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Opinions of Thursday, 21 December 2023

Columnist: Mawuli Zogbenu

'Angelina Christmas'

Mawuli Zogbenu is the author Mawuli Zogbenu is the author

‘Angelina oo…the boys are coming…Angelina! Ao ao Angelinaaaa. Ao ao…Angelinaaa….yeeeeey Angelina’! Hahahaha! The jama song we used to sing in boys scouts in the 1980’s at Kisseman. A man called ‘Vompaya’ was the leader of the boys scouts. What freaked most was the whistle they used to blow while the jama is on going!

This Christmas go sweet brutal but make sure you do good to a stranger who you think is less privileged than you and show them love. Buy bottled water at 3 cedis and let the pure water seller keep the change of two cedis. She is more likely to tell you ‘God bless you’ than the one you know and send two hundred cedis and he or she will tell you he hasn’t even seen the alert yet.

If our wives should do one tenth of the things we do to them er, men would have been fainting frequently. That is why I don’t believe in the fact that women are the weaker vessels. For the where? It is a political statement.

The person sometimes goes under the knife to have your baby for after 9months of the distin. She has to endure the pains several weeks after the CS and you think she is weak? Dey there! Go ahead er. I can’t count the number of men who can’t stand it when their wives hold their phones for 2 minutes.

As for me, I fainted before sef when she was holding my phone for just ten seconds and exclaimed ‘eish! This ‘eish’ was about something else and not what she saw on my phone o, yet guilty conscience made me faint. Hmmm!

Treat your wives well this Christmas o. They are all we have. Without them, what is the use of working sef? Ah!

In the 1980s coming, when it was Christmas, we went round looking for rice and stew from neighbours and they felt privileged to fete us. Of course, some stews tasted better especially those from the homes of lecturers of Legon and tutors of Achimota School where rastamen excel.

Things changed when one Christmas like that we went to a lecturer’s house and he released boar-bull and German shepherd dogs on us. Apparently he was quarreling with his wife on that fateful 25th December and we too we didn’t know. As for the speed at which we ran out to safety, only God could have videoed it with His phone. That was the end my career in going for Christmas rice and stew. Little did I know that Christmas of giving to neighbours was about to end.

What started off as a mere friendship after I was introduced to her turned out to be a life changer. Positive or negative? You would get to know soon. She was a seamstress and I was a mason. I was an expert in finishing so all the East Legon big guys preferred to give me contracts to do finishing.

Not that I was not good at laying blocks but it appeared all masons know how to lay blocks – the difference was in the finishing. Business was not too good for her so she started adi3ye, that is carrying the machine on one’s shoulder with a pair of scissors big enough to make the announcement of her presence.

Her specialty was sewing torn pockets and torn dresses of school children. She got married before and widowed just after one year. I liked her; she liked me.

I was single. She was single now too. I had previously vowed never to entertain another man’s child in my marriage but this was to be an exception. She visited me at the construction site around Amasaman where I was working on a project.

I was in a makeshift bathroom and forgot to carry with me a towel. I whistled out her name to bring me my towel, shyly! She shyly brought it and threw it on top of the wooden plank used at the entrance to the bathroom. It was dark.

She went back to one of the uncompleted rooms in which I slept. She waited patiently till I got there. I was a virgin but needed to break it desperately with whatever is used to break virginity or chastity. One voice said I should do it. Another said ‘don’t do it’. I chose the latter. I asked to see her off but it was getting dark and no means of transport from the developing site to town but she said ‘No’. We spent the night together. I was ‘tensed’ down there.

From her posture, I realized she was ready for anything. Then dawn came rather quickly and I needed to organize the labourers to carry cement and mix mortar for work to start before the foreman comes to site. It was then I realized that we have more control over our bodies than the mind and friends tell us.

Fast forward, we became an item though I tied the knot before her. She wasn’t heartbroken, at least she didn’t show it. We were managing each other small small.

Just before my traditional marriage, I told her she should let me know when she finds someone who will like to marry her so she can settle too. She never made life difficult for me. She wasn’t the mommo type. No! when I am with my wife, she would not call. If I want to call her, I hide from my wife’s sight to call her and then we share things happening in our lives. My wife had no knowledge about anybody like Angelina.

We were super secretive about the relationship. We would meet once every week. When it was Angelina’s birthday on July 12, she reminded me but there was no way I could be there in person. She told me she was going to organize a party. But knowing her financial strength, I wondered how she was going to fund it.

Typical of her, she didn’t even ask me for support as I knew her business started picking up after I had supported her in opening a container for sewing purposes. Her little boy was staying with Angelina’s mother in the village. So she was alone in her single room. I visited anytime and always felt welcome.

On the day she’d set aside to celebrate her birthday, I drove to her house, a compound house. I saw some ladies cooking various dishes. I didn’t want to bother her as the party was going to be in the evening and I didn’t intend being there. I asked if I should enter her room and she obliged, as usual. I didn’t know who among the ladies cooking knew my wife and could probably do konkonsa to her so I wanted to avoid her, in a way.

In her room, she gave me a birthday kiss meant for her but she wasn’t her usual self. She appeared to be in a hurry which is understandable because of the party things. She appeared to be in the mood somehow, took my top off. She played with my nipples and I felt yiiiii! We did what married people who are in good terms do to each other though it just a little above two minutes.

I left her house promising to call after their party. Around the party time, I called her and while talking to her in joy, a different voice popped up and ended the call. It was the voice of another female who addressed me as ‘my Love’.

I didn’t call her that night, neither did she. We spoke the following morning though she picked my call after 6 attempts, quite unusual.

I slowed down the communication for two days; she did too. then I decided to go on leave from work so I can visit her to celebrate her birthday proper proper – just the two of us. When I mentioned it to her, quite unlike her, she said I should let her know when I am coming to her place. We planned to meet at 9am. I started calling at 7am and she wouldn’t pick the calls.

I called severally till I decided to drive there. When I got there, I noticed the door to her room was being opened from within. It was a muscular guy sweating and drinking pure water. Ei! I asked if Angelina was in. the young but slightly disturbed man went in and called Angie.

I spotted Angie wearing towel; the towel she wears to see me off anytime I visited her. My heart! It took her some time to come out of the room to meet me outside. She was sweating. I had concluded. Obviously the young man was so satisfied that he needed water to replenish himself. I saw him leave. Angelina asked me to enter. I didn’t feel safe.

I asked her if he is the one. She confessed. That she didn’t know how to tell me about it since they met 5 months earlier. I wanted to faint. But come to think of it, I have a wife, someone also wants to settle for a husband and I am being a stumbling block. Shame onto me. The long and short was that the relationship ended on a good note. What pains me though is the day I saw the guy coming out of Angelina’s room drinking pure water.

Merry Christmas to you all and tell someone a nice lie like this one to make him or her happy. Bronyaaaaa!