John Chapter 8

late one afternoon, on my walk home from the clinic, Tanko met me on the road and walked me the rest of the way. we chatted about our day and the soccer game we had both played in that previous sunday.

our team had loaded up into the back of a big truck and gone to play a game in a local village. the entire drive there i was getting tossed around in between sweaty armpits and loud singing. while leading the cheers, Tanko also kept swatting people to give me a little space, but i really didn't mind. i was having fun being 'one of the boys'.

as we walked along the road, we talked of our similar complaints against the referree, who called the two teams together at the beginning, declaring it a 'friendly match' but who was obviously biased. he let the game get overly rowdy and made calls only against our team. at half time a fist fight almost broke out between him and one of our mid-fielders. it was apparent the pre-match speech was really just him publically trying to remind himself to stifle his bad temper.

"well thanks for walking me" i said to Tanko.

he opened the gate to let me into my courtyard.

"oh not a problem. see you at training." he said, as he walked off.

i turned around and made my way towards the porch. auntie was sitting there, growling at me.

"good afternoon auntie." i said.

she started hitting the air, as if trying to combat a swarm of invisible bees. every day she was growing more and more odd.

I waited for her storm to subside. Then I walked up the stairs and began to make my way into the house. Just then auntie turned back and shouted at me between mumbles...

“I will beat you! Stop doing that!”

she looked genuinely angry about something so I stayed put, but she just turned her back to me and continued being upset.

Just then sakola walked down the hallway in my direction. I rolled my eyes and pointed in aunties direction, as if to warn him.

He pretend slapped the side of my head and told me in twi he was going to abuse me. This language is harsh for a native English speaker, but I had grown used to how Ghanaians use it so I wasn’t too offended. But still, I wondered what everyone was mad at me about?

The two of them were now sitting side by side on the porch, ganging up on me.

“why will you beat me?” I asked auntie directly.

She answered passionately in twi, something about a thief and my friend.

“sakola I don’t understand.”

Although auntie was the more fluent of the two it didn’t look like she was going to attempt English any time soon.

“she will beat you kessy!”

“yes I know, I already heard that.”

“she will beat you because you bring that boy here. He’s a bad boy kessy.” Then he gave me that same look, the one I had gotten from him the morning Tanko woke me before work.

“Tanko?” I asked.

Auntie hollered at me like a fierce lion. “KEEP HIM OUT!!!!!!”

“come” sakola said, ushering me into the house. He closed the door. “akua, that boy is bad. He go to accra steal from the white people and run. The police, they come here and find him…” then he pantomimed being handcuffed and dragged away. “he’s bad, and you are making friends with him, its no good, no good at all.”

“I didn’t know.” I wondered why it took them 2 months to tell me I had been walking with the town thief. I quickly recounted all the times I had let him into my room.
Once.

Then I went down the list of all the times I had left my purse unattended in his company.

Never.

Thirdly I thought about him, as an individual.

I liked him. He kept pleasant company.

Was it because he was planning on robbing me or because he was a nice person who just happened to do something stupid? In a village reputation is everything, and as I was witnessing, one bad move will forever taint your future.

Sakola’s lips began to sneer in disapproval, and my thoughts were following them. So tanko is a thief who enjoys stealing from foreigners. This entire time he has been placating me, I thought, waiting for the perfect moment to move in and make a fortune off the naïve white girl. My initial assumption had been correct, when I looked at his skinny body and questioned how he got along. Apparently he didn’t need to work hard living off of funds taken from somebody else.

I looked at sakola.

“okay.” I said, firm in my decision. “I won’t walk with him anymore.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Secetry, Kingsley and I were taking a stroll through the village visiting friends and enjoying each other’s company. It was late in the day and Kingsley’s cologne had worn off some so I was able to stand in between them while we stopped at the football pitch to watch a match that was close to finishing.

Tanko was playing left forward.

"i saw you walking with that boy there kacie." kingsley said, pointing at tanko. "people have been telling me that." he stated it more as a conversation piece than a warning or admonishment. his humble nature invited my question.

