My mom died last year. On her obituary poster, they wrote her name as Rosemary Ansah Aka, Maame Nti. I looked at the poster and smiled to myself. I said, “So this woman died with this name?”

Nti wasn’t her name. I was there the day she got that name. I was fourteen going on fifteen. That day I cried, but today, I remember and smile and feel grateful for how far the Lord has brought me.

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Nti means “So.” It’s a Twi word, like saying “Nti diɛn?” meaning, “So what?”

My mom’s Nti is that kind of Nti. She got that name during Christmas. Now, let me tell you how it happened. Life was very hard growing up. Dad wasn’t doing very well in life. My mom prepared banku in a big pot and sold it in front of our house. We didn’t have to tell anyone we were poor. It showed in the way we talked, the way we dressed, the way we ate. Poverty was our culture.

Along the line, Dad died. He was sick for a year and then left us peacefully one dawn. He died poor, or you could say he died out of poverty. That’s a nice way of saying poverty killed my dad. My mom became a one-man band. She played all the instruments of life alone to produce the music her kids would enjoy.

My mom had a friend, a farmer who liked my mom for no reason. He was called Bentil. He would bring my mom maize from his farm and end up spending a whole night with my mom talking and laughing. When he caught a grasscutter on his farm, he brought my mom half. If he caught a bird, he brought it to my mom.

One Christmas morning, my mom rushed home holding a huge fowl and singing songs of gratitude to God. I understood her happiness quickly because of the fowl in her hand. She said, “Look at what Bentil brought us for Christmas. Get up, look for cassava. We also deserve a good aroma from our kitchen.”

A few minutes later, the head of the fowl was gone and it had been dipped into hot water. Mom placed it in a tray and told me, “Pluck off the feathers. Make sure not a single tiny bit of hair is left on the skin.”

I set to work, and a few minutes later, the chicken went completely bald in my hand. Mom placed it on a wooden table to begin cutting it to pieces. Before the first slice, a woman cried out from the outside: “My fowl is missing. It’s white and grey on the chest. If you know it accidentally entered your house, kindly release it. But if you’ve stolen it, rest assured that you won’t live to see the new year.”

I plucked the feathers, so I knew the color of the fowl we had fit exactly what the woman was describing. Mom stopped the cutting and looked at my face. I also looked at her. I saw guilt and worry on her face, but she went on cutting the chicken to pieces. Several minutes later, the woman passed by again, carrying the same message: “My chicken is missing. It’s white with grey on the chest. If you’ve stolen it, you won’t live to see the new year.”

I was scared. Curses were not something you joked with in those days. She said, almost in whispers, “Do you think Bentil would steal a fowl and give it to me as a gift?” I responded, almost in whispers, “But the colors are the same as the woman is describing. Why don’t you talk to her?”

She didn’t mind me. She continued making the soup with the chicken. I started getting scared when the aroma of the soup started flying out. I wish I had the power to arrest the aroma and throw away the keys. Everyone in the neighborhood knew we couldn’t afford chicken, so for chicken aroma to escape from our kitchen meant we were the first suspect of the crime.

The soup was almost ready when the woman passed by again; this time she stood in front of our house for a while, announcing the calamity that would befall anyone who stole her fowl. My mom quickly dashed out of the kitchen, held the woman’s cloth, and asked, “Nti akokɔ yɛtɔ ne sɛn aa wopɛsɛ wo bɔ dua kum abusua?” To wit, “So how much is a fowl that you want to kill a whole family because of it?”

Everyone around started jeering, calling my mom a thief and teasing me as the child of a thief. By the time my mom got the chance to explain how she got the fowl, the story had already gone viral that my mom had stolen another woman’s fowl. That was the day her name changed. They’d see my mom and whisper within themselves, “Nti akokɔ yɛtɔ ne sɛn?”

My mom didn’t rest. She used all her energy to clear her name. Bentil accepted responsibility and was made to pay for the fowl, but my mom’s new name stuck like scarlet in wool. With time, they shortened her name to “Nti.” Comfort eventually becomes Connie. Agnes becomes Aggie. Every name has its short form, so ‘Nti akokɔ yɛtɔ ne sɛn’ eventually became Nti. Short and simple. Those who wanted to add respect to her name called her Maame Nti.

She stopped fighting the name. She became at peace with it, knowing they were never going to stop. In her playful mood, when you called her Nti, she added, “Akokɔ yɛ sɛn?”

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

Chicken was a delicacy we saw only during Christmas. Every home, no matter how poor, slaughtered a chicken, and once Christmas was over, chicken season was also over. Today, what’s chicken? What food joint doesn’t sell chicken? Who can’t afford chicken? Akokɔ nam yɛ sɛn? Thankfully, Mom lived long enough to see chicken meat as something that’s not worth dying for.

—Maame Nti’s Daughter

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