I started dreaming of going to Achimota School as a year 4 primary pupil. I had read about Aggrey in a history book. I had read about this school which was born on the principle of collaboration, playing harmony with the different chords that all human beings bring. I suspect I also must have seen them marching past on Independence Day, on the black and white TV sitting in its pride of place in the hall.
When I started Achimota, it was rocky in the beginning. I had to rediscover myself in the eyes of the people who would become my friends for life. It’s been 25 years since I finished, and it has almost taken me that length of time to understand what my parents have always wanted me to understand. I remember my mother, coming to visit every time she could. She would sit with me in front of the Form two block, on the low wall of the long white building which was usually isolated at the weekend. And we would talk about life, and hope and everything.
Now I look back and it strikes me what she must have done. She would have had to leave her job in the middle of the day, take two buses to the Achimota Station, then walk from where the bus would leave her at the cross roads. All the way up to Aggrey House, in the noon day sun, so she could maximise visiting time. And she would usually have a basket of food. Somedays, there would be a car that would bring her up, but that was just some days.
Boarding school had a way of redefining the way I saw myself. Suddenly I was thrust into an environment where I related to myself considering only what I had, or knew, or could do. Not who I was. Decades later, the conversations I had with my mother on that wall in front of the form one block, register in their truth. She would always remind me to be myself. It did not matter what the guys in my house thought about me, or the girls, or my housemaster, or my teacher and all the people who formed my socio-academic space. It was more important to be whom I had been brought up to be. And she did bring me up well. She made sure I spoke with respect, and looked out for my younger siblings. She showed me how to take care of myself, dress neatly, speak respectfully, use cutlery.
She was always there, in spite of the hard work she committed herself to. Her salary was meagre, but she did the best that she could. My siblings and I were blessed with two supportive and loving parents, but we did not call our mother, Mother, for nothing. She was really the rock around which our home revolved. I owe quite a bit of whom I have become to her mothering. It was her love that has formed the reference point for all the love I have experienced in my life. It has made me understand a bit of God’s persistence in my imperfection. If I had not been first loved by her, I would not know how to sift through all the various relationships that this life brings. Sometimes, it is only because of exposure to a special love, that we can appreciate the really good people in our lives, and pass by the unhelpful ones.
I still have to think carefully before I tell my mother I am not feeling well. Sometimes I do not even call, because the moment she hears my voice, she will know there is something wrong. And then I have to add to my recovery, recuperation from the pain in her voice as she wonders what I could take. I was a sickly kid. I have taken many a walk with her to hospitals, and have woken up many nights to find her sitting by my bed, brooding over me with her towel and thermometer in hand. I received care from her that no hospital could give. She knows more about the ravages my body has suffered, than anyone. And when she says she is thankful for what a healthy man I have become, I know she means that more than anyone else.
And above all, her message in all those conversations on the Achimota form two block wall, ring truer today than ever. It is not as important what I have, or know or can do as it is who I am. In a world that tries to dictate a reality to live in, I have run circles around this truth, but keep coming back to it. It is the people who reach out to who I am, in spite of what I can do, or have, who really make a difference in my life.
This weekend, I have an Israeli grandmother celebrating 90 years of life. She is out with my Israeli mother, and my Israeli family. I love them. I have been blessed with more families like this along the path of my life so far. I am privileged to experience love from all kinds of places, and feel at home in different houses not my own.
I am able to treasure them, and love them back, because of my mother.