We moved to Freetown for my dad’s work when I was seven years old.
There was a woman in the house the night we arrived, she made us dinner, helped us unpack and helped us get settled in.
My dad who had moved a few months ahead of us said she was his house keeper of sorts; she cooked his meals and kept the house tidy.
A few years later the woman become my stepmother and I would call her ‘Mommy’

My friend Eve dated an older man when we were teenagers.
Eve had always been mature for her age.
By Sixteen she’d loved two men (boys, really), each affair had been deep, passionate and tumultuous.
The next year she declared that she was done dating boys!
One day while playing house with the older-man boyfriend, his fiancée returned from where ever she’d been.
Not like a mirage, although she could very well be, because E. had no clue he had a fiancée.
To explain her presence in his life, the man told his fiancée that Eve helped him out around the house and cooked his meals.

I head towards the apartment in excitement; it’s going to be a surprise.
I see them on the balcony and pause halfway through pulling my keys out the keyhole.
It’s the peppy girl from upstairs, the one whose constant peppiness exhausts us.
They’re having brunch, she made pancakes… “it’s delicious, you’ve got to try it”, he says.
She giggles and flails about, she’s so happy to see me, it’s great to have me back, and life is just so great.
And just then, when no explanation was needed, when silence was enough, he said it;
“Kate’s been helping me out a bit around here while you’ve been gone”.

My friend Aisha died a month to my ninth birthday.

Aisha was my friend, neighbour and granddaughter of our landlord, Paa Amadu.
She was one of those kids who no one really paid attention to.
Her mother wasn’t in the picture and her dad was young and still in school.
Her dad’s nickname was ‘young man’, he was funny, outgoing and he was very much liked by everyone.
His daughter on the other hand was a bit like me; shy, quiet, moody and a little weird.

Sometimes she’d just follow me around and we didn’t even have to speak.
She was younger and looked small for her seven and the half years.

What I remember most about Aisha is her laughter; she had a loud shrill laugh that sounded like a cry.

Aisha was also devoted friend.

She’d be there when I got home from school and stay on most days after we’ve had dinner and watched a movie, and then my mom would make her go home.

I wasn’t always a good friend to Aisha, I was mean to her sometimes.
I’d ditch her to go play with the older kids, occasionally I’d ask her to leave me alone or intentionally pick a fight with her just so I can get in with the older kids.
My dad saw me do this once; he marched up to me and said;

“Do you know how lucky you are to have someone who adores you? Now, go upstairs and play with your friend!”

One sad day in May, Aisha suddenly fell sick, she died while being rushed to the hospital.
When I got home from school, my mom told me with succinct indifference that Aisha had died.
I could never understand to this day why she was so unaffected by it, and we’ve never spoken of her since then.
My dad was angry, he said she had died from an easily preventable disease.

He called it a senseless death!
I barely slept that night; I stayed up trying to make sense of it all.

The next day I got back from school just in time to see Aisha’s coffin procession make its way from the mosque.

It passed right in front on our house, I stood on our veranda and watched.

That same veranda we had played on many times, we used to do cartwheels on that veranda… Aisha and I.
Aisha could do twenty-one cartwheels from one end to the other, and I twenty.
In Aisha, I’ve learned not to take people for granted.

My mom has stories.

You don’t get to be her age and not have a few stories to tell…

This isn’t even one of her best stories; but this story is relevant to my story.

My mom used to make her own clothes when she was younger, she claims she was very good.

As a matter of fact, she maintains that all the women in my family are talented dressmakers.

My mom has this story she’s told over and over, and it goes like this;

While visiting her Aunt Felicia and Uncle Dan, they invited her to a dinner being held for a few diplomat friends.

They’d just introduced my mom to the man who’d become my father, and this would unofficially be their first date.

My mom panicked, she hadn’t packed anything appropriate for a dinner party.

She bought some fabric that morning and borrowed her aunt’s sewing machine; she sewed a simple dark-blue shift dress, with a cream ribbon band at the waist and piped seam with the same contrasting ribbon.

That night at the party; their host, the French Ambassador’s wife complimented her on her beautiful dress and asked where she got it from.

One of her proudest moments she said was being able to say she made it herself.

Everyone loved her dress!

The man who would become my father… the shy young military attaché couldn’t take his eyes off her – they were married months later when he returned home from his posting.

We got a sewing machine for my mom for Christmas; she loved it but complained that she hadn’t sewn anything in years, those days were behind her.

The machine sat there untouched for almost a month, and then I went to the fabric store and asked her if she’d make me a skirt.

