Ipods in Accra Read online

  ‘So, Makeeda, almost done now. How do you feel?’ Mum asked.

  That was one question I was still wasn’t sure how to answer. I’d nearly completed the ceremony and all I could think was … it was OK. I didn’t suddenly have access to lots of superior Ghanaian cultural knowledge and I didn’t feel that different, so it was kind of … OK.

  The next three days were the strangest I’d ever experienced. It was the last part of the bragoro and I did nothing. I was allowed to do absolutely nothing! Every time I went to do something, someone else got there first. It took Delphy and Tanisha a good few harsh looks from Nana-Adowa and Nana-Amma before they realised that they had to be at my beck and call, too.

  Naturally, I milked it. I mean, I deserved it after going through the ceremony and those months of revision and exam stress! I even had Mum actually putting body lotion on me, and it wasn’t the stuff that came out of a bottle, but shea butter in its most natural state that glided across my skin and made it really soft.

  For those three days, Nana-Amma’s home became an all-female enclave. We ate and drank, and I listened to the words spoken by Nana-Adowa and Nana-Amma as they explained the secrets of womanhood. I had to turn away at some parts as Tanisha gave me looks of complete horror, and sometimes Mum and Auntie Leila could be heard coughing out some of their own laughter at the embarrassing comments their mothers made. I knew that I probably wasn’t going to need most of this stuff back in England for ages, so I wasn’t too bothered.

  I was still being fed the most gorgeous food – so gorgeous that, even when I realised that my clothing was becoming a bit tight, I didn’t mind too much. Nana-Amma and Nana- Adowa told me that the extra weight was on purpose, to help me find a husband. I could see Tanisha and Delphy nodding their heads in a sarcastic way, just out of the nanas’ sight. I wondered what Nick would say when I turned up in London with my extra curves.

  My skin was glowing from all the fresh fruit and shea butter, and even my hair was growing from the conditioning treatments I was being given. I barely had time to miss listening to my iPod or check for texts on my phone.

  The last night came and I was dressed in special Kente Adwinisa – gold-coloured Kente with many different patterns and colours. Then I received presents from Nana-Adowa and Nana-Amma in the form of gold bangles and necklaces. Tanisha gave me her lip-gloss, which I’d been eyeing since I saw her use it, but she said mysteriously that my real present would be in England soon.

  The next day I had to go to everyone’s homes to thank them for all the help and presents I’d been given throughout the ceremony. It was great to finally be out of Nana-Amma’s house, but I was aware that all I was doing was entering someone else’s to say thank you and not really getting into the fresh air. After the tenth ‘medaase’, I was ready to head home.

  When we got there, Comfort gave me a present from Nick’s nana next door. She had called by while I was out. It was a beautiful necklace with a turquoise pendant. It was so stunning. I hadn’t seen this woman since I was five or something, yet she knew just what I’d like.

  ‘Mum, I’m just going next door to say thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Ooh, I’m coming too,’ Tanisha said. ‘I haven’t seen Nana in such a long time.’

  ‘Good. Don’t stay too late, though, you know she’s an old lady.’

  Tanisha and I walked to the small gate that separated the two compounds, knocked, then waited for the watchman to open it.

  The door opened and Nick stared back at us.

  ‘All right?’ he said, grinning.

  I leaped into his arms and he actually swung me around. For like a minute.

  ‘Makeeda, calm down,’ Tanisha said. ‘Nick, Nick, please put her down?’

  ‘You never said you were coming!’ I said. I shot Tanisha a look for making Nick put me down. I could have had a pure Hollywood moment, if it hadn’t been for her.

  ‘I know,’ Nick replied. ‘I just wanted to surprise you and see my nana.’

  Then we both took a step away from each other. It was like we were both a bit embarrassed about the way we’d hugged. Our eyes were glued to each other. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought everyone would hear it. I could vaguely hear Tanisha, but she was just like background noise – my attention was fixed on Nick. He looked so different: his hair had gone completely, and his new shaved look made his green eyes stand out. He looked great!

  Finally Tanisha broke into my thoughts.

  ‘So you get a new hottie look, and forget to say hello? Or are your manners getting as bad as Makeeda’s?’

