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From The Heart: Part IV

09 May

It’s been an awfully long time, please forgive me! :’(
On the other hand,I just couldn’t conclude this piece in one fell swoop (it would have been too long and you would have fallen asleep halfway through!). So I decided to divide the last part into two. Next week, my story ends. But today, please enjoy…

 

I came to roughly about 5 minutes later as I heard a man’s voice, seemingly from very far away. I tried to get up, wincing as I felt a sharp pain in my right flank that caused me to grit my teeth, barely stopping a grunt of pain from escaping. I heard him a bit clearly now, closer – he was speaking broken English.

“Herh! What dey do you? You booze?!”

I ignored him as I reached underneath my car to retrieve the keys I’d flipped there when I dropped to the ground – or more specifically, when I was dropped to the ground. With no small effort, I heaved myself up to my feet and would have passed out once more as my head swam again, were it not for the security guard who caught me as I slumped.

He half-dragged/carried me to his post at the far end of the parking lot. I could tell that he was worried now, seeing my state – something of such a nature shouldn’t have taken place under his watch. He sat me down and with a resigned look on his face, lifted the handset of his telephone off the cradle to place a call – to Campus Security I guessed.

Before he could finish placing the call, I ripped out the cord from the wall jack, shaking my head.

”No. It’s okay, I’m fine.” He’d helped me so far and I knew he could get into trouble over the parking lot incident so I would do everything in my power to make it all ‘go away’. I saw the look of relief on his face as I waved him away from the phone and knew I’d done the right thing. He magically produced a makeshift ice pack which I placed on my pounding forehead.

“But you fit drive go like so?” he enquired, showing genuine concern.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” I assured him. And it was true. My head had cleared up a bit, the pain receding into a dull ache that only became worse when I turned my head a bit too rapidly. Those bastards had really done a number on me! Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

Let’s Start A Conspiracy!

13 Apr

“Courage sometimes skips a generation, thank you for bringing it back to our family.” I had to watch a dozen movies to chance upon one with a line this profound, backed by a storyline that renders me sober.

You know me, and how much I’m not for outings, especially on public holidays and festivities like Easter, when all our brethren from lake and grass lands come and join us in Accra to go watch the sea. The thought of scalding heat and winding traffic makes me develop a whole new height of love for my chamber and hall. So at home last weekend, browsing through my laptop’s video folder, I chanced upon ‘The Help’, and boyyyy was I helped to something transformational.

I’m a movie connoisseur. In my lifetime, I’ve spent more time watching movies than it probably took the Chinese to build the Great wall. Seriously. After you’ve done anything as long as I’ve been watching movies, you get a knack for telling good ones by just seeing the first frame. I could make out a good movie if it came disguised in toothbrush-length extended eye lashes and fake cologne, driving a ‘Lapaz Toyota’. On Easter Monday, I found one; ‘The Help’.

It’s not your typical gbush gbush cha(action-packed) movie with a blowman possessing 9 lives, steamy sex scenes and a killer who knows the perfect time to die; ‘The End’, no it’s not. The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi at a time when the fight against racial discrimination was climaxing, in the 1960s. But the beauty of the movie isn’t so much about the gripping plot as it is about the quality of acting. Acting so rich, it transcends a job, a profession and reaches the height of a, a ministry. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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The Perfect Mistress IV

04 Apr

Today, he meets her, his mistress. Last week;

So on the 13th of May 2001, I left on a Delta flight, away from the land I thought would be home for me and Afua, away from the most notorious days of my life, bound to Ghana, with Sarah Swaniker lurking somewhere in the future, with business still unfinished with Afua, with a truckload of complications waiting to unfold.

*         *         *

It was close to midnight when dad barged into my room with a ripped-open envelope in hand. He noticed I was pensive, threw the envelope at me and said as he turned to leave.

“I hope you aren’t thinking of ways to sell my house, with me in it.”

I sighed, it had been like that since our return home to Abelenkpe, Accra Ghana, from Atlanta Georgia, America.

