Wednesday, February 19, 2014
- Survive school
- Supper
- Help Sarfoa with homework if she has any (make sure she studies for an hour if she doesn’t)
- Study
I couldn’t wait for Chidi to pull up to our gate on Wednesday morning. I’d managed to solve the Sudoku puzzle and I thrust it right into his hand when I sat down.
“Typical,” he muttered as he cross-checked it.
“Typical? It’s Wednesday. You said I had to hand it in today.”
“Typical type A.”
“You’re not making sense,” I said as Maa Sarfoa climbed in.
“Seat belts.”
I reached for my seat belt and strapped myself in.
“Maa Sarfoa, what’s wrong?” Chidi asked.
“Nothing,” Sarfoa said strapping herself in and looking out the window.
“What’s a type A?” I asked Chidi.
“What’s wrong with Sarfoa?” he asked me.
“She doesn’t want to go to school because it’s her turn to tell a story during their story time period and she doesn’t know any. What’s a type A?”
“It’s supposed to be only Ananse stories,” Sarfoa said glaring at me from the back seat like somehow it was my fault she didn’t know any Ananse stories.
“Don’t you know any Ananse stories?” Chidi asked.
“Me? No. I mean yes. I only know the one about how wisdom came into the world and someone in her class has already said that one. Dad looked some up for her on the net but some other people have already told those ones too. I told her she could tell Cinderella, Snow White or something. Dad said she could tell a Bible story.”
“It’s supposed to be stories from the tribe you come from,” Sarfoa clarified.
Chidi lowered the volume on the stereo. “Do you know the one about Ananse and his new wife? He asked God to give him a wife with no mouth on her face.”
“And God gave him a wife with a mouth in her armpit.
Someone already said that one,” Sarfoa said.
“How about the one where he asked to be buried on his farm?”
“And he got stuck on the sticky person his family made? Someone said that too.”
“How about why he’s bald?”
“Because of the beans? Akua said that one.”
“And the one about the bearded rock?”
“Kyei said that one.”
Chidi puffed out his cheeks and blew out.
“How many are you in your class?”
“Twenty,” Sarfoa said.
“How about why the spider has long legs?”
That got Sarfoa’s attention.
“Why Ananse has long legs? No one has said that one yet.”
“Okay, then you will. Once upon a time, a long time ago, when animals could talk and there were no humans on the earth, spiders had very short legs. Their legs were as short as a caterpillar’s. You know Ananse is never satisfied with what he has, don’t you?”
I nodded even though the question was directed at Sarfoa.
“Ananse loved to eat so even though his wife made delicious food for him, he still wanted to eat what his neighbours were eating.”
Sarfoa giggled, “He was an ehwa.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A sponger,” I said.
Chidi nodded.
“But Ananse’s problem was that usually by the time he had finished eating his lunch, his neighbours had also finished having their lunch. So he thought and thought and thought and finally came up with a plan. He asked his wife to make his lunch an hour early so that by noon, he would have finished eating his food and could eat with his neighbours.
The next afternoon, after his lunch of rice and egg stew, he went to the dog’s house. Dog was busy pounding fufu. He asked Ananse to stay for lunch but Ananse said he had work to do on his farm so he couldn’t stay but he’d come by later for some of the fufu. The truth was he didn’t want to help pound the fufu.
‘But how will you know the fufu is ready?’ Dog asked. ‘Here, have one of the webbed strings from my leg,’ Ananse
said, ‘just pull it when the fufu is ready and I’ll come.’
The dog agreed to do this and Ananse left but he didn’t go to his farm, he went to Chicken’s house. Chicken was mashing yam for ɔtɔ. Once again, Ananse didn’t want to stay and help with preparation of the meal, but he left a string of his web from his second leg. Next he went to the goat’s house. Goat was preparing banku with fried fish and pepper but Ananse didn’t want to fry the fish so he left the string.
Then Ananse went to the cat’s house. Cat was preparing jollof and needed someone to fan his coal pot. Ananse made his excuse and left his string. Then Ananse went to Rabbit’s house. Rabbit was peeling yams and plantains. Ananse left his string there as well. Then he went to the monkey who was sorting beans for red red. Ananse left his string there before he could be asked to help. Ananse went to the hawk’s house. Hawk was making waakye for lunch. Ananse left his string with the hawk. Then Ananse went to the rat who was also pounding fufu and making palm soup. Ananse didn’t want to help with the pounding of either the cassava or the palm fruits. He left his last string there and went home to relax under a mango tree.
About an hour later, Ananse felt the first tug of the string. ‘Ah, that must be Dog. The fufu must be ready now. Just as he got up and he was about to walk in the direction of Dog’s house, the second string was pulled. And then the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth. Ananse was being tugged in all directions. He couldn’t even move. When he tried moving in the direction of Dog’s house for the fufu, the string from Cat pulled him for the jollof. When he tried going to Cat’s house for the jollof, the string from Goat pulled him to come for the banku and fried fish. After trying without success to untangle himself from the strings, Ananse called for help and his wife came to cut him loose but the damage had already been done. The strings had pulled his legs and made them long and thin and that is why spiders have long thin legs.”
“Oh, thank you, Chidi, that’s a lovely story,” Maa Sarfoa said.
She told the story to Chidi twice to make sure she’d get it right. We got to her school just as she got to the end the second time. She was out of the car before Chidi had fully parked.
“Did you make that up?” I asked after Sarfoa turned to wave at us from the school gate. She disappeared into the school compound a minute later.
“No, my mom told me Ananse stories when I was a kid. I mean I don’t remember the exact animals and the foods but the storyline’s the same. My mom said her grandmother told them to her when she was a child. Her grandmother raised her.”
“That was a nice thing you did for Sarfoa. Thank you.” Chidi turned to look at me as he pulled into a parking spot
in front of the high school section of KICS.
“She’s a sweet girl. You should take it easy with her.”
“Preaching.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”
. I am loving the language
