By Togbe Dr. (Hon.) Reuben Hadzide
A picture I saw today stopped me cold. Four children, each trying and failing to touch the ear on the opposite side of their head. It was playful, innocent, and strangely profound. And just like that, I was back in Afuaman, barefoot and wide-eyed, on my very first day of school.
The memory came rushing in like morning rain on a tin roof. I had just bathed, my mother scrubbing me with care and purpose. I wore new shorts and a shirt that smelled of starch and hope. In my hand was a small wooden stool, my chair for the day. I wasn’t alone. A small procession of neighborhood children, each carrying their own stool, made our way to the village school, a structure with a thatched roof and no walls. It stood like a promise in the open air.
My father, the first registered distiller of Akpeteshie in Afuaman, was already a legend. Long before the colonial ban was lifted, he brewed with quiet defiance. His registration papers were sacred relics in our home, and he would show them off with pride, reminding us that every new distiller in the village had started under his name and license. Teachers often visited our house, not for lessons, but for a sip of his potent craft. In a way, my father’s distillery was the village’s unofficial staff lounge.
But that day, I wasn’t the son of a distiller. I was just a boy with a stool and a dream.
The morning assembly was nearly over when I arrived. Classes one through six were marching in rhythm to a song I can no longer recall. I joined Class One, and Mr. Williams Kuegbesika, our teacher, called me forward. He pointed to my stool. I placed it down. Then came the test.
“Touch your left ear with your right hand,” he said.
I tried. I failed. My arms were too short, my body too small. But I didn’t give up. I reached behind my head, twisted slightly, and managed to graze my ear. Mr. Kuegbesika smiled.
“If you’re clever enough to figure that out,” he said, “you’re ready for school.”
And just like that, I was in.
Others weren’t so lucky. Many were sent home, their arms not long enough, their ingenuity not yet awakened, I guess. That simple ear test was the gatekeeper to education, a rite of passage disguised as a stretch.
But the day didn’t end at school.
Straight from the classroom, I returned home and nestled into a habit that had lingered far longer than most would expect, suckling at my mother’s breast. It was my quiet ritual, a comfort I clung to. That afternoon, as I sat close to her, my uncle Kwakutse happened to pass by. He stopped, stared, and without ceremony, gave me a few firm slaps on my buttocks. That was the end of it. The habit vanished like smoke in harmattan.
Later, I learned why I had held on so tightly.
After my birth, my mother suffered a severe bleeding and infection. She was carried through bush paths from Afuaman to Weija, and then onward to Korle Bu. For three long months, I was not fed on breast milk. Instead, I was nourished with a porridge made from corn, sugar, and milk, a humble blend that kept me alive but left a void only closeness could fill.
Perhaps that absence in my earliest days forged my attachment. Perhaps the breast was not just food, but memory, healing, and the bond I never got to form in those fragile first weeks.
So when I saw that picture, those children reaching for their ears, trying to prove their readiness for school, it reminded me not just of my clever stretch, but of the tenderness that followed. The journey from porridge to stool, from slap to school desk, from bush path to blackboard.
Whoever took that photo, you’ve done more than capture a moment. You’ve unlocked a story. A story my children will now inherit, not just of how I started school, but of how I started life. And how, through resilience, ritual, and a little ingenuity, I found my way.
Let this be a reminder: every child carries a story. Some begin with a stretch of the arm. Others begin with a slap of love. But all deserve to be told. This is mine!
