The beginning

I was hoping to call this blog "Not the destination" but unfortunately that was taken, with a whole lot of related iterations but what wasn't was "unscrYPtid"...a bastardisation of unscripted with a YP in the middle and an ID at the end, which is intentional I guess because it is my story (initials) and hopefully it is a continuation of the development of my identity whilst journeying this thing called life. 

This blogging thing started many years ago when I finished university and I used to send out random email updates to my mates and a friend, Charl Lombard, said dude, have you heard of blogging, I was like por que? 'Monday Mail' was born, it then transition to 'As it is so it is' and now this. Why the change, well I've been pondering writing something for a while and then I realised that this phase of life that I am entering is pretty unique for me and I would like to document it and hopefully someone else may find it interesting reading.

I'm about to enter the the 6th week of my somewhat unscryptid move to Amsterdam. I say somewhat because a few years ago I put this out there and the universe and my maker thought it was the right time for this to happen, but we will get to that later, before that though, I'm going to clean out the cobwebs of my memory of years gone by.

I must start off by giving a massive shout out to my folks who really toiled hard to elevate themselves from their childhoods so that we could get a decent stab at this thing called life. Unlike the case in South Africa and the Apartheid system, one thing the British did well when they colonised Ghana was to provide a quality education system, delivered by top quality educators in world class institutions in the early years. This was carried on by the Nkrumah government. I don't think the same holds true today unfortunately but alas...

The ancestors

I never met my grandfather from my mother's side, he passed away when my mother was about 18yrs old, my gran remarried and she was well to do, but then she had 11 kids and she really wanted the best for her kids, ma's stepdad tried to do right by his kids but he had an unfortunate incident early on that set him back financially and so the responsibility fell back on my gran, as it does with most women, too much respect and love for you all!! Unfortunately...and gratefully (cos I at least got to somewhat know one of the 4), she is the only one of my grandparents that I had anything that resembled a relationship with. One of the sad realities of growing up as an immigrant right? Such a smart, strong woman who managed to live to the ripe old age of 94, her mind was still so sharp, but her body was weary. She really had a tough life in her final years, it was my mother's desire to build a comfortable home that she could call her own before she transitioned, but this never materialised and to this day it is one of ma's big regrets. That realisation drove the rallying and co-ordination of the siblings to build a humble abode for the folks a few years ago, back in Accra whilst they can still enjoy it and really bask in the fruits of their labour, their retirement plan, their kids.😂 Personifying the phrase my mother loves so much..."it is because of mud that we buy shoes". Through it all up stepped moms, overcome by her love of the little people and her desire to help make the young ones confident and smarter, she decided to embark on a journey as an educator.

A bit of a walk through our lineage... My gran was the youngest sister of the previous queen mother of my mother's village, Amoaman. The current king is our cousin and the stool he occupies is amongst the 3 prominent stools in the Ashanti Kingdom. The name of the stool is Oprempong, the other 2 are the Paramount and Village stools. Our clan is the Ekouna symbolised by the bull, which is our totem. Up until a few minutes before writing this I had no idea about most of this and had to consult my sister, folks and my very knowledgeable uncle Wofa Sarpong, who is also the head of my mother's family, to get some insights into lineage. Another one of those realities of growing up in a land not of your birth. 

The most fascinating thing about Ghana is that we follow a matrilineal lineage which you would hope would mean a lot and I guess it does when it comes to traditional African values wahala, but I still struggle to reconcile what i believe to be a pervasive patriarchal society that exists in Ghana to this pride we have about our matrilineal society, but a story for another day. 

Even though they too were pretty middle class by Ghana standards, the old man had what we'd consider a character building start to life, having to fetch water in the mornings before school and then having to trudge something like 30minutes to get there and another to get home. He was one of 9 kids, a set of twins passed on whilst they were infants, his parents separated and my grandfather married a lady who bore another 7 children. The character of the old man shines through when you observe how he showed respect to his stepmom. Prior to her passing a few years ago, he'd pay her a visit every time he went to Ghana. This should be normal but my reading of the situation is that she was not the most pleasant version of stepmoms. I have an uncle with a very kind soul and how he describes their life under her watch more than corroborates my reading. 

