Sunday

Story: Ursula M. ABANGA

I love Sundays; they are my favourite day of the week. I look forward to Sundays very much. If there were any other way to express my love for Sundays, I'll gladly do so. If I were much of a singer, I would have composed and performed a song on my love for Sundays. Many people love Sundays for the reason that after church service, they get to rest throughout the day. It's a day free of any form of stress. It's a good reason but it's not my reason.

Before we get to my reason, let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Yelim-Ahik. I live with my parents and five siblings in Gar-bɔŋ. There's also Mbakpeem, my grandfather: my father's father. My mum brews pito to sell on market days. On non-market days, she works in her piggery. My father, well, my father has a lot of jobs. I'm certain I don't even know them all. He's rarely home and when he is, all he wants to do is rest because he is tired.

Mbakpeem stays at home all day. He is a tall man and has simply refused to bend with age. He sits in front of our house, his long frame stretched out in his lazy-chair, wearing nothing but a pair of baggy cream shorts with a white shirt on his shoulder. I always wonder if he has different shorts of the same colour or if it's the same pair of shorts. Mbakpeem's skin is always warm to the touch, like the feeling one gets when one holds a warm calabash of Mma's spiced porridge. His skin is very wrinkled, much like papier mache that has been left to dry in the sun, and not unlike sandpaper, his skin is rough and a little tough to the touch. His skin is very brown and I like to follow the lines on his skin in my mind, to see where each one leads.

Mbakpeem is always full of stories and Mma is always discouraging him from telling them to us. He'll fill your head with lies and impossibilities, she says. Mbakpeem ignores her and tells us these stories anyway. On Sundays, he especially likes to tell us stories that would deter us from going to church the next Sunday. You see, Mbakpeem is a Muslim, and so was Mba, my father, until his early twenties. Mbakpeem did not like this change at all and has been very vocal about it. It irks him even more that his grandchildren are also Christians.

"I don't trust the white man and I most certainly don't trust his god." Mbakpeem says every Sunday morning as we troop out and begin the walk to church. Mbakpeem always chews tobacco, but on Sunday mornings, he smokes a pipe instead.

After church, we all change out of our finery. We all have a calabash of Mma's spiced porridge and then by three pm, the reason I love Sunday begins. Every other day, we usually just have saɣib, popularly called tuon-zaafi for supper. The soup varies: sometimes baet, sometimes ayoyo, sometimes alefu but it's always the same thing. Sometimes we eat banku but at least four times out of five, we eat saɣib. On Sundays however, Mma makes groundnut soup and we pound yam fufu - sakɔra. I look forward to this all the time.

The food is the main reason I love Sundays, but it is not the only reason. On Sundays, everyone, even Mba is at home. None of my four older siblings go to work. My little sister and I do not have to go to school. Mma does not go to the market or work in her piggery. We are all present from the beginning of the meal's preparation till its end.

Mbakpeem usually sits in his lazy-chair, in his pair of baggy cream shorts, his white shirt slung over his shoulder, his tobacco pipe clamped tightly between his brown, almost black teeth. He mumbles to himself and every once in a while, he shakes his head and continues his muttering. Mba sits next to Mbakpeem and they don't say a word to each other. It is after all Sunday, and Mba went to worship a "foreign god."

Everyone has a role to play in the preparation of the food. I have to ensure that there is enough firewood to cook with. We do have a cooker that uses gas and there are times I feel Mma is just trying to disturb us but I don't complain. Mma is a wise woman and so when she tells me to go gather firewood, I do it without hesitation.

My elder sister Mmalebna peels the yam. We need a lot of yam for the sakɔra. We are after all nine people, six males. In actual fact, my four older siblings take care of the sakɔra. Mmalebna peels and boils the yam. She also turns the sakɔra whilst Yeladome, Doabil and Yindoog, my three elder brothers take turns at pounding it.

Mma and my little sister Yinloagre take care of the soup. Mma makes the soup and Yinloagre fetches whatever Mma tells her to.

After I fetch firewood, I usually have nothing else to do. The boys won't let me pound with them and Mma says boys are allowed in her kitchen on any day but Sunday. So, I usually go and sit next to Mbakpeem and follow the lines on his skin with my eyes, trying to see where they lead to. Sometimes, he tells me some of his stories and on Sundays: they're usually about how the white man is an oppressor. He is not very subtle about his contempt of our religion.

