Chapter 6 (pt. 1)

“Please give me two cedis worth of bananas and the small jar of groundnut paste,” Akua said to the shopkeeper. “Oh, excuse me,” she continued, still talking to the shopkeeper, but turning to look at Jack, “please give me two cedis worth of bananas and the small jar of peanut butter.” The last two words came out in an overexaggerated American accent, accompanied by a playful smirk.

Jack allowed a smile to spread across his face. He understood that her reference to their old inside joke was one part apology and one part forgiveness. Everything was not all right yet. It could not possibly be made right with a few simple words, but it felt good to know that they were both trying. It finally felt like he had someone on his side again.

Jack returned the gesture, knowing that Akua also understood the importance of this exchange. With a pathetic attempt at the Ghanaian accent, Jack exclaimed, “Ei! This combination, it be nice, o!”

Akua smiled and then returned to chatting politely with the shopkeeper. As she did, Jack returned to his first summer in Ghana. He and Akua had already become inseparable by the morning they established this long-running inside joke.

* * * 

Jack had walked outside that morning to find Akua sitting across the yard with an open jar in her lap and a spoon in her mouth. As he got closer, he saw what she was eating.

“You have peanut butter in Ghana?!” he exclaimed.

“Peanut butter? What’s that?” she asked.

“That! That is peanut butter!” Jack replied enthusiastically, pointing at the jar in her lap.

“This?” she questioned, holding up the jar. “No. This is groundnut paste.”

Jack dipped his pointer finger into the jar and tasted its contents. “No. This is peanut butter,” he corrected her, savoring the taste of what he had always thought of as a quintessential American kitchen staple, unaware that Ghanaians had been harvesting these nuts from the ground and grinding them into a paste for generations before the first American had ever uttered the word “peanut.”

“It doesn’t matter what you call it. Have you ever tasted it with a banana?” Jack said, now almost giddy with the excitement of sharing his favorite treat with his new friend. Since his arrival in Ghana, Akua had been the one teaching him everything and this role reversal felt good. “Have you?” he asked again, “you have to try it.” Akua gave him a skeptical look, but he was already running back toward the kitchen before she could answer.

Jack returned with two bananas in his hand, and he didn’t waste any time. He peeled the first one and smothered it with a scoop of peanut butter before handing it to Akua. She looked at the banana, then at Jack, then back at the banana. Akua took a bite and chewed. With the two mushy substances mixing in her mouth, she couldn’t speak. Jack, for his part, was staring at her, wide-eyed, mouth agape, waiting for her reaction. When she finally swallowed, Akua exclaimed “Ei! This combination, it be nice, o!”

* * * 

Jack smiled at the memory and then returned his focus to the present moment. Akua was ruffling through her pockets in search of money to pay the shopkeeper. She counted the coins she had and handed them over to the shopkeeper. Jack had used some of his “emergency money” for the taxi ride, but he still had 75 cedis in his backpack.  He was, at once, overcome with Akua’s generosity and his own guilt. He resisted the urge to offer to pay, unsure if that was the right or wrong thing to do.

Charles opened the gate and stuck his head out just in time to see the two friends round the corner in the direction of the footbridge and farms beyond. Akua had a black polyurethane bag swinging at her side and Jack had a bounce in his step.