  ‘Sorry. Hi, Tanisha!’ Nick said, hugging Tanisha.

  ‘Hi yourself!’ she said, grinning. ‘Is your nana in?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nick said, but he was still staring at me.

  I was actually too excited to speak.

  ‘Oh come on! I’m not spending the rest of my holiday with you two acting all goofy!’ Tanisha said and she headed straight into the house.

  Nick was here, with me, in Ghana. This was the best present ever.

  Chapter 11

  Dating, Kumasi-style

  It had been three days since my bragoro ended, but it felt like a week; I had only spent about three hours with Nick and that included time spent with other relatives too. Today was going to be very different. He’d managed to get out of seeing every relative under the sun and promised we could actually go out on a date. As we hadn’t told our parents about the shift in our relationship, we were doing so as friends and in a group, with Kofi and Tanisha. I was glad Delphy had gone to stay with Auntie Leila and Uncle Paolo, because otherwise she’d have wanted to hang out with Nick, too. I wasn’t looking forward to telling her about how I felt about Nick, as she’d had a crush on him for about eight years!

  ‘Stop pouting!’ Tanisha told me as I stared out the window. ‘He said he’d be here at eleven and it’s not even ten-fifteen yet.

  Do you know what you’re wearing?’

  ‘No, can I borrow —’

  ‘No!’ she interrupted.

  ‘Tanisha, please?’

  ‘Listen,’ Tanisha began poking my hips, ‘you didn’t have to eat everything they fed to you at your bragoro!’

  I gasped in mock shock. ‘You know it was part of the process.’

  ‘Hmm … maybe you should’ve thought about the effect on your wardrobe!’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Yeah, just because I’m finally catching up with you,’ I said admiring my increased bust and hips.

  ‘Oh please, you’d need surgery to catch up with me!’ Tanisha said and we laughed.

  We finally went through her entire wardrobe (well, the tiny section she’d brought in three cases from America) to see if there was something pretty I could wear. In the end, I settled for a mustard-coloured T-shirt, a blue skirt and sandals.

  While we waited for Nick and Kofi, Comfort was chatting with Tanisha and me about the houseboy a few houses away who had won a scholarship to one of Ghana’s top boarding schools, but was afraid to take it because his current earnings supported his family and, without that, they’d be left with nothing. I couldn’t imagine having that kind of pressure on me at the age of eleven. It wasn’t unusual for children to work as maids or servants. If they were lucky, their education was paid for by their employers and, if not, they never got an education at all. In Ghana, education wasn’t free like it was in England, so everyone had to pay school fees. I think that’s why Mum and Dad made such a big deal when Delphy and I moaned about school. I got caught bunking a few years ago and I got more than grounded – no phone, no internet and no social life. It still makes me shudder; even Delphy was sympathetic.

  When the doorbell rang, I jumped up and almost ran to the front door. I was on high Nick alert, and I was nervy.

  Tanisha spilled her drink chasing after me. ‘Makeeda! Makeeda!’

  ‘Isn’t opening the door my job?’ Comfort asked, confused at my behaviour.

  ‘Hey, London cousin!’ Kofi was standing there with open arms an
d a huge smile.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. I could barely conceal my disappointment.

  ‘Come on, I brought fresh pineapples and watermelons,’ he said, handing them to Comfort. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. She’s waiting for her friend,’ Tanisha replied.

  We headed into the living room, where Kofi grabbed the control and changed it to CNN.

  ‘Oh help yourself!’ Tanisha said.

  ‘This is my home too,’ he said in Twi.

  ‘Kofi ni?’ Mum called from the garden.

  ‘Auntie?’ Kofi replied and Comfort deftly handed him a plate with the pineapple he had just brought with him, peeled and sliced. Comfort was the quickest pineapple peeler ever! All the local maids were sent to Nana-Amma’s to get basic training, because Comfort was seen as the perfect maid. She was fifteen like me – I couldn’t believe how different our lives were. Nana- Amma had sent her to school and tried to persuade her to go beyond Ghana’s equivalent of secondary school. But she wasn’t interested – she said she liked working for Nana-Amma and felt she knew enough, and she was saving up to travel around Europe.

