‘Hmmm, bad luck,’ he said launching another unwrapped sweet into his mouth. Then he put the tin down on a desk. His right hand indicated for Peace to enjoy a chocolate. With his left arm, he gestured that he would show me around.
I smiled. ‘I’d enjoy that very much,’ I said hoping I could gain as much information as necessary about my work before his bewitching hour of bottle consolation.
He was a stocky man too. His complexion was that of an ill alcoholic, beyond any doubt. Perhaps that was why I had to replace him, in time. His brightly coloured flowery Jeromi shirt integrated him into the community. I felt I needed a vibrant shirt like that too. The market should give me a good selection. Shopping for one was something to look forward to.
We entered the huge factory. The heat was immense—despite ventilation gaps in the roof. The first process was the cleaning of the kernels; the outer shell had to be separated from the nut.
‘What do you do with the discarded shells?’ I asked.
He hitched up his trousers. ‘Quite a few uses. Some goats eat them; others are used to start the evening cooking fires, the rest as manure. They decompose quickly.’
I nodded pleased that they had several further uses. In the next compartment was a dated Bulgarian seed processing machine. Its purpose was to crack the nuts then add water to cook them. The water bubbled like the Niagara Falls while the heat made me sweat profusely and the air I breathed seem to roast my throat.
I was relieved to leave that process. I was then taken to the processing workshop where the raw materials came under the screw press. After that, the nut pieces went through a solvent extraction method which made the residual rate of groundnut meal waste below 1%. The rest was groundnut oil and the bottling process went from that point. There was a distribution hut as a separate and securely locked facility at the end of the line.
The tour took the best part of an hour and a half, during which time I found curious eyes on me at every stage. I smiled at the workers, showing some humility. Their response was to show smiles and white teeth as they engaged in the work. Some came forward to shake my hand. They had seen and had met the new manager. They would think I was Russian when I was overheard. And that meant a communist too.
‘The only other aspect I’m confused about is how the nuts arrive here in the first place.’
He scratched his ear with his little finger. ‘All the groundnut farmers want me to take their crop. I don’t need to seek them. The supply is regular. And there are no unions to interfere with our production.’
‘And their wages? Who arranges that?’
‘They get paid on delivery. There’s a weekly pay for regular employees. Saturdays at mid-day they get paid before they leave work. Peace hands out the cedis. They take their pay like children receiving a birthday present,’ he said laughing loudly.
‘So, Peace is the receptionist, secretary and accountant?’
‘No, she is our secretary, receptionist and she hands out the money which I give her.’
‘I see,’ I said flicking a female mosquito from feeding on my arm. ‘And where will I work?’
Igor pointed towards Peace and informed me there was a room behind her. That was to be my office.
I was impressed with the production of the peanut oil but still wondered what my role was. I asked Igor. He replied in Russian of course. His English was often laboured.
‘The sea snake does not move for ages and then, when an unsuspecting victim approaches, it darts out and eats it.’
I reflected on what he meant. Long periods of doing nothing, I assumed. Then hectic moments of activity. That was what I took out of his analogy.
‘So when does it get busy?’
‘Let’s go to your room,’ he replied.
We passed Peace without a word and opened the door. There was a large window with glass louvers at a sharp angle to aid air circulation. A roof fan whirled round with blades like dancing dervishes. Underneath was a wooden desk. On it was a pile of letters.
‘I’ll leave you to get through the correspondence. Some might be addressed to me. Open them anyway and take what action you need to. Peace will keep you right.’ As he spoke he turned towards the door. He did not want any more conversation. I let him go.
That was Igor’s final instruction. I looked at my watch. It was fast approaching his appointed hour with Bacchus.
I sat down and picked up the letters. I flipped through them. There were seven in total. I dealt with the locally stamped ones first.
The first was from the machine operator in the factory. He was asking if his son could join the firm and replace him one day when he retired or died. I placed the letter aside. I was not sure what vacancy the workforce could offer.
