The Institute

This festive season, Kwaku was asked by one of his client schools to play the piano for their carols show and he didn't object. However after two rehearsals, he noticed something very interesting happening to him. Instead of just playing along as the little magi bellowed, his mind happily wondered into a soliloquy of sorts, gliding in the universe of thoughts of the myriads of colourful possibilities within weakening the strong beats, accompanying or unaccompanying the melody, repeating forms or shading the effect of the tone colours. In short, Kwaku's mind was far ahead in the race with his fingers, when undoubtedly, teamwork was the only way they both could produce any result. Consequently, it was Jesse's fast food that got served at the rehearsal. As one of Kwaku's young collaborators, Jesse was a perfect replacement for anybody in a situation like this, and well his urge to check the next event off his mountainous list this season was at the very least sincere, whereas it was no secret either that Kwaku needed a break to go examine the nature of his exciting experiences.


Santa was obviously not excited about the idea, and so Kwaku felt the need for them to at least talk - about his experience, and hoped that it would shed some light of understanding. The first thing he felt the need to do was to tell the story of how he came to be. 'This is one thing we often take for granted in Ghanaian culture', he thought to himself. This meant first of all, reintroducing himself professionally to his client in case there were any mishaps. 'I observe how children's brain function affect their behaviour at different stages of their growth and experiment with didactical and Steiner objects in the learning environment and then lay a foundation in composition, while establishing the fundamental aspects of music, art, science, design and technology, creative writing, performance as a key for development of their creativity.'

By this time, the confirmation he needed to be sure that she was ready to talk was written all over her face in one word - bewilderment! U-ooh, did Kwaku just make Christmas too yellow for Santa? 'It kind of looks good on her', he thought. Kwaku spilt out all the words of his introduction so closely together, it was impossible for her to get anything in and instead, her rouge lips just twisted and turned. In case anyone questioned the relevance of the two Europeans he often mentioned, whose work in the early twentieth century contributed to the education of the child, he had just the perfect response for them, 'I would only agree with you, if you could come up with a single modern alternative to theirs before the rampant spread of Montessori schools all over Ghana.' Kwaku's challenge was one that could only be solved by a detailed study of how Dr. Montessori used self-correcting objects to educate the child about the real world around them, and of how fantasy and imagination worked at the heart of Steiner's system.

'What do you mean?'

'What I mean is -’

He pauses and briskly makes his way over to the wall. His index finger doodles around the alphabets and stops at the letter, 'S'. 'They may have had different approaches,' he said, 'Yet, whether a caricature of our planet as bulbous little droppings falling out the behind of this skunk, to imply that it is engulfed in pollution, or whether a tiny kitchenette set designed from wood which the child assembles or disassembles, to pass information about models of responsible behaviour in society, both are without doubt enlightening him or her about the world around them - what their gifts of frank incense, gold and mire truly are composed of, for which reason the whole being - mind, soul, intellect is educated.'

As Kwaku made away from the wall to his seat, something dark hurriedly moved all of a sudden in the corners of the room, and only had it intruded into his field of vision did he care to inquire what it was that went on behind him. He turned around, still speaking, 'this is in stark opposition to an education that only equips a child with a skill so that they can find a - .'


His last words muted by the sheer sight of the damage the glass on the small frame, which Majorie tried to hang back up had suffered. It turned out Kwaku had inadvertently nudged it in its place next to the wallpaper in his attempt at returning to his seat. Majorie didn't waste time at all when she spotted it coming down and dived from behind her desk to save it. Her moving shadow formed by the abundance of daylight pouring in from the wide window was the dark thing that trickled into Kwaku's vision.

'I'm very sorry about that Majorie.'

'You should be Kwaku, because this is the piece of paper that got me my dream job'.


Having yet not turned to even look at him, her attention was fully fixed on the frame, still tending to it while she responded.

'I will fix this only if you wouldn't mind'

'No! My certificate is not getting out of here'.

As if Kwaku cared about a piece of paper the size of an A-four sheet that states no more than just names and signatures and not what a person really can do or make. He only wanted the opportunity to add to his problem solving experience and his job creation status.

'Unfortunately this is the order of the day in Ghana' he thought, 'We all want or want for our children an education that will make them hot on the job market but nobody thinks about who creates the jobs, - nobody is asking for an education, 'that will make me or my children create jobs or become creators.' The truth is, an education that only gives you skills so that you can administer what others have created is not true education, even if it's education at all. It limits you in many respects, regarding those whose education put things in perspective for them, taking into consideration the world around. You may be able to beat them with certain experiences, but never insight, and it is only a matter of time that they out-developed you due to a solid foundation that helps their self-development which is even a benefit in itself for their very lives.'


As he thought about these things, he couldn't help being fascinated by the idea of getting Yaw the job opportunity of fixing Majorie's broken frame for his Christmas present.


