Maami Ama loved her son; and this is a silly statement, as silly as saying Maami Ama is a woman. Which mother would not? At the time of this story, he had just turned ten years old. He was in Primary Class Four and quite tall for his age. His skin was as smooth as shea-butter and as dark as charcoal. His black hair was as soft as his mother’s. His eyes were of the kind that always remind one of a long dream on a hot afternoon. It is indecent to dwell on a boy’s physical appearance, but then Kwesi’s beauty was indecent.

The evening was not yet come. My watch read 4.15 p.m., that ambiguous time of the day which these people, despite their great ancient astronomic knowledge, have always failed to identify. For the very young and very old, it is certainly evening, for they’ve stayed at home all day and they begin to persuade themselves that the day is ending. Bored with their own company, they sprawl in the market-place or by their own walls. The children begin to whimper for their mothers, for they are tired with playing ‘house’. Fancying themselves starving, they go back to what was left of their lunch, but really they only pray that mother will come home from the farm soon. The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics which were fresh at ten o’clock.

‘I say, Kwame, as I was saying this morning, my first wife was a most beautiful woman,’ old Kofi would say.

‘Oh! yes, yes, she was an unusually beautiful girl. I remember her.’ Old Kwame would nod his head but the truth was he was tired of the story and he was sleepy. ‘It’s high time the young people came back from the farm.’

But I was a teacher, and I went the white man’s way. School was over. Maami Ama’s hut was at one end of the village and the school was at the other. Nevertheless it was not a long walk from the school to her place because Bamso is not really a big village. I had left my books to little Grace Ason to take home for me; so I had only my little clock in my hand and I was walking in a leisurely way. As I passed the old people, they shouted their greetings. It was always the Fanticised form of the English.

‘Kudiimin-o, Chicha.’ Then I would answer, ‘Kudiimin, Nana.’ When I greeted first, the response was ‘Tanchiw’.

‘Chicha, how are you?’

‘Nana, I am well.’

‘And how are the children?’

‘Nana, they are well.’