Sarpong, Justice



I arrived at my town, my place of birth dressed for the kill and to show my old
friends how a Yankee should look like. I am not the kind of guy enamored with gold
chains or for that matter, chains and rings but when it comes to watches, I am a
'sucker'. It was a sunday in early January 2008 and all the people in my town were
nicely dressed to attend various churches in town.

My Nieces, Nana Ama and Yaa Panin have convinced me to go to my town with them since
the biggest church in town was having a special service in raising funds for the new
Church they intend to build, I assume you all remember how these churches are always
raising funds to build churches. I assumed my nieces, 29 and 33 wanted to show their
just arrived Yankee Uncle off.

I arrived at the church with my nieces and two of their friends comfortably
ensconced in my 'pimped' up car and we were guarded to pack closely to the entrance
of the church by one of the Usshers of this church. We were seated closely to the
pulpit, the second row infront of the church. I am not the kind of guy that is too
enthustiastic about spending three hours in Church that is why I like my Catholic
services which usually ends in forty five minutes, one hour tops.

In the newly Apostolic and Charismatics churches, you are lucky if the Pastor,
Bishop, Reverend Dr's 'release' you in three hours, most of their services go as
long as four hours but on this occassion, the service was short so when the Ushhers
were instructed to pass the offertory plate around, I beamed a sigh of relief
because usually offertory is collected close to the end of the service, but 'mine oh
mine', I was mistaken though the event that followed was very comic and interesting.

My intention was to put five dollars in the plate but the way all eyes were on me,
that would have been an insult to my nieces by their uncles' 'tightwardness' and
since there were not too much money to hide my five dollars under so I did my
"Abrokyiresem" and prominently 'advertised' my twenty dollars offertory by placing
it on top of the cedis, and straightened myself for about two more inches that I
didn't know I have. Hey, twenty dollars offertory is a lot of money ok? I showed
them how it is done.

Hey!!, what is this? On the same row like me but on the left side of the church
pews were these two guys and three ladies that I thought might be Burgers too with
their gold chains and the smell of " Aborokyire" cologne. After the offertory,
Reverend Dr Pastor(Name witheld) called for all Guests to come infront and asked us
to introduce ourselves and who brought us to the Church, what city we live in and
all. It was then that I learned one of the gentlemen and his wife were domiciled in
Germany and and the other three live in Italy. The Reverend Dr. prayed for our save
return to our various places of abode and then entreated us to make the New building
fund raising a historic one by participating in the "KOFI NE AMA" contest about to
take place.

My niece Nana Ama started bragging about how Kwame ne Ama are going to carry the day
since his uncle Kwame is going to drop some 'Benjamins'(For the sake of those not
familiar with American slang, Benjamins means American hundred dollar notes with
Benjamin Franklin head on it).

My experinece with 'Kofi ne Ama' is that, most of the time, it is usually won by
Kwame ne 'Ama or Kofi ne Afuah'. Reverend Dr kicked the competition off by calling
Kwasi ne Akosua and the last to be called were Kwame ne Ama. For some strange
reasons, four of the European Burgers were Yaw and Yaa and with their "PIMPINIIS",
they displayed their "Abrokyisem" by making it interesting. Though there were more
Kwame ne Ama and Kofi ne Afua than those born on Thursday, 'Yaw ne Yaa, by the first
count, Yaw ne Yaa were on top, thanks to the European Burgers but I was not
going to let these Tomatoes pickers in Italy get away by thumbing their nose at a
Yankee so when the second round was called, I brought the hammer down on these Yaw
ne Yaa by losing a fifty that I didn't intend of leaving behind in my town. Now
these European Burgers are going to be put in their place where they belong, but
wait a minute, I've misjudged my competition.

The European Burgers were not even the competition but Papa Kofi Boateng, the
Chairman of the Church building fund and the towns richest person was not going to
allow these "KORBOLORS" from USA, Germany and Italy to come to his town and disgrace
him. He has about twelve children with about eight of them abroad so when Kofi ne
Afua were in third place, I saw him consulting one of his children who went outside
and came back in about two minutes and he went to the mens rest room and came back
where he dropped some Euros and Pound sterlings that vanquished the nonsense from
the Yankee and his European counterparts into oblivion. Papa Kofi Boaten, next time
I will bring a lot of 'Benjamins', you ambushed me.

Justice Sarpong

Houston, Texas.