Mum had been the consoling one, telling me to pray more and think carefully about how I wanted my life to turn out. Think about how relevant my foolhardy outlook to life would be when I get too old to look good in a tattoo.

I noticed the blue University of Ghana logo behind the envelope dad had dropped. I reluctantly opened it to see an admission letter to read psychology, sociology and English. Officially, the University closed admissions in February, so for dad to have by-passed all that bureaucracy five months after, he must have pulled countless strings. I should have been amazed, grateful, thrilled or a million other positive emotions, but instead, I was blank.

I still had Afua in mind, she’d never left. You know how the pain is sharper when the Brufen fades off? Well my heart was louder now that common sense had moved back in. I sent her emails she didn’t reply, made calls she didn’t pick and sent texts she didn’t acknowledge. Then I grew tired and stopped. Through all this, Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

The Perfect Mistress iii

26 Mar

Sorry it’s taken so long to bring you this. I feel like i don’t even have the moral right to…to…to talk plenty, lol. So I’m just going to dig in. I hope you find it was worth your wait. But this’ where we left off last;

When I arrived in Newark, I sought her out and verbally assaulted her to felony-magnitude. It took me two slow, long, hard months to win Afua back. In the process, I discovered that I was in love with her, because it dawned on me that there wasn’t any other girl I’ll have gone through all that trouble to get back. Edien nkwaa? When we surmounted that hurdle, I couldn’t fathom what could ever separate us. We were nineteen then, I was, and she was eighteen. Though unspoken, we had it all figured out; I’d marry her in the Pentecost church I met her in, and we’d live happily ever after.

*         *         *

A bit over three months after we made up, I moved in with Afua. O yeah we did! By Ghanaian standards, it would have been unthinkable, but we were flying high in the land of limitless possibilities. Ask me anything right now, in any language, from any era, and still, answering you’ll be easier than explaining how moving in with her felt like. Imagine the happiest day of your life, what if you could relive it every day! (Ps: If it’ll get boring over time, then you probably haven’t really been that happy :-p)

It was some time in July, and I had gained admission to Legon, but who thought of schooling in Ghana when he woke up every morning to heaven-wrapped-in-flesh? My future was in the US, with Afua. Whether or not I’d continue with my education, how I’d get a job and stay independent of my father (who was outraged), was irrelevant at the time. Relevance was breathing Afua’s air, being in her space, loving her, knowing her. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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From The Heart: Part II

24 Mar

A week after the burial service I was back in school. I thought I was holding up pretty well given the circumstances. Since we’d gotten a 2-in-a-room flat just off campus together at the beginning of the year, I now had all the space to myself. Big deal. I’d just look over to Jason’s Station (that boy had a really cheesy system of naming things, I swear!) – the wide desk on at the foot of the bed upon which his all-in-one Mac sat -  and I’d half-expect to see him seated in his swivel chair, headset on, gripping his controller as he played one of several games he’d installed with such intensity.

Don’t get me wrong, Jason was always in the top 3 in his class. He was a natural who just needed to flip through a few books a week and he was ready for anything. Medical School was the breeze to him it never was for anyone else. I was the one who had to commit at least 5 hours a day to the thick Architecture manuals and projects in order to place within the top 10 at my Faculty! I’d come back to the room after sleeping at the Studio for over 2 days to find him either hard at it gaming, or splayed out on his bed, fast asleep!

I smiled ironically as I remembered the number of times I’d amuse myself as I crawled into bed exhausted, appeasing myself by thinking through a number of ways to mess up his sleep as he lay there – I never thought of killing him in a car crash.

I began to walk through my days then, smiling at every “Sorry he’s gone, Nana”, “We’ll really miss him”, and (my personal favourite) “E go be, eh!Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

From The Heart : Part I

19 Mar

Thump-Thump! Thump-Thump! That loud noise was the first thing I remember, repeating itself over and over in my head. Gradually, I finally managed to open my bleary eyes a fraction at last.

It took a while for the blurry image in front of me to resolve itself into Mama Efua and Dad at the foot of my bed. All around was white: The Hospital. My mother had a look of concern she was trying bravely to keep under control but I heard her gasp with relief when I finally opened my eyes fully.

