Father was so caught up in writing his recent hospital upgrade proposal, which he planned to submit to the Trust Hospital administration in central Accra, that he almost forgot all about his birthday. His birthday had been last Sunday, modestly celebrated with a nice dinner with Mother, and it was now Thursday. So, when Father rang up his son, hoping to ask him to look at the draft of the proposal, and Son immediately answered the phone to say, ‘Happy Birthday,’ Father could not help but laugh to himself.
‘What day is my birthday?’ Father asked.
‘It is the second.’
‘And what day is today?’
‘Today is…not the second.’
‘So, is today my birthday?’
Son did not answer. Father would have preferred for him to have tried to give an excuse for his forgetfulness; he could have said for example that in Ashanti tradition, the first day of the week was the celebration of the krada, meant to observe the week in which a person was born. Normally this day and an actual birthday was different, but coincidentally enough in the context of this month, Father’s krada and birthday overlapped. He also could have said that he had messed up the dates, or that he did not remember what day today was.
But Son remained silent. Father sighed and said, ‘This is not why I am calling.’ He squinted at the pile of papers he had just written and printed out in stacks. ‘Me ba, I have to ask you a favour. You are good at writing. I am going to have a meeting at my hospital to discuss some things. They need to see what I am thinking, and I’ve written out a draft. Can I send it your way?’
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