So let's do the maths, mom had 10 siblings pops had 15 siblings, that's and army of cousins right?! Another sad reality of not growing up in Ghana is that we didn't get a chance to grow up with our cousins. In later life, thanks to our intermittent visits to Ghana, life events such as weddings, funerals and baby naming ceremonies as well as the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, we have started connecting more with the fam and it's pretty cool. I seem to be a whole lot closer to my cousins from my dad's side than my mother's but i guess that is an age thing. We were quite fortunate though because in the early years, there were many Ghanaian and Ugandan families in a similar situation to us in the Transkei and we became each other's cousins.

Pops initially studied physics but ended up at the ministry of finance in Ghana, as a result he had to attend summer school at the university of Colorado to get some economics training and that sparked his love for economics, why I ask 😂. Folks were fortunate to then head on out to Massachusetts for a few years where pops attended Williams College and ma had a teaching gig. The folks got married on 28.07.1973

Early childhood memories

26.02.1976, after 2 days of ma being hospitalised because she was losing liquor (no not booze, amniotic fluid), at 4am in Ridge Hospital, Accra, I decided to come out and see what this world was all about. The early challenges of childbirth would I guess serve as the script for my relationship with my mama in the early years. First boy, third child, cute as...I'll show you my baby pics if you like :) Lots of doting for sure, but man was I a challenge. Oooh did i test my mama's love, the patience test she failed tho haaaa. Somebody pray for the woman!! Even the neighbours and family friends knew me as the troublesome child, I remember on one of the few visits back to Ghana, one of the 'uncles' greeted me as, Yaw-Pong, the naughty child, is that you. There were even times, often actually, that names like satan and words like I regret the day I gave birth to you were hurled in my direction, but after all that let me get hurt and who was the first one at my side, maybe after a slap on the side of the head cos it inevitably was of my own doing. Misunderstood is my version of the tale and i'm sticking to that.

Similar to now, I dig people and having my friends around (also really enjoy retreating into my cave with a book or a remote), but as a youngster, as soon as they got there, it wouldn't be too long before there would be a wee fracas, that would inevitably end up with said visitor emm let's say disgruntled. I do however remember a time though that I nearly lost an eye because I took my teasing or whatever it was too far and this one kid at school grabbed a can of Ideal milk that had been opened and still had the sharp opened lid attached to it, hurled it at me. I still have the scar over my left eye, it was mere millimetres I tell ya and my outlook on life may have been different. Little lesson in actions and reactions that wasn't entirely lost on me.

Damn I was a nosey busybody. I always wanted to know things. Occasionally as a kid we used to get gifts and after playing with them for a while I would want to understand how they worked (even if they weren't mine, actually it was more fun when it wasn't mine :)), and so I would dismantle them with the hope of re-assembling them once I understood, I didn't always get the re-assembling right, this was generally followed up by an uppercut or two for my efforts or some random chore, or no tennis...oooh no tennis was the worst punishment ever!! I am so glad they didn't really administer Ritalin in my days, because I sure would have been on it, I just couldn't sit still in any situation, be it with people or in class, may even be a factor in my romantic relationships, or rather a lack thereof, but we will get there too....maybe 😉

But through it all to this day when the folks need anything they tend to call on me. Well at least it feels like it. I can be in Cape Town and I will get called because a phone doesn't work in Ghana. A room would remain in darkness until i visited Johannesburg to change the blown bulb, cupboards unhinged, the funniest thing is i would have been visiting the whole day and it is time to head on away and Ma would be like Yaw, oh won't you, just fix this...and this.....and this. Delay tactics i tell ya. Gotta love em.... Mr Fix, yep that's my other name. I think she should reverse those uppercuts, right, cos those years of break and repair clearly came in handy.

