His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

"Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding."  When I read those words, I thought surely this novel was set in the past because who does that in the present. While the book is set in the past, it's not in the distant past, it's 2014. 

The bride, Afi, has been given a mission by the family of her betrothed - force the break up of your husband and his girlfriend and return him to the family fold. That's not a small order, is it? But it seems a small price to pay for all Aunty Faustina Ganyo has done for Afi and her mother. And it's a win-win for Afi. She gets to leave her small town for Accra and an opportunity to study fashion design. Indeed, a small price to pay for marrying someone you've only met in passing and never with the intention of marrying him.

Initially I thought His Only Wife might be reminiscent of Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, but that notion is quickly disavowed with Afi's arrival in Accra. While the author's description of Afi's life back in her home town is full of family members and detailed descriptions of their personalities, their backgrounds, etc., giving readers a chance to get to know them, descriptions of the people she meets in Accra tend to be more superficial. I never really felt like I got to know them so I had difficulty determining if their motives were sincere.

I think I expected more of His Only Wife than the author was able to give. Afi reads more like an impressionable early teen than an adult woman. Her story line is steady in some parts and rushed in others. It's the rushed parts that needed more detail and consistency to give the book some balance.

Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher but in no way influenced my review.

 

#BookReview: Faceless - Amma Darko #BP2W (Ghana)

If I've learned nothing else in the first few months of this challenge, it's that women and girls around the world live difficult lives.  That's not to say that I didn't know that before, but it was never more obvious to me than when reading Amma Darko's Faceless.

Fourteen year old Fofo is a street child.  Like many children who live in an area referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah in Accra, Ghana, she's estranged from her family.  Unlike some of the children that have been put out on the streets to work, she voluntarily left home before she could be forced to.  Whether she left by force or her own volition is moot, because it's likely that the outcome would have been the same.

Growing up, Fofo saw her older brothers leave, and with them, most of the household income, and her older sister.  While her brothers left to pursue their own careers, Fofo's older sister, Baby T, left under cloudier circumstances.  And when Baby T is found murdered, Fofo is determined to help her new found friends find out what happened to her sister.

Amma Darko uses Faceless to touch on quite a few issues. The character Fofo deals with abandonment, while Baby T deals with molestation and prostitution.  Their mother, Maa Tsuru, the product of a single parent home seeks love and attention from men who use her.  With the character Kabria, the middle class agency worker who tries to assist Fofo, Darko highlights the difficulties in balancing the role of mother, wife and employee in a chauvinistic society.

The one thing that threw me was the way Darko interjected the AIDS conversation into the story line.  There was a missed opportunity for Kabria to have a conversation with her oldest daughter about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases that was not fleshed out.  It was obvious that she wanted to get the message out, and I applaud her for that, but the ways in which she did it did not flow well with the story and instead of being well integrated, they read as commercial-like PSAs in the middle of a skit. 

236pp
Published: January 1996

Formed from the merger of the British colony of the Gold Coast and the Togoland trust territory, Ghana in 1957 became the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence.  Ghana's economy has been strengthened by a quarter century of relatively sound management, a competitive business environment, and sustained reductions in poverty levels.

Location: Western Africa, bordering the Gulf of Guinea, between Cote d'Ivoire and Togo
Size: 238,533 sq km; slightly smaller than Oregon
Population: 24,652,402 
Ethnic groups: Akan 47.5%, Mole-Dagbon 16.6%, Ewe 13.9%, Ga-Dangme 7.4%, Gurma 5.7%, Guan 3.7%, Grusi 2.5%, Mande-Busanga 1.1%, other 1.6%
Languages: Asante 14.8%, Ewe 12.7%, Fante 9.9%, Boron (Brong) 4.6%, Dagomba 4.3%, Dangme 4.3%, Dagarte (Dagaba) 3.7%, Akyem 3.4%, Ga 3.4%, Akuapem 2.9%, other (includes English (official)) 36.1%

 

Anthem: God Bless Our Homeland Ghana

#BookReview: Powder Necklace - Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Sending your daughter away from London, the only home she's ever known, to your native country of Ghana, may seem extreme to some.  But that's just what Lila's mother does when she suspects her 14 year old daughter is becoming too wild and loose.  Telling her that they're going to visit her Auntie Flora, Lila's mother instead takes her to the airport and puts her on a flight to Kumasi.

