My parents had three girls; me, my sister Adzo, my sister Enyonam and my sister Peace. I’m the little one. At a family meeting some years ago, my sister Adzo’s marriage came up for discussion. She is the eldest child and was in her third marriage at the time. My father said; “Adzo, you better make this third one work. You’ve disgraced this family a lot and it’s enough. This should be your last marriage or you’ll cease to be called my daughter”
Adzo had something to say to that. We all saw the anger in her demeanor and knew it was going to be explosive. She said, “Maybe if you stopped picking second-hand men for me to marry, life would have been different but no. You keep interfering in my life trying to dictate my every step even the man I ought to sleep with.”
We all were silent for a while. Adzo walked out. My mother followed. Peace also followed. I sat there face to face with my father. I told him, “She said the truth. You can’t keep picking men for your daughters and blame them when the marriage doesn’t work out.”
When we were kids, our father never stopped telling us to marry from our own tribe. He even ensured our friends were people from our tribe. If he got to know you had a friend who wasn’t from our tribe, he would starve and beat you until you decide to part ways with that friend.
My sister Adzo always lived in our home town so my dad was able to keep a grip on her, deciding everything for her. Peace moved to Kumasi and found herself a man. Regardless of all the stiff opposition and threat, she received from my father, she went ahead and married this man. My father didn’t attend the wedding and he didn’t allow my mom to attend too.
One year into the marriage, Peace’s husband died. Two years after, Peace got married again to a man who wasn’t from our tribe. Eight months into the marriage, the man died. Peace got the message; “If you won’t marry from our tribe or allow me to choose for you, then they won’t survive.” That’s the message Peace gathered from the events surrounding her love life. She has lived with a man for four years now. Nobody knows about it except me. Maybe the man is still alive because they are not married.
On my graduation day, my dad pulled me aside and said, “Come home and find yourself a man. These men you see here are not good for you. They are not pure blooded.” “Pure blooded?” I asked. He answered, “You won’t understand.”
My love life had always been sketchy. I’d always wanted to find my own man no matter the tribe he came from. On the other hand, I was haunted by the happenings in my sister Peace’s life. It couldn’t have been sheer coincidence that the men she married died. Knowing my father and who he really is, that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Finally, I gathered the courage to call home one afternoon to give my dad my happy news; “Dad, I found a man who wants to marry me. He would like to come home with me to meet…” I didn’t even complete my statement then he asked, “Where is he from and who is his father?”
“Erm…dad, is that the most important thing right now? He makes me happy, that’s the most important thing to me.” He repeated; “Where is he from and who is his father?”
I was silent for a while…He said; “I know what that silence means. You know what I want for you. Please, don’t let me repeat it.” “But dad, you don’t have a good history of choosing great partners for your daughters. So why don’t you give me the chance to at least try?” He responded, “You can try but make sure he’s from the tribe. That’s all I ask from you.”
For the next several days, I didn’t know how to communicate what my dad said to my boyfriend but I eventually did. I told him everything about my family and my dad’s obsession for us to marry from our tribe line. I told him what happened to Peace when she decided to do it her own way. He asked, “You mean your dad has a hand in the death of Peace’s husbands?” I responded, “I didn’t say that but I won’t also deny that. I mean two consecutive deaths can’t be an accident, right?”
There’s something about my boyfriend. He didn’t believe in spiritual issues so what I said didn’t scare him. Rather, he was determined to win my dad over. He made several calls to my dad just to get him to understand but he refused to be moved. We traveled to my home town to see him but he vehemently ordered him not to step a foot in his compound. My mom found a way of warming up towards my boyfriend but my dad never did.
After a year of trying, we gave up. We went ahead to get married. He didn’t come to the wedding. My mom came with some of her siblings and family head. That was enough for us to get married.
And then the problem started coming…
Twice my husband had a brush with death. He started having seizures, heart problems and other strange diseases he had never experienced in his life. It was getting scary so we spoke to my father’s senior brother to help us talk to my father. He suggested we purchase some traditional stuff to use to pacify him. We did but my dad never accepted those items.
One night, my dad’s senior brother called me. He told me how the whole family has tried to persuade the old man to forgive and come visit us but my dad said no. He said my dad complained about me disgracing him by disobeying his orders. He also accused me of bringing his name to disrupt and disrespect.
After telling me all that, my uncle said; “Alice you’ve done your part and the whole family is solidly behind you now. Your dad can’t come after you in any way. The day he tries, that day he’ll fall.”
I could sense the anger in his voice but that gave me a lot of warmth. The assurance felt so good that I ran to tell my husband. He was skeptical. He wanted to know why my dad was burnt on destroying us. I told him, “Someday, everything will make sense.
For several months after my uncle’s call, we didn’t have any issues. One morning my mom called; “Alice, your dad…your dad had been sick for some time now and it gets worse every day.” My heart sunk. I asked her to let me talk to him but my dad refused to talk to me. I kept calling every day to ask my mom how he was doing. We sent money for his upkeep and bought the drugs the doctors prescribed.
I woke up on Saturday morning to see five missed calls from my mother. I called back and she answered while crying. “Your dad couldn’t make it,” she said. I cried a little. I felt guilty for not being able to make up with him.
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Some years later, mom tried to offer some sort of explanation as to why he was doing that; “Your dad’s family have never married an outsider. It’s something that started from their great grandfathers. See the children of his brothers and sisters, none of them married an outsider. You people made him looked like a black sheep of his family.”
“So truly he was responsible for everything that was happening to us, including the death of Peace’s husband?” I asked her. She answered, “Someday when you die and meet him, ask him!”
—Alice, Ghana
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