with the goodies, all dolled
up in Ghanaian attire infused with a bit of western fashion and off we went to
the house, the ladies led the way looking all fly with the gifts. Followed by
the parentals and then the others. The gifts are dropped on the side and her
family and representatives are seated on the one side of the room, we all great
them and then take a seat on the other side of the room. We have a chief
negotiator who speaks on behalf of our family and Aso’s family has one that
speaks on their behalf. We are offered water to drink because that is the
tradition, whenever anyone knocks on your door, you offer them water, because
you have no idea what brought them to your door. Once their thirst has been
quenched, you ask them their business….and then the fun and negotiations begin.
It was such a light hearted and enjoyable process, time
consuming, but that’s part of it all. Once most of the gifts and negotiations
have been done, we are then asked to go and fetch my brother so they can
inspect him to see if he is fitting. So the boys went and fetched my bro and
ushered him in to much voice and fanfare, he is inspected and interrogated,
then he is allowed to sit, my aunt then ‘extorts’ more money from us to buy
sunglasses for the bride to be, taxi fare to go and fetch her etc. finally she
is brought in, music blazing, her breaking it down, so lovely. Then she is
asked is this the man, do you approve…boom she sits next to him, then a pastor
does the ceremony, ring placed on her finger. My bro is such a show off, bra
drops down to his knee and puts the ring on…damn u guy, how Kwaku will have to
do some acrobatics to upstage you, but I guess that’s ok cos he is a monkey so
it will be fine. J
After that we eat, drink and be merry… Such a beaut of a
weekend I tell you. Love learning about tradition.
Birthdays
Too many to note, so happy birthday to you all hope it was
or will be a splendid day.
Silent blog signing out, be love, be respect, be you!
Y
