woes of koosam 2
WOES OF KOOSAM
EPISODE 2
By Cobby Grant
It was about a week after Kobina Sam’s encounter with the man who owned the Toyota Pickup but he hadn’t heard from him. He had not received the promised phone call. He even made it a point to be at the premises of the company but he hadn’t seen him and no one seemed to know him from the description he had given of him.
Nevertheless, he left his resume at the front desk, hoping that something positive was going to come out of it.
The week brought its own problems. His landlady, Auntie Serwah, who had been like a mother to him informed him that he had to vacate his room as her own son was coming home after his studies. In all fairness, he knew that the woman had been more than kind as she had not pressured him for rent money after he was done with his studies at TTU.
His hopes of paying rent when he got a profitable job had not been realized.
His loving mother who had struggled to take care of his academic expenses was in high hopes of him gaining employment to take care of her, and so with the accommodation problems adding to the cupful of problems he had, he thought about going to Ataabadze to live with Sister Ama, his Mom but Joojo his friend came to the rescue.
“Koosam, I’ve heard that you have to leave your ghetto,” he said when he found him all alone sitting in front of the building.
“Yes o. I am thinking about going to live with my Mom,” he said in misery, making it obvious his mind was occupied by the predicament.
“I have information that there’s a vacant room at Airport Ridge. No rent, no light bill, no water bill” Joojo told him.
” Wow. How’s that possible?”
“You better believe it. It’s the Boy’s Quarters. The Military Officers stay in the main house and you will stay in the Boy’s Quarters to take care of the surroundings,” Joojo explained and Kobina had no choice but try his luck as they had to go and explain to the Officer of his ability to keep the compound neat.
The vacant room had been unoccupied for just eight hours. Joojo only learned of it because the previous occupant was a friend of his who had left for Accra to take up a job with his Uncle.
Right away, they went to Airport Ridge which wasn’t far from Lagos Town to see Captain Omar. He proved to be a quiet and affable gentleman who lived in the bungalow with his beautiful wife and two grown-up daughters, Asantewaa and Akosua.
He actually did not care about who lived in the Boy’s Quarters as long as the person kept the grass well cut and didn’t disturb. He agreed to allow him to occupy the quarters and advised him extensively.
Then, he asked him to see the other tenant who also lived in the other bungalow on the same compound. He met an elderly man, Uncle George who lived with his 3-year-old daughter.
Uncle George welcomed him warmly and advised him to be smart in all he did and also to make himself available for any work he might be asked to do. He opened the door facing his for Kobina to inspect, with the toilet and bath in between the two rooms.
He didn’t find it hard to accept the terms and conditions as he had no choice.
He moved in that very night with his suitcase, a 14″ TV, a tabletop fridge and a gas stove, two cylinders, books, bowls and plates too. He then cleaned the room he was vacating and handed over the key to the landlady that very evening. She received the key with guilt but there was nothing she could do as she needed the room for her son who had been pressuring her about it.
With that out of the way, Kobina Sam went to his new place at Airport Ridge to sleep. It was by then around 10:00 pm. He pushed his mattress to one corner of the room, switched on the rickety ceiling fan and was soon fast asleep.
Auntie Serwah could not sleep that night. She tossed and turned for the most part of the night. The rightness of her decision to evict the young man was what she pondered on.
She had come to love Koosam as if he were her own son but she felt compelled to take that action as her own son was threatening to push him out. And she knew from his previous actions that he was more than capable of doing that.
She sighed and fell into the uneasy sleep of a mother who had no idea of how safe his son was going to be in his new home.
Koosam slowly emerged from his sleep as he heard the unfamiliar but calming sounds of birds chirping, the breezy whisperings of tree branches and others, such as the tiny voice of a little girl. He turned over in confusion as he strained his ears to decipher the strange sounds. It was then that he remembered that he hadn’t slept at Lagos Town but at Airport Ridge. He now understood why he wasn’t engulfed in sweat as before.
The unceasing whirl of the ceiling fan confused him further until he remembered that too. He got up then stepped out of the room and found Uncle George preparing his daughter for school. They greeted each other warmly.
“How do you find the place?” Uncle George asked him as he put the little girl’s school dress on her.
“It’s cool,” he replied simply, looking around to really see how the area was.
“Daddy Captain says I should take care of the backyard garden while you take care of the rest of the compound.”
“No problem,” he responded, feeling grateful for the warm reception from him.
In no time, Uncle George was done and left with the little girl to leave her at the nursery on his way to work.
