‘Of course it’s fine. These are real everyday issues you can’t ignore. But I’m sure that as time goes on, you are developing your own mechanisms of dealing with people, even difficult customers and employees. Eventually you will win them over’. ‘Well, I hope so. Sometimes it’s very difficult. Anyway, so how do you normally get to work?’ ‘There’s a taxi rank just some fifty metres away from here. The taxi drops me very close to my Department. And it’s the same coming back home. So I don’t have any transport issues’. ‘Okay, let me see you off before it gets too late’. He saw me off and wished me a good day, and as I walked to join the taxi I reflected on my impressions of him at work. It was good to know that he was doing something productive, but while I understood that his German education and training inclined him towards punctuality and efficiency, I thought that anyone working in our environment, especially a Ghanaian, should find a way to handle customers and employees. Customers would flock to you if they knew that you were efficient and punctual, so that could be an advantage. And employees could always be trained to work the way the employer wanted, depending on the motivation and the style used. Those were my early impressions, but I was quite willing to give Stanley time to come across with his plans for the future.
Some two months after he proposed, he had not said anything else. We met as usual and chatted over all manner of things, but he avoided the relationship issue. I started thinking of dropping hints about the subject, but one morning he stopped by the house as I was about to leave for work, and announced that he was going to Germany ‘for a few months’. He was going to prepare to fully settle back in Ghana. He apologized for not informing me earlier, but he had had to take the decision in a hurry. He would call regularly, of course, and discuss everything’ Then he was gone. Stanley called some three days after he arrived in Germany, and promised to call regularly. He honoured his promise, and called for a couple of months, mostly to talk about the two German brothers he was working with. They had a great working relationship, and he hoped to get them interested in investing in Ghana. He believed that in spite of the challenges, Ghana was a very viable place to invest, and he was going to work hard to succeed in Ghana. Quite a few Germany based Ghanaians had returned home to invest, and some were doing extremely well. He mentioned Kwasi Okyere, who had opened an organic farm with two branches in the Central and Eastern Regions, and was supplying vegetables to the supermarkets. Then there was Dan Appiah, who was bringing rebuilt tractors for sale to Ghanaian farmers, and was struggling to meet the numerous orders he had received. There were many success stories to inspire him, he said, and he was certainly going to make it in Ghana. And to top it all, he had met a beautiful lady, just the type of woman he wanted.
I found those words really heart-warming, but I was not thrilled. I hoped and prayed that he would be able to achieve those objectives. I tried to encourage him, saying for example that having already been to Ghana to start working in his preferred line of business, all he needed was to prepare adequately and come back with full vigour. And fortunately too, he had two wealthy partners who would provide him with technical and financial support. With hard work, he could win businesses from the big industrial and commercial companies.
After two months, however, he fell silent. I waited for a couple of weeks, and dropped a few WhatsApp messages. But even though he opened them, he did not reply. I called on two occasions, and he did not answer. So I decided to wait for a while. Perhaps he needed some time to sort himself out. Regular communication from me could give the impression that he was obliged to hurry up and come to Ghana to be with me. I dropped a few messages to greet him and hope that he was doing well. Then I stopped.
My parents may have gotten some hint from somewhere, because they started asking. ‘How are things going between you and Stanley?’ Mama asked. ‘I haven’t heard from him in a couple of months. But before then, things were going very well’. ‘How can that be, Esaaba? You mean things were going well, then all of a sudden, he went quiet, and you haven’t heard from him for two months?’

TO BE CONTINUED

Ekow DeHeer, the author