collins prayer

i walked into the house.

the first steps are always the best. after having made my journey home, clear across town, down the long dusty road, across the enormous cement brick front yard in the heat of the day, walking into my house is like entering an icebox. the air is chilly inside, the walls are cool, it is dark.

i remove my shoes and the ground feels similar to if i had just dipped asphalt burned feet into a swimming pool.

and each day it is a suprise. i am still not used to it, and i love it.

i made my way down the long hallway to my bedroom door. i heard people in sakola's room so i went over to see what was happening. when i peeked my head around the corner, i realized it wasn't much. it was just collin's and sakola, resting on mats through the heat of the day, talking. sakola was in a pair of black dirty jeans and his favorite t-shirt, worn thin with holes and riddled with mold. he apparently had just come from farming.

"hey guys." i said.

they both looked over at me and raised their heads, saying hello.

i went to my room, grabbed my mat, and went to rest with them. collin's was smelling extra strong, like nursing home b.o., and his breath was thick. each time he laughed it'd fog up my space. we were lying quite close to one another. i moved back a bit, closer to sakola. he always smells fresh, even from farming.

they asked me about life. i told them about the women coming into the clinic, about all the newborns. they said they hadn't seen me in awhile and i informed them it was because of the moon. the full moon is bringing the babies in, and the clinic is busy. they laughed at me, and i wasn't sure if it was because of my logic or the way i was saying it. "the moon will become big and the babies will come."

i wasn't sleeping very well at the clinic, spending most night hours trading sleep between efreeyeh and i. two hours here, two hours there, atop an exam table. but i was happy to be working hard again. "how is she doing?" ma would bellow from the other room, from her mattress, and her deep sleep. we'd check, then yell back "a few more hours."

then she'd say "NOW YOU SEE HOW A MIDWIFE SUFFERS!." and she wouldn't awake until we called her again.

sakola asked me how my sleep was going at the clinic, and i knew he was referring to my dreams. he is very concerned about my dreams.

"i'm still having bad dreams." i told him.

"akua!" he said. pulling his head back in disbelief. "akua, is no good. you have a proh-blim."

i was slowly reading through a book on the holocaust before bedtime every night. i don't think it was helping much.

collins asked "what are your dreams?"

i told him last night i was being chased after by a man with a knife.

they both shouted "ei's!" and shook their heads. i rested mine on the tops of my folded hands and sighed. i didn't tell them about my book. i had already tried explaining the holocaust to Ma, in english, and that was hard enough. she could barely believe it, then she concluded that all germans are "very very evil." i said things have changed, but she didn't care. it was unfortunate my explanation fell on the very day sofie had invited a german doctor friend to tour our clinic. i was hoping Ma wouldn't find out she was german during the introduction. or that maybe she would, and Ma would realize they are not that different after all, but the girl never came in to greet Ma which only helped her fuel her newfound belief that all germans are evil, "they are bad kaisy, very bad."

so i kept my reading a secret from the boys, and we all layed in silence for a bit. then sakola sprung up and said "let's pray."

collin's took hold of my hands gently, cupping them between his. he has very clammy bony hands, all knuckles it seems. sakola sat next to me and closed his eyes. then he yelled out "JESUS!" in his dramatic african preacher voice, a voice that used to scare me. collins yelled out "JESUS" too. i had grown familiar with their prayer voices, which were much different than their speaking voices. i heard them every morning and every night, sometimes they spend hours in prayer.

sofie wants to know what they could possibly be praying about. "it's all they do! i've never met people who pray and go to church so much."

tuesdays, in the cocoa grove behind our house, sakola and nanakwame carry chairs to seat the group of 10 or so people who meet, sing, and pray all day. outrageous things happen back there. once sakola came back with a broken shoe, and nanakwame clothes were torn. every single time they return with their sharp looking outfits covered in dirt, sometimes mud. i think they fall on the ground and roll and shake.

i'm not used to that type of worship.

the dirtier they are when they come home, the happier they seem. the more sakola will repeat 'deliverance!' and shake his clenched fists around with a smile on his face. and it makes me happy, just as long as i don't have to fall and roll and shake.

wednesday nights the same folks meet on our porch, to sing all night.

twice a month, on Friday night, the boys and all their friends do what they call "All NIGHT", where they pray straight from 6 at night to 6 in the morning.

"akua, i won't sleep here tonite. i'm going to town for All Night." sakola will say. the next day i'll see collin's sleepy eyed. he'll tell me he had "All Night". they don't come back dirty from All Night, but i know they're working just as hard, sometimes their collective voices, travel through the village into my window.

i think the boys know i don't like a lot of shouting when i pray. every time we eat, we pray. sakola spreads his hands wide over our fufuo bowl and blesses our food. when i pray it sounds placid and flat, very WASPish, and at first he laughed at me. i explained that i'm not as dramatic as he, and he understands now. so when they began to pray for my bad dreams to disappear they kept the excitement to a minimum.

collins took control of the prayer and began "in the name of the mighty Jesus Christ, we ask that you break any stronghold that is taking over kacie in her sleep."

sakola said a "yes JESUS!"

collins continued... "we thank you Jesus, we thank you Jesus, we thank you Jesus. may your power Jesus, your power Jesus, your power Jesus, come down and BREAK any FUCKING TING. break all the FUCKING TINGS that are disturbing our friend kacie, all the FUCKING TINGS, break them! thank you in the mighty name of JESUS. AMEN."

we opened our eyes and i looked at collins, i didn't know whether to laugh or say thank you.

he had the look of an innocent schoolboy, attentive, willing, and pleased with a job well done. i was a little confused. i wasn't sure if what i just heard was really what i had just heard.

"thanks for praying for me." i said. "let me just ask you one thing. did you say 'break any fucking thing'?"

he nodded, blinked a few sympathetic blinks, then patted my hands.

"fucking thing?" i looked at sakola.

sakola laughed. "akua."

"okay, thank you so much for that prayer."

we all reclined and relaxed a little more, each in our own deep thoughts. i was thinking about a young ghanaian boy who i met in a computer lab who introduced himself as "fucking". i asked him if that was his ghanaian name or his english name. he said he chose it as his english name. i told him maybe he should rethink that one. he wanted to know why, so i tried to explain, but he was adament about being called "fucking". i didn't know any great twi cuss words to relay my example with, and he was challenging me saying names come in all different types and sizes. what one person may hate the other may like. my distaste for his was strictly a personal matter i needed to get over.

i told him most people wouldn't want to be his friend if they had to call him "fucking". he said he didn't care, all his real friends called him Fucking. and they did, i could hear them. i said okay.

"but what is your ghanaian name?" i asked.

"Kofi." he said.

when i left the computer lab that day, i yelled across the room "nice to meet you Fucking Kofi!" he gave me an i'm-busy-at-the-computer-wave and i left laughing to myself, wishing i had a friend around.


"you laughing at me?" sakola asked.

"huh?" i was lost in my daydream.

"you are laughing, why?"

"oh i was just thinking of something." i said. "something funny."