Robert Peprah-Gyamfi

Picture an African baby fastened to the back of his/her mother as she performs various bone-breaking assignments - using a hoe to prepare the hard soil for planting, using her bare hands to wash a pile of dirty linen for the whole family, splitting firewood with an axe, etc. As Mum goes about her burdensome daily chores, sweating under the scorching African sun, the head of the baby who may be settled or unsettled keeps flying back and forth in the air. If only the little baby could express in words how uncomfortable he/she would be feeling under this stressful situation! And this is exactly what our author has done! The author in fact is a medical doctor, and in this book his imagination has served as the baby's mouthpiece of a typical rural Ghanaian baby's early experiences. It is a very clever and effective literary approach, and especially valuable as he has used a baby from his own native Ghana to tell the story of a typical African baby's experience of being born into a very poor remote rural village. What makes the reading of this little book so delectable is the author's adoption (on the baby's part) of a fairly erudite and confidential style, with unconscious touches of humour and irony! The baby's initial addiction for and fascination with the pleasurable satisfying quality of breastmilk is a liquid thread that flows irresistibly through the early memories of our baby! I cannot stop repeating how tasty mother's breastmilk is! How does she manage to cook such a delicious meal in her body? I can only wonder. Anyway, I am now filling my tummy with as much breastmilk as I can lay hold on! And there's the baby's unfailing strategy to achieve his aims, whether it be a demand for more delicious breastmilk (the panacea for all problems) or the relief from pain or irritation of mosquitoes or loud noises of farm animals, which is to cry like mad! One is aware of the many causes of pain in his cultural and social context, whether it be the cutting of tribal markings on the cheeks, or the pain from the bursting of boils, or the fear of the dark-the strategy always works, even if an increase in volume or a frantic waving of arms and legs are required! The confiding manner ensures the reader's sympathy. The book has a much deeper purpose than simply sharing a newborn baby's experiences, however. The author is a great fighter in social reform, and his polemical purpose is swallowed as naturally and easily as the baby swallows his mother's breastmilk! It is an arresting story, indeed a heart-warming story, that will place the reader right in the centre, the very essence, of a Ghanaian village, or compound, where there are no fences, no walls between the very basic homes, where the communal farm animals wander freely, and where the problems and needs are shared in keeping with the essential African impulse to share and help one another.

Robert Peprah-Gyamfi

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