My name is Joyce B. I am a first-year student at Tamale Girls SHS (Paga-Naa). My father has made it clear to me that I should learn a trade after my secondary education. He added that I can opt to move to the big cities and hustle. I felt really devastated by his words, and I sometimes don’t have the motivation to attend to my books.
Coming to this school was hell. I had to cry unceasingly before he went for my admission. He was unwilling to fund my education at the secondary level. I don’t know my mother. I believe if I knew who my mother was, she would’ve been willing to support me unconditionally on my educational journey.
I grew up with my paternal grandmother, and I thought she was my mother. I later realised that she was my grandmother based on her relationship with my father. At a point, I was sent to live with my father’s first wife. I thought I had finally united with my biological mother, but her behaviour towards me was bad. She treated me differently from the other kids. I couldn’t bear the maltreatment and had to run back to my grandmother.
I was so hellbent in knowing who my mother was. I confronted my grandmother with the multi-million-dollar question. Who is my mother? The way the woman (her father’s first wife) treated me differently from the other kids under her care clearly shows that I am not her daughter. I can’t even describe how she made me feel. (She started crying while narrating her ordeal.)
My grandmother opened up to me. I was shocked and overwhelmed at the same time. She began, “That’s not your mother. She is your father’s first wife. Your father went to Accra to hustle. Your mother fell in love with him, and you were the product of their unmoderated temptations. You were conceived out of love by two people who met in the big city of Accra to hustle”.
I asked my grandmother if she knew the whereabouts of my mother. Unfortunately, no one knows. My grandmother revealed that my mother thought my father was single and unmarried. So, she was shocked and unhappy to follow my father back to the village, only to discover that my father had a wife with two kids. My mother made attempts to leave during the pregnancy but was advised to stay. Barely a month after my delivery, my mother said she was going to the toilet, and she’s yet to return. My grandmother told me to keep our conversation secret. As of today, my father doesn’t know that I don’t know my mother. As a young girl, I felt the pain of not knowing my mother. And I felt the pain more when I saw my colleagues calling their mothers, “Mama”.
As a young girl without a mother, I was everyone’s rag. My father’s first wife came for me from my grandmother. I knew what was ahead of me. I had to run back to my aunt in Accra. I have stayed with her before when I was younger. My aunt then enrolled me in Ayalolo School.
Today, I fight tooth and nail to keep myself in school. When I was young, I acquired the skills to prepare koko from my grandmother. She was a koko seller and I used to help her every day. She is now frail and I have taken over the koko trade from her. When school is on break, I prepare and sell koko until school reopens. I always try to sell as much as I can to mobilise money for my upkeep in school. Occasionally, I will stay back home doing my koko business until I am able to raise enough money and report to school.
Last term, I was at my wits’ end. I was hard-pressed. I had no pesewa on me. I rang my father about my situation at school. My father told me that the situation at home is even more dire than what I am experiencing in school. I cried. Cried unceasingly. A friend chanced on me crying. She enquired about the situation. I told her all my predicaments and she consoled me. She promised to share her little with me. Previously, some friends who know my story advised me to drop out of school and get a husband to marry so that he could take care of me.
I have contemplated abandoning school to marry but sometimes, I don’t want my kids to suffer the situation my absconded mother has put me in. I am always positive that things could’ve been different with my mother was by my side.
When we were about to break for the sallah holidays, I packed all my belongings. I had no intention of returning to school. Mr. Akoka, the senior housemaster got a hint of it and intervened. He gave me compelling reasons to back down on my packing. My life situations are always weighing down my academic performance and I seldomly do a soul-searching of where exactly I am going to. I am always lagging behind my peers since my JHS. I really don’t know if keeping on is worth keeping on. I am doing my best to cope. (At this stage she is in complete tears.)
Auntie Joyce Bawah Mogtari has done something impactful on my psyche. Her motivational words of encouragement propped me up a bit. It has enlivened my spirits. I was almost giving up on my education. I had planned to leave school one day and never return like my mother did. She is called Joyce Bawah and I am Joyce B. If I hang on a little bit, I may live to do the good things she is doing to keep young girls in school. She truly has inspired me by her kind gesture.
I will begin working harder in the midst of this life’s turbulence to become good lawyer in one of the top-notch universities in Ghana or abroad.
This is a follow-up story on a student following the donations of sanitary pads and mentorship program shouldered by Auntie Joyce Bawah Mogtari. The student was a person of interest based on a question she asked during the Q & A session of the event.
Auntie Joyce has pledged to support her till she successfully completes Paɣa-Naa.
PS: Random picture from the pictures taken during the event.