At other times, even though I'm fifteen and tall for my age, I actually clamber into Mbakpeem's lap and rest my head on his chest. He sings songs to me in our language and tells me tales of when he was growing up.

I know Mba dislikes this because he would scowl and send me on meaningless errands just to make sure I'm not in Mbakpeem's lap. He once sent me to go and check if he had closed his bedroom window. That wasn't as ridiculous as the day he told me to go check if the baobab tree behind the house had shed any leaves. I don't mind anyway. Even though I'm still basically a child, I refuse to get caught up in Mbakpeem and Mba's feud. I do what the other asks and try not to tread on any toes.

I've heard Mba tell Mbakpeem on more than one occasion that Mbakpeem is going to make a woman out of me. He thinks it's bad enough that on any day except Sunday, I'm in the kitchen with Mma. He feels that allowing me to clamber into his lap is not teaching me to be a man. I don't see what the fuss is about. I like sitting in my grandfather's lap and listening to him tell me stories. I'm the only one of my siblings who is attached to Mbakpeem and there are times I feel he is glad one of us is closer to him than to Mba.

I don't care much for the feud between Mba and Mbakpeem and I make sure not to do anything that would imply that I am choosing sides. I clamber into Mbakpeem's lap whenever he allows me to and I climb down whenever Mba sends me on another meaningless errand. It's tiring trying not to offend any of them but I think invoking their ire would be even worse.

It's Sunday again and this time instead of sitting in Mbakpeem's lap, I'm sitting in the chair with him. He scooted over and made room for me. Today, he's telling me the story of how his grandmother hid her money in the reeds which had been set aside to be woven into baskets. She forgot to take it out and the reeds were moved to the river to be soaked in water. She had been livid.

My brothers and sister are working on the sakɔra. Mma is in the kitchen yelling something at Yinloagre. Mba is sitting in a lazy chair identical to Mbakpeem's. His eyes are closed but he still manages to scowl as he reclines. I listen to Mbakpeem's story raptly and then I see Yinloagre skip off from the kitchen. She has been sent on an errand.

Yinloagre is twelve and likes to play too much. Whenever Mma sends her on an errand, it is with a strict warning. As she skips off, I know we wouldn't see her for another fifteen or twenty minutes, I settle more comfortably into the chair next to Mbakpeem and actually begin to doze off. His stories are very interesting but his voice also has a calming and soothing quality.

I don't know how long I have been out when I'm awoken by a very loud and terrible scream. I awake with a jolt and wonder what could have happened. Mba mumbles something about children playing too hard and closes his eyes again. We're all settling again when Ziba, one of the children who lives in the neighbourhood comes running. He's out of breath and so we can't hear him very well.

Mbakpeem is able to make out from his speech that Yinloagre is hurt very badly. Mba shoots up from his chair and Yeladome, who we all call Dome leans the pestle with which he had been pounding the sakɔra against a wall and shakes the little boy, trying to get him to be more specific. Mbakpeem rescues poor Ziba and then asks the little boy to take us there. It is agreed that two of the boys, together with Mmalebna and Mma would stay behind to take care of the food. Mba, Mbakpeem and Doabil would go see what has happened. They don't know what to do with me so I decide to tag along.

On our way there, we manage to get the story out of Ziba. His older sister had been milking a cow in the field whilst it grazed. Yinloagre had taken the route on her way to run her errand. Yinloagre being Yinloagre, insisted that she wanted to give it a try. His sister had been hesitant at first but Yinloagre can be very persuasive.

She had begun milking the cow. Ziba said he didn't know what happened. The next thing he knew, my sister was on the ground and the cow had trodden on her. I was frightened. Ziba's description made it seem she was barely alive; like the cow had given her a good stomping.

When we got there, she wasn't as Ziba had described. The cow had trodden on her true but only on her arm. It was obvious the arm was broken. We needed to get her to the hospital, and fast.

Let me tell you something about my village on Sunday afternoons. Getting a car is an exercise in futility. It is a very rare occurrence. The drivers here take the commandment about keeping the Sabbath very seriously. It is no joke. If you need to go somewhere faraway on Sunday, you have two options; get up very early and walk there and back, or simply postpone it till Monday.

Doabil runs to my Uncle's house and gets his donkey cart. We arrange Yinloagre as comfortably as we can and then only Mba and Doabil set off. Mba says if the weight is less, the donkey will travel faster. Mbakpeem agrees and he and I begin to walk back home. When we get there, we meet chaos.

