Reflecting on life throws a vivid picture of my childhood days in Ghana. The adventures that sidelined growing up in Ghana are so entrenched in my minds that I can never forget them. In fact, I miss being a child in Ghana and this makes me wonder if others do have their childhood adventures and experiences so well engraved in their minds too.
Do not get me wrong, it was hectically difficult growing up as a young boy in Ghana, but the experience was so good that I will never regret it. I certainly know most of our readers on GhanaCelebrities.Com had different childhood experiences, grew up at different parts of Ghana or in different countries but it would be grippingly amazing if we can all share our little unforgettable childhood experiences.
A common thing almost every Ghanaian parent has is the edge to give his or her child some sort of quality education. My mother was fanatical on this and my teachers did worsen the burden by bombarding my mates and I with countless home works.
Since I am talking about the fundamental of my today (education), I would try to chip in the various unforgettable experiences during my childhood educational days which we might all have experienced. I hated home works and I know most of my friends did too. I wouldn’t be surprise if you hated those home works as child.
The most annoying aspect of these home works is the fact that every subject teacher gave one out and some times, you can be burdened with about 4 different home works, all due for assessment the next day. (And this is when one is just at the primary school…)
As much as I hated home works and the teachers who gave them out most, these were not in isolation. I also hated Sunday evenings. The mere thought of Monday being at the corner, meaning I would have to go to school for another 5 days was enough to depress and give me sleepless nights.
Even if I was tired on Sunday nights and wanted to sleep, the early Monday morning English Dictation class (…something like spelling galore..) followed by “Maths-Mental” where you were randomly asked 2×6, 4×9 and others were enough to keep me up all night. Ah! Indeed, I hated Sunday nights.
As unstoppable as its coming is, Mondays always came and went, no matter how much I hated them. They were full of sorrows and caused depressions upon depressions to my life such that I developed thick skin to the winds Mondays blew. Anytime I couldn’t spell a word like “Umbrella”, “Hippopotamus” or “Xylophone”, I was given 4 strong lashes at my back.( …No wonder my Gf thinks I have a rough behind even though I have never been to jail before…)
It wasn’t always bad at primary school; some beautiful times I always looked up to and even wished I could push the clock’s hand forward to such days need not to be left out. Do you remember “Our Days”, these are the days I enjoyed most. My mum who is the best chef I have ever known always hooked me up with some delicious rice & stew, enriched it up with some salad and talia (local spagehtti) alongside my Fanta, Pepsi , Coke or Malt (..I had a choice you know..lol )
When these days came, smiles were always on my face. With my food, drink and digestive biscuit packed in a basket, I would make my way to school. Remember this is my food, cooked by my own mother and yet the wife of my school’s Proprietor would hijack all our food till 12 noon. As our tongues engorged in our saliva mouths, ready to fast eat our food, the area boys would also be on standby ready to parasite or beg.
At around 12 noon, the hijacked food would be granted Amnesty by Her Imperial Majesty, Madam Proprietor’s wife but it cannot be eaten. My teacher will shout out “Class Stand, eyes close, the Lords prayer…”
As we recite the Lords prayer wrongly since we never knew the right words, my teacher would be moving from table to table with the biggest plate and spoon I have ever seen in my life taking bits of everyone’s food, catching up on our eggs and meat. (Geez! It hurts!)
Let me throw out a bit of light on life outside schooling hours. I was born on Tuesday and as such the name is Kwabena, if I am lucky some will call me Kobi and the old ones who claim to have come to the hospital when I was born will give out Kwabena Agyapong. (Digging out all the hidden names)
Every micro second of my life out of school was about “Sending”( Asoma soma nkoaa). Kwabena, go and buy me Maggie cube when the person just came from the market. On my way back after securing the item sent for, the next house neighbour knowingly how scorching the sun is out there and knowing that I am just coming back from the shop would also give me another send.( Kwabena, get this money and go buy me some milk if not charcoal from the charcoal seller, the woman who had some weirdo dogs in her house)
“Sending be what”, my slippers (charley watey) never lasted long, my feet was always dusty and legs were always tired from all the sending-ranging from going to buy bulbs to calling area girls for area boys. I was literally the hood freelance messenger. Neighbours were sending me on errands; Uncles were doing it and “Grannys” were also doing it.
Basically, everyone older than me had the prerogative to use my services. Oh! Growing up in Ghana was adventurous, perplexing and loving but the sending was too much… What was your experience?
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We have changed the Menu “Tips” to “Blog” under which we will file our weekly motivational messages, weekly discussions, love and relationship write ups & advice, tips on various electronic gadgets, tips of important things, blog on social issues, blog on experiences and other interesting issues.
We would of course be doing this along side the usual celebrity news, gossips, articles, interviews etc in other togive the site a wider outlook and appeal to all round of people.
lol, this gave me a good laugh,thanx man.
This is an interesting piece. It really brought me some memeories, I remember those yellow bottled Fanta so well. Home works, i did like them one bit . It was a good experience growing up in Ghana and I will surely take my children back to Ghana to experience some of the good things youngsters get in Ghana when i eventually have kids.
I absolutely love hearing and sharing stories of personal experiences as this 🙂 it made me smile….great detail, I could truly imagine.
Sending be wat! lol … parents and adults sent kids to go get almost EVERYTHING. ad3n!! I even have a childhood friend who’s father sent him many times to go buy cigarettes. That wasn’t right.