As a kid one of my favourite things was putting together puzzles, i was a youngster, no older than 6 or so but when i was silent i was trying to piece together a puzzle, that was my happy place. I remember once i wasn't doing what i needed to do so my ma took my puzzles and hid them till i would go and do what i needed to do. Instead of doing that, unbeknown to her, i snuck behind her to watch where she hid them. And when she left the room, i climbed a set of glass louvres that naturally looked like a staircase to the top of the cupboards where the puzzle was hidden. Crack, the one that i stood on broke, CRAAAACK, the one i was holding snapped, glass everywhere, especially the one that lodged into my torso. I remember feeling no pain, but then i saw blood, MUUUUUUUMMMMMMMYYYYY. Pray for that woman!!!! She has suffered damn!

The early 80s were tough in Ghana, I was young but I still remember a pretty happy childhood. We had a cool vegetable garden in our back yard in Greenhill, the Government had implemented a growing scheme where households grew their own vegetables instead of a lawn, pretty clever don't you think? We had a brand new Peugeot 504, pops was balling, the man loved his car and would he would wash it religiously. We had such a cool bunch of neighbourhood friends and we played hopscotch, rolling tyres with sticks and all manner of games. There was one kid who always disappeared, we even had a song for him "Safo is lost, he is lost like a dog", sounds a whole lot better in Twi. I won't lie my favourite was when we made milo with mud and water, made little fires and cooked in used open tin cans. Speaking of Milo there was an ad that was so random, yet so catchy that 40 odd years later i remember it... Milo Pah Pah Pah... yep, thats it. Climbing mango trees to pick ripe mangoes was another splendid activity. One of my favourite past times was when the uncles came to visit and it was night time and they would retell old Akan (our tribe) folk tales called 'Ananse Sem' the story of Kwaku Ananse, the spider whose stories always have such a great message. Such simple joys. 

Being the first born boy, my mama used to think it cool to dress me in my sister's clothes and plait my hair, in all honesty I kinda dug it too, I played with dolls a lot of my early life. My sister just before me and I are pretty close in terms of age, so for the first few years of my life she was my person it seemed and then along came Kwaku 2 years later but for another 2 years or so he was pretty useless to me, kinda like how i was to my sister. What freaked the pooh out of me though was the visits to the house by some rather large snakes, the one I remember the most was what seemed like a rather large python that decided to come and catch a tan on the veranda outside the window, mind you I was about 6/7yrs old at this time so size may be exaggerated but at the time that mofo was like Anaconda from the movie. 

On the real though the early 80's in Ghana was pretty testy, there was a military coup in 1981 and Rawliings had taken over, in 82 there was an attempted coup and those believed to have been behind it were executed by firing squad, I remember that story so clearly, at the same time there was a famine, things were wild I tell you, WILD! Fortunately for the family and I guess unfortunately for mother at the same time, pops had received a transfer to eSwatini version of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Affairs, he had to go, we had to stay, because moms was pregnant with her 5th child, my brother Nana Poku, who was born in December 1982. So we stayed behind and it couldn't have been an easy time for mother. 3 kids, because my oldest sister Nana Sarpong wasn't living us at the time and one on the way. Kwaku was always sick or crying. Then standing in queues for hours to get basic foods and at times getting nothing. How clearly I remember we'd get served rice at mealtime and we would pat it down on the plate so that it covered the whole plate and every time we took a bite we would repeat so it would like like we still had a lot on our plates eating it very slowly as if we had Keith Sweat's song "Make it last forever" playing in the background. There were times you could wake up hungry, that phenomenon was called 'nkitinkiti' translated it means small small, not sure what the correlation, but i'm sure someone will tell me. Shit was so bad that toilet paper was a luxury! we'd wipe our bums with newspaper. Brushing your teeth was via chapstick, which is just a cut out piece of wood and soap was half a lemon rubbed in your arm pits and groin area my friend. It was like we were training for survivor.