This is the skirt my mom made for me, a full gathered skirt with a lace trim at the hem.

It turned out quite well considering my mom was convinced she was so out of practice she was going to ruin it.

My mom has gone on to make me a dress and another skirt, both very pretty and inspiring.

I’m trying to get her to make me some cute summer dresses.

I’m going to take a dressmaking class next month.

I want to recreate my mom’s dress from the sixties.

Wearing:
Skirt: Made by my mom
Brown Shirt: Uniqlo
Vest: RW & Co
Tights: The Bay
Boots: Deena & Ozzy
Jacket: The Gap
Watch: Nixon Pirouette

My father died a few months after my eighth birthday. And although he didn’t die on Valentine’s Day, I think about him more and more on this day.

I met Jay on the anniversary of my father’s death. I mentioned this to him a few months on. From the bits and pieces I remembered and stories from my mother, I told him about my father. About how much his life and unfortunate death had made me the person I’d become. He’d soon come to understand and on our second Valentine’s Day together he’d show me how much he understood.

Before my mother would marry the man I call dad today, she’d give me my father’s aged broken watch given to him by my grandfather and ask that I never forget my father.

The watch would become the most important and constant item in my life, it stayed with me through numerous moves, travels, my parents’ divorce, the bitterness, anger, ugliness and my uncertain and sad place with my dad and his new family.

As I try to put my past behind me, the watch has become a bridge and reminder of my history. Tucked amidst nicks knacks in my bedside drawer, it just laid there, knowing so much.

I knew it was a great watch of some probable monetary value. It was a vintage classic Cartier piece but very so tarnished and old; the crystal had come off, the face a little crooked and in a very sad state, the mechanics however was intact.

Jay had the watch restored to its original glory and gave it to me as a surprise on our second Valentine’s Day together!

The watch was evaluated and then sent the manufacturer to be restored with emphasis on preservation.

The watch, it turns out is a circa 1930s Cartier Tank, its value when appraised, could very well feed a small family for years on.

It’s the most amazing and loving thing anyone has ever done for me and it’s my most memorably Valentine’s Day ever.

I always knew the watch was special and I’m glad I regarded it as such.

It means even more to me than before; it’s a part of me, my heritage.

I hope to wear the watch when I go out to dinner tonight, it doesn’t matter what my Valentine’s Day gift, I have the ultimate gift to last a lifetime of Valentine Days.

Once upon a time, in the great far, far away kingdom of the Golden Stool, among the people of the Buffalo, lived the king’s youngest wife, Eno.

It was not Eno’s choice to marry the king; this was her destiny. She resolved herself to her fate and laboured at being the best youngest wife the king had ever had.

But Eno was discontented; she hadn’t bore a male child yet. Every morning, she asked the gods to bring her a male child so that her husband and her people will look at her favourably.

Years passed and the king took two more wives who bore him one male child after another.

Eno, no longer the youngest wife felt that she had failed. A cloud of sadness gathered around her soul and would not leave, all over the village it become known that Eno, the king’s third wife was sick.

One year, in the season of harmattan and fires, Eno gave birth to a male child.

The king held him and called him Kofi for being born on the day of fertility and Badu, for being his tenth offspring.

Eno’s sorrow lifted, she gave the land a son and heir to continue the lineage, she fulfilled her destiny.

Eno’s joy however was short lived. Soon it became known in the village that Kofi Badu was a child of the spirits.

It was believed that as punishment some children were born possessed by spirits. These spirits gather as spume inside, saturate the body until it reaches the head overflowing, make it dizzy and cause convulsions.

The elders agreed that Eno was being punished for adultery, hence, to appease the gods and avert cataclysm the child was to be returned to the gods.

One dark thick night, a few days before the ceremony to return the child, Eno gathered her children, including Kofi Badu and ushered them into the night.

They journeyed south-east towards the Volta, Eno had heard of “the healer with grace”, one who had studied in lands far across the oceans, she heard that he healed children possessed by the gods.

Eno brought Kofi Badu to “the healer with grace”; he told her the child was not possessed by spirits. Eno did not believe this either.

He said it was an illness and that he could help.

A relieved and grateful Eno realized she had no means to pay the healer, when she told this to him, he slept on it for two days and came back with a solution.

He asked for Afua’s hand in marriage. Afua was Eno’s oldest daughter.

Preparations were made and a fortnight after her sixteenth birthday Efua was married to the healer with grace.

Eno lived the rest of her life content among the people of the Volta.

Her daughter Afua on the other hand struggled with her fate.

So did the generations of women that came after them.

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