It was that time of the day when parents prepared their kids for school and left with them thereby rendering the whole area as silent as a cemetery and Kobina Sam, finding himself all alone, saw the enormity of the task he had gotten himself into. The whole area was so overgrown that he gasped at the sight of it. Though he was born in a farming community, he had hardly lived there as his family, when his father was alive, lived in Takoradi. It was only when his father passed away that his mother relocated with him to Ataabadze, the village of his and his mother’s birth. He stared at the task he had unknowingly taken upon himself and went around the whole place, from the front of the Bungalow to the back, determined to be undeterred.
“I will not let this deter me,” he said to himself.
He went in search of the langa langa cutlass he had earlier been told was in a cubicle and found it; proceeded to start with a flurry of arm swings with the cutting implement and soon realized that it was a daunting task which had more to do with skills than with bravado and strength.
Gamely, he went on, swinging his arm and cutting through the torturous grass. Even though he wasn’t adept at weeding, he went on, finding his rhythm in no time.
After just an hour, he found his palms blistering, and that forced him to take a break. He leaned his back against a huge mango tree to catch his breath.
He rested a bit and was thinking of continuing when he saw Akosua, the younger daughter of Captain Omar wearing skimpy shorts and a tank top walking towards him with a tray that had 2 sachets of water on it. She smiled when she saw him looking in her direction and set the tray at his feet.
“I brought you water. Are you the new occupant?” she asked revealing sparkling white teeth that had a tiny gap in the middle of the upper set.
“Thank you. Yes, I am the new occupant,” he replied good-naturedly, trying to find a nice way to excuse himself to continue with the chore.
“Wow,” she said. “You have just moved in and you are on the job today?”
“Yes o. I don’t want to be found wanting,” he said and smiled, getting onto his feet.
“Don’t go yet. You haven’t even drank the water I brought,” she said, with a pout of the lips.
He whispered ‘sorry’ and took one of the sachets and bit the tip and drank it. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until the refreshing water touched his throat. He, who hardly drank one sachet of water at a go, drank the whole sachet at a go in no time. He looked at her, a sheepish smile on his face and she laughed at him.
“You see how thirsty you are?” she laughed again and hit his chest with her palm.
He laughed with her too, and her easy-going nature got him to loosen up.
“Anyway, I’m Akosua, Akos to my friends,” she said and looked at him expectantly putting out her hand for a handshake. He took it and marvelled at how soft it was.
“You didn’t tell me your name after I have gone to the trouble of telling you mine?” she said and pouted her lips in mock annoyance.
He saw that she liked pouting her lips a lot. He found it adorable.
“I am Kobina Sam and my friends call me Koosam,” he said and smiled.
“OK. I’ll see you around,” she said and walked away, swinging her hips from one side to the other in a carefree way. He tried not to stare as her mother could be spying on him from a window.
He grabbed the other sachet of water and drank, not from thirst but to enable him recover his senses.
He proceeded with the grass cutting for a couple of hours before the intense heat of the sun compelled him to call it a day. He critically surveyed what he had done so far and saw that he had only cleared a small patch of grass due to his inexperience. But he promised to improve on it the next time.
He went in, had a cold shower and drank tea, again, without milk, but with brown bread and took a much-needed nap.
He went back to the compound at about 4:00 pm to continue with grass cutting, determined to make a difference.
He found a renewed energy he didn’t know he possessed and went on till it was too dark to continue.
He weighed his options as he had the Ga kenkey and fried fish he had bought at the junction to Lagos Town.
He had Gh5.00 left of the money the good Samaritan had given him and he knew he had to get some by-day job soon to keep body and soul together. He knew it was going to take more than mere strength to cut grass, search for jobs and work if he managed to secure one.
Uncle George got home with his daughter in tow and greeted him curtly as if he was annoyed or something.
He sat in front of the Boy’s Quarters trying to figure out his future plans and how to go about them. He also observed the elderly man as he heated old soup for his evening meal. He had a strange feeling that the man was trying to refrain from looking in his direction. He looked miffed.
He sat, minding his own business. Already, he had enough problems as it were and wasn’t going to let another person add to them, so he pondered over his next move trying to brainstorm. He hadn’t seen Akosua since she gave him water in the morning, but he had been hearing cooking sounds from the kitchen that told him that someone was in the house. The cool evening breeze calmed his nerves. It was much cooler there than in Lagos Town.
He saw that Uncle George was bathing Efia his daughter. He went indoors as soon as he felt mosquito bites and Uncle George who had finished bathing his daughter called out to him.
“What did I tell you when you moved in yesterday?” He asked Kobina in a very confrontational and rude manner.
Koosam stared at him blankly. He had heard the question but was trying to understand it.
“Didn’t I tell you to get the grass cut as the condition of you living here?” He barked when he wasn’t answered “Do you want to tell me that this is all you could do the whole day?”
Koosam stared at him open-mouthed, stumped for words.
” I am on it. I will continue tomorrow…”
Uncle George turned away in disgust even before Kobina could finish speaking.
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