Castles from Cobwebs by J.A. Mensah

Author:J.A. Mensah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saraband
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning, I wake to see, lying at the front door: a cutlass, a club, a net and a bag. Aunt Esi says we’re going to gather food and if we’re lucky, we might find some bushmeat to have with our rice and beans for dinner tonight. For two days now we haven’t eaten meat, and she wants to rectify this. I don’t miss meat, I tell her, I’m used to a mainly vegetarian diet at St Teresa’s. But Aunt Esi insists. Aunt Grace had warned me that Aunt Esi has some unconventional ideas and I should speak up if I feel uncomfortable about anything she suggests. As we both get ready for the day, I begin tentatively by calling her name.

‘Yes?’ she says.

‘I’m not sure I feel … ok about this.’

‘What?’

‘Hunting giant rats.’

‘Well, when you say it like that, of course you’re not going to feel ok,’ she laughs. ‘“Hunting giant rats!” We’re just going to get some food. Grasscutter is like young tender chicken meat or fish. It’s lean like fish. You like fish, don’t you?’

She’s bent over, massaging shea butter into her legs; she looks up at me with a smile that feels like a challenge.

‘Didn’t the nuns ever take you shopping in England? Didn’t you go to a superstore…?’

‘We got most of our things from the grounds or local farmers.’

‘Well, this will be the same as your big weekly shop; think of this as the Ghanaian superstore.’

‘The catering for the girls’ school came from the mainland. That was from a supermarket, I think, but I never–’

‘In England, the nuns took you to Walmart or something like it. Do they have Walmart in England? Anyway, they would have gone to a very big store and bought the food there. They will–’

‘No–’

‘Most people in England will buy food from one big store that sells everything – food, clothes, electricals. You just have to see this experience as the Ghanaian version. It’s not so different.’

‘I went to a big store like that with Aunt Grace and Adjoa, last week in Accra. They’d been insisting on buying me clothes…’

‘It’s exactly the same, then. You’ll feel like you’re right back in England,’ she chuckles to herself.

I’m nearly shouting now, ‘That wasn’t England! You’re not listening to me!’

She continues as though she hasn’t heard me. She puts the cutlass, club and net inside a thatched plastic bag and walks out. I follow, slamming the yellow door behind me. Her house rattles with the force of it.

‘Even if I’d had that experience at Holymead, I imagine this still wouldn’t be anything like it,’ I say. ‘No other Ghanaian I’ve met has talked about hunting for giant rats.’

‘That’s because those other Ghanaians have moved away from nature and from the Motherland,’ she says. ‘Look, I’m not forcing you to come.’ She disappears into the trees and I run after her, not wanting to be left alone.

Aunt Esi picks up a large-leafed plant, ‘This is good,’ she says, pushing it under my nose. She picks up another, similar leaf, ‘This is bad.

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