Did I feel less than? Not at all. It was life. And such huge thanks goes out to my mother for doing the absolute best she could and then some, to make sure we were ok. But the old African adage of it takes a village to raise a child was particularly true during this period of my life. The amount of support we had from family friends and relatives was immense, I remember the odd occasion when a family friend would travel overseas and come back with some goodies like a few boxes of corn flakes to brake the monotony of 'koko sakora' translated to mean 'bald porridge' porridge with no sugar no milk....torture for a young buck I tell ya. 

Nana was born and man for some reason since his birth I have been drawn to that not so little man. The hardest thing to watch was him helplessly wailing when he got circumcised. Fortunately that period didn't last too long. It was such an experience watching him form. Kwaku my brother after me is about 2 years younger than I am so I didn't really observe his metamorphosis like I did Nana's who is about 7 years younger. Mother really wanted another girl. I remember Adoma (my sister who is about 15 months older than me) and I teaching him how to walk and what fun we had during the process. Once again... Little things.

I digressed, it must not have been an easy time for the old man, being one man in eSwatini, leaving a young family behind in a not so stable Ghana. 

But as I was saying, so Nana was born and plans were made to join pops in eSwatini. I have a conflicting recollection of my emotions at the time of leaving Ghana, intuitively sitting here writing this and thinking of how life was back then, I'm thinking surely you should have been excited, but I don't think I was too excited, leaving the life you once knew, warts and all, your childhood friends, the walks across the field to buy fresh bread from the bread lady and i have vague memories of a girl who lived near the bread lady that must have given young me the feels, because i still remember that emotion, what she looks like and her name....poof, vanished, but the emotion still lingers in the archives. 

In August 1983 we boarded an El Al flight to eSwatini, first flight ever. We landed and pops came to fetch us, we had a pretty big house there and I remember pops had bought Kwaku and I a toy corvette each, big cars. Life was good, family was together, food in abundance. We attended a school called St Marks with Mr Wescott as it's headmaster. One thing I remember about school was how punctual we had to be and every morning we would belt out the Swazi national anthem before school started. I still remember the beginning of the anthem. The things that leave an impression. eSwatini was a short lived experience one thing that I do remember though is that I learnt how to ride a bicycle there, something that will come in very handy here in The Netherlands. I also remember climbing a tree and the branch breaking and the broken piece leaving a mark on the back of my thigh to ensure that I don't forget eSwatini. Other really fond memories were our Ford Granada whose back window on the side popped out from time to time if we hit a bumpy road but it was all good because pops would be blasting either the Commodores or George Benson whilst on our way to Copperland to buy some custom made clocks that the old man was selling :). One memory that won't leave me is the first time i consciously recall of when my old man really got angry with me. Pops never used to hit us. Ma on the other hand, beating us was like sport for her, slops, wooden spoons, belt, jackets projectiles you name it we got it, I think me more than the others, oh fun. Anyway back to pops, the folks had gone out somewhere and we were inside and i needed to take a wee. I could have possibly made it to the bathroom, but the window was right there and it was open, so i unzipped and did my business, to my sister's displeasure. The folks got home and had not even fully entered the house and along runs Adoma Judas Peprah to pops....Yaw wee wee ed out of the window. Pops, Yaw come here, i edge forward, i realise this, my friend will not be the most pleasant outcome for you Yaw, i turn to high tail, pop pretends my ass is a soccer ball, he just about gets me, fake cries, theatrics, like a sniper had shot me, i would have made a great footballer. 😂 The man hardly got me, but I never pissed out of the window again...when anyone was watching :) That was my recollection of the first 'hiding' i got from pops. 

Writing this I think man, from the outside that seems like it was a pretty rough start, but the beauty of being a child is it was your reality and you just got on with it, it was the old folks that were sweating, worrying about where the next meal would come from during those famine times, moving countries, all that was on my mind was playing with my friends, suffering through the boring bits between play time at school.... Grow up Yaw they keep saying, I just smile and ask tell me why? 

And so the unscrYPtid journey began.

Man it has been such a gas reminiscing about the early days but it's past 2am here, so let me hit the hay, work in the morning, so i'll leave it here for now and pick up from here in the next one.

Have a fabulous week