Krobo Drama

I mentioned recently that Lydie and Maku have moved home to their respective family homes. It seems that Lydie was stealing money and food from the house store. She would take rice, sardines and other food items to school and feed her friends at lunch.

Since Dorothy doesn't keep very detailed books, she did not know about the problem for what seems like quite a while. She noticed that the till would be low when Lydie and Maku were left at home but I guess she wasn't ready to accuse them of stealing. One day, she found that 65 Ghana Cedis had been taken and that a bag of new clothes was in the girls' room. Since then, I have not seen the girls. Bad news!!

When discussing the issue, Dorothy told me that whenever she's ready to complain about her problems, she thinks of them as a load of trash that she has to take the the dump. She knows that any time she would arrive at the dump, she would see plenty of her neighbors arriving at the same time, dumping much larger loads.

When at market last week, Dorothy heard of a woman who had fallen ill. When the woman went to her preferred juju man, he told her that he knew that she was keeping a secret and that should would not get better until she came clean. It turned out that the woman had been having affairs with many neighbors. Sh came clean to her husband and the husband quickly contacted the five men and demanded that they each pay 4,000 GHana Cedis (when telling the story, Dorothy used the old currency and said forty million which sounds better). As of the end of the day, only one man had been able to pay 200 Ghana Cedis. I told Dorothy that this punishment was far different than what would happen in the US. When infidelity comes to light, it isn't common for the offending party to stay with their husband/wife while the person they cheated with pays the family. Unfortunately, I honestly believe that there would be more infidelity in America if things worked this way. If your wife cheats on you with 5 men, you will make 20,000 dollars!!! Terrible but I'm sure people would take that opportunity every day.

When chatting about this story with Patrick, I learned of a different, more unbelievable story that had been floating around Krobo land. A neighboring community has a weekly market day on Thursdays. The market site sits beside a river so many families travel to the market by canoe or boat. Apparently, the wife of a local fisherman had been using the market as a weekly opportunity to visit a mystery lover. The identity of the man was found out and friends of the husband told him what was going on. The guilty party turned out to be a friend of the husband. The husband tried to play the bigger man and visited the friend, telling him to put a stop to the affair. The very next week, the wife of this bigger man stuck to her weekly schedule and went to visit the friend of her husband. Trusting neither his wife nor his friend, the husband paid a visit to his own juju man during the week so as the story goes, the philandering man and her lover became stuck together during the act of copulation. I have seen this happen with dogs but have never even heard of such a thing happening with people.

Apparently, people heard of the unfortunate predicament and went to tell the husband. Unfazed, the man went to his friends house and demanded 1,000 Ghana Cedis payment. Without payment, he would not visit his juju man and have the curse reversed. The now former friend paid and the pair were released. As I sat, doubting the story but enjoying it nonetheless, a fellow audience member must have overheard my thoughts when he asked "what did they do about food?" They had been stuck for over 12 hours. "The man's penis became larger than my thigh" Patrick shared with undying sincerity. He said that naturally the pair were not worried about food.

Who need Jerry Springer?

On another, more serious and very appreciative note, my PCPP has been fully funded!!! The last time I checked, over 1100 dollars were needed. That was only 5 days ago!!! Thanks to everyone who contributed or who shared the link to the webpage. I will keep you all updated as the project continues.

Love to all!
Ira