Yam Chip Wife

I fancied yam chips and pepper sauce on Saturday. I hadn’t had them for a week or so. Most week day lunches recently have been taken in the cocoa growing communities – usually boiled plantain and coco yam with palaver sauce. Either that or I just walk into one of canteens in town, order light soup with fish and rice and say the Agric. Officer will pay for it. It’s a curious arrangement, but it works so I don’t question it.

Anyway, I cycled into town and as I suspected the normal yam chip lady was not there and her stall was deserted. I don’t think she does Saturdays. I tried to remember where I else I could get freshly fried chips. (Older ones tend to get a bitter taste.) Then I realised I would have to visit my third or possibly fourth wife. The good thing about Yam Chip Wife (YCW, yes she has got a real name, but I have forgotten it and it’s probably not a good idea to have to ask her what it is and this stage) is that she doesn’t make the same demands as the others. There is no ‘where have you been?’, ‘what did you bring me from Accra?’ why didn’t you phone?’ she just accepts me for what I am and is always pleased to see me, no questions asked. Her stall is on the main road, beside the cash and carry and opposite the Shell Garage. When I sit in the back of the pick up, because there is no room inside, my colleagues always shout at her as we pass so that she notices me. Sitting in the back of the pick up always arouses quite a bit of excitement. I don’t think it’s seen as appropriate behaviour for ‘obrunis’.

I reached YCW’s stall. She was there and she immediately started putting chips in a bag without asking what I wanted. She put seven big wedges in a bag (I would normally ask for four) and then offered sauce, which I accepted and fish which I turned down. It had been a very fishy week. I proffered a 1 Ghana Cedi note. ‘No’, she said, ‘you are my husband’. I hesitated but then thanked her earnestly and put the hot bag in my rucksack. I pedalled off pondering if or how I should reciprocate this generous gift. As I cycled the chips gently warmed the small of my back.