Textbooks and tradition

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