The second was a letter from a local Akpeteshie seller. It was an invoice for Igor—to pay 137 cedis. I had no idea how much ‘kill me quick’ alcohol that would be. It seemed a lot.
The next two letters were from the airport. They gave the dates of the flight, the flight numbers and the destinations of the next two batches of boxes of oil.
The fifth letter was a welcome card. It was from Peace. I went to see her to thank her but she was not there. Gone for lunch I presumed.
‘Looking for Peace,’ I heard a man say as he saw me return to my room.
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Then you have met her absence.’
I smiled at the antiquated manner in which he spoke. ‘I’ll see her later. I’m Robert Harvie, the new manager. And you are?’
‘Sammy, the maintenance man.’
‘Things look very shipshape to me,’ I said to please him.
‘Shipshape?’ he asked bewildered.
‘Everything seems in order,’ I said turning back to my room having learnt an important lesson.
The last two letters were the most interesting. One had the Russian Embassy logo on the back with an Accra postmark on the front while the other was from London. I opened the latter first. It was from Vasily Chazov. He welcomed me to Tamale and showed his confidence in me. He looked forward to seeing me before too long. That was a tantalising thought. Did it mean next week, next month or when? He also made reference to work, not related to the peanut factory. It was not specific but implied I’d be away from the factory from time to time and that Igor Utechin would understand.
I read and re-read the letter. It seemed Igor had a more significant part to play than I had previously given him credit.
The last letter was from the Russian Embassy in Accra. Once more a welcome note. Everyone seemed to be welcoming me. They also invited me to their embassy and told me a formal invitation would follow soon.
I poured a glass of cold water from the fridge as a knock on the door was heard. I shouted, ‘come in,’ and a boy appeared with a tray. On it was a bowl of soup and some small bags of roasted nuts. A bunch of bananas were tied to his waist. He also had a bunch of leaves. ‘The leaves, are they to eat?’
His response was to laugh. He took from his tray what looked like soggy rice and made it into a ball. He placed it on a leaf and served it to me.
‘Kenkey,’ he said. ‘It be fermented cassava. It come wif dey stew, snail stew. It be good.’
I think he saw my look—should I, or should I not?
‘Make you go try dis.’
I nodded.
‘So, the kenkey, soup, nuts and banana, how much?’
He gave a look which suggested he knew how much he could get from the white man. ‘That be two cedis.’
I gave him three cedis, thanked him for coming and I sat down at my desk to eat. The soup was tasty but the kenkey was a sourdough which I could not swallow with any enjoyment. The snails were surprisingly good if a bit chewy. I had no trouble eating the groundnuts with banana. They went down together well.
When Peace returned she knocked on the door and entered. She smiled. She found me eating. ‘It’s an acquired taste. Most Europeans don’t take to kenkey at first. They prefer fufu. You should try some of dat,’ she sai
d lifting the tray. ‘Em, how much did you pay for it?’
‘You mean everything?’
‘Yes, your lunch. The boy would have sold it to you.’
‘Yes, he did. Two cedis and a cedi tip I gave him.’
‘Two cedis with a cedi dash?’ she said raising her voice.
‘That’s not too much was it?’ I asked like an errant schoolboy.
‘Two cedis is a week’s pay for some.’
‘Oh, then I won’t give him that again.’
‘No, no more than 50 pesewa for that meal.’ She smiled. She knew I was still on the learning curve.
‘Fufu? you said.’
‘Yes, it come in different ways. Cassava fufu; plantain fufu, a mixture; I tink you will like dat best. We will be having some at our house dis evening. Come and join us, do please.’
With nothing to do that evening, it was a pleasant thought and I had no hesitation in accepting her kind invitation.
‘Will I find your home easily?’
She laughed. ‘My husband will pick you up.’
Chapter 8
Ghanaian Hospitality
A large maroon Volvo arrived at my home promptly at 7 p.m. Eric Assare got out of the back seat and shook my hand. He was lean, wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt and grey charcoal trousers. Around his neck, his tie looked like an old school tie. His black hair had gone grey just above both of his ears. He looked around fifty years of age, but that was just a guess.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you Mr Harvie. Peace told me you were a fine young man.’ He spoke with a refined accent.
‘Thank you. She is a very pleasant lady indeed,’ I replied as he opened the back door of the car for me to enter. He came round the other side and sat in the back with me. His driver made sure we were seated comfortably before setting off.
‘I can’t say I’m often in the back seat of a car,’ I said but he smiled and tapped his hand on my knee.
‘Better not to say that in Ghana. It’s the car owner who sits in the back. You are a mere passenger if you sit in the front.’
I nodded slightly. ‘I have a lot to learn about Ghanaian life. Are you a native of Tamale?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m Ashanti, from further south.’
I felt I needed to probe more deeply. ‘So, it was work that brought you here,’ I said in a matter of fact way.
‘There are too many doctors in Kumasi. Anyway, after graduating from King’s College Hospital in London I went to the School of Tropical Medicine. I researched West African ailments and traditional medicine. Tamale is more rural. More interesting cases here for me to cure.’
‘It’s good to hear a doctor say the word cure.’
He nodded. ‘In England, they taught me the British way of medicine. I include the African methods too. The inner skin of the pawpaw is an antiseptic, for example. It’s used for childhood falls and scrapes as well as motor accidents. Then we have a host of herbal medicine—all of which have their place.’
‘It seems you must be able to cure most people then.’
He wiped his brow with a white handkerchief. ‘Not so, far from it. There are some illnesses which can’t be treated—like severe alcoholism when the patient does not want or can’t change his habit.’
‘My boss is a bit like that.’
‘So Peace tells me. Of course he is also my patient.’
‘I see. So, if your list is not too large, perhaps I could join your practice?’
‘No problem Mr Harvie. I’ll get you registered tomorrow,’ he said as the car pulled up before a two storey dwelling with a large garden of flowers at the front.
‘What a beautiful garden you have,’ I said. It was well lit and colourful.
‘I can’t show it to you after dark.’
‘Why not, is it a superstition?’
He raised his hand and pointed at the back of the garden.
‘You see that tree? You see its drooping branches?’
‘Over there, yes.’
‘They are not branches. They hover over the garbage hole, where things rot easily. It attracts the tree climbing black cobra. You don’t want to encounter him.’
‘Oh, I see, no I would not like that,’ I replied, seeing the night watchman beside the house.
‘Goodness, what’s he doing?’ I asked straining my eyes in disbelief.
‘Aruna is gathering his evening meal.’
The watchman was sitting by a Tilley lamp with a large bowl of water in front of him. As flying termites and other insects came, transfixed by the light’s attraction, he swooped one hand over them and drowned them. His wife, who was so black I did not see her at first, was sitting by a log fire. A hot flat pan received the insects, where they sizzled in some groundnut oil.
‘They eat insects?’ I asked with a rising voice.
‘Very much so. They are very tasty, crunchy and full of vitamins. I tell you, one day they will catch on in Europe. We will export insects as well as your groundnut oil.’ Dr Eric Asare laughed as his eyes rolled at the economic possibilities of his thought.
‘Come in Robert,’ shouted Peace at the steps of her front door.
‘Good evening Peace. Your husband has been giving me a very useful cultural talk.’
She welcomed me into their spacious lounge. Wooden carvings on the wall and a traditionally woven floor carpet gave it a homely atmosphere.
We talked about Eric’s time after London and how he met Peace. They had met at a gospel evening in Kumasi, thirty-eight years ago. My eyes turned to a sleeping baby in a cot in the corner of the room.
‘That’s Yaw, my grandson. His parents have travelled,’ she said without telling me where.
It was not long before I had to explain my route to Tamale. I think they were surprised it had started so long ago, and on holiday on a Scottish island, but Eric could see how I found myself entrapped in the Russian net.