Mma had gotten up to retrieve something from inside the house and when she returned, one of the goats had entered the shed that served as the kitchen and upset the pot of soup. There was nothing left! She had to start from scratch. She was livid.

Yindoog and Dome had gotten into a fight because Yindoog had refused to pound the sakɔra when it was his turn to. He said it was Doabil's turn and since Doabil had taken Yinloagre to the hospital with Mba, the younger of the two of them should pound double time. He said this of course because he is older than Dome. They had gotten into a scuffle and in the process kicked sand into the sakɔra. It was ruined.

Mbakpeem sighs and sits in his chair. He puts me on his lap and says to me, "Yelim-ahik, we don't complain over things we have no control over. Let us pray to Allah that your sister gets well."

I know better than to point out that I don't worship Allah. I simply rest my head on his chest and try to count how many times I feel the thump of his heart against it.

The mood is tense and I deliberately refuse to talk. We hear an engine revving and we look up to see the battered truck of Fr. Peter, a missionary who has taken a shine to our family. Mbakpeem dislikes him for two reasons; he is Christian and he is white. Whenever he comes to visit, Mbakpeem goes inside and doesn't come out till he is gone.

As soon as I see Fr. Peter, I jump up excitedly and run to hug him. In one breath, I tell him about Yinloagre. Five minutes later, everyone except Mbakpeem and Mmalebna is sitting in Fr. Peter's car. Mma is still grumbling about her soup and it is very strange that she isn't scolding my brothers and sister for ruining the sakɔra.

Father's truck has most definitely seen better days and whenever we hit a bump in the road, I feel it all the way to my ears. We soon catch up with Mba and my siblings. Dome and I move to the bucket of the truck and Mba and a moaning Yinloagre move to the backseat. Doabil has to return my uncle's donkey cart so he doesn't come with us.

We steadily make our way into town and we soon get to the hospital. Mba, Mma and Fr. Peter take Yinloagre to the emergency room and then my brothers and I wait in the truck. They haven't spoken a word since Mba entered the truck and I know they're terrified of what would happen if Mba finds out that they have ruined the sakɔra that belonged to the entire family.

I don't want to speak to any of them first because I don't want it to seem that I'm choosing sides. So, instead I close my eyes and hum one of Mbakpeem's songs to myself. All is quiet for a minute or two and then Mma comes out with a stony expression.

Apparently, the lights had just gone out and they couldn't X-ray my sister. Before the lights went out though, the doctor had said that she might need surgery. I was frightened. These things weren't unheard of. Cows trampled on people all the time in my village. I had just never imagined it happening to anybody in my family. I wanted to go and see her but I hate hospitals, especially how they smell like.

However, the generator would be started soon and there was hope. I could see Mma was worried. Mma is the strongest woman I know. I'm only fifteen and I don't know much about life but I do know that raising six children is no joke, especially with a man as temperamental as Mba. Mbakpeem is very nonchalant when it comes to us kids. I'm the only one he actually shows interest in but I think that is because I'm the only one who is always 'entering his nose', as he likes to put it.

We hear the hum of machinery and then we know the generator has started. Mma goes back into the hospital and then I return to humming. My brothers still have stoic expressions on their faces and I'm beginning to get tired of all the animosity. First Mba and Mbakpeem and now Yindoog and Yeladome.

I know if I tried to get them to talk, they would tell me to shut up. I step out of the truck and decide to amble about. I don't know how much time passes. I get tired of walking and sit on the ground beneath a tree in front of the hospital. It is nearly dusk when Mba, Mma, Fr. Peter and Yinloagre emerge from the hospital.

Yinloagre's hand is in a cast and she has a sheepish expression. I want to hug her but I don't know if she feels any pain so I restrain myself. Everyone piles into the truck; Mba in front, Mma, Yinloagre and Yindoog in the back and Dome and I in the bucket.

We drive home in silence. The tension in the car is palpable but there are undertones of relief. Everyone is glad Yinloagre is okay. Dome and Yindoog have still not spoken to each other. Father's old but trusty pickup plods along and despite a few coughs of the engine along the way, we make it home in good time. It's nearly full dark when we get home.

Mbakpeem is in his chair, quietly smoking a pipe. I hear clanging and banging in the kitchen and I know Mmalebna must be up to something there. We all scramble out the truck. We don't know what to do with ourselves and there's a sense of awkwardness.

