THE DREAMS OF YESTERDAY…

On that rainy day when Fiifi finally made it to campus, he knew he was going to like his four-year stay there. He had been impressed by the greenness of the environment right from the main gate when he got down from the bus. There was something else on his mind though. Earlier in the day, he had had to follow his mother to the home of Mr.Quayson, the rich money lender in their village. His mum, Auntie Ama had gone for a loan before he could finally make it to school. This saddened him greatly. He felt enraged and for the first time in his young life started questioning the value of his educational journey. It was a Sunday in mid-August. The head porter he met at his assigned hall of residence allocated a temporary room to him.

He took a quick shower immediately he settled in his new temporary room. He still had time to explore. He wanted to visit Katanga. Yes, Katanga!!! That famed hall he had desperately wanted. On the day he was filling out his admission forms, he made three calls to the university administration enquiring why Katanga, the University’s own hall, wasn’t part of the options for the column marked ‘prefered hall of residence’. This irritated him extremely and in protest had left the column unmarked. He could not commit the great betrayal by picking any other hall above the sacred Katanga hall. He would rather leave it to fate. Emefa, the young lady from his class who had also gotten admission to the same famed university in the city often wondered where Fiifi’s obsession with Katanga had come from. She had tried in vain to talk him out of his obsession with the all-male hall. She desperately wanted him to pick a safe option like what she had chosen; the Republic hall. She wanted him to be close. They had sat in the same class since lower primary through to senior high school. Now, they were both heading to the university. Emefa had gotten her preferred programme, a four-year degree programme in Computer Science. He, on the other hand had missed out on his preferred option of an interdisciplinary undergraduate programme in Politics, Economics and Philosophy. This too, had intrigued her greatly. How he could switch from an intense passion for a career in the Sciences or Engineering to follow a giddy desire in the humanities. There were many things with Fiifi that intrigued her, yet she kept them to herself, hoping she would get the answers some day in the future.

Fiifi called Auntie Ama on his way to see the great Katanga hall for the first time. His mother was relieved he had settled in and was already exploring campus. She assured him of sending his stipend immediately she is able to sell her stock of smoked fish she intends to send to the market on Tuesday. She spent time offering advice to her son, repeating phrases and sentences she had used the previous night when she was helping him pack his stuff. Fiifi was exasperated but dared not to express it in his voice. He feared and loved his mother. It was she, who had taken care of him and his two siblings when their father, Kofi Ben left home when he was only seven. He hated his father for the way he was always beating his mother and elder brother, Bediako. Fiifi grew to hate him more when he learnt later in his teenage years that his father had left his matrimonial home to stay with one of his numerous concubines in the district capital. Though Kofi Ben received wages from his clerical job he had at the district court, he never contributed financially to the upkeep of his offspring after the day he left. On the day he received his admission letter from his Sunday school teacher who was also in charge of the church’s postal address, he resolved to go and see his father and seek for his help in paying his school fees.

He was startled when he realized the affluent lifestyle and the newfound wealth of his father. He was happy for him. Kofi Ben was now driving an exquisite Honda Sedan. Kofi Ben, who for years relied on the industrious Auntie Ama in providing him shelter, food and even transportation to work was now driving a Sedan while Auntie Ama was struggling to raise money to pay for his son’s school fees. “Life is unfair”, he muttered to himself quietly as he sat on the luxurious leather couch waiting for his father who was having his supper at the dining table. Fiifi looked with envy at his half-brothers who were watching television at the hall. He knew they loved their dad. He knew their perception of him would never be the same as his. For they had not seen him in his rage when he was poor. He had grown up nursing a deep scorn for his father. Kofi Ben was not bright but highly ambitious. He had a pretentious intellectual rigour and would often use words like ‘empirical’, ‘elucidate’, ‘obfuscate’ in conversations. He had not gone beyond middle school and got a job as a court clerk through an acquaintance of his father who circumvented the process to favour Kofi Ben as a token to repay a kindness he had received from Kofi Ben’s father decades earlier. In the early years of his marriage to Auntie Ama, he was increasingly frustrated with his job and what he called ‘my meagre salary’. He had looked with envy at the industriousness of his wife and her economic independence. The envy grew to resentment and he soon turned to alcohol, coming home on most days reeking of the scent of Akpeteshie. He would refuse to eat the food prepared by Auntie Ama on such days. His resentment soon turned into violence. On one sunny Saturday afternoon when he came home with his two friends. They had been to a funeral and had taken more than enough whiskey on the way home. “Woman, where is my food?” he squawked when he entered the house. Auntie Ama in her usual meek manner responded mildly; “…please your lunch is set at the kitchen.” “I’m with my friends and would eat outside.” Kofi Ben responded.

Auntie Ama placed the table before her husband and went in for the food. Just as she turned back to the pile of clothes that she was washing, Kofi Ben shouted at her, inquiring how she expected him to eat rice and stew at this hour.

“Are you so lazy that you can’t prepare fufu for your husband now?” Kofi asked.

“…please my husband, we didn’t get back from the farm early and I also had to wash your clothes…” Kofi interrupted before Auntie Ama could finish; “do you know what others go through and yet provide meals for their husbands?”

He did not touch the rice and went out again with his friends. When he returned later that night, he could barely walk. Auntie Ama met him at the front door and questioned him on his recent drinking habit. “Who gave you the right to question me?” Kofi slurred. He slapped her twice before grappling her by the neck. She pushed her against the wall, strangling her and saying “I will kill you, the next time you ask me any of such silly questions.”  Fiifi and Bediako stood staring at each other unsure what to do. For a moment they thought their father was going to kill their mom. Fiifi could not bear it any longer. “Dad, please stop! You’re hurting her” he muttered. His father gave him a stern look and let go of Auntie Ama. No words were spoken in the house again that night. For three days, Kofi Ben spoke to no one in the house. On the third day, he came back from work with his sister, Auntie Lucy, who spoke to Auntie Ama and apologized on behalf of his brother. Months went by without any incidents in the household until the day Kofi Ben came home drunk again. He had stayed off alcohol for six months and everyone thought he was sober now. But he came home in subsequent days always drunk, heavier than the previous night’s. The beatings too resumed. This time with prolonged intensity and against the children too. This was the image of Kofi Ben that Fiifi carried with him into his teenage years. He always thought of him as a violent bully who was irresponsible to his family. He hated having to come to him to beg for money but he had no choice.

“Congratulations on your admission, what help did you say I could offer you?” Kofi Ben asked after washing his hands in the stand-by bowl. Fiifi was momentarily caught off-guard but quickly regained his composure to tell his dad about the dire financial constraints they were facing as a family. “Daddy, I’d be grateful if you could cover the academic fees so mummy takes care of the residential user fees and other miscellaneous”, Fiifi pleaded.