In 2008, we attended a colleague’s father’s funeral in a village in the Ashanti region. It was a Friday and I got to the town very late. I was asleep in the bus when I heard the driver’s mate shouting for everyone to get down. I asked the person next to me, “Is that the final destination?” He said, “Yeah, unless you want to alight at the main station. Other than that, here’s the last stop.” I got down, looked around and all I saw was darkness. “Is there no light in this village?” I asked myself. I picked my phone to make a call. It was there I realized there was no reception on my phone. I waited for a while. It was 2008, the network wasn’t all that stable.
I waited for a few minutes and still, there was no network. I checked the time on my phone; 8:47pm. I walked towards a woman who was selling tea and bread with lanterns surrounding her table. I told her, “I came to a friend’s father’s funeral around here but I can’t get my friend on the phone because of network issues. Do you know a particular place where a funeral is being held?” She said, “Today is Friday. There are so many funerals in town. How would you know which one you are attending?” Then she pointed at the north and said, “Go straight and turn left and then go till you meet a mango tree, there’s a dusty road on the right side of the mango tree, take that road and go until you meet a hill. Go up the hill, I learned people get network there. If you’re lucky, you can get your friend so he tells you where to find him.”
The direction he gave was very confusing. I asked, “Could you repeat the direction again.” A lady seated behind her stood up and said, “Let’s go. It’s not far from here.” I followed her while I looked on my phone, hoping the network will just appear somehow so I can place a call to that my friend. I barely looked at who I was following. I knew she was a girl. That was all. She asked me, “Your friend didn’t tell you about the network situation in town?” I answered, “No.” We kept walking. She asked, “Your friend is also in town here?” I answered “Yes.” She said; “Then unless that your friend is also on the hill where a network is, else you can’t reach him even if you get a network to make the call.”
The fruitlessness of the journey dawned on me. I told her, “You’re right but there are other people I can call and ask the information from.” We got to the top of the hill and I stood at that point they said there would be a reception. I turned my phone to the west, east, south, and north. I lifted it up over my head. I sat, squatted, and lied on the floor. I couldn’t get a single bar to appear on my phone. For close to thirty minutes, we struggled but nothing happened. We came off the hill with disappointments drawn all over my face. The lady told me, “You came for a funeral right?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Don’t worry, it’s a small town and wherever there’s a funeral, they’ll mount sound systems and play music so it’s easy to see funeral grounds. Let’s walk around and find out.”
She led, I followed. We got to one funeral ground, I checked the poster. The name of my friend wasn’t part of the children. I said, “No this is not the one.” We moved to another location, talked to few people there. It wasn’t the funeral I was looking for. We moved. At some point, I asked her name. She answered, “I’m Afriyie.” I asked, “You were born and raised here?” She said, “Yes, but I schooled in Kumasi. I came back when I completed school because my parents are still here.”
Another location, another disappointment. Finally, we met an old man who asked us so many questions about the funeral we were looking for. He said, “Oh that funeral is not in this town ooo. It’s in the next town not far from here. When you got here, you should have picked another car to the town.” I checked the time and it was almost 12am. There was no car to take me to the next town. She led me to the police station where I sat and dozed off until the next morning. Early the next morning, she came around; ”Hurry up and move before you miss the first car.”
At the funeral, all I could think about was Afriyie and how kind she was to me. I told my story to friends and they laughed at me but they all agreed that I had to look for Afriyie and pay her handsomely for the kind of help she gave me. On Sunday when we were leaving, I stopped and spoke to her. I gave her my number and told her to call me whenever she gets a network. A week or so later she called. She said, “I’m on the hill facing south. The network isn’t strong but if the line cuts please call again.” The line would cut. I will call again and it would not go through. Sometimes, we spoke for a minute. When we were lucky, we talked for a minute and ten seconds. It was frustrating but she never stopped calling.
One day she said, I’ve gained admission to Akrokerri Training College. When I get to school, I’m sure there would be a network and we’ll talk all day. She went to school and we talked all day every day. I visited her a few times in school and the joy in her eyes each day I visited was divine. A week before she completed school, I asked her, “So tell me, now that school is over, would you agree for us to get married?” She answered, “Let’s see.”
So we saw and conquered the obstacles on our way, and on September 7th, 2013 we got married and began our journey together as a husband and a wife.