Mma is the first to speak. She pulls Yinloagre close, hugs her and then proceeds to scold her as if she hadn't just shown her an enormous amount of affection. Mba taps Yinloagre on her good shoulder, grunts and returns to his lazy chair.

Even though I am only fifteen, there are some things about Mba I have noticed. He never expresses emotion unless it's anger. Sometimes, I feel he wants to say something to express how he feels, but he doesn't. I know he cares for all of us deeply. I don't know about my siblings but I feel it. I feel it in the way he scolds me when I play a little too rough and hurt myself. He scowls at me when I cry and sends me off to Mma to get patched up. If Mma is unavailable, he takes care of me himself and even though he has big clumsy hands, he's very gentle and it barely stings.

I know Mba cares for us because sometimes at night, when I pretend to be asleep so that Yinloagre wouldn't bother me with her endless yammering, Mba comes into the room and places the covers over me, putting his arm on my shoulder briefly and then ensuring the windows are open on warm nights, or closed on cold nights.

On those market days when Mma doesn't return early, Mba ensures we're fed. He isn't very good at cooking but he can ensure we don't starve whilst Mma isn't around. Mba is a good man. I think he is simply stilted. He grew up at a time when men were supposed to be strong and fearless; emotion was for women. I have absolutely no idea what that means but that's what Fr. Peter tells me every time I ask him why he thinks Mba always scowls and is always taciturn.

When we come from school, in his own way, he asks about our day without actually asking, asking us indirect questions so that we end up telling him what went on at school during the day. Mba always tells me that a man never cries. I find the notion silly. If I bump my little toe against a stool in the kitchen after I've dipped my hand in the soup to fish for a piece of stray meat, why do I not have the right to cry?

Mba has never said this openly to me but he's raising me to believe that a man who shows emotion is weak. I begin to understand Fr. Peter's advice to me with each passing day. I try very hard to please Mba but I'm just not manly enough.

It's only after he settles in his lazy chair that Mba notices that Mma is not rushing with his food and Mmalebna is standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a sheepish expression on her face. I go and stand by Mbakpeem. I'm very frightened.

Mba is about to say something but Mmalebna sets the little wooden table he eats on in front of him. She lays the table and I'm very curious as to what is in the covered bowls. She could not have made a new pot of soup and pounded sakɔra enough for everyone whilst we were gone. Doabil was at home too but it was very improbable. I'm the only one of my brothers who isn't a terrible cook. They all tend to lean towards Mba's opinion about boys in the kitchen.

Mba washes his hands and we all hold our collective breaths as he lifts the lid. There's saɣib and ayoyoin the bowls. I expect an outburst from Mba but he calmly proceeds to eat.

"What are you all looking at me for? Are you not hungry?" he gives us a quizzical look. My brothers look at each other. They had been anticipating a scolding and perhaps some physical reprimanding. They shrug and file to the kitchen.

Fr. Peter stays for supper. It isn't a new development but it is surprising because Mbakpeem is the one who asks him to stay. Mbakpeem is grateful that Father helped us get Yinloagre to the hospital safely and quickly and is expressing his gratitude without actually saying the words.

Mba eats with Mma, my brothers eat together, Mmalebna eats with Yinloagre and then Mbakpeem, Fr. Peter and I eat together.

Apparently, Mma explained the food situation to Mba at the hospital. Mbakpeem and Doabil helped Mmalebna to make the saɣib and ayoyoso that she could finish just in time before we returned home. Mba knew all along that there was going to be no sakɔra.

I love Sundays very much, I really do. I thought I liked it because of the food but today, I realized that the food is just a secondary reason. We are after all eating saɣib and ayoyo. I love Sundays because it is the day for family. It is the day when we all do something collectively, as a unit.

Despite the arguments and little rifts, we still find a way to be together on that day. My brothers are laughing together, Mmalebna is helping Yinloagre eat and Fr. Peter and Mbakpeem are having a conversation for the first time. It is funny to listen because they don't understand each other very well. Mbakpeem does not speak English and Father does not speak Taleni.

I love Sundays very much and today, I begun to love them even more.

The author URSULA M. ABANGA is a Business Management graduate and Editor for Ink Up. She's from the Upper East Region. She discovered the joy of writing in primary school. When she's not writing, she's reading. She blogs at ursyrants.wordpress.com Sunday was first published in the Larabanga anthology published by the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing.  

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