My Little Left Hand
In life, people choose to take different lessons from what happens to them. My childhood memories are characterized with living away from my biological parents on many occasions. The earliest one I remember was when I was in kindergarten. I lived with my extended family; grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins. We all lived in the family house. That was when my school teacher succeeded in forcefully making me use my right hand in writing although I was more comfortable using my left hand; I was born a southpaw! No one noticed my struggle with using my right hand. No one noticed how I often did my assignments in tears. No one noticed any changes to ask me “why”? Maybe everyone thought children have no issues so they did their best to give me all they thought I needed. So I enjoyed all the “fan ice”, “nkosua ne m3ko”, new dresses and all the material gifts that came with living with an extended family. No one knew me well enough to notice I was left-handed. The one who did (my teacher) considered it wrong, and so she gave herself the challenge of changing which hand I write with. When I moved back with my parents later, they were unhappy with my ordeal. I just wished they had also forced me to use my left hand to write. At least I used my left hand with greater skill than my right. As for the teacher who forced me to stop using my left hand in writing, I’m just waiting to meet her in heaven so I ask her questions. I wonder the number of lives she affected with that habit. Interestingly, my younger brother, Kafui is left-handed too. His story is different, maybe because of mine,maybe not. At least he didn’t stay away from home when his teachers started forcing him to use his right hand so they were not successful with him. Either ways I’m glad he got the right to use his left hand without restriction and suppression. The forceful change has affected me in varying degrees. Whenever I see a left-handed person writing, I hear an inner voice, “this could have been you”. Can I call it jealousy? I read somewhere too about how such forceful change affects our brains. I just hope this is a myth. Moving on, I choose to pick the positive lessons from my story. I appreciate the childhood period more. I believe that a lot of important occurrences that happen during our childhood affects us later in life. Always look out for changes in children. Children have issues too. They look out for an elder who would listen and help them. Be that person! Be that hope!
Her Allergies and COVID-19
In 2010, when I was admitted to Holy Child School, I was oblivious of all the changes that awaited me. The morning mass, morning assembly, taking turns to serve at breakfast, lunch and supper, the compulsory siestas and having to take my evening bath when the sky was still bright, all felt so new and difficult to adjust to in the beginning. Of all these, my health wasn’t left out, the cold weather on the Angel’s hill made me discover something. The cold weather exposed me to easily catch a cold. In the beginning, I felt it will get better as my body adjusts to the weather. But I was wrong. It persisted. I had to put in drastic measures to help myself. I tried a lot of remedies. I stopped using any highly scented soap or perfume. I avoided sitting or sleeping under the fan and I avoided crowds and people who love to use strong perfumes. Tissues and handkerchiefs became my close allies in the fight. I only used guardian soap, took the seat far away from the fan and also avoided the top bed in the dormitory. On days when I mistakenly hugged someone who had used a strong perfume, I had to weep in anticipation of all the pain I was going to have.On other days when I woke up with a difficulty in breathing because someone had put the fan on in the middle of the night when she was feeling hot, I felt I only had to endure. On such days when I had to blow my nose, cough, sneeze, use up my tissue and the ones my friends gave me, I knew I was making those I sat in class with uncomfortable.I felt more concerned about them than I did to myself because I had given up on myself. I had come to accept that could try to minimize the number of times I had a cold but I could not avoid it because of how I contracted it. So as much as possible, I try to self quarantine. This ‘self-quarantine’ does not mean I stayed in the dormitory o. I couldn’t afford to do that considering how often I had a cold. My ‘self-quarantine’ here means I tried to avoid contacts with people and items as much as I could. As I tried to make all these adjustments, once a while, I encounter a student who expresses displeasure at how often she saw that I had a cold. Such a person will go at lengths to recommend all the precautionary measures I was already painstakingly observing. During my first holiday in senior high school, I traveled to the new district my parents had just been transferred to. Finally I was away from the cold weather and all the ‘dbees’ who used all the highly scented perfumes you can imagine. Day one was exciting. I ate my favorite food and started sharing my Holy Child School diaries with my family. Day two and three were amazing too. I could wear all the beautiful clothes I hadn’t seen in months. Then came day four and I caught a bad cold!!!! I was so angry. Loool Now I had to carefully remember how it started. What did I bring close to my nose? What did I inhale that could cause this?Then I remembered I had done a thorough cleaning and dusting of the house the day before! So the dust here too has caused this? I felt so frustrated and I had to carefully observe precautionary measures at home. On days when I wanted to clean and dust, I used a nose mask hoping and praying I do not inhale any droplet. Our world is currently hit by a pandemic. Ghana, my country, recorded its first case a week ago. Just two days ago, the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced a four-week suspension of most activities and cautioned we stay home as much as we can. As I spend my time social distancing today, I’ve been thinking of all the patients infected with the virus and the pain they could possibly be going through. I know it’s difficult to suddenly adapt to change, but let us all abide by all the measures the World Health Organization has outlined. Remember to stay away from large gatherings for your health and the health of our community. Let me share my plan for this season with you. Maybe you could share yours in the comment section too. BreatheIntentionally grow a deeper relationship with my Creator.Write more in my journal.Complete my reading list.Drink plenty of water.Drink warm Cinnamon waterTake more online courses.Reflect on creative ways to build my side-hustles.Complete my writing tasks.Stay in touch with the my team and carpenter in Yevi who is working on our shelves for our library project.Learn something new each day.Constantly call my family and friends.Organize my room space.Eat healthy.Pray for all health workers and frontliners fighting this pandemic.13. Stand strong with deep faith as I pray and hope our earth heals soon.