“Water,” I gasped. My throat was dry and felt scratchy.

She released my dad’s hand which she’d been clutching and came over to my side to pour me a glass of water from the pitcher on the locker beside my bed.

“Here you go Nana,” she said holding it up to my lips. Dad was smiling now. He knew his wife would do her own going-over to assess my condition for herself. Sometimes being married to a doctor was not easy but over the twenty-something odd years of marriage, they’d come to an agreement: when it came to health matters, he’d let her have her way – his turn would come whenever they needed a new room built!

“You should have seen your mother when they wheeled you out of surgery 2 days ago!” Dad started, shaking his head with mock longsuffering. “She was doing that her hummingbird thing again – hovering around checking your charts and cross-checking your medications and what not! Were it not that she had shares in this hospital I’m sure the Floor matron would have kicked her out pronto!”

I saw Mama Efua give him a look that would have withered watermelons! She opened her mouth to give him a scathing reply, I’m sure, but then seemed to change her mind. But I think I heard her mutter something beneath her breath that sounded like “As if I was the one checking with the staff every 10 minutes whether the surgery was over!” I don’t think he heard her…or he chose not to hear – wise man.

Then it all suddenly came crashing back! The rain, the slippery road, the girl who slipped and fell right into the middle of the road, stepping on the brakes, the car somersaulting – Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

The Call

09 Mar

Just because every story has a flipside…

‘Did you see that old man pass by?’ Nishi asked his companion in a conspiratorial whisper. He was pointing at an elderly man a few metres away, just leaving the Beer-sheba marketplace.

While Nishi was a rather gaunt-looking man, tall and thin with a perpetual look of distaste on his face, his companion was a portly man with a rather unwelcoming face to suit his usually gruff and heartless manner. He was known in Beer-sheba and its surrounding towns as the Merchant, Amron. Seemingly, the only one who could stand his company for any appreciable amount of time was Nishi. Probably because both men saw in one another the same untrustworthy and ruthless nature he himself already had. Together, they made up nearly half of the total business force of Beer-sheba.

Tossing the old man a side-long glace, Amron replied, “Yes? What about him?”

“I heard he left the land of his people to trek through the wilderness in wild pursuit of some god! He says it’s a god he cannot see or feel but he still believes in him, anyway!”

Amron then turned his head to get a better look at the receding figure. ‘What an idiot! I think he is a bit uh-uh up there!’ he retorted, tapping his temple with a finger! And then he proceeded to say the words that would forever ring in Nishi’s ears whenever he thought of his friend Amron. “I would never be that foolish! Doing all that with no tangible guarantee! If I ever do something as foolish, may I be struck down by the spear of Baal! In fact, if anyone or anything of my household serves this god, may he strike me down in my tracks, if he can!” Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

When You’re Loving a Prayer Papa!

24 Feb

This piece was actually inspired by an incident a friend narrated to me a while ago. I immediately told her that I’d write a poem about it but I guess she thought I was joking! Sometimes we pray for something so much and so hard that we forget to prepare for it and when we do get it, well, we don’t handle it too well (sometimes we don’t even realise that we’ve received out request  until it’s too late!) For his Girlfriend: When You’re Loving a Prayer Papa!

She was lost twice over
Before she met this Christian Brother
He told her life could be much better
And so he drew her near to meet his dear Father
Till with many days of desperate prayer
From her burdens the Lord managed to deliver her.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in Blog, Love, Poems

 

The Best Man I Can Be!

17 Feb

Guys don’t get to be off the hook either. Just because it begged to be completed, I wrote this piece as the complement to last week’s bit ‘Who’s That Girl?!’ here: http://goldinwords.com/2012/02/11/whos-that-girl/

I hope I’ll have a witness in the house tonight!


My brothers, once again, we have a problem and I need to address it before we become the fathers that our friends, family, wives and children will love to hate. I happen to believe that every man is called to be a Gentleman.

In the tradition of Slim Shady, let me first ask all the real Gentlemen to please stand up – wait! Not so fast! So you say you’re a Gentleman? Prove it. It doesn’t come cheap you know?! And FYI, I’m not talking about money here.