@ghallday,
That is ridiculous, his own father was sending him to buy cigarettes ? Hope your friend didnt turn into a smoker at last…lol
LOOOL, love this writeup, i could relate to everything you said, hated MOndays, hated mental, i think those were the bittersweet days of my life. Thanks for giving me a moment of nostalgia:)
@babynf,
Bitter sweetdays indeed, most of these times were filled with less money at our disposal but one thing i know most of us hard was SMILES on our faces. We had the smiles and the adventurous experiences… They have made us what we are today and what we would be tomorrow…
i totally can relate to this story..I have experienced all the things u mentioned in the story…It brought back great memories..oh how I wish i can experience it one more time..one I also remember was the public toilet and the garbage place “boolaso” thing..growing up on the streets of kumasi and living in a compound house wasn’t easy..everytime i needed to ease myself or throw away the trash i will have to walk about 15 to 20 mins to a nearby public toilet to do so..mind u it wasn’t free koraa..u either pay or u can’t s***..I have find myself in very difficult situations where i had no option but to ease myself at a nearby boolaso cuz i didn’t have money or i couldn’t wait in line any longer for my turn..I needed to go asap lol..I must say some of my experience with this public toilet thing was not pleasant at all…those experience, i will never want to live them again but is all gud cuz now i have some nasty experience to talk abt..One of my greatest moments in ghana is christmas times..wen christmas comes u know it’s christmas, u can just feel it.. I missed ghana christmas so much..great ghana memories indeed hmmmm
@nanayaa,
Well said Nanayaa, those adventures and experiences made growing in Ghana a unique journey. Children had freedom of mind, learnt quick and we always looked for alternative ways to get things done as children.
Such moments of ours life really defines the person, these moments serve as the fountainhead of our upbringing, our values, percepts and morals. Unconsciously, we learned alot as children growing up in those Ghanaian conditions. Wherever we find ourselves in life, we will suitably fit in and use all that we learned as children…
Vincent why are you such a thief, why do you go around stealing ppls hard work, i know exactly what other ghanaian blog you stole this topic from. Be creative for ones and stop stealings ppls work – and always making up stories of ghana celebs to generate traffic, you are really building your reputation amongst bloggers as the biggest THIEF.
@Abena,
Abena, i appreciate your reading (that is even if you read it rather that just saw the TOPIC and decided to comment without reading since it was too long for you to even start a reading) but can you please let me know what blog i stole the TOPIC from. And the word is TOPIC right?… how can one steal a topic? I have read about growing about in Ghetto America and it’s adventures, Growing up in India and the various problems.,Adventures of growing up Scandinavia, Cold was an enemy, etc ..
I have read several articles on one topic. So what is stealing about writing your own experience about a topic? This is ridiculous . How many people have written or blogged about How To Get Rich or How To be Successful in Life or How to Make Money from Online? So anytime someone writes on a topic that another person has written without even using any word from the person’s book, write up or something makes the person a thief in writing?
This is your opinion anyway but I would love to read about the other blogger who wrote about his experience in Ghana and if they were the same as mine or have same insight then it could be be shadow, otherwise it would be very good for you to rethink about calling bloggers thieves just because 2, 3 or more people write on the same TOPIC.
This is the first time in my academic life to hear that you can not write on a topic or express your opinion on a TOPIC because someone has already done it and if you do, you become a blog thief.. Amazing…. I am writing on how to be a succesful blogger, more than 1 million people have already written on this topic already,I guess it makes me a thief right? I am beginning to wonder a topic that someone has not written about it or have not expressed opinion…
Creativity is being able to pull different content from a topic… I remember my Creative writing tutor throwing one topic to a class of about 30 and saying, now show your creative writing skills, the fact that we all wrote different content and experience on one topic makes us some writing thieves right?
I just did put the topic in google and only found this post plus other sites that have already copied this post and have sourced me, so please provide the link. Thanks
Vincent, let me tell you one thing as a follow blogger with my own site. You will get failed bloggers and other Ghanaian bloggers who evny your work, your site and the poularity you have got for this site coming here in an attempt to trash your work.
Do not pay attention to them. I have enjoyed reading this site the very day i came across it and i am hoping my blog site would be become huge like this as well. I would not be suprise if Abena is a blogger who is struggling to get even 5 readers to her site and therefore envies your site’s popularity and quality content. Do dont stop or pay mind and the sky would be your limit.
Let me add this, the best creative writer and blogger is the one who is able to even write better on a topic than the one who started the topic. A topic is there for everyone to write and relate to and after reading your post, i can truely relate to it so if I go about and write about the same topic or heading which i would do in some few days on my blog in relations to my own experience and if I am able to do it better than you did, I become the best creative writer.
It is either that Abena is hating or she just does not know what creative writing and blogging is all about. Wish you luck in your blogging life. As young as you are, you can do great with writing if you keep it going and dont look back to the haters behind you since surely they would want to get to where you are.
haaahaa lol chris u had me crackin up chaley watey’ lol. u definetely brought back sm old memories. thanx
I am just making a blog related to this. If you allow, I would like to use some of your content. And with full refernce of course. Thanks in advance.
– Josh
GROWING UP IN GHANA WAS GREAT IN IT’S OWN WAY.SCHOOL WAS FANTASTIC APART FROM THE USUAL MATHEMATICS WHICH I HATE.I LOVED THE-DICTATIONS AND THE SPELLING-BEES.LIFE WAS SO COOL IN OXFORD PREPARATORY IN ACCRA, TILL I FOUND MYSELF IN VOLTA REGION WHERE WE SOMETIMES BREAK SCHOOLING TO HELP OUT WITH THE FISHERMEN AT THE SEASIDE BY PULLING THE FISHNET OUT OF THE MIGHTY OCEAN.ALL IN RESPECT AND SUPPORT OF PARENTS-TEACHER ASSOCIATION FEE-SO THEY SAY.IT’S JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS.