Afua Awo Twumwa

The queen of First April is back with another exciting story. We met her, Kwaw and the stars of Tale Of Whys. You should read those two first if you’re new to them. Happy reading!

My husband, Kwaw just drove off with Oge to the Mall. Ama was insisting she needs herb spices to make her Jollof the way she, and all of us, love it. The guys didn’t argue, they just drove off. Marriage is teaching me that, this, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach thing contains some truth.

At the back of the house, the forever-will-be newlyweds of our church, Tracy and Calvin are getting the place ready for the Church’s eve of Christmas party. Kwaw, pastoring the church and being the fun guy he is, the church has parties for almost every special day we can name.

I, of course, am seated in the children’s playroom from across our bedroom, watching our little John and Ini; Oge and Ama’s daughter sleeping. And rubbing my hands over my swollen abdomen as often as I can believe I’m pregnant with our first child after nine years of marriage. I wish I could tell that story but my pen ink seems to be running out and the one I’m writing is far more exciting and equally miraculous.

By the way God’s doing something new with the weather here in Accra this year around Christmas – the harmattan hasn’t been granted permission to set in fully and yet there’s enough breeze to stand the hot smile of the sun. If influenced by a tooth fairy movie I just watched, still while watching over the kids play 😊😊, I’d have told you the breeze around here could make you fly. But I’m not going to because I’m not under any such influence.

So I can hear Calvin and Tracy giggling and I guess kissing and then laughing back there. I’m not a sneak but I can’t get my ears and eyes off these two. I can imagine how far their emotions have travelled, today being their first anniversary. Well, technically my eyes can’t see them at the moment. These are one of the couples in our church, myself and Kwaw’s age who got married last year. They are the least likely to be paired as a couple should we have asked the church to do us the matchmaking honour.

Maybe, precisely this – that they were the most unlikely to end up together and especially considering they’re both in their late thirties – is why my joy for them streams into excitement each time I consider how unique God allows every love story to be.

I’m sniffing. OK. You aren’t allowed to tear miss, you don’t want to mess up the pages you’re writing in, wake up the sleeping angels or upset the living wish being knitted in my womb.

Calvin Duah and Tracy Stevens were unarguably worlds apart before their courtship and marriage. We use to joke that they were like the cat and the fowl.

Aside: the guys are back. I can already smell the Jollof about to go down.

Calvin Duah is a good friend of my husband. They were in the engineering department together, for a semester, till Kwaw decided to pursue psychology. After we got married, we met him at a banking hall one day. For your information, banking halls in Ghana are good places to start looking (you know what I mean. And I have Oge and Ama as proof of that) or to reconnect with an old lost friend. In fact in Ghana, every public space is a good place for communal interactions. They quickly hit it off and Calvin started churching with us. He had been looking for a home church after pinning for himself a good job at GE oil and gas and moved to Accra. Calvin struck me from day one as a very handsome but shy and independent guy. From courting Kwaw a year and being almost a year into marriage at the time we met him, I knew finding someone to call babe may take forever for him. I started praying the Lord will grant me the privilege of matchmaking him someday. You see I had helped my mum match-make my big sister and from then on, I was convinced I was born to do this, you know, besides being a pastor’s wife and journaling (as I’m doing now) like crazy. That day arrived three years ago, February 2013, when Tracy joined our church with her family and her dear mum won’t stop talking in women’s meetings about her fear of Tracy never finding a man good enough.

Tracy Stevens…Tracy Stevens, I always lack the words to paint for anyone a very good portrait of her. I often end up saying she’s the only whole extrovert I’ve been given the rare privilege by the Lord to do life with. Tracy Stevens walked through the doors of our humble life when she volunteered to aid in planning a trip for singles that July. She’s a good mix of choleric and sanguine and stands at 5.6” with a light skin that will drive any man crazy and an assertiveness that does drive many men crazy. I see you laughing there. I am too. Kwaw had always thought of putting Calvin on the committee too. That man, guys, he has one of the rare idea generating brains that gets me jealous sometimes. So you see it right, Calvin and Tracy were on the same committee but the thought that she is the match I’ve been waiting and praying for, for Calvin didn’t pop up till the two had a pretty bad fight and wanted out of the committee few weeks to the singles trip.

Of course I’m not in charge of the singles but with a small church like ours, a pastor’s wife is expected to be active in whatever is going on in the church as much as she’s expected to be a wife to the pastor. I was told of the conflict by poor Samuel, the head of the committee and our youth pastor who just doesn’t have the knack for being a mediator. So on one cool afternoon I sat with the two to discuss the issue. Amidst each venting their displeasure on the other’s response and reactions, my eyes literally lit up and the thought stood in my mind like a tall giant tree – why not match these two? And matching I did.

“You aren’t friends?”

I immediately asked, looking at them in assumed unbelief.

“We can’t be.”

Calvin was steaming. For his quiet nature, I could tell the effect Tracy was having on him and I knew that is a good thing. Look with me at the bright side of this. This guy is one I had never seen angry before, talk of steaming. I knew Tracy will get him doing more adventurous stuff, be more daring, and even be more vocal. Because really until then, Calvin never says more than you’d love to hear. That’s a good thing. A very very good thing, knowing that scripture tells us to let our words do good to our hearers. But what people want to hear is not necessarily always good for them. So you get my point.

“Why?”

I asked him. This time I was honest with my expression. Tracy answered.
“We can’t be because Calvin thinks I’m too insistent and that won’t make a good friend.”

“You read my mind.”

Calvin responded sarcastically, both of his hands supporting his chin.

Right there, I wanted to laugh but they’d know I’m enjoying it and any initiative from me will look too obvious so I kept my cool and that night choked on with laughter in Kwaw’s arms. He obviously didn’t see the fun. He hoped my plans won’t backfire so he doesn’t need to have to be tortured to think through a solution later.

“Alright now.” I said, my Asafo Maame composure on. “Beyond friendship, the church is a family.” I looked at their faces so they know I really want them to take this in. I continued. “Family is built on love and love covers multitude of sins so that’s exactly what you two are going to learn from now on.” They both stared at me horrified. Their eyes were screaming please don’t let us learn how to be family. I kept on the lecture. “Please bring out your phones.” They both hesitantly handed me theirs. Calvin wouldn’t even pass it to Tracy to give to me. I checked through their contacts. They didn’t have each other’s number so I made them exchange contacts and tasked them with friendship. They were to check up on each other at least twice a week and meet for a face to face talk at least once in a month. Calvin will report to my husband and Tracy to me. They were officially set up and what they didn’t know is, their reporting and our encouragement was actually a pre-counselling counselling. And oh, they were to drive to the house or wherever they were to report to us together. This was to be for just a year. From how I saw it, a year should build some awareness of each other’s good and perhaps marriageable qualities and all. I wasn’t thinking of the usual romantic spark. Anyone can get attracted to anyone within a year of such intense relations. Not that, I wouldn’t have jumped about on my bed like my three year old John, should that happen.

2013, because of these two came out as my all favourite year. You should have seen the drama and the complaints at the first stages of the task. Tracy will have her hands to her waist in my hall, while sitting and will be talking on un-end. Kwaw says Calvin’s descriptions of Tracy was even funnier. He had nicknamed her Eva from the movie Save Us From Eva. The year quickly went by and I agreed with Kwaw they are better friends now but pushing my luck for a love relationship won’t happen.

Kwaw and I called them together and let them know we are proud of them. They thanked us and walked away. But that was the actual beginning of the story.

Oh my husband is here. He’s peeping into my book. “Journaling?” He’s asking. I’m nodding my head and smiling. He says ok but hurry down. We are about eating. I say thanks and he’s gone.

Ok, so I’m going to have to make this part as short as I can get around writing it. The two kept on their friendship and monthly meetings all through to 2015. They had formed a habit that’s difficult to break and by working with us through their thoughts of each other, they were better at communicating and were more comfortable around each other. But I was taken aback on the 1st January when my husband showed me a text from Calvin. Calvin was asking Kwaw if he thought pursuing Tracy for marriage is a good cool. Kwaw texted him that they should meet and talk. At this time, both Tracy and Calvin were 33 years and very much independent. The independence was what gave Kwaw concerns. You see in marriage, you must not be too needy of each other so much that you think you’re each other’s air. Only Christ must be that for you both. Neither must you be too independent of each other that you don’t have any need for yourselves. That means you’ll forever remain two rather than the one advocated for in scripture.

For me, I didn’t know the extent of their friendship up to then, when Calvin sent Kwaw the text, because well these two aren’t like some people who carry every expression and emotion on their face. They weren’t together at church programs and won’t be heard looking for each other too. They didn’t look in love at all.

So Kwaw met Calvin and they talked. Calvin had already thought through Kwaw’s concern. He was earning enough to pay off twenty public school teachers and Tracy was earning close to that. She was a fashion designer, making clothes under her famous trayStevens brand. She is the name when you want to talk custom made clothes for high ranking government officials across Africa. They had both stayed alone all of their young adult life. Tracy is actually a half caste, her dad being an American and her mom, Ghanaian. Calvin’s parents are both Ghanaians but they weren’t really Ghanaian in their thinking. To teach him to take responsibility, they bought him an apartment at Kumasi, few minutes away from them and allowed him live by himself from age 20. He, Calvin, however thought they could work through it. Besides, he has seen in Tracy a persistent and courageous woman whose love for God and the church was rare and he didn’t want to let her slip.

He asked her out for lunch one Wednesday in February and asked her if she’d let him pursue her. Calvin later told Kwaw, my husband that her yes, though what he hoped and prayed for, a whole month, took him by surprise. They called her parents and asked their permission and started counselling before the engagement. They said they needed every bit of encouragement, frankness and straightening they could get. They are both stubborn in their own ways. One evening, I was cuddled against Kwaw when Calvin called him. His excitement was all over through the phone. He kept screaming she said yes and then just went off the line. Apparently, Tracy not being one who liked pomp and who made it plain to Calvin said she’ll marry him at her home that night. She had invited him over to dinner, unaware of what he had planned.

I was disappointed they went private but was glad I can take the matchmaking credit every single anniversary of theirs.

Throughout their courtship, I saw Tracy churn into a whole new woman I began to warm up to her more than I did when I first put them to the task. One day, she looked me in the eye and told me how after 28, she told herself she will never find the right man because men were scared away by her confidence and she’ll rather live with her confident self than a threatened husband. She stopped trying to be a marriage material after that. She blushed (proper blushing oh, this na white woman) and said, I stopped trying till after the first year of friendship with Calvin. That man made me want to be someone’s real friend and companion again.

December 24th last year, the two said I do to each other. One line in Calvin’s vow will be carved into my heart for eternity.

I will love you because from now on you are me.

Every day I wake up, I hope to remember that about marriage and about my relationship with the Lord.

PS. Now, go read the reader letter on this I wrote you. And if you liked this, you will Trailed too. Also don’t miss this week’s poem, Soul Haul.

© M’afua Awo Twumwaah 2017.