Coming straight to the point, let me emphatically state: It’s not because of your Pierre Cardin long-sleeved shirts, your Trezeguet watch, your Cole Haan loafers or your Emporio Armani jacket that you gain membership to this Fraternity. It’s also not because of your maxed out KLM Frequent Flyer card either. And let’s not get on the case of your presumed freshness! It’s not the outside that counts my man: it’s what’s inside you. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Who’s That Girl?!

11 Feb

Don’t you sometimes wish the roles had been clearly defined?? I know I do! Many times, I’ve felt like somewhere along the road (probably somewhere in between male chauvinism and feminism; or between the ‘Good Old Days’ and Beijing!) we got the roles either twisted, or just totally trashed the standards. So in response to this perceived ‘imbalance’ I wrote this piece at the insistence of a friend of mine a while ago. But I also tweaked it a bit.

So this is my take on one of my most favorite people in the world: the Lady.

 

A Lady is a woman who makes a man act like a Gentleman…

I honestly don’t remember where I first heard that nugget of gold but it’s been one of my central beliefs ever since.

So this’s basically my answer to a question that seems bound to pop up at some point or another: That girl you’re checking out, is she a Lady? Read the rest of this entry »

 
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The Perfect Mistress

06 Feb

I was standing on the altar, with Nana behind me. The cathedral was sparsely adorned with striking purple and silver banners. Family and close friends who knew the colors had dressed accordingly so that a panoramic view would have given the impression of an elite, contemporary choir. Nana dutifully wiped off non-existent lint from my one-button blue-black tuxedo, ensuring that I was in perfect shape for my wedding. If only that was something another man could ensure.

Father Andoh bellowed in his rich baritone “Shall we welcome the bride?” Indirectly commanding the about three-hundred guests to rise and turn to the dome-entrance of the century-old Holy Spirit Cathedral. The grand piano begun to play the famous, age-old, clichéd (to me) wedding chorus; ♫panpanpanaa, panpanpanaa… ♫ I hadn’t wanted that, but any Swaniker wedding had to play by the Swaniker traditions. I would have rather had P-SQUARE on stage singing their hit song No One Like You

I was anxious to behold her, I hadn’t seen her in two days, and she hadn’t slept over in three months. Her conventional mother had insisted on all the old-fashioned traditions and her too-rich-to-be-human father hadn’t stopped breathing down my neck since three months ago when Sarah told him about our marriage plans.

In the two days I hadn’t seen her, we had exchanged 314 Whatsapp messages, and had been on the phone for approximately three and half hours. She was 59% responsible for that. She told me about the $9,000 dress her sister had brought from London, and the $1,800 tiara her mother had gifted her with. I was sure they’ll be glamorous but my mind kept chiming “All that cash?!” So I was anxious to see her. Read the rest of this entry »

 
 

Knowing Me (Also!) Better

02 Feb

I write. Sometimes. But I like to challenge myself to do things most people I know wouldn’t. I also like to devise a new ‘take’ on things. So I’m stealing the format of this bit from Benjamin’s ‘Know Me Better’ – at least, that’s my excuse :D .

 

The Fun Me

My name’s Tele, Seth Tele Hassan (I always feel a little bit extra confidence after I say my name like that). Tomorrow, the 3rd of February, I shall celebrate my next birthday (and serendipitously, officially become a licensed medical doctor!)

I don’t do sports (no football, no basketball, no tennis). But I’m not fat! (I think Someone Up There is helping me out with that one) I am a bona fide gamer though. Ever since I saw that frustrating Minesweeper at the age of 3, I was hooked! Now whether it’s a PC game, PlayStation or even on the iPad, I can assure you that I can, in the least, give you the run of your life for your money! Different friends have tried to teach me swimming though, but the thought of that just makes me wince at the memories it’ll evoke…so I’ve just thought of the best way around that: I’ll just wait to learn with my children in the future (that way I can’t do too horribly, and their presence will chase the bad memories away.) Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Me & the Most Notorious Old Testament King

31 Jan

The Ghanaian media is currently experiencing a ‘Gargantuan Crimes’ fad, to the extent that the phrase is being used in reference to just about anything. Like, “Look at the gargantuan lunch you’re having”, or “My love for you is so gargantuan eh!” lol, you know how we [Gh] do. It was originally used by the recently-fired Attorney General in describing the nature of wrongdoings plaguing the incumbent government.

