Ewes walk around bearing their tribe in their names; Enyonam, Ewoenam, Eyram, Eklenam. All the ‘nams.’ They tell you they are Ewes even before you ask them. I knew  Emefa was an Ewe even before I said hello to her. The day I allowed my heart to fall in love with her, I didn’t consider her tribe, because love, whether true or not, doesn’t know tribe.

A simple hello brought us together. I already knew her name but she didn’t know mine. She asked me and I told her. After a few minutes of talking to each other, she walked away with my name and I, her number. The first time we talked on the phone, we lasted for over an hour. I knew she loved me too so the next day we met. We met again the following day and the next and the next until we accepted that we couldn’t let each other go out of sight.

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She made it easier. The proposal. She didn’t ask for days to think about it. She didn’t ask questions that made me feel I was in for bad reasons. She said yes. When I asked to visit her place, she said yes. Love started growing carelessly like weeds at places you don’t want them to grow. The years passed by quickly without us noticing them. One day we woke up and we were two years together.

“Are we going to celebrate it,” she asked me.

“Sure, if you want us to.”

While out and having fun, she asked the question that started rolling the wheels of doubt in my head. “When are you taking me home? It’s been two years. Don’t you think it’s long enough for us to invite our families in?”

That question reminded me of everything that my family is, and is not. My dad married a woman from our tribe, that’s my mom. When growing up, Dad sang praises about the sanctity of our tribe as though it was the best thing to ever happen to humans. He didn’t tell us to choose our spouses from our tribe but he gave us the impression that if we didn’t, he wouldn’t be happy. Mom was about our language. She forced us to speak it. Not only that but to also speak it very well.

The two men ahead of me married from our tribe. The only sister we have also married a man from our tribe. Their weddings were a pure representation of what it meant to belong to our tribe, even the colours spoke our language.

I took a mental pilgrimage through all these and concluded, “No, my family wouldn’t accept an Ewe. If I take one home, I would be the odd one out, the black sheep of the family. My wife won’t belong because they won’t let her.”

A couple of weeks after our second anniversary, I sent her a text; “I’m rethinking everything. It’s hard to say this but can you give me some space to figure myself out? Don’t think hard about it. It’s not your fault. You haven’t wronged me. It’s me but forgive me.”

She came home after reading the message. I didn’t want to look at her face and go through all the things I said in the message. I didn’t have answers to her whys. I didn’t know what to say to her hows. She thought it was about another woman. She didn’t believe me when I said it was a phase and not a woman. She left my house with tears in her eyes. I said in my head, “It’s better we cry today and heal than wait for tomorrow when healing is difficult.”

A week after our break up, I was tempted to call her and apologize. A month later, I still felt I owed her an apology. Three months later, I still felt hollow, as if I’d lost the piece that held my centre together. It was hard. No matter how hard I was tempted to call her, I held on. I wanted to respect her pain and also use my absence to help her heal. Healing is hard when the reason for your pain never goes away. I stayed far from her to make her heal but my own healing was not happening.

One day I went home to visit my parents. My elder brother, the first one was there with her wife and kids. I was looking at their happy faces and yearning for happiness of my own. When I got the chance I asked him questions about marriage. He wondered if I was thinking about marriage so I told him the story of me and Emefa and the reason I broke up with her. He asked me, “You broke up with someone you call a good woman because she’s an Ewe? Is tribe a crime?”

I gave him my reasons. Dad’s pride in our tribe and the fact that everyone around chose someone from our tribe. He said, “I would have chosen my wife even if she wasn’t from our tribe. I met her in our hometown and our hometown is made of people from our tribe so the probability of meeting a woman from another tribe is low. I didn’t marry her because she’s one of our own. She’s a good woman and I don’t think Dad will fight your choice when the time comes.”

I tested the theory with my dad. I told him I met a woman and I wanted to bring her home. He said, “Bring her.” I said, “Won’t you ask where she comes from?” He answered, “Does that matter?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Really? He doesn’t care? I thought-I thought…”

Right there, I sent Emefa a message. It had been close to a year since we broke up. I said, “We need to talk.” She responded, “You can talk.” I replied, “I mean face to face. Not on the phone.”

I rehearsed my apology. I prayed she accept me. I even learned how to say sorry in Ewe. When we met I said, “Medavo, trɔva gbɔnye.”

She exclaimed, “What! What did you just say?”

Then she burst out laughing. “No repeat it. I want to hear it again,” she said. I responded, “You know what I’m saying. Forgive me if I didn’t say it well but truly, I made a mistake. Please forgive.”

She asked what had changed and for the first time, I told her the real reason we broke up. She screamed, “At least you could have found out first. Why did you assume?” I answered, “I thought I knew my family. Everything about them smelled tribalism; the way they raised us, the way they taught us, the way they lived their life, but I was wrong.”

She inhaled loudly and folded her arms; “There’s someone else. It’s too late. It’s hard the way you cut me off. I never dreamt of this day when you would be here speaking broken Ewe. I’m sorry…”

I Discovered He Had Another Woman But I Couldn’t Leave Him

I begged her in the name of God. I pleaded with her to break up with that guy. She said, “I don’t have your kind of heart so it’s hard to break up with someone who had been nothing but kind to me. It’s very hard.”

Nothing could change her mind so I took the L and walked away, looking back every now and then, hoping things would change. But some things never change so I slept in the recliner and looked up to the sun, hoping it would soon set on my broken heart and misery.

It didn’t. I’m still hurt.

—Albert

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