I love yam! I can eat it fried without any accompaniment as a snack. With the addition of fresh-pepper and sardine with an egg garnish however, I automatically upgrade it to a main-meal status. Boiled yam also co-operates effectively with vegetables like “nkontomire”/palaver-sauce, “agushi/egusi” stew or garden-egg stew! Boiled yam’s versatility can also be seen when it combines deliciously with corned beef stew. Yam is therefore a constant feature at home!
Lamentations
Saturday mornings continue to be for “post-market lamentations!” When “Manager” returns home from the market in the morning having left home around 5.30am to get the freshest of vegetables and fruits direct from the market-women who bring them at dawn from the villages, I am debriefed on price increases. There is a comparison with prices the previous week, and prices the same time last year 2022!
Recently, I was educated that there had been a 100% price increase in a roll of “nkontomire” from what it was this time last year. In the latest update at the time of writing, three small tomatoes I was invited to inspect, sold for ten cedis. I was further enlightened that a medium-size tuber-of-yam which sold for about ten cedis in 2022 is now between 22-25 cedis depending on how hard one bargains. The mention of yam took me back to 2006.
Yam
In 2006, duty took me to Kumasi. I went with “Manager.” From experience, I knew that giving the chance on our return trip to Accra, I would be strongly-requested to make many stops to buy foodstuffs from “Akrantie” (Archaeology) aka grasscutter to palm-oil “zomi” (zoology). To obviate this, I issued a communique on our rules-of-engagement for the journey the night before we left Kumasi. It was simply, “Madame, for our trip tomorrow, we shall make two stops for you to buy foodstuffs. So please decide on the two places.”
Our first stop was at Ejisu where the major marketing that was done included eight tubers of yam. With distribution to family/friends enroute, we arrived home with three tubers. “Manager’s” instructions were that, my driver and bodyguard should have one tuber each leaving the eighth/last one for us. That yam would be fried for my breakfast the following morning. Just then, a heavy downpour started, making my soldiers leave rather unceremoniously.
The following morning, Manager realized that, in the confusion of the sudden storm, my soldiers inadvertently took away the yam she had earmarked for my breakfast. She therefore promised buying a tuber after her classes for my dinner.
Parcel
At a meeting in my office that morning, I was told a soldier from Tamale wanted to see me. When he came in, he said his Commanding Officer (CO) had asked him to bring me a parcel. I directed him to my house to deliver it to “Manager” who was just about leaving the house for the Armed Forces Secondary/Technical School, Burma Camp where she taught.
Later that day, when I got home, “Manager” led me to the courtyard to see the parcel from Tamale. To my disbelief, over twenty tubers of yam laid spread on the ground. Smiling, she asked rhetorically “Dan, you see the way God works? We bought eight tubers of yam yesterday from Ejisu and ended up with zero! My intention was to buy a tuber on my way home from town this afternoon. Then, unexpectedly, we have received twenty tubers all the way from Tamale! Isn’t that a miracle?”
Discussion
If “Manager” thought what I called the “yam-beat” was a miracle, there was an earlier miracle in 1983. When as a young Captain I graduated from the University of Ghana, Legon in 1982, Legon requested the Armed Forces to have me as a Teaching Assistant (TA). The Armed Forces therefore seconded me to Legon for one year! In 1983, students went on demonstration, aka “aluta!” This led to the closure of the universities. I returned to barracks.
Soon after my return, a list nicknamed “Apollo 33” came out. It was a list of 33 senior officers who were to be euphemistically, retired compulsorily, aka sacked. Name number 33 on the list was however, that of a junior officer Capt DK Frimpong of the Armoured Recce Regiment! This was in the heat of the 1979/1981 revolution.
When I went to find out why I was being unceremoniously retired, a colleague told me 32 names were sent for retirement. They therefore did not know how my name joined the list as number 33.
“Tamale Miracle”
The Force Headquarters was at the Flagstaff House (Jubilee House) where I reported. There, I met the Commanding Officer of the 6th Bn of Infantry, Tamale who had arrived in Accra that morning. He asked me what I was doing there as a young captain. My answer was, “I have been sacked, Sir!” Laughing, he asked if I could write well. When I answered in the affirmative he asked if I had ever been an Adjutant (Secretary to the Commanding Officer). I replied I had served three Commanding officers (COs) in the Recce Regiment between 1976-1979. He said he was taking his battalion to the Sinai Desert on United Nations peacekeeping. Since he did not have an Adjutant, he would submit my name as one of three names regulations required, for a selection to be made by Force Headquarters. Laughing, he asked me to pray hard!
A week later when the list of appointments came out, Capt DK Frimpong had been selected the Adjutant for Ghana Battalion (Ghanbatt) 21 going to the United-Nations-Interim-Force-in Lebanon (UNIFIL), under the command of the CO 6 Bn Tamale, Lt Col BB Lorwia! So, like a phoenix, I rose from the ashes of a potentially sacked captain, to the Adjutant of UN peacekeeping mission. “Thank you Sir, Lt Col BB Lorwia and may my CO’s soul RIP!”
Incidentally, the “Tamale miracles” continue! The current CO of 6Bn, Tamale was “Manager’s” student! Therefore, there is a pipeline which ensures a constant stream of yams, guinea-fowls, oxtail etc from Tamale to my house! Even though it is generally said that, the teacher’s reward is in heaven, it appears sometimes, part of the reward is given here on earth! Both “Manager” and I enjoy amazing appreciation/goodwill from our former students/cadets. My only question to God is whether these earthly rewards are bonus, or will be debited against the heavenly reward account!
For most people, it is only biblical events like the blind seeing and feeding five-thousand people with five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish that constitute miracles. But for me, relative minor incidents like my “yam-beats” of Ejisu-Accra-Tamale also constitute miracles!
Isn’t He a miracle-working God we serve?
Leadership, lead! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd)
Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association
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