‘Have you met, Mr Frempong?’ asked Peace.
‘Frempong? I don’t think so.’
‘He’s the man in charge of the shelling process.’
‘Oh, now I know who you mean. I have not spoken to him yet.’
Peace gave her husband a sly look. Was she about to say too much? That look was in her eyes. ‘He’s an old-timer, as it were.’
Her remark made no impact on my thinking.
‘He was an Nkrumah man, a communist. One who has worked in the factory since the day the Russians arrived to run it.’
My frown brought my eyebrows together tightly. I was confused. ‘But Kwame Nkrumah was the first black African leader. He was the first President of Ghana when the Gold Coast was no more. ‘That was surely an achievement of note?’
Eric smiled. ‘It was and we can’t take that away from him. But he became President not because he got on with the British but because he didn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Robert, the British ran their colonies through indirect rule. The French were more direct in their approach. They even sent black politicians to sit in parliament in Paris. But the British ruled through the chiefs. They kowtowed to the chiefs and serviced them with gifts, and so gained tribal loyalties. They sent the chief’s sons and daughters to England to school and university. But Nkrumah was a Roman Catholic, not a chief. He came from a small western village and was seen as a revolutionary upstart. He was eventually imprisoned,’ Eric looked at me with a stern face.
‘Not the best route to become President,’ I suggested.
‘Well maybe not. When he was released, he promised the market women of the country better conditions and they unanimously followed him through the elections. He won a landslide victory. The market women secured that.’
‘I see,’ I said as I finished the Tata beer I had been given.
‘The British came on their knees to congratulate him but Nkrumah was having none of it. His support was now coming from Moscow. Ever since then, Frempong has been besotted by Russia and communism.’
‘Wow what a history lesson,’
I said uncrossing my legs.
‘Come to de table boys,’ said Peace’ as her servant Seth, produced a large pot of groundnut soup and sat it in the middle of the table. On each of our plates, a mass of what looked like putty settled with a shiver. They caught me eyeing my plate.
‘That’s fufu. Boiled and pounded cassava and plantain. There are chicken pieces in the groundnut soup—I know Europeans enjoy eating this.’
‘But first, let me say grace,’ said Eric in a more sombre tone. Peace and I bowed our heads.
‘We thank you, Lord, for new friendships made, to meet in harmony and enjoy each other’s company. We give thanks for this food on the table, dear Lord. Make it serve our physical needs to sustain us in thoughtful prayer. And with this meal, put it to our use and us to thy service. This we ask in your name, Amen.’
Peace repeated the Amen and I followed a moment later, a little quieter. Then the soup was poured over the fufu. I noticed I had a spoon but neither Peace nor Eric had one. As I lifted my utensil, they dipped their right hands into the soup gathering some fufu as they did. In one quick movement, it slipped down their throats. They saw me chew the fufu and laughed.
‘Take a small amount with the soup and swallow it straight away. We do not chew it.’
It was such a filling meal that I soon felt bloated and ready to sleep. Thoughtfully, an hour later they brought the evening to an end, and when I returned to bed I dreamt of the hospitality I had received, together with the history lesson.
I also dreamt about meeting Mr Frempong. Was he an active collaborator with his Russian boss, or just a sleeper to be used when it suited the powers in Moscow—or perhaps in Accra? I had experience of just how long they could wait.
When I woke my thoughts became more realistic. Nkrumah’s day was over and the Russians had given me a job with no strings attached, surely?
Chapter 9
Secret Ashes
By the third week at the factory I seemed to have understood every part of the oil production process. Farmers regularly brought in their peanut harvest and were paid promptly, which pleased them. The machinery was itself oiled and working well to chaff the shells, and the press brought out the oil to where sterile bottles were filled every day. Lorries stood in a line at the end of the premises to transport the bottles in cartons of 12 to the airport, a stone’s throw away. It was a slick business model.
Caught In a Cold War Trap Page 4
