Dear Senior Opupulepu,
How are you do? I hope you are do fine, fine, just as me and all of mine are all do fine.
Senior, are you remember skuul speech and prize-giving days? Those were special days when the skuul authorities separate the sheep from the goat.
Senior, those who are bedfellows with books and are the sheep, and are made to stand up and stand out among their peers and counted as the best among equals. By mention of their name, they will rise and walk to receive books like My First Copy Book; The Easiest Way To Learn ABC; How To Say ABC Backwards;How To Pronounce 1,2,3 Properly; How To Boil Water Without Burning The Under Of The Pot among many others.
Senior, among the others who are the goats, most are very allergic tobooks and so are book-short, are also seated. All they do is to applaud as the sheep go to receive their prizes. Unfortunately, they do not receive any prize for clapping.
Senior, some of the goats decided to prefer jumping like frogs, running like bailar,(field mice) being chased by kobolor boys, and doing all those useless things called sports.
Senior, these goats are woken up from bed at 3 a.m. and made to implement the feat of Philippides and run all around the hamlet covering a distance of more than from here to Alata village and back.
Senior, during their joggling they will sing GAP Band’s hit song, Early In The Morning, sideways. They will go like this, “Oh, what a life…. So, I get up, get up early in the morning, in the morning, running round the neighbourhood… And I get up, get up early in the morning, in the morning, at the break of dawn, some fool thinks he is doing me good!”
Senior, among these goats are special goats and these special goats also receive books as gifts and prizes during the speech and prize-giving day. Books like, How To Run Ahead Of The Wind; Making The Wind Chase You; Gutter-to-Gutter Made Easy; Breathing In And Breathing Out Without Tearsamong many others are given out.
Senior, when these goats collect the book prizes, they grab them with all their might, as if someone want to thief them. Then, they pose for the cameras and hold the books just as the academically brilliant hold books.
Senior, many years on, they will show these pictures to their children and children’s children and advise them to study hard to win prizes just as they did when they were in skuul. They were very brilliant during their skuul days, and know book well, well, like how they know the back of their palm.
Senior, their children will then struggle and struggle and try to make friends with books, but since their genes are allergic to books as the genes of their fathers are, no matter how hard they try, the social distance between them and knowledge would remain forever the same.
Senior, it is this speech and prize giving day that the most illustrious omanhene of Ogyakrom, Nana Kung-Fu, transformed into prize awards for villagers who stand up and stand out among all others for doing this or that very well.
Senior, there was prize awards for those who can snore non-stop without break, those who can snore melodically as if they are playing Presby hymns and those who can sleep with one eye open. Also, there are prizes for those who can chew food with both sides of their jaws, at once.
Senior, this has become the tradition and culture of Ogyakrom to this very day and so it was not surprising when our Omanhene, the Great Leopard, Nana Onsurowuo Owuobia ye owuo, decided to award deserving villagers with prizes.
Senior, when the list came out, two villagers from the Umbrella clans were counted in the number when the saints went marching in. The names of the selected sheep run out loud and people heard with shock, joy and merry-making.
Senior, it went like this, Do-U-C Mamajulor (Present Sir), Nyogbor Teley (present), Babaliba Soldier (present) Anas Amen Yaw (present); Hong Kong Fuii (can’t respond); Veronica Agatha Toffee (present sir); Gloria Hosanna Akuf (forever present sir); Martha Rita Blue (can’t respond, sir) and Veronica Bucket Come Fight (present sir), among others.
Senior, the list dropped out Hong Kong Fuii and Martha Rita Blue because they refused to respond to the call.
Senior, all of Ogyakrom was shocked and surprised and wanted to find out why they rejected this honour the village had done them.
Senior, they cleared their throats and said, “Ladies, Gentlemen and Others, Good day to some of you. We, who have decided to reject the awards in Yahweh’s Son’s Name, did so because as good followers of Yahweh, we do not want to yoke with unbelievers. As you know, we are allergic to anything Elephant and we realized that all the awards were made of Elephant skins. So, we reject them.”
Senior, they continued and said that members of Elephant clan are well known crooks, scammers, tricksters and what have you. “If we collect an award made of Elephant skin, the Elephant clan people can come and accuse us for killing an Elephant. We don’t want, Asem!”
Senior, I am Dan, sorry I am done.
It’s me.
