Spirits' Gold

In the Beginning

In the BeginningIhad only been working at the Chateau for a couple of months but had grown fond of it and most of the people living and working there. I was privileged to get this opportunity and didn't want anything the go wrong. If everyone was as easy to get along with as Roland, there wouldn't be a problem. But with characters like Konaté or Jenny, all manner of complications could arise. And I was terribly naïve in the ways of the world.

I grew up and still lived in a village of about two hundred people. We belonged to the Anyi tribe, part of the Akan, the largest of sixty tribes in the Ivory Coast. My father, Piesie, was the Chief or local Headman of our community. There was also a Council of Elders which acted as advisors who, along with my father would sit on their stools and talk and smoke and make decisions while the rest of the men labored in the palm oil or cacao plantations. The women and children carried water, collected firewood for cooking, washed the clothes and minded the younger ones.

“Kwame, play the dondo (talking drum) for your sisters and brothers,” my mother would say while she was cooking and wanted the small ones entertained.

I would play traditional tribal songs and they would sing along. The older ones would be tending to the cassava garden or chickens and goats and the younger ones would sit in a semi-circle on the ground in front of me. I could see my mother's lips moving as she sang along in the kitchen.

After each song the children would shout, “More Kwame, more.” I would keep playing and singing until my mother finished cooking and my father arrived home. This was 1991 so there were no smart phones. We had an old black and white TV which picked up a couple of channels but music and playing soccer were our forms of entertainment. I loved to play the dondo as much as my brothers and sisters loved to listen.

Before we ate, my father would thank the Spirits for the food and our health and pour a little of his fermented rice wine on to the ground to share with our sacred ancestors.

There were seven children in our family. The number would have been nine but two never saw their first birthday. We referred to them as the two “gone but not forgotten.” Malaria and meningitis were the two worst, but a multitude of other tropical diseases were there to challenge us. Akan children are not named until seven days after their birth to ensure that he or she has come to stay on earth and will not prematurely return to the “abode of the ancestors”. Until that day, the child is regarded as a stranger. My little brother died of malaria at four months and my little sister succumbed to tetanus after living only five days. As much as we grieved for our lost siblings, we accepted their fate as the wishes of the Spirits. And we were comforted to know that they were now living with the Spirits and watching over us. That being said, I knew my mother still had an ache in her heart when she remembered the two babies she lost. On their birthdays she be quiet and melancholy. Sometimes I would find her crying and would do my best to cheer her up, and I'd encourage my brothers and sisters to do the same.

Although I was the oldest, I was not in line for the position of the next Chief. It was tradition that the first son of the Chief's oldest sister would be successor. This was the only way to be one hundred percent sure that the blood line was continued. What we lacked in possessions, we made up for with tradition and rituals.

I, like my brothers and sisters, had attended the local elementary school. But because I did so well, I was permitted to continue to high school, or a shortened version of it, that I had just completed. I loved to learn and would read books whenever I got an opportunity.

When the mining company announced the development of a gold mine close to our village, it was all anyone could talk about. Was it a good thing or bad? There would surely be more jobs. Better pay? Would we be rich? Would it hurt the environment? Would cutting the trees of the forest upset the Spirits of our ancestors? It was their home after all. My father and the Elders had their work cut out for them deciding how to proceed. There was going to be a lot of talking and smoking.

Negotiations between the company and the village finally resulted in the mine getting the “green light,” but several conditions were attached. First, the company was required to pay the village an ongoing lease fee which was expected to keep the Spirits satisfied. The mine would also provide work for any or all the men of our village that wanted it. To compensate for the loss of wildlife habitat, the company purchased and donated a parcel of land, equal in size to ten times the area that they would be disturbing to be used as a wildlife sanctuary. But first, a sacrifice was needed.