Well there’s this dude in the Old Testament who makes any gargantuan crime of any current government official seem like child’s play. What baffles me is that at a time when God was extremely active in king making, this king managed to remain in power for 22 years! I’m also curious about his wife, a woman who scared the legendary prophet Elijah out of his socks animal-skin flip-flops, a woman who is even used in modern day to describe evil, ruthless women who stop at nothing to get what they want; Jezebel.

So I called King Ahab up, and I was like “Yo, what’re my chances of getting an exclusive with you?” Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Goldinwords Gets 2nd Resident Blogger!

26 Jan

In the past two years that we’ve been walking this road, we’ve had a wonderful time. Every week (well, almost), I’ve provided you with a refreshing reading experience, and you have shown your contentment by visiting frequently and bringing friends along. Today, there are over 500 of us fans, and over 300 of us subscribers from all walks of life. Those who visit, but leave no trail (ghost visitors) are several hundreds too.

We have frequent visitors from seventy countries in all five continents of this world, and that’s even our worst case scenario! This year, we’re on a GROWTH SPREE. The emphasis isn’t on the numbers though, but on how impressed each visit here leaves you. That’s the way to go abi? You’ve complained countless times about how infrequent posts updates are – I heard. You’d like that there weren’t so many gaps between posts too, right? I’ve tried to fix that. And so I have great news for you. Goldinwords is getting a SECOND resident blogger!

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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the LUST masquerade

24 Jan

A few days ago (for that’s how it feels like), you had to eavesdrop on the conversation of a bunch of drunk horny unmarried men to hear about sex. You had to get the corner booth of an obscure internet café a bus-ride from your town, close to midnight to feel ‘safe’ enough to visit a porno website. You had to get stranded in town to chance upon a prostitute at Circle or the Akuffo Addo round-about in Cantoments. You could freely use dictionary words like ‘come’, ‘penetrate’ ‘blue’ ‘balls’ ‘dirty’ ‘eat’ ‘prick’ ‘cock’ doggy’ ‘pussy’ and ‘wet’ without the worry of being misunderstood. Those were the good old days (relatively).

Now it is in the jokes we laugh at, in the songs we dance to, in the interesting chats we have, in the good movies we watch, in the statuses we update. It’s in the lifestyles of our mentors, in our favorite books, on billboards and banners. Tell me, what on earth is a horny-looking half-naked curvaceous woman doing on a Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Being your Boyfriend’s Best Friend-the dream

19 Jan

The kind of boyfriend I refer to in this article is the kind who earnestly desires to be faithful and truly doesn’t want to lose you, not the kind who mentally undresses all your female friends and abjectly disrespects your commitment. Such a man child doesn’t deserve you for even an online acquaintance.

Becoming your boyfriend’s best friend is an ambitious quest. You’re looking forward to the day when he’ll rush to confide in you before calling his boys boys. What are his secrets? The ones he’ll tell his clique but not you, his girlfriend. Why can they call him silly names with him laughing in response, but when you say same, he flips and feels disrespected? They casually ask him ‘W’agyimi anaa? Why you fool so? Abodam” He giggles and replies “Daabi, me na me y3 gyime3 nu, I am foolishness itself” They rumble on about other matters and bark at each other by the minute. That is their intimate expression of camaraderie and it’s beautiful, considering how petty your girlfriends can be. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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New Year Ramblings…

04 Jan

I’m not your typical ‘where’s-the-next-show-at’ kind of guy. In fact, sleep , zuma and good movies are to me what the Accra Int Conf Center is to an outing junkie or beer is to a bum. This Christmas break, I had loads of them (sleep, zuma, movies) plus a John Grisham! Tingly sensations engulfed me as I turned each page of ‘The Broker’,  and as I savored each twist of story-telling genius, I resolved to cultivate the kind of discipline required to be consistent with updating Goldinwords and finishing AVR (The Agency Vrs the Republic- you know about that right?) in grand style.