  ‘Medaase, Comfort,’ Kofi said, smiling, and he took the plate out to Mum and Nana-Amma.

  ‘Makeeda, what was that?’ Tanisha asked, smirking when he’d gone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nice try. You can’t keep jumping up like a love-struck puppy, every time someone comes to the door, or treat them mean just because they’re not Nick!’ Tanisha said.

  ‘I wasn’t that bad,’ I said, avoiding eye contact.

  Tanisha looked at me in disbelief. ‘Maybe not on your own scale of freak out, but regular folk consider that just plain rude!’

  ‘All right, I’ll apologise. I don’t need Kofi blabbing to anyone.’

  ‘He wouldn’t. Besides, I’ve got plenty on him from when he came to stay with me and Dad last summer.’ Tanisha smiled.

  ‘Really?’ I said, interested. I couldn’t imagine Kofi doing anything majorly bad.

  ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘What? Come on, Tanisha.’

  ‘Nope. Anyway, shouldn’t lover-boy be here by now?’ she said, looking at her watch.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, breaking into a grin. I stood up, but Tanisha pushed me back down on the chair.

  ‘You’re staying in here till I come and get you. There is no way you’re embarrassing the good family name by acting like a Desperate Daisy on my watch.’

  ‘But …’ I protested.

  ‘Makeeda, do you want Nick to think of you as a sophisticated, gorgeous and intelligent woman?’ Tanisha questioned.

  ‘All of the above, please!’ I said, nodding eagerly.

  ‘Or as a Desperate Daisy, displaying a dance of romantic destruction?’

  ‘Easy for you to say …’ I began but was interrupted by a knock at the main door.

  ‘Ohmigod, he’s here!’ I said, jumping up; but Tanisha’s look alone was enough to make me crash-land my rear end on the chair. She left me in the living room, twiddling my thumbs.

  I knew Tanisha was right about making sure I didn’t appear too desperate, but I also knew there was no way all that Desperate Daisy stuff just randomly flew out of her head. I started scanning the room for a copy of one her magazines. You see, despite Tanisha’s stuff about feminism, she couldn’t live without her magazines. I was just hunting around when she caught me.

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Nothing. I, um, dropped my bangle.’

  ‘It’s on your wrist. Lover-boy’s here, come on. Oh and fix your hair.’

  I quickly checked myself out in the mirror. I looked curvier than I was last month, but I also had amazing skin and hair – thanks to all the natural oils used on me. My hair was in braids again; this time they were a blend of brown and red.

  I walked into the garden and saw Nick seated next to Kofi and Nana-Amma.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, smiling.

  He had automatically raised himself from his chair as Tanisha and I went to sit down – his manners had definitely improved since he’d been back in Ghana.

  We made polite conversation with Nana-Amma and Mum, but we were all itching to leave. Nick and I could barely stop staring at each other. I wondered if he liked the new curvier me, or preferred the old version. He was smiling at me, but he was also smiling at the things Nana-Amma was telling him about the bragoro. She couldn’t tell him everything, as some of the details were meant to be shrouded in mystery and for women only.

  I kept gazing at his hair. Well, where his hair would’ve been. It was so weird to see him without his long ringlets. He looked really different – his eyes were clearer in this light and his skin seemed brighter, unless it was the sun playing tricks on me. Tanisha had to nudge me to stop staring at him, as I was being too obvious. Minutes later, she suggested we leave and I noticed Nick looked relieved. As we made our way to Kofi’s car, Nick’s hand brushed against mine and we instinctively smiled at each other.

  We sat in the back of Kofi’s car in silence as Tanisha’s ramblings about the best bars and clubs to go to floated between herself and Kofi. Our hands were almost touching in the small seat space between us. The roads were divided up by rows of palm trees, and the traffic ranged from trucks stuffed full with brightly coloured oranges, mangos and pineapples to trotros (mini vans) packed full of tourists and Ghanaians. Dad had warned Delphy and me to be careful about which trotro we chose to ride in. He suspected that some of them were around when he was living in Ghana and that was nearly twenty years ago!

