Atta Ayi, my brother was not always the most feared crime lord. He may be incarcerated in the Nsawam Prisons but I will always remember my elder brother differently.

The first time I met my brother was an August night at Kotoka International Airport when my mum and I came to Ghana to perform traditional marriage rites that my father had been refusing since he married her in Madrid, Spain.

There stood, the very image of my father at the exit, my mum was first to smile while I just stared thinking surely this is my father not my brother. Like a magnet we were inseparable, my elder brother and me. He took time to teach me about life in Ghana, making friends.

The more I got to know Atta, the more I began to understand how wrong my father was in his refusal to return to Ghana. As we roamed the shores of Ghana, skidded the bricks of greater Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi, I began to see bits and pieces of his life.

In Kumasi, we ate at Joffel then we visited a condo of his in Offinso. The people residing in the condo were teens about my age but that was according to my western eyes, these were entrepreneurs preparing their batch of FanMilk, FanChoco and Yoghurt for sale in town.

My brother told them something in a language I had yet to understand and they all greeted me jovially. I told Atta that I would like to hang out with them but he was fiercely against it citing that the townsfolk might think ill of it.

Atta was funding the business of these friends; he did the same for a group in the two other cities he took me to. I could sense certain anger in his demeanor at his apartment in Takoradi, whilst there he showed me half burned pictures of his school boy days and also of his deceased twin.

He had no picture of his mother though. When pressed, all he said was the house they once lived in as a family burned down.

Alone in the world, my brother was influential in organizing other abandoned youth like himself. After my mum and I returned to Spain, Atta and I vowed to stay in touch in a letter writing campaign.

Dear Mauve:

I hope this letter finds you well and that you receive the newspaper clips

I have provided in this envelope. As you can see Ghana will soon be age

40years. I plan to travel to the site of where my mother and your half sister are

buried to pay my respects. I will not ask about our father because I am sure

he still does not ask about me. Sometimes I cannot understand how

my twin is still not with us. You would have liked her. I tell you Tawiah, even

though you are half-caste you seem to be a similar stature to her.  I am sure

our father never tells you but, it is very possible that when he looks at you

he realizes he can never escape the past. Be a good girl and continue to

learn from the translation books I have sent you.

Bye for now, Atta.

I responded immediately to my brother and waited patiently for his next response by air mail. In my head I dreamed of what life would have been like for Atta if in fact he had been born to my mother, or if I had been born to his late mother. Why did my father refuse to return to Ghana?

To hear my mum explain the situation, dad left pain in Ghana and would rather not revisit the horror.  But what about how dad ignores Atta? On this my mum was silent.

When the news came that my brother had been arrested by the Ghana Police Service, my heart sank. That day my father was in depressive mood and my mum sat next to him clutching her arms together.

She rose when I entered the house straight from work, I greeted them, “buenas noches padre y madre,” no response was given. Mum walked up to me with her arms around me with a kiss to my forehead.

We slowly walked out the house to a bodega under the pretense of treating me with a churro. “Your brother has been arrested in Kumasi, according to sources he is the notorious motorcycle bandit who steals from drivers as they stop to buy petrol,” says my mum all in one breadth.

My eyes fall on the succulence of the churro in my hand and suddenly, I have lost my appetite. I looked to my mum, proceeded to ask only to be cut off by her retort, “I think you and I know your brother lived a life your father disapproved of?” to this I say, “yes mum.” When we returned home, father was in his study reciting the rosary. Mum and I went to my room to do the same.

I could not sleep that night, so I decided to re-read the many letters Atta has written. Letter after letter conjures his painful past. In one of his letters, he wrote,

Dear Tawiah,

I found a rare picture of my mum today when I paid a courtesy call to the elderly couple ( Madam Florence Ainooson and Mr. Jude Ainooson) who

were once our neighbors. The picture took me back to asking why my parents ever become a

couple in the first place? In the picture she is pious, conservatively dressed with a white

lace handkerchief on her hair-as though she had just taken communion. The mother I

remember dressed very fashionable, in fact her nickname was Local Victoria due to the fact

that she bared a resemblance to a famous 1970’s Ghanaian model, Victoria.

Father and her would regularly host parties in our Takoradi house that would last till 5am.

I distinctly remember that after ever party mum would cry, curse father in the morning, perhaps she was drunk.

With the same vigor, father would curse her right back then leave the house for at least a week.

It was like tradition, every single time this routine would happen at every party. Kakra and I

would comfort her the best we knew how by dancing for her Fontomfrom, Kpalogo and even

American tap dancing that we learned by watching Curly Top at the Ainooson’s house.

Sadly, this was not enough for her. She would also leave us in the house for perhaps 2 days.

Thankfully the watchman and house girls of the house would be around to see after us during these times.

If my mum or dad returned home, they would have gifts in hand for us but the parties and fights never ended. I

know for a fact they were never officially married, but they lived as though they were.

Yet, at the same time dad would have women on the side, some of these women were his workers. Did

dad ever tell you his profession while he was in Ghana?  Perhaps

this is why I wish I could have changed my mum back into the way she in the picture

I have and erase the memory I have of her and dad.

Thanks again for the Spanish/English translation books,

I may never see the shores of Spain but I plan to do business in South America real soon.

Adios mi hermana.

Your brother, Atta

My brother carried such a heavy burden as a child. Reading this letter again allows insights into why he got into crime because for about a year, he stopped communication altogether.

Did he run out of money? I doubt it. I continued to write him though, and when I finally bought a mobile phone, I called the line he had given me in a previous letter but to no avail.

This was 1998, when the new year rolled around, I decided to rely on my own devices to read the news from Ghana, the internet. I soon started searching for articles about places in Ghana Atta had taken me to in Kumasi, Takoradi and Accra.

One series of articles stuck out to me, The Motorcycle Bandit in Kumasi. They described a robber with a mask on a Kawasaki motorbike.  My brother employed street kids to clean his Suzuki motorbike on the regular, which I thought was kind.

However, what lead me to believe the motorcycle bandit would be my brother Atta Ayi was the description of burn scars on the inner portion of hands on a young man age 23-35. Could this be my brother the victims are describing?

Sifting through more old mail I saw a letter that arrived 2000 in time for my birthday from Atta. In it he described a recent trip he took by a jet plane to Sierra Leone with some Latin friends of his. It was as though I was reading from a different man, his letters no longer talked about his past or his melancholy. Atta had found a new life, new friends and maybe a new job.

Today, I ask myself, what took Atta Ayi to Nsawam Prisons? A past he had no control over, his struggle to get out of his misery, his eager to make it as a man, the inability of family and the system to help out or she greed and lack of respect for other human beings?

__________________________________________________________________

GC Life 101 is a new feature we are introducing on GhanaCelebrities.Com. This will look at various life realities in short story forms as we try to entertain, educate and inform our readers on a variety of life experiences…Articles for GC Life 101 will be filed under Blog

 

READ ALSO: Refused A UK Visa? CLICK HERE FOR HELP

---

CLICK HERE to subscribe to our daily up-to-date news!!