I came to this village to teach. The day I got here,  I decided I would do everything within my power to leave here. I gave money to people to change my station for me but in the end, they told me stories. I met top people and pleaded with them. Nothing worked until I decided to do it for three years and seek a transfer.

Everything in this village is fashioned against the teaching profession. Some class teachers had to go to various homes of the kids to plead with the parents of the kids to allow them to come to school. One day I went to class and there was no one in class. It was a Thursday. When I expressed my shock the teachers laughed at me. One said, “They didn’t come today because no one went around to beg their parents.” Another said, “It’s normal. Today is their market day.”

It took me over a year to get used to how the village operated when it came to education. I took an interest in one of the girls. She was called Kaddie. She didn’t come to school often but was a smart girl. Sometimes she wouldn’t come to school because she didn’t have money for food. Or she wouldn’t come because her parents took her to the market to sell. Apart from being intelligent, she was beautiful too. She was the only girl in the class who could speak proper English. When I asked how she learned she said, “I love reading. I learn when I read.”

In the morning, I would pass by her house before going to school. I gave her money when she told me she didn’t have money. Mostly it was about money and she didn’t need much to be able to come to school. Just GHC2 or GHC3 was enough for her. When it had to do with the farm, I pleaded with her parents. One evening, I went there purposely to have a conversation with the parents. That was when I got to know that her father died long ago and her mother married another man and this man didn’t want to have anything to do with Kaddie’s education.

I pleaded with them to allow me to take care of her school issues. What it meant was, she would always come to school without being impeded. They agreed, as long as I was going to foot the monetary aspect of her school. Kaddie came to school every day and she became shaper each day. Before their final exam, I did extra classes for her and some students whose parents allowed them to attend. She did very well. She got an aggregate of sixteen, the best aggregate in the school.

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Girls in the village don’t continue their education no matter how good their results are. JHS has always been the bar. Right after that, you begin to learn the trade of your parents or you travel to the city to help a relative or become a house help. I didn’t want that for Kaddie. To me, it was a waste of intelligence and everything she had learned in school. Again, I pleaded with her parents. The man didn’t want to agree. Her mom was receptive but she said, “We don’t have the money to…”

I cut in, “Don’t worry about the money. I will support her through school. I don’t have much but I don’t think it will take much for her to complete SHS.”

They needed a hand in the farm or the market. Kaddie was that hand so it wasn’t easy for them to allow her to go. I sought the help of the headmaster of the school to get the parents to eventually accept my offer. Some teachers came in to offer their support until Kaddie finally went to the boarding school.

She came home with great reports every term and I was happy for her. When they came home for the other colour to go to school, I became her teacher, helping her, engaging her mind and making her busy until she returned to school. Through her, I found my purpose, the reason I was sent up there to be a teacher. Three years later, she was done. She didn’t fail any of the subjects though some of them could have been better. I felt proud. She was very proud of herself because she was the only one in her space to have attended SHS.

I was thinking about what next to do for her to be able to go to the tertiary. I was speaking to friends who worked in certain organizations to see if they could help. One afternoon, Kaddie’s mom came to visit. She wouldn’t sit down because she was in a hurry. She asked me, “When are you going to marry Kaddie now that she has completed school?” I laughed. “Marry her? Like how? That wasn’t part of the arrangement so what are you talking about?”

She said I was the reason her daughter wouldn’t get a man to propose to her because she was highly educated and the men in the village didn’t want that. According to her, Kaddie wouldn’t know how to own and take care of a farm because she wasted her time in school. It sounded funny but I couldn’t continue laughing, lest she might think I was disrespecting her. I told her I would come and see her later so we talk about it.

The next time when she was coming, she came with Kaddie and her husband. I called the headmaster in to help and surprisingly, he also thought I was helping the girl because I wanted to marry her. He told me, “If you don’t take care, this family will worry you with marriage until someone marries her or you leave the village.”

I tried talking to Kaddie to let her know the reason for everything. She said, “I thought you wanted me to go to school so I’ll fit the kind of woman you want to marry. If you don’t marry me, then you have to send me to the city to go and work.” I asked her, “How about school? Don’t you want to continue and become someone great in future?” She answered, “No I don’t want to go to school again. I want to work and take care of my mom and dad. They’ll hate me if I don’t do that. I will be a failure since I’m the first child.”

All my life, I haven’t felt like a failure until I heard Kaddie talk about her future. I thought I was helping her to be somewhere in future. She was my personal project, something I was doing to deserve blessings in the future. I ended up giving her parents GHC700 to start something for themselves before they left me alone.

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Two years later, I left the village. Before I left the village, I saw Kaddie around. She was carrying a heavy pregnancy that belonged to no one. She was desperate to find a man so she fell for the least of men who showed interest in her. She got pregnant but couldn’t name a man because she was sleeping with three of them. Talk about a wasted life. She turned off the brightness of her future so she could fit into the prevailing darkness of her village. I tried.

—Andy

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