I’m not too much into resolutions too, maybe I’m afraid of disappointing myself, maybe I find them a bit cliché. I mean come on people, what’s the success rate of previous years and what’s going to happen if your resolutions contradict God’s plans for your life? Imagine if God’s plan is for you to become an evangelist but you’ve resolved this year to know your hip hop better so you can be a better DJ at upcoming engagements and weddings (a rather booming industry in GH now).

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Goldinwords @ 2mucHeaven concert –A must attend!

20 Dec

Last Saturday easily passed as the most eventful weekend in Ghanaian history! Never more have there been as many weddings.  Caterers, spinners, décor houses and photographers combined made more cash last weekend alone than you and I put together in our entire lives. There were so many bridal-decorated cars in town you could have easily concluded that there was a bride in every eight cars.  I had three of them to be at; my neighbor’s (the one I could awake at dawn to play small poles with. Can’t do so anymore :-( ) and two colleagues at work. Traffic was hopeless and wickedly winding. Those who knew lungulungus saved some time, I dropped like a sack when I finally saw my bed that night.

If all of last weekend’s couples have consummated their marriages by now, I  confidently announce to you that barring any unforeseen bareness, next year will begin Ghana’s baby boom generation, whole economic projections can be made accordingly.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Me & the Bethlehem Donkey

15 Dec

First of all: I’ve enjoyed writing this piece because, aside the beautiful challenge of merging spirituality with humor and lucid writing, I have had to research a lot. There are several misconceptions about Christmas and the birth of Jesus. There are many other things we take for granted, but the opinionated donkey that transported Mary to Bethlehem educates us today.

The core message of this piece is the significance of the birth of Jesus, everything else is peripheral so do forgive any theological inconsistencies and whatnots, I berg.

*             *             *

I can talk to animals! No jokes. I discovered this rare gift last Thursday when I was returning home from work. There was a dog snail-crossing the road my troskie was speeding on. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and the driver looked like he’d had enough with these more-daring-than-men creatures. He was intent on running the dog over. In dreadful horror I closed my eyes, tightened my stomach, twitched my toes and bit my lips. It dawned on me that the dog must have been born on a Tuesday, so in my mind I screamed “Kwabena, son of a bitch. Quicken your steps lest your lazy walk ends you up in animalistic hell.” There and then noorr the dog leaped and barely escaped the tires of the thundering rusty tin of a bus.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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2 Cupids, 1 Heart- The Showdown

06 Dec

Honestly, this Chris and Ginny palaver is taking a toll on even me o, so I can imagine  what it is doing to you. Today he tells her, see what happens. But remember where we left off?

I feigned disapproval. Then later as we were driving to the GIMPA gardens to confirm our reservation for Saturday’s wedding reception, I feigned deep interest. I feigned just about every emotion that day. The only emotion I could have easily and sincerely expressed would have been abject confusion.

Should I tell him? Should i ‘hypotheticalize’ it and ask for advice? Should I find Ginny, grab and kiss her and let things find their feet? Whatever it is I had to do, it had to be done in forty-eight hours. That was all I had left until the love of my life got married to my brother-of-a-friend.

*        *        *

Traffic in Accra was more dreadful than a skin disease. After GIMPA, we drove to the Accra Mall and finalized arrangements with Kwame Pocho, Accra’s paparazzi sensation. We picked up much needed cheques from two of Sam’s bosses in Osu and Labadi. Then we drove towards Airport Residential area to confirm the African Regency reservations; that’s where the couple would spend their first married night.

Sam asked what I thought of the king size bed. My cruel mind visualized Ginny lying on his bare chest, covered in nothing but a duvet, and I rushed to the bathroom like I’d had a purgative for breakfast. I couldn’t stand the thought, I didn’t want to admit it, but the manageable trickle of jealousy in my veins was growing into a steady stream.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
 
 

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