WHEN I WAS AN ASANTE CHILD

I was a child,

I was once a child in Ghana,

Why won’t I be wild?

I was once a child

I was a child from the slums of Asante Ghana,

Nothing fell from the sky like manna

So I can never be mild

My first lesson was to cry, without any pampering, to my fill.

Eating ‘fufu’ at the month of six

Couldn’t in any way me kill

But rather my body fix

‘Kakaduro, mako’ conniving with the toddler of water in one fold, was my suppository

‘Nwura-nwura, dua bra, nkasei-nkasei, kakaduro, suro ne f)m wisa, mako’ with father water seived into ‘bentua’,

Travelling through my rear into my body,

Was my healing agent cum punishment

I was vexed in stories of witches and wizards so much so, that I could many in poetry recite

Hawking the busy streets with ‘br)de3, bankye, akwadu, emi edj) ei ise, kube

Not to talk of new inventions, while on the watch out for ‘aaba ei’

Were my strengthening mechanisms into independence

Being faster than the ‘trotro’ bus

Was a must so I made no fuss

Why won’t I be wild?

Being slapped with hot iron hands to inculcate the sacred respect

With no parent interested in body inspection for wounds

But rather invoking many lashes that came together with the ‘atuiya’ crew 

Was my knowledge of my  parents’ love.

Any elder, except of course those at logger heads with my parents, was my ‘discipliner’

Who could make me ‘wild’

When any of his human number happened to be wrongly dialed by me

Walking in gravels amidst sunshine-like-fire barefooted

Was considered to be getting me rooted

So I walked with calculations, lest I dismantled my ‘chalew)te’ and suffered 

I bathed with a blowy soap called ‘azuma blows’

Which hardened clothes run from

And I still stood strong

I was a proud child of Asante Ghana

I was once a child of Asante Ghana

I was made positively wild

Why will I wish to be mild?

  Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2013.