Touchdown in Accra! “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Accra. The local time is 8.00 p.m., and the weather is 29 degrees.” We had just landed in Accra, and passengers were applauding the pilot for the smooth landing. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we stepped off that plane, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. Suddenly, all these people were welcoming us, helping with our luggage, and striking up conversations – people I barely knew. It took coming to Ghana for me to discover my blood relatives. It turned out many of those we called uncles and aunties back in London were actually family friends. Ghana was a blast! We stayed in Accra for a couple of weeks before moving to Kumasi, where the second phase of my life began. Growing up in Kumasi was a fascinating time in my life. At first, our relatives and friends teased my brother and me because of our strong British accents. This motivated us to learn the Ghanaian accent and the Twi language. We held little Twi competitions to see who could speak better without using English, and we learned countless Twi proverbs. By the end of it, we not only lost our British accents but also seemed to speak better Twi than our cousins who were already living in Ghana. Our first school in Kumasi was City of Kumasi School, simply because there was no space at the University Primary School. However, we did get admission the following term, and it was fantastic. That’s where I met my friend Victoria Ahafia, whose dad was a physics lecturer at the university. We both chose Holy Child School for our secondary education, which led us to become close friends, thinking great minds think alike. In Kumasi, we initially lived in Ayigya before moving toMbrom, African Bungalows, where my aunt, Mrs. Lucy Effah, lived just down the street. My mom and my aunt were incredibly close and often took long walks together. My aunt, Mama, had a significant influence on my upbringing. I have many stories frommy youth with her, like how she made us clean the inside house walls so she wouldn’t have to repaint them and how if we said we were bored, she’d tell us to remove cobwebs from the ceilings! During that phase of my life, my cousin Lucy and I were close, and we had our Holy Confirmation together. I also got to knowmy older brother Jose Ken Bandoh, aka Gubis. He soon got admission to Harvard University and would promise to take us to the USA whenever he needed something from us! In 1974, just before I departed for secondary school, my sister Adjoa came into this world. She was named SusanMary after two kind-hearted old ladies in London who had supported my mother in taking care of us kids, particularly my sister Lulu. It was a joy to play a role in looking after Adjoa during her early days, but soon after, I had to bid farewell and embark on my journey to secondary school. 6 The Birthday Journal
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