Opinions of Thursday, 22 December 2022

Columnist: Mawuli Zogbenu

‘Mercy nearly messed me up’

Mawuli Zogbenu Mawuli Zogbenu

I had watched the Morocco and France match during the semi finals! I was watching and when those in the dark complexion scored, I screamed goaaalllllll! Then the second goal again and my screaming was truncated only when I realized that those in the beautiful black complexion were rather the French while the Africans were rather whites.

I immediately changed my support to Morocco and prayed they equalised and the game goes into penalty shoot outs. Even with that, I was scared of the French goal keeper. Dude was super good!

And it came to pass that one of my favourite footballers, Messi has climaxed it all with no further debate as to who is the G.O.A.T. I liked his attitude because of the fact that at a much stronger age, not many people knew about who the Captain of Barsa was. He played as if he was the leader giving credence to Robin Sharma’s book: ‘The Leader who has no Title’. One needs not be the leader in order to put in all his best and Messi lived that!

The Argentines gave him the opportunity after a couple of disappointing appearances at the Mundial. Lionel Messi is an extra ordinary footballer. I am just hoping that we are going to have Mbappe taking over and even do better. That guy is another for the Team: ‘Africa United in Europe’ – France!

Glory be to God it ended on a good note as I was just finding out from those watching at North Kaneshie Melkom where many shoppers were watching the match. It was Arentina 2 and France 0. I was happy not because it is Argentina but because of the obvious. Then suddenly, I heard the thing has changed to 3-3! I was sad. I wanted Argentina to win. Messi deserved such an honour and then the whole of where ‘Ghana shops’ went agog – goalllllllll! I just wanted to be sure it was Argentina.

Lo and behold, it was! I screamed loudly after everyone else has finished screaming. I am sure people who turned and looked at me were quizzing in their heads if everything was okay with me. You see how st*pid I can be? Hahahaha!

That same Sunday was such a great weekend for me o! I went to exercise my body in order to burn some useless fats and some toxins in my system. You know it’s easier to acquire a big stomach than to deflate it. I later called some friends around Makati Hills to go and enjoy omo tuo with a lot of meat and ‘wele, s3b3, kontonmire’ before the mundial final even though I was not going to watch! Exercising is a very good lifestyle. We drunk beer too after the exercise to spoil the essence of the exercise itself. Yes, we are like that. In any case, whether we exercise or not, we would still drink beer anyway.

Sometimes I tend to believe the fact that eating good diet is better than exercising o. If you are to eat all the junk food in the world with the thinking that you will go jogging on Sunday to burn the fat, how much of the fat can you burn at even 10 exercise sessions? See my stomach – gboom gboom! It’s similar to saying you would drink poison after which you would throw it up.

How much of the poison will come out and what effect wouldn’t the poison have on your body? Exercising is good but eat good diet devoid of too much junk food. Eat wele, s3b3, kontonmire and not too much carbohydrates and meat as this can increase your glucose level when the insulin is not sufficient to transport the excess glucose in your system thus leading to a condition called keto-acidosis resulting from diabetes! Very nice name. Keto-acidosis can actually make one collapse into coma thus leading to death. This life is hard but it’s sweet.

Interestingly most of the the terminal diseases in the world have some of the sweetest names apart from diarrhea! Diabetes, Hypertension, Alheizemeir, Dementia, Calories, Cholestrol, heart attack (sounds like a formation during a football match). Often, the first symptom of this condition if not detected early is early death!

That reminds me. When you are entering an aeroplane and you see somebody struggling to get to sit by the window side, suspect him; he or she might be a first-timer. He is doing that so that he can be seeing what is going on outside on the ground – to see how goats, cars and human beings look like when on the ground.

If you like come and ask me about my own experience and you would notice how a villager like me was nearly thrown down an aircraft when I started screaming on board ‘the plane is falling o, it is falling o….’ after it had taken off from the runway. Ajeeeeeei!

On a trip to Morocco some time back, I had a very rare ‘privilege’. The aeroplane was to make a transit stop-over in another country while we waited for a few hours before continuing with the journey.

I could hear a lot of passengers grumbling about this unnecessary transit and that they would be tired, it is stressful, scary among all the other unnecessary complaints that didn’t move me in anyway; knowing how easy I take life even when death is waving at me, I no mind sef. These passengers had no idea that I like transits bcos whichever country the plane transited, I would be proud to say me too,

I was in that country before, even if it is just for one minute. For me the only journey I had ever embarked on was Accra to Tamale which was rather too short and who cares if a journey was going to last more than 48 hours in the sky? Ayigbe Mr Frog! Hahaaaa!

Then we were on board the aeroplane and people were still grumbling and let me confess that the turbulence was terrible. But is it not more honourable if I had to perish in a plane crash than dying in a road crash which will be covered by only GTB and JOI News? Me I want CNN so no problem if the plane’s engine get problem. I also pretended to be grumbling and that I wasn’t happy with this transit thing especially when we were told the country we were transiting to was France. Thank you Jesus, me too I am in France.

In my head, I was singing ‘Halleluya’! Me too I go France before o, kw33333! When we got to Paris, we had to wait at the lounge bcos I had no transit visa. That was not my problem. My soul was satisfied by the fact that, my feet too touched the land of France and by extension, Europe. Dasorrrrr! I left those other passengers to continue grumbling especially when the next flight to Morocco was delaying. I didn’t mind if it would even take forever.

Next time when you see me, ask me if have been to France before and I would proudly beat my chest with swag and say ‘YES OF COURSE’, while in my white camboo! I would even add the fact that I was even in Europe, dasorrrr! Would that not be an honest answer? Indeed I felt like entering the country but security was tight. What made matters worse was that the security men spoke French and I was only sheepishly looking into their faces smiling when they went like ‘suri suri suri suri suri’! When o when? I lied to my relations I was in America but you know, that comes with expectations so when I got to Kotoka, I didn’t go home straight. I went to Kantamanto, bought a few GHC5 used obroni waawu dresses in bulk, passed by my laundry man at Adabraka and voilaaaaa, it’s good to go home.

In fact they waited for me at the airport in a hired 207 bus. Borga is in town, mehn! Wosop? Hahhaaaaa! In Morroco itself, the capital Rabat was nice. Their fufu is like our waakye. If you think this lie is true, what do you think their own waakye looks like?

So, as for you, you believe everything I say er. Wait till I tell you the country that is south of Ghana is Osu! Now even if I say in a few days’, time, we would be in the year 2023, you would believe me, no be so? Hahahaaaaa!

Please enter this festive weekend free of worry, self medications and resolutions that you wont go by. Bad mind…see what you were thinking when I said ‘enter’, you were ‘motivated’ to read this ‘useless column’. What do you think you should enter if not the weekedn? Ok, enter the net? Shay! shay! Shame!

Merry Christmas to you all. For my long lost friends who for the whole year never sent a message and asked how I was doing, please this is not the time to greet. If you want to visit me at home, please make sure you eat well before coming o. Hahahahahahahaha!