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Miller H Caldwell, click here
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Chapter 7 in Tamale
Chapter 7
Settling into Tamale
The next morning I was eager to get to the office and meet my general manager. After scrambled eggs on toast and two slices of toast with honey, I set off under a sky which was almost azure—except for a few mackerel cloud striations. The sun had been up two hours already, like an insomniac.
I greeted Peace and she told me to wait. Wait I did—for half an hour. In that time I saw her open about two dozen letters and answer the telephone on five occasions. She spoke in her native tongue, leaving me with the impression she was a busy secretary with many social skills and numerous local contacts.
Mr Utechin’s door suddenly opened and he strode forward. What struck me first was his Old Testament beard. His walk was unsteady but supported his rotund body. His face was rosy red with blood vessels on show on both his rosy cheeks. He greeted me in Russian. He shook my hand vigorously.
‘You have arrived. Good man.’ In his hand, he held a round box of chocolates. He held the tin before me.
‘Take a couple,’ he said with a smile.
I smiled at him and shook my head. ‘Sorry, I’m allergic to chocolate.’
‘What? All chocolate?’
‘Yes. I can eat travel sweets and pastilles and spangles but nothing with chocolate, even hot chocolate as a drink and no chocolate cake either. It sets me off in blisters all over my body, does chocolate.’
‘Hmmm, bad luck,’ he said launching another unwrapped sweet into his mouth. Then he put the tin down on a desk. His right hand indicated for Peace to enjoy a chocolate. With his left arm, he gestured that he would show me around.
I smiled. ‘I’d enjoy that very much,’ I said hoping I could gain as much information as necessary about my work before his bewitching hour of bottle consolation.
He was a stocky man too. His complexion was that of an ill alcoholic, beyond any doubt. Perhaps that was why I had to replace him, in time. His brightly coloured flowery Jeromi shirt integrated him into the community. I felt I needed a vibrant shirt like that too. The market should give me a good selection. Shopping for one was something to look forward to.
We entered the huge factory. The heat was immense—despite ventilation gaps in the roof. The first process was the cleaning of the kernels; the outer shell had to be separated from the nut.
‘What do you do with the discarded shells?’ I asked.
He hitched up his trousers. ‘Quite a few uses. Some goats eat them; others are used to start the evening cooking fires, the rest as manure. They decompose quickly.’
I nodded pleased that they had several further uses. In the next compartment was a dated Bulgarian seed processing machine. Its purpose was to crack the nuts then add water to cook them. The water bubbled like the Niagara Falls while the heat made me sweat profusely and the air I breathed seem to roast my throat.
I was relieved to leave that process. I was then taken to the processing workshop where the raw materials came under the screw press. After that, the nut pieces went through a solvent extraction method which made the residual rate of groundnut meal waste below 1%. The rest was groundnut oil and the bottling process went from that point. There was a distribution hut as a separate and securely locked facility at the end of the line.
The tour took the best part of an hour and a half, during which time I found curious eyes on me at every stage. I smiled at the workers, showing some humility. Their response was to show smiles and white teeth as they engaged in the work. Some came forward to shake my hand. They had seen and had met the new manager. They would think I was Russian when I was overheard. And that meant a communist too.
‘The only other aspect I’m confused about is how the nuts arrive here in the first place.’
He scratched his ear with his little finger. ‘All the groundnut farmers want me to take their crop. I don’t need to seek them. The supply is regular. And there are no unions to interfere with our production.’
‘And their wages? Who arranges that?’
‘They get paid on delivery. There’s a weekly pay for regular employees. Saturdays at mid-day they get paid before they leave work. Peace hands out the cedis. They take their pay like children receiving a birthday present,’ he said laughing loudly.
‘So, Peace is the receptionist, secretary and accountant?’
‘No, she is our secretary, receptionist and she hands out the money which I give her.’
‘I see,’ I said flicking a female mosquito from feeding on my arm. ‘And where will I work?’
Igor pointed towards Peace and informed me there was a room behind her. That was to be my office.
I was impressed with the production of the peanut oil but still wondered what my role was. I asked Igor. He replied in Russian of course. His English was often laboured.
‘The sea snake does not move for ages and then, when an unsuspecting victim approaches, it darts out and eats it.’
I reflected on what he meant. Long periods of doing nothing, I assumed. Then hectic moments of activity. That was what I took out of his analogy.
‘So when does it get busy?’
‘Let’s go to your room,’ he replied.
