CHAPTER 5

Excerpt from Chapter 5 (pictures below)

One Saturday morning during the Easter holidays in 1946, just before we went to perform our regular chore of going to fetch firewood, Mr. Abunu called me and informed me that my grandmother would be going to Elmina the following Monday. He told me that she would like to take me along to spend about two weeks. Can you imagine how happy I was? At long last I was going to see the sea for the first time in my life.

Going to fetch firewood was a chore we enjoyed so much. To all the children living in the compound, it was a sort of picnic for us. Firewood was the main source of fuel in many homes in the Gold Coast. Few homes had electricity and propane gas. Even those homes with electricity often supplemented their fuel needs with firewood.

Every Saturday, about twenty children from the compound would set out at about five o’clock in the morning on the trip to fetch firewood. Each person would have a cutlass, two pieces of rope each about six feet long and a large piece of cloth, which was folded into a pad (kashire) to be placed on the head when carrying the firewood back home. The ropes were used to tie the sticks of firewood into a bundle. We would sometimes carry some food along or we would be given a few pence to purchase some food and sugar cane from some of the villages we passed through. We had to walk for at least three miles to the fields or plantations, where we could find the suitable firewood…

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