Ghana a Different Way of Life

Our cousin really introduced me to a different way of life anywhere in the world. She had a small shop attached to her house.  From there she sold children’s clothes and pure water.  Like many affluent African homes she employed a young girl from one of the villages. The present young girl I found very friendly and she had a great sense of humour.

Arguing with a Neighbour

This one day I came out and she was sitting back against the wall. I thought she was crying her body was shaking and she had tears running down her cheeks.  When I asked what was wrong she looked at me and burst out laughing.  She then pointed to our cousin’s bathroom and all she could say was aunty look.  I gingerly opened the door and there was our cousin stark naked standing at the window screaming down at the street. She was quite the size and her whole body was wobbling.

 A contractor had dumped sand in the street ready to repair potholes etc. the week before. On this day one of the neighbours had brought a wheelbarrow and was stealing the sand to use for some other purpose. Our cousin while bathing had heard the woman. She  jumped out of her bath, failed to cover up and ran to the very wide large window yelling abuse at the woman below.

The woman below was screaming abuse back to her.  I could not understand what was being said but the maid assured me both the women were using very strong language and many comments were being made about the state of dress of our cousin. For days after this I watched the house girl enact and tell the story of Aunty arguing with the woman next door to anyone who would listen.

There were so many such stories like this caused by our Cousin. I had never come across anyone like her and Francis was growing increasingly annoyed with her.

Francis and the Porridge arrest

One morning Francis rose around 3 am. He had an arrest to make in a small fishing village just out of town. The police needed to act early to find the criminals home. He quietly left the house and I fell back to sleep.  On rising I found a lovely breakfast had been arranged for me by him.  I was sitting on the balcony when I saw his car pull up.  As he walked though the gate I noticed his hair was covered in a white substance.  He came and greeted me and instantly I could see he was very angry. 

The police had entered the suspects compound. They found the woman of the house preparing porridge for the mornings breakfast. When they asked where her husband was instead of co-operating she took a pot and poured boiling hot porridge over Francis. He looked like a flock of seagulls had passed over him.  So that morning he and his team not only arrested their suspect his wife was arrested with him.

Policing in Ghana

Policing in Ghana was and still is very different from the Western World.  In those days the Police did not have many cars so as in this instance any officer who owned a car would use that car to transport his prisoners. The inside of his car was covered with porridge, so the first job he had was cleaning out his car.

On other occasions I travelled with him to the courts. On these occasions he was transporting his prisoners to the courts.  They were handcuffed to the back seat of the car and we rode in the front. The conversation was always very friendly and in Twi.  Later what I discovered about Francis on these occasions he always ensured the families of his prisoners were well taken care of if the prisoner was jailed. So I have no doubt he was gathering information from the prisoners on their family’s needs.