The Birthday Saga

Here I am again with another article, and hopefully there won’t be too many grammatical errors this time. Once again I would like to thank all those who have made suggestions as to how I could improve my writing skills. Special acknowledgement goes to Nana Amma for her wisdom and constructive criticism on my last article. It is greatly appreciated.

It has been said that the day of death is better than the day of birth. Traditionally, birthday celebration is not part of our culture. So why has it all of a sudden become such an integral part of our culture and society? Lately I have been thinking of some of the damages the Europeans inflected on us, and birthday celebration came to mind. Subsequently, I began to question the importance of birthday celebration and its relevance to our culture. As we all know Ghanaians are master copy cats and we take things to another level altogether from the original. The way birthdays are celebrated in Ghana now is way over the top. Every household is trying to out do the other even if they cannot afford. Why have we allowed European culture to put unnecessary burden on us? It is almost a divorceable offence to forget one’s spouse birthday in Ghana now. How sad! Read on and you would understand what I mean.

A married lady whom we shall call Amma for the purposes of the article was expecting a birthday gift from her husband whom we shall call Kofi. For many months she had admired a beautiful diamond ring in a showroom, and knowing her husband could afford it, she told him that was all she wanted.

As her birthday approached, she awaited signs that her husband had purchased the diamond ring. Finally, on the morning of her birthday, her husband called her into his study. Her husband told her how proud he was to have such a good wife, and told her how much he loved her. He handed her a beautiful wrapped gift box. Curious, the wife opened the box and found a lovely leather-bound book, with the wife’s name embossed in gold.

Angrily, she raised her voice to her husband and said, “With all your money you give me a book? and stormed out of the house, leaving her husband.

Many years passed and Amma was very successful in business. She managed to settle for a more beautiful house and a wonderful family, but realized her ex-husband Kofi, was very old, and thought perhaps she should go to visit him. She had not seen him for many years. But before she could make arrangements, she received a telegram telling her that her ex-husband Kofi had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to her. She needed to come back immediately and take care of things.

When she arrived at her ex-husband’s house, sudden sadness and regret filled her heart. She began to search through her ex-husband’s important papers and saw the still new book, just as she had left it years ago. With tears, she opened the book and began to turn the pages. Her ex-husband had carefully underlined a verse, loving you is so beautiful and there is nothing I won’t do for you. As she read those words, a tiny package dropped from the back of the book. It had a diamond ring with her name engraved on it, the same diamond ring which she saw at the showroom. On the tag was the date of her birth, and the words…..’LUV U ALWAYS’…

Now, should Amma have demanded a gift from her husband? Should a wife be angry when her husband if he forgets her birthday? Should Kofi have placed the gift in the book as the Europeans do? Should Ghanaians make a big deal out of birthdays? And lastly should we continue to blindly copy European culture?

Komla, the Self Proclaimed Peace Broker.