Ogyakrom Cowries and Expiry Date
Dear Senior Opupulepu,
How are you do? As for me and my shordies, we are all do fine.
Senior, are you aware, that anything that Obroni Yibo manufactures, has got expiry date?
Senior, I remember one day when I was in Ohenema Auntie Lizzy’s home village and I woke up one fine morning and felt like having good breakfast.
My mind was not on Ogyakrom kind of breakfast, where man has to joyfully endeavour to transport from the bowl to his mouth with onward delivery into his throat and final transmission into his belly inside, good measures of equivalent of five American cans of waakye with accessories like six cooking spoons of edible leather, ten boiled eggs, twenty-five pieces of fried red meat and ten pieces of fried fish, all garnished with tallia, gari and leaves.
And when you call such a person who eats leaves a goat, he will not understand but take you to the Omanhene palace, to explain to the elders why disciplinary actions should not be taken against you.
Senior, after all this, there is still space in the belly inside to satisfy the ethnicity of the eater.
So, if he is from the Kpakpo Shito clan, he would wash all these down with five balls of Ga kenkey laced with fresh Kpakpo Shito and a bowl of fried Chorkor rascals, or he will complain all day that he has not eaten.
The eater, who is from the clan that can brag about anything, good or bad, will sign off this kind of breakfast with a big bowl of ampesiwith kontomire sauce with handsome pieces of grilled koobi, or he will claim he has undergone fasting the whole day.
Senior, as for the eater from the clan where everybody’s name ends with “sin,” oops, sorry I wanted to say “son,”as in Danielson, Ericson, Eugeneson, Koomson, Kilson, Dieson, Resurrectson, Joyson, Sadson, Quarshison, Addoson, Mahamason, Dampareson and all other “sons” protocolly observed, he would fry tsibom as in giant omelette, table-top high on a big plate with toasted bread, toasted from five large size butter bread and push them down his throat washing them down with a Kufuor gallon measure of rich tea full of milk, or he will say he has been denied his daily bread.
Senior, this was not the kind of breakfast I was feeling for that morning, because even if I did, there was no waakye joint in the area, so I had to forgerrit.
Senior, I entered this shop and walked straight to the shelf where a colony of bread was calmly sitting. Just as I was about to pick one, the shop attendant stopped me and said they were embarking on a bread exodus from the shelf to the back rooms.
Why? He politely told me that the bread which had been on the shelf for two days had expired and the bakery company was on its way, coming with fresh allocation to supply and to collect back the expired goods.
Senior, can you imagine these Obroni pipols? Bread that Auntie Adjele can hold in her store room for five days, but still come out fresh would only be wholesome in two days in the land of the Long Noses.
I asked the attendant what if I bought the bread when it was brought in wholesome and kept it for five days. He rudely told me that, that would be my own business and he would not be answerable to whatever happened to me.
Senior, in these recent days I have noticed something, something very surprising and annoying. It is all about our cherished and adored medium of exchange. I am referring to our Ogyakrom cowries, nicknamed CDs, not related to compact disc or corps diplomatique.
Senior, our cowries, used to feel our pockets and make us fine, fine. But sometime now, I noticed that our CDs seem to follow the steps of a true diplomat and keep travelling in and out of our pockets at will and at the speed of light.
Senior, in this new turn of events, I diagnosed something about our cowries. They have been produced or manufactured with a very short expiry date. These days as soon as you hold a single cowry, it will not last.
It will just be worthless as in, not useable, meaning it cannot buy what it would have bought an hour before it entered into your palm or pocket.
Senior, the most annoying thing is that our cowries do not have expiry dates printed on them, so that you know which one is wholesome and which one is not worth carrying about.
Senior, I wonder what Ogyakrom Standard Board and the Food and Drugs Boardare doing? The only thing they do is to check expiry dates on our ground and packaged dry Akwelewaabi or smoked dry snails.
They insist grasscutter meat, rat meat, crab and gari sold in our markets must have expiry dates on them, by force.
Senior, the most important thing that must legally have expiry date on it, is our cowry. If we must buy grasscutter meat, rat meat, crab, snails and what have you, we must do so with wholesome cowries.
Senior, I recently collected some cowries from my bank and it has started losing value.
I am proceeding to the village laboratories to diagnose the efficiency, the validity, the strength and the wholesomeness of the rest of the cowries.
If any or some or all have expired, I will walk my branch manager straight to the nearest kiosk where there will be an old man or woman sitting on a bench doing nothing.
I will go along with some of those patrons of local bars to put it to the bank manager that he intentionally gave me expired cowries.
Senior, I have to go, I am Dan, sorry, I am Done.
It’s Me!