Just as she's adjusted to life with Auntie Irene, for what she believes is a short visit, Lila learns that her mother intends for her to stay in Ghana for the duration of the school year.  At the Dadaba Girls' Secondary School, Lila is forced to endure water shortages, harassment because of her British accent, and finally learns the real reason her mother sent her away.  She needed time for herself.  WHAT? I almost threw this book across the room when I read that.  Lila's father lived in United States. He was perfectly willing to have Lila come live with him, but her mother sent her to Ghana because she needed time to herself AND to spite him? Ugh.

Eventually Lila's  mother brings her back to England.  In the six months that Lila has been gone, her mother has managed to get engaged to a man with a daughter Lila's age and they all live together.  Ma'am, you couldn't deal with your own child, who by all accounts was a good kid, but you're parenting someone else's child while yours is living in less than favorable conditions for months?

When her mother again decides she can't deal with Lila, she tells her she's going to visit her father for the summer in New York.  Look, I don't know why this woman wasn't just upfront with her daughter each time she shipped her off.  And I don't know why Lila kept falling for the okey doke, because by this time I already knew her mother was sending her there permanently.

Lila is much more optimistic than I am though.  Even after getting shuttled from house to house, continent to continent, she was able to find the good in the situation.  I would have been really interested in reading this story from the mother's point of view.  Without hearing her side of the story, she just comes across as extremely self-centered and uncaring.  That made it difficult to enjoy the book.  While Brew-Hammond has been compared to Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I have to say she's not even close to being in their league.

280pp
Published: April 2010

Theme: Unconditional Love by Donna Summer & Musical Youth

#BookReview: My Name is Butterfly - Bernice McFadden

Never one to shy away from sensitive topics, Bernice McFadden takes readers into the world of the Trokosi.  In simple terms, Trokosi are girls given by their family to a deity as a sacrifice in exchange for better luck, fortune or things along those terms.  Adebe Tsikata is such a girl, but she's also a survivor.

Growing up in Accra, Ghana, Adebe leads a charmed life.  Her father, Kwasi, with a degree from an English university, works as a government accountant.  Her mother, Lemusi, a former model, is a teacher.  They lead an extremely comfortable life and Adebe is the apple of their eye.

Adebe is just as fortunate to have an aunt that adores her.  Aunt Serwa spoils Adebe whenever she visits from the United States.  The two share an unbreakable bond and Serwa promises that one day she'll send for Adebe to visit her in the states.

With so many people that love her, how does Adebe become Trokosi?  Superstition, lack of faith and jealousy on the parts of her grandmother and father are probably the easiest explanations, but it goes farther than that.  The end result, though, is that Adebe is forced from the only home she's known into an existence that bares great resemblance to hell on earth.

My Name is Butterfly is a remarkable story of surviving some of the worst circumstances known to men, rebuilding yourself and learning to survive again and again.  McFadden is indeed a master storyteller.

Available in Nook & Kindle format only
Published: April 2012

Theme: Black Butterfly by Deniece Williams

#BookReview: The Prophet of Zongo Street - Mohammed Naseehu Ali

A delightful collection of short stories, The Prophet of Zongo Street, skillfully introduces the reader to a wide array of characters connected to this fictitious street in Kumasi, Ghana. From the elderly Uwargida who magically spins tales for the young children to the humble tea seller, Mallam Sile, who always has a kind word for the cruel patrons that take advantage of him, you'll be drawn into these stories from start to finish.

Other enjoyable stories include The Live In, a short about a Ghanese woman relocated to New York drawn by her sister's claims of wealth and fortune; Man Pass Man, about a local hustler that is finally outhustled; and The Manhood Test, in which a newly married couple test the definition of marriage; and the title story, The Prophet of Zongo Street.

I greatly enjoyed this collection of stories.