A YEAR LOST AND GAINED

Today is exactly two after my twenty eighth birthday, a day that as serendipity will have it fell on my day of birth, Monday. Maybe it was not so serendipitous since I am finding out that it is expected every person’s 28^th falls on the say they were born. Oh well chance or not I was totally thrilled by the idea. My birthday has always brought an excitement outta me I never really understood.

As a child I live the earliest of my years in a compound house in a compound neighbourhood. Much Akin to the ideal Ghanaian society everybody older than you was a brother, sister, uncle or aunt depending on their age.  And though most of the families in the neighbourhood were not too well off birthdays were a special. It was celebrated by the preparation of ot), a meal made by crushing boiled yam and mixing it with palm oil. It was served with boiled eggs in an earthen ware bowl. Now the ot) in itself was special since in the neighbourhood it was our equivalent of a birthday cake and so only appeared on such days, but the best part of it was when all the neighbourhood kids were gathered for the photo. The celebrant sits on a kitchen stool behind the mound of ot) properly garnished with eggs sliced in half with one whole egg sitting at the very pick. The rest of the children stand or squat around him and as he poses as if to take the first morsel. It is classic.

No number of birthday cakes or parties can beat that feeling of being the only kid to eat a whole egg on that day. All the other kids got halves. There were no special birthday gifts not trips to children’s park nothing, just ot) and photos, but it was more than enough.

Somehow this genesis has made me modest in my celebration of my birthday, it’s never been about presents or outings  but about the number of people or for the sake of saying “neighbourhood kids” who remembered and wished me well on the.  I would count how many twitter mentions and Facebook wall posts I got. How many text messages, whatsapp messages and calls. The more I got the more it felt like the neighbourhood kids gathering behind me to take that photo with the ot) mound.

This year though was quite different , some of the people I looked forward to hearing from the most forgot, the tally on social media was not so high, the text and whatsapp messages were also not as many. This year too I had more to reflect on, see this  at twenty eight my elder Brother Onisha who is the one man second to my dad that I look up to the most was getting married, at same age my only sister, best friend and confidant was also planning  her wedding. At 28 Onisha was had just become a houseman and was well on his way to becoming the superstar doctor he had always  wanted to be , Terko at the same age was a well-established and respected voice in aquaculture in Ghana and was also on her way to do great things. So at 28 who am I, where am I headed, what am I doing with my life.

I still have some of those pictures from my childhood, and every once in a while I’ll look at them remember the old days, and some of the faces. I’ll try to tell where everybody was and what they were doing with themselves now. It amazes me how we all started together and have transformed. Our paths have led us into diverse places and scattered us to the winds but the bond we shared is still strong whenever we meet.

I choose to define myself in this, that I am the boy, tiny and frail in the front of the picture who has become the man who will change his generation. That I am the boy God has raised from humble beginnings and is about to do great things. Though most of the earlier questions I asked of myself remain unanswered I know one thing that this path I have chosen will take be beyond the reach of the heavens.  Happy birthday to me.