"do you know much about him?"

"oh not so much. but he is not very good at football. see the way he is running? he isn't fast. you have to be fast! back in my home village, everybody knows me as the talented footballer."

secetry interrupted. "akua kessie plays football!"

"yes, in my town i am known as the talented footballer. when you come there, you can ask, just say 'kingsley' and everybody will tell you 'oh kingsley, he is a talented footballer', really, just go and ask. so when i look at this boy here, he doesn't play nicely. you see?"

all three of us moved our heads to look at the ball floating high in the sky. as it descended, Tanko jumped up high and headed it into the goal. his team cheered and ran into one another, embracing as if it was the world cup.

we all looked at each other and laughed.

"that was nice." i said.

"yes, it was." kingsley agreed.

"very nice." secetry added. "but any way, that boy, he is a troublemaker."

"you shouldn't be keeping company with him" kingsley said.

tanko looked over at us and made eye contact with me. he gave a friendly wave. he was beaming from his most recent accomplishment. i lifted my head ever so slightly and then stared at the ground.

"lets keep walking." i suggested. i didn't want to be around after the game had ended, because i still didn't know how to interact with my ex-friend.

as we all were strolling along i sought a little advice. "so say i wanted to ignore tanko, how does a person do that in a village? i see him everywhere."

"well" kinglsey advised "when he walks up to you, you should just tell him you aren't interested and do this." he waved his arms around like he was drowning.

it seemed a bit dramatic, and i couldn't imagine it coming naturally. 'sorry tanko, i'm not interested!' wave wave flutter flutter. he'd have no frame of reference. i'd just appear crazy.

"...and why do you guys think he's a bad boy?"

"oh because the police came and arrested him. he was taking money from people in accra." secetry said.

i had known he lived in accra, he told me he was a houseboy for some missionaries. this was after i complimented him on how well he spoke english.

"did you see him being arrested?"

"yes, the police came to his house and brought him out in handcuffs. everybody in the village knows, we all saw."

"when was this?"

"about 2 years back."

i spent a little while longer walking with my friends and then i told them i was heading home.

on the stretch back to my house i prayed for some guidance.

Tanko may have made a poor choice in his life but i am a christian, which means, i am supposed to love the sinner and hate the sin, right? i didn't feel comfortable letting him into my personal space anymore, and wouldn't dare have him face auntie in fear of an explosion, but i couldn't justify turning my back and running every time i saw him in town. i thought he was a nice guy.

i reflected on my past.

i had stolen a lot in my life. when i was 16, me and my 2 best friends, got chased and handcuffed by police in an outdoor mall, ending my 2 year spree of teenage kleptomania. who was i to judge? in my case, i was blessed to have come from a big city.

i thought of the bible, of the adulteress woman who was caught with her lover. as the story goes, she was dragged outside to be punished, to have stones thrown at her body. when the officials asked jesus how he thought she should be dealt with, he replied after a long time of silence "he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

in time, Jesus was left standing with the woman, alone.

i decided i was going to drop the rock from my sweaty palm and keep our relationship exactly how it was. i was going to continue playing soccer with him, and walking through the village with him, and being his friend. but the next time he approached me i was going to tell him what i knew. i like being honest, and i like hearing what is on people's hearts. this would make for an interesting conversation with him, and a future of interesting conversations with all the townspeople.

"you must stop walking with that boy. he is a theif."

"i know he's a theif, we already talked."

once again, i couldn't escape the potentcy of village life, of the directness, the accessibiltily, the lack of privacy. i wondered how Tanko even got along? who were his true friends, how did his neighbors treat him?

he had brought me to his living quarters once, it was a small mud structure divided into two. he lived on the right, his mother on the left. he had two white cats that responded lovingly to his voice, following him from the outside to the inside, inside to the outside.

"those are my pets." he giggled."i like animals."

they appeared to be quite fond of him also. and i wondered why we humans have such a complicated system to loving. sometimes, i thought, it might just be easier if we were a little more like Tanko's pets, or a little more like God, free to love regardless of circumstance.