Mr. Bediako was one of the numerous Ghanaian teachers we had at Staff School, our primary school for kids. I don’t quite remember if his first name was Kwesi, or Kojo, or Kwame, but it was one of those Ghana names with a "K" in it. We called him "Acheampong" for short, although how Acheampong could be short for anything remains a mystery. We just knew that it was law in Ghana to either have your name start with "K" or end with "pong."
One morning, during "break time," Yomi Faparosu and I had gotten our "Fan Milk" packages and had settled in one corner to discuss the breaking news stories of the day: Charles Bassey had written his name on the bathroom floor using dubious methods; Temino, the giant (he was at least 5"8) had beaten up some person again.
It turned out the person was Isi Okigons’ kid brother. Now Isi was a girl who no one messed with. She would tie her sweater round her waste in a split second and deck the living daylights out of ANY baga! As we said back then. Well, word was that Temino and Isi were ready for a showdown, but Temino backed down by hiding in the toilet between the letters of Charles Basseys’ name.
Yomi had all the news, and I was envious. He always seemed to know what was going on in our primary school world. But I did have one snippet of information. I had been walking to the U.I sports field the other day, when I passed a couple of "boys quarters." I had seen Mr. Bediako stepping into one of them with a female companion and it aroused my curiosity.
Understandably, there are things which need to remain unknown, but I was quite the young Sherlock Holmes. I needed to know what was going down or who. So I crept to the window and looked in. And there I saw it! Mr. Bediako sat down on the chair across from the missus, and they played a game of scrabble. I was in a hurry so I only waited around for an hour and a half, but nothing else happened.
I relayed my story to Yomi who found it unbelievably amusing. That Mr. Bediako liked English was no surprise. All Ghanaians, we had come to understand, liked English. After all they spoke in such a refined way:
"Heh! Cam hay! Heh! Get me eh fek so det ah cen eet some
food. Heh! These man! How eh you? How is yer bratha? How
is yer sisteh? Is she still eh nerse?"
In fact, my uncle Magnus loved the way they spoke so much he tried to imitate them or develop his own brand of English: "Gaga, was that an Amraking movie?"
Huh?
Well, Yomi and I finished our conversation and went back to class. The crowd by the toilet had ceased trying to entice Temino to, like Lazarus, come forth. Isi, noticeably disappointed, put her shoes back on and sulked to class.
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