The Girl Who Can
They say that I was born in Hasodzi, and it is a very big village in the Central Region of our country, Ghana. They also say that when all of Africa is not choking under a drought, Hasodzi lies in a very fertile lowland in a district known for its good soil. Maybe that is why anytime I don’t finish eating my food, Nana says, “You, Adjoa, you don’t know what life is about ... you don’t know what problems there are in this life ...”
As far as I could see, there was only one problem. And it had nothing to do with what I knew Nana considered as “problems” or what Maami thinks of as “the problem.” Maami is my mother. Nana is my mother’s mother. And they say I am seven years old. My problem is that, at seven years of age, there are things I can think in my head, but for which, maybe, I do not have the proper language to express. And that, I think, is a very serious problem. Because it is always difficult to decide: whether to keep quiet and not say any of the things that come into my head, or say them and get laughed at. Not that it is easy to get any grown-up to listen to you even when you decide to take the risk and say something serious to them.
Take Nana. First, I have to struggle to catch her attention. Then I tell her something I had taken a long time to figure out. And do you know what always happens? She would at once stop whatever she is doing, and with her mouth open, stare at me for a very long time. Then, bending and turning her head slightly, so that one ear comes down towards me, she’ll say in that voice, “Adjoa, you say what?” After I have repeated whatever I had said, she would either, still in that voice, ask me to “never, never, but NEVER repeat THAT,” or she would immediately burst out laughing. She would laugh and laugh and laugh, until tears run down her cheeks, and she would stop whatever she was doing and wipe away the tears with the hanging edges of her cloth. She would continue laughing until she was completely tired. But then, as soon as another person came by, just to make sure she didn’t forget whatever it was I had said, she would repeat it to them. And then, of course, there would be two old people laughing and screaming with tears running down their faces. Sometimes this show continues until there are three, four, or even more of such laughing and screaming tear-faced grown-ups. And all that performance over whatever I’d said? I find something quite confusing in all of this. That is, no one ever explains to me why sometimes I shouldn’t repeat some things I say; while at other times, some other things I say would not only be all right, but would be considered so funny that they would be repeated so many times for so many people’s enjoyment.
You see how neither way of hearing me out is a sad business. And you know, such things do not encourage me to express my thoughts too often.
Like all this business about my legs. I have always wanted to tell them not to worry. I mean Nana and my mother. That it did not have to be an issue for my two favorite people to fight over. But I didn’t want either to tell me not to repeat that, or for it to be considered so funny that anyone would laugh at me until they cried. After all, they were my legs. When I think back on it now, though, Nana and my mother must have been discussing my legs from the day I was born. What I am sure of is that when I came out of the land of sweet, soft silence into the world of noise and comprehension, the first topic I met was my legs.
That discussion was repeated very regularly.
Nana: “As I keep saying, if any woman decides to come into this world with all of her two legs, then she should select legs that have meat on them: with good calves. Because you are sure such legs would support solid hips. And a woman must have solid hips to be able to have children.”
“Oh, Mother.” That’s how my mother would answer, very, very quietly. And the discussion would end, or they would move on to something else.
Sometimes Nana would pull in something about my father.
“How, looking at such a man, we have to be humble and admit that after all, God’s children are many.”
“How, after one’s only daughter had insisted on marrying a man like that, you still have to thank your God that the biggest problem you got later was having a granddaughter with spindly legs that are too long for a woman and too thin to be of any use.”
The way she always added that bit about my father under her breath, she probably thought I didn’t hear it. But I always heard it. Plus, that is what always shut my mother up for good, so that even if I had not actually heard the words, once my mother looked like she had heard them, I would guess why.
"Legs that have meat on them with good calves to support solid hips … to be able to have children.”
So, I wished that one day I would see, for myself, the legs of any woman who had had children. But in our village, that is not easy. The older women wear long wrap-arounds all the time. Perhaps if they let me go bathe in the river in the evening, I could have checked. But I never had the chance. It took a lot of begging just to get my mother and Nana to let me go splash around in the shallow end of the river with my friends, who were other little girls like me. For proper baths, we used the small bathhouse behind our hut. Therefore, the only naked female legs I have ever really seen are those of other little girls like me. Or older girls in the school. And those of my mother and Nana: two pairs of legs which must surely belong to the approved kind; because Nana gave birth to my mother, and my mother gave birth to me. In my eyes, all my friends have got legs that look like legs. But whether the legs have got meat on them to support the kind of hips that … that I don’t know.
According to the older boys and girls, the distance between our little village and the small town is about five kilometres. I don’t know what five kilometres means. After all, there was a secret about me they couldn’t be expected to share with anyone. But then Nana herself looked so pleased, out of surprise, that my mother shut her mouth up.
They always complain about how long it is to walk to school and back. But to me, we live in our village, and walking those kilometres didn’t matter. School is nice. School is another thing Nana and my mother discussed often and appeared to have different ideas about. Nana thought it would be a waste of time. I never understood why — except maybe because she didn’t go to school. So, if I, her daughter, could learn to write and read my own name and a little besides — perhaps be able to calculate some things on paper — that would be good. I could always marry later and maybe.
Nana would just laugh. “Ah, maybe with legs like hers, she might as well go to school.”
Running with our classmates on our small sports field and winning first place each time never seemed to me to be anything about which to tell anyone at home. This time it was different. I don’t know how the teachers decided to let me run for the junior section of our school in the district games. But they did.
When I went home to tell my mother and Nana, they had not believed it at first. So, Nana had taken it upon herself to go and “ask into it properly.” She came home to tell my mother that it was really true. I was one of my school’s runners.
“Is that so?” exclaimed my mother. I know her. Her mouth moved as though she was going to tell Nana, “After all, there was a secret about me she couldn’t be expected to share with anyone.” But Nana herself looked so pleased, out of surprise, that my mother shut her mouth up.
Since the first time they heard the news, I have often caught Nana staring at my legs with a strange look on her face, but still pretending like she was not looking. All this week, she has been washing my school uniform herself. That is a big surprise. And she didn’t stop at that. She even went to Mr. Mensah’s house and borrowed his charcoal pressing iron each time, came back home with it, and ironed and ironed and ironed the uniform until, if I had been the uniform, I would have said aloud that I had had enough.
Wearing my school uniform this week has been very nice. At the parade the first afternoon, it caught the rays of the sun and shone brighter than everybody else’s uniform. I’m sure Nana saw that too and must have liked it. Yes, she has been coming into town with us every afternoon of this district sports week. Each afternoon, she has pulled one set of fresh old cloth from the big brass bowl to wear. And those old clothes are always so stiffly starched, you can hear the cloth creak when she passes by. But she walks way behind us schoolchildren, as though she was on her own way to some place else.
Yes, I have won every race I ran in for my school, and I have won the cup for the best all-round junior athlete.
Yes, Nana said that she didn’t care if such things are not done. She would do it. Do you know what she did? She carried the gleaming cup on her back like they do with babies
Leave a comment behind