Being a dad

You never realise how tasking being a dad is until you become a dad in abrokyire (the white man's country). In Ghana (Africa) when you become a dad; you hardly change nappies (in fact, you may never change nappies), the child is not brought to you when he/ she is crying (there's always someone around to help), the child may never sleep in your room if you have a good job and can afford a more-than-one-room accommodation, so that you are not woken up when the child cries at night - daddies are not to be disturbed when they are sleeping at night; that is the responsibility of the child's mother and any others who come around for that purpose - they can be disturbed but not daddies. Back up is available in such quantities that daddies are completely immuned.

As soon as the child is born your mother or your wife's mother comes around to stay for months to give you both a hand. Some mothers come and never go back. If you are lucky, you may have someone sent to you from the village to help out.

In abrokyire, both daddy and mummy have equal responsibility to be disturbed. My wife was not home last night and just like other such times, I had to step in to take full responsibility of our three young children including the 3-month old girl. The little one woke up three times during the night. The last one was around 3 a.m. and we were both awake well after 5 a.m.

I set my alarm to wake up at 10 past 7 a.m. because I'll have to prepare the two boys for school. I usually wake the boys up but this time they woke me up asking, "daddy, what day is today?", meaning, is today a week day? I quickly reached for my phone and realised it was 20 to 9 a.m. I rushed to get them prepare for school but it was too late by the time we finished. I had to phone the school to notify them the kids are not coming to school today.

I have missed home; Ghana.