We passed Peace without a word and opened the door. There was a large window with glass louvers at a sharp angle to aid air circulation. A roof fan whirled round with blades like dancing dervishes. Underneath was a wooden desk. On it was a pile of letters.
‘I’ll leave you to get through the correspondence. Some might be addressed to me. Open them anyway and take what action you need to. Peace will keep you right.’ As he spoke he turned towards the door. He did not want any more conversation. I let him go.
That was Igor’s final instruction. I looked at my watch. It was fast approaching his appointed hour with Bacchus.
I sat down and picked up the letters. I flipped through them. There were seven in total. I dealt with the locally stamped ones first.
The first was from the machine operator in the factory. He was asking if his son could join the firm and replace him one day when he retired or died. I placed the letter aside. I was not sure what vacancy the workforce could offer.
The second was a letter from a local Akpeteshie seller. It was an invoice for Igor—to pay 137 cedis. I had no idea how much ‘kill me quick’ alcohol that would be. It seemed a lot.
The next two letters were from the airport. They gave the dates of the flight, the flight numbers and the destinations of the next two batches of boxes of oil.
The fifth letter was a welcome card. It was from Peace. I went to see her to thank her but she was not there. Gone for lunch I presumed.
‘Looking for Peace,’ I heard a man say as he saw me return to my room.
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Then you have met her absence.’
I smiled at the antiquated manner in which he spoke. ‘I’ll see her later. I’m Robert Harvie, the new manager. And you are?’
‘Sammy, the maintenance man.’
‘Things look very shipshape to me,’ I said to please him.
‘Shipshape?’ he asked bewildered.
‘Everything seems in order,’ I said turning back to my room having learnt an important lesson.
The last two letters were the most interesting. One had the Russian Embassy logo on the back with an Accra postmark on the front while the other was from London. I opened the latter first. It was from Vasily Chazov. He welcomed me to Tamale and showed his confidence in me. He looked forward to seeing me before too long. That was a tantalising thought. Did it mean next week, next month or when? He also made reference to work, not related to the peanut factory. It was not specific but implied I’d be away from the factory from time to time and that Igor Utechin would understand.
I read and re-read the letter. It seemed Igor had a more significant part to play than I had previously given him credit.
The last letter was from the Russian Embassy in Accra. Once more a welcome note. Everyone seemed to be welcoming me. They also invited me to their embassy and told me a formal invitation would follow soon.
I poured a glass of cold water from the fridge as a knock on the door was heard. I shouted, ’come in,’ and a boy appeared with a tray. On it was a bowl of soup and some small bags of roasted nuts. A bunch of bananas were tied to his waist. He also had a bunch of leaves. ‘The leaves, are they to eat?’
His response was to laugh. He took from his tray what looked like soggy rice and made it into a ball. He placed it on a leaf and served it to me.
‘Kenkey,’ he said. ‘It be fermented cassava. It come wif dey stew, snail stew. It be good.’
I think he saw my look—should I, or should I not?
‘Make you go try dis.’
I nodded.
‘So, the kenkey, soup, nuts and banana, how much?’
He gave a look which suggested he knew how much he could get from the white man. ‘That be two cedis.’
I gave him three cedis, thanked him for coming and I sat down at my desk to eat. The soup was tasty but the kenkey was a sourdough which I could not swallow with any enjoyment. The snails were surprisingly good if a bit chewy. I had no trouble eating the groundnuts with banana. They went down together well.
When Peace returned she knocked on the door and entered. She smiled. She found me eating. ‘It’s an acquired taste. Most Europeans don’t take to kenkey at first. They prefer fufu. You should try some of dat,’ she said lifting the tray. ‘Em, how much did you pay for it?’
‘You mean everything?’
‘Yes, your lunch. The boy would have sold it to you.’
‘Yes, he did. Two cedis and a cedi tip I gave him.’
‘Two cedis with a cedi dash?’ she said raising her voice.
‘That’s not too much was it?’ I asked like an errant schoolboy.
‘Two cedis is a week’s pay for some.’
‘Oh, then I won’t give him that again.’
‘No, no more than 50 pesewa for that meal.’ She smiled. She knew I was still on the learning curve.
‘Fufu? you said.’
‘Yes, it come in different ways. Cassava fufu; plantain fufu, a mixture; I tink you will like dat best. We will be having some at our house dis evening. Come and join us, do please.’
With nothing to do that evening, it was a pleasant thought and I had no hesitation in accepting her kind invitation.
‘Will I find your home easily?’
She laughed. ‘My husband will pick you up.’
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Web Site:
Caught in a Cold War Trap
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