Akwele
Akwele was born on 2 November 1958 on the Accra plains, in a Ga-speaking family living east of the city where farms, compounds, and roadside kiosks sat close together. Gold Coast rule had ended the year before, and the new Ghanaian state reached even small places through school fees, police posts, and party slogans painted on walls. In her mother’s room, a small framed Bible verse hung above a trunk; Sundays meant church clothes, and at night her mother knelt to pray in Ga before sleep.
Her mother, Afi Lartey, ran a petty trading life from early morning: cassava, smoked fish when she could afford it, tomatoes when they were in season, small packets of salt, matches, and soap. Akwele learned to sit quietly beside a pan of goods and answer questions for her mother in Ga and Twi, her mouth quick and fearless with strangers. Her father, Tetteh Mensah, was a mason and carpenter who came and went with contracts. When he appeared, he brought a bag of cement, a little cash, sometimes a length of cloth for Afi. He did not sleep in the compound. Akwele understood early that adults could belong to you and still not be there.
She was the second of nine children. Kojo, the firstborn, kept his eyes on her as if she might wander into trouble; he was only two years older but already spoke with the tone of a caretaker. Ama came two years after Akwele and became her everyday companion in chores and play. More children followed through the 1960s: Kwame, who died before his first birthday; Kofi; Nii; and Esi. The youngest two, Adjoa and Yaw, arrived in the early 1970s. Afi’s mother, Naa Dedei Lartey, lived close enough to pull Akwele by the wrist to church, or to send her back with a calabash of soup when there was nothing in Afi’s pot.
Akwele started school but did not stay. She sat in class restless, eager to talk, eager to be outside, and the demands at home came first. When market days were good, Afi kept her with the stall to count coins by touch and memory, not by writing. When the 1966 coup came, Akwele was seven, old enough to notice soldiers on the radio and adults whispering about curfews and the price of rice. Transport became uncertain on some days; Afi sold closer to home and sent the older children to watch the younger ones.
In the early 1970s the compound ran on older siblings’ hands. Esi, the small sister, clung to Akwele’s wrapper when she walked. Akwele carried water, swept, and learned which customers tried to shortchange. She took pride in bargaining, smiling wide, letting the other person think they had won. In 1974, Esi fell sick with a fever and did not recover. The household absorbed the loss as it had absorbed Kwame’s death years before—quietly, with prayer and then work. Naa Dedei died in 1976. Without her, church attendance depended on Afi’s energy and money for offerings. Akwele still liked the singing and the call-and-response; she liked to stand outside afterward and talk, switching between Ga and Twi depending on who had come.
At nineteen she began seeing Kwaku Tetteh, a man from nearby who worked odd jobs and could talk his way into and out of anything. They started living in a marriage-like way in 1978, under the eyes of family and church. He was present more than her father had been, yet he still disappeared for stretches when work pulled him away. Akwele took it as normal.
Her first child, Mansa, arrived in 1979. A son, Kwabena, followed in 1981. Those were years of shortages and queue lines; people talked about coups, about money losing value, about items that vanished from shops. Akwele traded anyway. She sold whatever moved fast: onions, gari, small tins, sachets when they appeared, cooked snacks when she had charcoal. She slept lightly and woke before dawn, enjoying the cool hour when the road was quiet and she could joke with other women setting out their pans. Maame Serwaa, an older trader who spoke Twi in a clipped way, taught her to keep a little stock hidden at home and to take credit only from people who feared shame.
In 1984, Akwele had a third child, a boy she called Kwesi. She carried him on her back as she sold, and his head bumped her shoulder when she laughed. He died in 1986, fever turning fast. She returned from the clinic empty-handed and went straight back to the stall two days later because there was no other way to eat. After a stillbirth in 1987, a boy named Kofi who lived only hours, she began drinking more regularly in the evenings, a cup passed around behind the stalls when the day’s heat eased. She said it helped her sleep. It also helped her talk, and she liked talking.
Tetteh Mensah died in 1988. The news came through a relative, and there was no last conversation. He had never been a reliable provider, but his occasional cash had cushioned the worst weeks. Now that was gone. Afi cried and then asked about funeral contributions.
In 1990 Akwele had her fourth surviving child, a boy she named Tetteh after his father. The older children were already helpers: Mansa learned to stir and serve, Kwabena learned to lift and to watch money.
The 1990s brought more stability in public life, and more competition in the markets. Akwele kept her place by being loud and friendly, calling to customers with jokes, holding up produce so it looked fresher than it was. She attended a mainline church when she could, singing hymns in English she did not read, following along by ear. She prayed at home at night, hands folded, asking for health and school fees. Yet she also began to lose hours to drink. Some days she arrived late, stock half-sorted, irritated when anyone asked questions. Afi died in 1996. Akwele had expected it—her mother had been slowing down for years—but a Ga funeral required cloth, food for mourners, contributions to the church, and cash gifts to relatives who had traveled. By the time it was over, her savings were gone. The compound felt quieter afterward.
Kwaku Tetteh died in 1998. He had been unreliable, often gone, and the money he brought back was never enough. But he had been there, and now he was not. After the burial there was no second income at all. Akwele restocked on credit and sold harder, but a bad month that September — a day’s takings stolen while she measured rice — put her into debt she paid back in small painful pieces.
Efua, another trader, became her evening companion. They sat behind a kiosk with sachets of gin, sharing roasted groundnuts, laughing at rumors and teasing men who tried to flirt too hard. Akwele could be generous, buying a drink for someone short of coins, and then furious the next day when that same person “forgot” to repay her. Her sister Ama helped with childcare when Akwele ran errands or when drinking left her slow in the morning, and the two women fought about money in the open, then cooled off and shared kenkey the next day.
In 2003, carrying goods in a basin and trying to cross a busy road on the Accra–Adenta side, Akwele was knocked down by a vehicle edging through traffic. Her leg took the impact. She spent weeks unable to walk properly. She lay on a mat, sweating in the heat, snapping at children who moved too loudly. Mansa cooked and sold small things in her place. Her youngest, Tetteh, now a teenager, fetched water and stood in lorry stations with a look that dared people to cheat. Akwele’s drinking returned as soon as she could sit up, partly from pain, partly from the shame of dependence.
Adjoa, her younger sister, died in 2004 at thirty-four. Another funeral, another round of contributions she could not cover. Afterward she stayed away from church for a while, skipping Sundays, sleeping late, then appearing in the afternoon with sunglasses and excuses. Her eldest brother Kojo scolded her with patience at first and then with fatigue.
Years passed with small cycles: good weeks when she bought a whole sack of goods and sold it clean, bad weeks when a customer disappeared with credit, days when she woke determined not to drink and then joined Efua by dusk. When the COVID-19 lockdowns came, the markets thinned and rules kept changing. She sold less and leaned more heavily on her children for errands and food money.
In 2023 her brother Kojo died at sixty-seven. She attended the funeral in black cloth, talking to relatives, laughing sharply at a cousin’s joke, then going quiet when the hymns began.
Late in 2025 Akwele lives in the same Greater Accra area where she was born. Her stall is smaller now: more sachet water and small goods, less heavy stock. She sits in the late afternoon where she can see the road, calling greetings in Ga, then answering in Twi when needed. Some evenings she goes to church and sings. On other evenings she sits with a cup in her hand, while Tetteh checks that she has eaten.