That Sunday afternoon, Abena was with Kojo at Josephine Akrofi’s home where the documentary on Kojo was struggling to come together. The film crew had completed the sequences at the Center, but the segments with Josephine interacting with Kojo at home were proving to be a headache. For two days running, Kojo had been restless and difficult to manage with his hand flapping, finger rubbing, and high-pitched screaming disrupting the repeated takes. Abena and Auntie Rose had a lot of patience, but Mrs. Akrofi’s was wearing thin. Her idea had been to show Kojo interacting quietly with his tablet in her home. She would enter the scene, sit next to the boy, and explain how she often welcomed him and other children from the Center to her home (which wasn’t entirely true). The idea was to put an “international face” to the appeal and boost the Center’s new website and crowdfunding campaign. Josephine’s theory was that well-off people are more likely to donate if they could “see themselves” in the video—if they could “relate” to a well-heeled, fashionable woman contributing to such a noble cause.

“It’s the very opposite of showing malnourished African kids in refugee camps with bloated bellies and flies buzzing around their faces,” she reasoned. “People in the West are tired of seeing all those images. They have compassion and donor fatigue. So now let’s put a splash of glamour into charitable giving.”

However, nothing was working. The whole of Saturday, the day before, the director and camera crew had been at the Akrofis’ home, trying but failing to get some usable footage. They had returned this morning with hopes of knocking out a good video segment, but it looked like it was to drag into Monday. Despair and frustration had begun to take hold of everyone, including the object of their attention: Kojo. Abena and Rose agreed with each other that he could not take any more overstimulation.

“I’ll take you home, Abena,” Rose said.

“I have a better idea,” Josephine said. “Abena, you can stay in the servants’ quarters overnight. We have an extra room that’s not in use. That way we can begin the filming early tomorrow morning—no later than seven. My husband is away until tomorrow evening and I would like to have everything finished by then. He’s not particularly fond of disruptions in our home.”

All parties agreed to that. Abena retired with Kojo to the servants’ quarters at the side of the home. Mrs. Akrofi provided dinner in containers that Abena took with her to the quarters. She bathed Kojo, fed him, and lay him down to rest. He was quiet with none of the repetitive behavior of before. Abena finally had a chance to eat in peace. Araba, Mrs. Akrofi’s house girl, had prepared sumptuous banku and okro stew.