Dial - Season 2 - Episode 6

4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 6

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A week passed in a blur.
I stayed in the nsamanpowmu with the witch.
We went to her farm together, and she taught me the ways of the rural life. She taught me how to lay traps for bush rats and squirrels, how to tap palm wine, how to cut and replant foodstuffs like cassava and yam, how to pluck papaya and oranges.

It was a totally enjoyable and fruitful time, and I wondered time and again how I was adapting to a life which, a few days ago, might have repulsed me beyond end.

The only thing that I found a little bit hard to take was the water. She fetched it from a brook not far from the house. She sieved and boiled some, allowed it to cool down, then poured it into an earthenware pot that had been smoked over fire.

This gave the water a kind of nice scent, and made it comparatively good to drink, but I wasn’t very comfortable with its hygienic safety.

I resolved to do something about it.
It was on the third day that we came home from the farm and saw the lone figure of a man standing on the edge of the cocoa trees that led to Maame Ntiriwaa’s home.

She was carrying a basket filled with palm nut, vegetables, fruits and tubers.

I was carrying a half-sack of cassava, yam and plantain, and I was very tired.

We put them down in the kitchen, and then both of us stood looking at that figure up the slope.

“Now who could that be?” she asked with wonder on her face.

“A man, actually,” I said with a puzzled look.

She fixed me with a patient look and smiled.
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“This is the nsamanpowmu, Yao, the land of the dead,” she explained carefully as if to an errant child. “And no one ventures here alone. For any man to come this far is indeed, a great miracle.”

She walked up the incline to see the stranger, and I flopped into her reclining chair in the middle of the yard with weariness.

A few minutes later, she came back with a sad smile on her face.
“It is Tawiah, Yao,” she said gently. “He came back from the hospital in the city today. Her daughter was very well taken care of, and she is strong now. He wants to come and thank you for helping him out.”
I scowled at her.

“If he wants to show his gratitude, why’s he standing over there?” I asked, a little irritated, and she smiled and shook her head.
“This is the land of the cursed, Yao,” she said patiently. “Anybody who ventures in here brings a curse on himself and his family. The farthest anybody could come is the edge of the river. Tawiah has done extremely well to venture out here like this.”

“But they were able to come in here and arrest me?” I asked coldly. “What kind of logic is that, Maame?”
“The Fetish Priest, Okomfo Basabasa, cleansed those men before and after they came here,” she explained. “Anybody who comes here without being cleansed stood the chance of being banished from the village with his family! So Tawiah has done really well to come here.”

“He hasn’t done anything,” I said calmly. “The two of us are here. If he can’t come down here, then I’m afraid he’s wasted his time.”
“Don’t be like that, Yao, please!” she said imploringly. “Go and meet him.”

“I won’t, please,” I said gently but firmly. “He has to come here, or he should go back home. I don’t really need his thanks. I did it for the little girl, not him.”
“And he also says the new ambulance came in today, and new beds, and a lot of medical supplies,” she said calmly. “The staff at the Health Post are overjoyed. Everyone is overjoyed. They want you to come over immediately so that they could express their gratitude.”

“If they can’t come here, let them be,” I said softly.

She could not get me to go up and meet Tawiah, and so she reluctantly went up again to tell him that I wouldn’t budge, that I expected him to come down to the house.
He spoke to her at length, and then he sadly waved at me, but I didn’t wave back.
A moment later he turned away dejectedly and went back through the cocoa trees.

I was so saddened by the depths of their superstitions. I just couldn’t make head or tail of it. So, it was okay for me to go to the village and present them with a car and medical supplies!

It was okay to help Tawiah’s daughter, but they were too afraid to come to where I lived to say thanks. Where I lived now was supposedly evil and cursed, and made worse because I was living with a witch, but they had no qualms accepting gifts from me!
Such a warped world we lived in indeed!
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