  We drove past a huge radio station by the University of Kumasi. We had only two near-accidents involving taxi cabs, but, to be honest, I wasn’t sure why Kofi came so close to hitting them – they were easy to see, with their red and yellow body panels. We played a game of spot the tourist, as it seemed like they were the only people using their indicators.

  ‘Kofi, can you drop us off here, please?’ Nick asked.

  ‘What by the …?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick interrupted. He gave Kofi a look. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  ‘Oh no, I’ve left my phone at my nana’s,’ I said, checking my bag.

  ‘Take my phone, Makeeda. We can call you and pick you up later,’ Tanisha said.

  ‘I hope you’ve got a Ghanaian chip! I don’t want to have to buy a phone card just to call your mobile,’ Kofi said.

  ‘Oh come on! Are you going to leave your English cousin in the middle of town with no means of communication, because you’re too tight to call her?’ Tanisha asked.

  ‘Well, no …’ Kofi said, looking sheepish. It was nice to see that Tanisha could even embarrass an older cousin in an argument.

  ‘OK, thanks for the lift. See you later.’ I followed Nick out of the car, wondering where we were going and pocketing Tanisha’s mobile phone.

  ‘Hurry up, Makeeda,’ Nick said, setting off at a pace. We walked for a few minutes in the heat and against a wave of people heading to the shops for lunch; he kept me close by, holding my hand. This was a busy part of Kumasi and felt a bit like London, as not everyone was Ghanaian. I saw Chinese workers having lunch, a Japanese family going for a walk, plus the people walking in and out of the NGO building in the distance.

  We walked into a huge courtyard.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked.

  ‘Just wait.’

  I looked up and I saw the sign: Manshiya Palace.

  ‘Ohmigod!’ I said excitedly. I ran into the building, leaving Nick on the doorstep.

  ‘Charming!’ Nick said, following me in.

  We were standing in a museum that held all the history of the Asante Kingdom. The walls were peach and the two huge rooms, one on each floor, were packed with displays and waxwork dummies of famous chiefs with placards explaining who everyone was.

  Nick let me explore the museum at my own pace, which was great. It didn’t feel like I needed to be holding his hand to feel connected to him.

  The windows on each floor allowed a burst of light
to penetrate each room and illuminated the features of the waxwork dummies. I allowed my hand to caress the face of a woman dressed in Kente. There was no placard next her – she was nameless.

  ‘This is just unbelievable,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Apparently the waxworks are from London.’

  ‘What Madame Tussauds?’

  ‘Hmm …’ He nodded.

  Nick stepped closer to me and moved a stray braid behind my ear. It looked like he was thinking of kissing me but changed his mind. He gave me a wink and went to look at the swords to my left.

  ‘It’s a shame the Yaa-Asantewaa Museum hasn’t reopened yet,’ I said, following him. I’d been upset when I’d heard that the museum dedicated to her had burned down in a fire some years earlier. Yaa-Asantewaa, Queen Mother of the Ejisu, had been my topic for my Black History Month project, the previous school year. I chose her despite my history teacher’s resistance, and I ended up getting an A.

  ‘Actually, close your eyes a minute.’ He had a gleam in his eye.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just do it, I want to show you something.’

  I closed my eyes and allowed Nick to carefully lead me upstairs.

  ‘Open them!’ he said with a flourish.

  There in front of me was a waxwork dummy of a woman with deep-brown skin, holding a rifle.

  ‘Err …’

  ‘Makeeda, don’t you know who it is?’

  I stared blankly at him.

  ‘Your history project!’

  ‘No way!’ I said excitedly. ‘I can’t believe you remembered!’

  ‘Well, you did just drop a colossal hint, and you nearly bored me to death when you were writing it,’ Nick replied with a grin.

  I hit him.

  ‘Hey, I just did something nice for you!’ he said, laughing.

  ‘Come on then, take a photograph of us!’

  Nick immediately took a photograph of me standing next to Yaa-Asantewaa’s dummy.

  Although Nick didn’t let me forget that I hadn’t recognised the dummy for the rest of the afternoon, I really enjoyed myself at the museum. Finally we headed out and began walking along the courtyard. We were stopped by a man holding out what looked like a gold staff.