For the Love of Fufu, She travelled at night
Heeeyyy! Happy New Year. I know I was missing in action during the festive season. Not even a Christmas wish from me to you. Please forgive your girl. Anemia and stress wanted to steal me from you but I’m back now. How have you started 2020? I hope you started with some good vibes and eneeerrrrggggyyy! I know you traveled during the festive season. And you tried something new too. Did you travel by bus? Was it a night bus? Guess what? I did!My family has this tradition of coming together on 31st December to give glory to God and also enjoy each other’s physical presence. So yes, although I was not very well physically, I took a bus to Duayaw Nkwanta very early in the morning on 31st December. The bus took off from the Circle VIP bus station at half past 7. I had taken a jacket to keep me warm on the journey so I used it. I felt so uneasy throughout the journey, the AC in the bus was put on. I felt so cold. By the time we got to Kumasi, I was throwing up. Thank goodness for my jacket. Everything got soaked in it. I was talking about my night travel experience right? Let me go back to it. After spending 6 days with my family, it was time to return to Accra. There were two options; travel in the day or at night.I really didn’t want to leave home. The everyday fufu alone was enough to keep me there.So you know what, I decided to eat fufu(pounded cassava, cocoyam or yam) for the last on the day I was going to leave home and how do I achieve that. Book a night bus, stay at home all day and eat some good fufu, then leave home around 9pm to catch up with the bus.You feel me? I just gave you a good tip. So yes, after eating and having a great time with family, it was time to catch up with the bus. My Dad drove us to the bus station. My mum and junior brother were there to help me with my luggage. When my bus arrived, they helped with the luggage and were sure I was good to go. Then they waited until my bus took off at 9:31pm from Duayaw Nkwanta station, then they also went home. It was my first time traveling alone on a night bus. The last time I traveled on a night bus, I was an 8year old girl who was traveling on a big truck with family and friends from the Volta region to the Northern region. My parents had been transferred from Akatsi to Pong-Tamale and that journey was so exciting. My mother had prepared adequately for that 12-hour journey. She cooked balls of kenkey and jollof for the journey. Oh! The food experience on that journey has a special place in my heart. Am I digressing again? No, let me continue my story about the night travel experience from Duayaw Nkwanta to Accra.I had really wanted a window seat for a good sleep on the journey but I didn’t get it.When we set off, I said a silent prayer and believed this journey was going to be safe. Hey! Midway into the journey, I started getting scared! I felt the driver was speeding. Eeeeeiii! I could feel we were literally moving in the sky. My heart! And you know feeling dizzy is a symptom of anemia right? I was feeling so dizzy! I couldn’t breathe well and my head was aching badly. I felt I was suffocating. I was just praying and hoping this driver slows down a bit. I wish I had even screamed from the back for this driver to reduce the speed. But hey! I was seated at the penultimate seat and some other passengers were sleeping. I didn’t have the courage to wake them up with a scream. Did I even think of screaming? No, I was feeling too dizzy to try it. So I hoped for the best. And that’s how a girl who sleeps even on a 30minutes travel journey, was kept awake from Duayaw Nkwanta is Accra. Only God knows how I gave a sigh of relief and thanks to God when I alighted at Achimota, Accra at exactly 4am Just when I alighted, my mum called to remind me of the million doses of advice she had given me on how to get home from Achimota at dawn. God bless our mothers oo! And yeah I had to tell her my decision, “I’ll never travel from home at night again, the speed was too much” Have you traveled at night before? Did you use public transport? Image Source = Image Source Link
