Back in my primary school in the northern part of the country, at the beginning of every academic year, there was always news of a close friend that had relocated to some big town or city with their parents.

The relocations often happened so sudden that there was hardly time to say goodbye. I and my dwindled circle of friends would gather somewhere on the school playground, brooding over our loss. We could only hope that some day we would bump into our old friends.

Phones were not very common as today and when you wrote letters and gave it to your mom or dad to post it for you, you might find your letter after many days, sitting on some shelf in the house,  contemplating which way goes to the post master’s office.

It took a while to make new friends from the newcomers. But the warmth and comfort and bond and fun of an old friend can never be compared to anything a new one offered. We always knew that.

Now it was my turn to be missed by my classmates at the beginning of the academic year. School will soon reopen.

I pictured my friends, standing as usual under the tree beside the river that flowed close to the school, lamenting my departure. Musah will be the saddest. The cow he milked for lunch was no more.

A delegation from our church left with our luggage in a truck to Accra a day before we set off in an STC bus. They helped us with the packing. They also kept an eye on our luggage, especially after the robbery incident and prospects of a new one.

When we arrived at the house of the host family in Accra, the delagation was already there. The host family was a rich one and received us generously. We ate as if it were a feast, everyday.

After some days, we were moved to our residence. There were enough rooms in the house, unlike our former house where parents slept in one room and children in the other. No room for visitors. If that wasn’t a message enough for visitors, I didn’t know what else would be.

Here, our parents had their room, we the boys had our room and the girls had theirs. There were two rooms reserved for visitors, and a third converted into a home office for dad.

The compound of the house was very spacious, there was a garden in the yard with vegetables, Pawpaw trees and plantain. There was a garage in which was parked a new Toyota Corolla for dad.

Our new level of comfort was unbelievably insane! We even had a driver!

The contrast between where we came from and where we had arrived was so sharp that memories of the arid, scotchy north seemed like some distant dream.

The delegation hoped we wouldn’t forget them and the team back home, but even they themselves could see why a person here could easily forget where they came from.

The weather was perpetually cool here, it even rained from time to time. Whereas in the north, they were at the peak of the dry season, the skies as clear and bright as the eyes of a thief that had chanced upon a treasure.

Mother tried to hem in our bad eating habits that threatened to expose what we really were: villagers in the city for the first time.

We got lots of scolding. She threw away old shirts and trousers that we had fallen in love with and found it hard to part. She burnt shoes, got us new perfume, and toothbrush. We were in the city and we had to look city.

The day we were taken to the beach, I couldn’t believe my eyes! We were seeing the sea for the first time. All I saw was masses of water, heaving and sighing, stretching into infinity. It was as if the sea mooed, a muffled sound.

“This is a living creature!” I exclaimed. The water had life in it, could move all by itself and as I stared at it, something stirred in me.  Awe, shock, excitement, mixed, shaken together with some other emotions my radar couldn’t name.

The delagation from our local church now seemed reluctant to return to their families back home. They gave excuses of relatives in the city they had to see and some items they needed to buy before leaving.

Even the few days they had spent in Accra had an effect on their looks and mood. They seemed happier, healthier, different. Many of them, it was their first time in the city too.

But as my people say, a thousand years may seem like a needle in a hay sack, but time passes through hay sack after hay sack and finds it. A thousand years surely comes. And it did come quicker than the delagation would have wished. It was time for them to go.

And the sorrowful looks they had, I was unsure whether it was because they wouldn’t be seeing us for a long time or because they were leaving the comfort of the city for the scotchy north…