TARGETED

CHAPTER 2: Edem's Death

Life after my father’s death was full of struggles. My mum was not getting enough money to cater for the four of us plus herself. Things became very difficult. The dzodze town people also needed help spiritually. Edem, my eldest brother, on seeing that, took it upon himself to be enstooled as the juju man for the town. He dropped out of school and continued this lineage. Edem was not as good as dad was but he sure knew some one or two and so the people in the town always came around for help. This made our family whole again. We had no cause to complain. Six months after survival, Mawusi and I were still good friends but Mawusi’s mum never indulged herself with my mum any more. They became totally apart. Aside from the enmity between the two families, Mawusi was also in love with my brother Edem.

Mawusi’s target for us never ended. She once prepared a very nice meal intended for me to eat. When she came home, I was not around so she had to wait for me to come home. Whiles waiting, she fell asleep with the food in her hands because she didn’t want to give it to anyone. So Edem had finished his juju job for the day and met Mawusi asleep in the siting room. He took the food away from her because he was very hungry and ate the whole food. Immediately he finished eating, Mawusi woke up astonished and sad. She shouted at Edem, “Why did you take this food?” His response was I was hungry and so I ate it. Mawusi kept crying and crying then she left for the house. Two days later, after the food incident, Edem had come out of the house feeling dizzy, immediately; he fell and died on the spot.

We buried him, not knowing what had happened to him. I had lost my dad and brother in less than a year. It was left with me, my mother and two siblings. An uncle from Accra came for my brother Sedinam to Accra to work as a welder. I always hoped to get the opportunity to study in Accra because I was so intelligent at school. Fortunately for me, a scholarship came in for us to study abroad. We got to form three, wrote the BECE examination. I passed with outstanding grades and so I got the scholarship. My friend Mawusi was then in form two so when I passed for the scholarship, she acted as if she was happy with me. Little did I know she would repeat what she did to my brother Edem.

I was home this time and she prepared a meal, brought it to me directly. I took it and placed it on the table. We played for some time and then she left. I went to place the food at the kitchen and came to sleep with the intension of waking up later to eat it. When I woke up, I saw my mum throwing the food in the garbage and I shouted “oh mummy, my food, I’m very hungry”. She told me that I have been sleeping for almost four hours now and the food has gone bad that is why she threw it away in return she prepared a nice meal for me to eat.

Mawusi later came to the house in the evening to verify if I had eaten the food.when she got to know I did not eat the food at all.she got angry and left .I felt I had wasted her time in preparing food for me so early in the morning I went to her house to apologise and promised to eat the next meal she prepares .

The death of my brother hurts me badly and our family taught it was as a result of edem becoming a juju man.

Mawusis remedy of using slow poison for my family was her sole intention to wipe away the whole Agbeli family. but because edem was her high school sweetheart, the pain made her more angry which made her detest our family .

even though the pain was unbearable for her and my family as well.all we could say was bye to Edem.