iHeartHope

Imagine when you were very young, maybe say sixteen years, you got yourself a little tattoo. So little, people standing close to you don't notice unless you show it to them or they really stare at you for a long time. You got it because all your friends were getting it, not for any sentimental reasons. Then maybe two years later you decide to join the Ghanaian army and they disqualify you because of the little tattoo you have on your body. Or let's say when in school, you joined a group of guys who were involved in a riot. Maybe it didn't even start as a riot but it escalated and before you knew what was happening you were arrested by the police  and they put you in their records. Now years later you try to apply for certain positions and you are disqualified because you check the little box that says 'do you have a police record?'. Maybe you don't have dramatic stories of things you have lost as a result of decisions you took sometime back or things you did...

This Cursed Blessing  by Naana Antwi-Larbi Even though I was betrothed at the age of eight to Alhaji Imoro, it was only after I turned sixteen that I was taken to his home as his third wife. My older twin sisters, Ashana and Fushana were married off at fifteen, but growing up I had been a very skinny child, rather unusual for a Kombongo girl, who were usually well built. My Baba whenever I came to clear his bowls after his evening dinner of tuo-zaafi and ayoyo soup would comment to my mother, 'Idayatu, you need to put more meat on this child's food, do you want Alhaji to say we are not feeding his wife well?' My Mma would smile and say 'Maegyida, this child eats more than her twin sisters combined, its her body that doesn't glorify food.' When I turned sixteen, Alhaji could just not wait anymore, and my parents agreed I would probably gain weight after I had my first child. I was in Alhaji's house for a year and six months when he decided I served no...

That morning he spoke about the king that wanted to kill Mary's child, so ordered for a census, compelling the couple to change their schedule, subsequently forcing the lady to give birth at a place where they (the couple), had not intended. What they didn't know and what the king had not intended to do, was to get them at the exact place destined for her to birth her baby. He said it in his usual fascinating way that I kept laughing listening to him, enjoying it. I didn't know that very day I would be tested. When I got to the office, the manager said there was to be a reassignment of offices but he may keep me where i was. I told him i was familiar with that place and I wanted to keep being there. Everyone told him to let me stay. He agreed and said Ofcourse. Mid afternoon he brought a notice. I had been moved. I was annoyed, felt betrayed: you told me you won't change me! Every one told him he didn't do well. He started feeling guilty and said he would reas...

One thing we can be sure of on this journey called life is how unsure people are and will be  We can never fully trust that a person would remain as they are, would love us as they used to, would smile as wide as they did.  We can't trust that they would live as long as we do, that their laughter would be still hearty and there would remain a gait in their walk. Its the same as we. We can't be sure to love the same person we can't have enough of now. To always be the best dancer at the club. To always watch the same kind of movies. We can only be sure of this: that we would never be able to escape from the presence of ourselves. Wherever we go, guess who we go with, ourselves. It's about time we payed more attention to loving ourselves a bit more.Not allowing close what we know would eventually break us. Not holding on to that which would rather be anywhere than with us. All we have is us, and it's about time we took better care of us.

Maybe you have been doing this and still do, or you have been doing it sometimes or you used to, either ways in this new month and not so old year, try and keep a journal,i.e., a book in which you record the happenings of your life. Do this for this reason: Life presents various seasons and you will not always be in the best of moods or places or situations etc. Your low moments may get to you so much that you maybe tempted to think that nothing good has ever happened to you. But they have. And the journal would remind you of this when you read this in your not so happy days. When you are overly excited and forget to be level headed, this would remind you from 'whence thou cameth from' and hopefully put you in reasonable check. You may even realize later on like the King who couldn't sleep and asked for the history books, that at one point in time someone was good to you, whom you may have fallen out with. It would remind you to be kind to them. It would also help y...