Not that Yaw was a glazier, but after one Friday evening at church, when serious prayers had been said in Tongues, Pastor Kumah instructed the congregation to, 'Turn to the person next to you and declare any job you want and you will have it!' Kwaku happened to be right there by Yaw's side, and could not be mistaken that he heard him loud and clear proclaiming, 'I want to solve all problems of mankind as a job!’ Kwaku was so moved that he made a promise in his heart to yield himself to being a contributor to the fulfillment of Yaw's dream. Therefore he took the initiative to get to know him immediately Pastor Kumah dispersed the congregation.

'Many don't know how important the church is, that irrespective of how worse things get in the world, many of its members still conceive such great confessions about their destiny in life - even in the face of adversity'. Kwaku churned out.

'How true!'

'I'm Kwaku,’ extending a handshake.

'My name is Yaw', responding with a brotherly hug, and spotting a smile almost the look-alike of Pastor Kumah's, when he is at the brink of, 'Turn to the person next to you...', part of the church meeting, - as if he wore the brightest sun for a zucchetto.

They talked about everything and nothing that day. Yaw put across certain unarguably fascinating, 'observations', - he calls them; something in relation with his toilet-window and eternity. 'Some things seem eternal,' he expressed, 'like the little window above my toilet seat, that I stare through every morning and night, yet hardly took notice of the big hole in the netting.' When the conversation reached that level, Kwaku thought finally, he had met an honest person with whom he could share the contents of his, 'Future Wife' letter.

'Did you really write a letter to your future wife?' asked Yaw.

'Yes I did.'

'So what house address did you mail it to?'

'I will let you know soon afterwards I've disclosed the content to you', answered Kwaku laughing.

'Dear Future Wife,' Kwaku starts to read from his church notebook:

'You know I'm a visionary, and so if I choose to spend the rest of my life with you, then it is to fulfill my purpose in Christ, and also my dream as a mogul in the creative arts - not partners with their own agenda. For when that destiny is fulfilled, you will be fulfilled. Like I always say, when I'm worth billions of dollars, you are worth billions of dollars too! You either believe in my dream or you don't. Future Wife, do you really want to know your role in my life? You are that helper or supporter and mate with whom I shall execute the plan for my vision. Finally, I would like to say to you my dear Future Wife, love must be practical! Someone who loves you is not one who only buys you things, but one who keeps you on the path of your vision. As a result my dear Future Wife, I'm all ears for your vision, and all hearts to reciprocate your dedication. With Love. K.'

No sooner had Kwaku finished reading his letter to Yaw, did the sound of Pastor Kumah’s voice slip out of the opening in the doorway, ‘For the lack of knowledge, people perish…’

Just as fast as the sounds escaped, did a flock of kids running around recklessly wielding brightly lit-up firecrackers beleaguer them, and when they impetuously turned in the direction of the door to make their way back into the auditorium, Kwaku clashed into one of the children and dropped his notebook. That child neither dropped his firecracker nor did fall, instead the rest of his counterparts gleefully trampled over Kwaku’s notebook as they raced along in pursuit of their wild friend.

‘Are they aware this is going to explode?’ asked Yaw.

Although he had wanted to bring up what he witnessed the last time while he went to meet Majorie, Kwaku could not respond right away.

One thing seemed obvious to everyone in the congregation. However Yaw could not pin it down on whether it was the fact that the charismatic Pastor Kumah dressed as Santa clause for church that day, or that something strange made the whole idea look so ridiculous. Yaw wasn’t convinced if he was seeing the same thing as others, except the uneasiness on their faces which he could not deny, Kwaku not being an exception.

‘Oh my God, this isn’t working’. Contemplated Yaw, while an unusual feeling that something was about to go wrong made his stomach churn.

‘Focus,’ Pastor Kumah belted out from his podium, ‘a focused mind, will and inner strength, are the marks of one who is full of knowledge and practical wisdom.’ This was the climax for Yaw, when those powerful words of Pastor Kumah still did awfully little to turn his attention away from the distraction.

Kwaku turned into the close and marveled when he saw the image of his gate far away. He was hurrying to get a break not only to figure out the situation with his fantasies, but also to get away from the heat outside.

‘My fortress’, he whispered fondly.

The egrets flying and landing on his walls made it even loftier and brought back a memory of his morning routines when he is heavily laden with the thought that his angels are becoming plenteous, as he meditatively swept up his front yard.

‘I don’t need to live with anybody else’, He recollects himself saying in contention, ‘my angels are becoming plenteous and that’s why I need a space even bigger than this’.

And then when he realizes there’s nobody else physically there but him, he would burst out laughing. He collected every thin white feather that he found on the ground as well as those caught within the prickle of the dry-palm-frond broom. Greeted at the entrance into his yard by a sudden plentiful stream of mosquitoes, sent a clear message to Kwaku who had visited him today. They escaped when the foot of the gate pierced and tore apart a black plastic bag that was trapped in it.

‘You’re creating a lot of trash’ He said.

The visitor had just then shoved-in the last morsel with the plastic spoon and so didn't retort immediately.

‘When you’re done, kindly find a proper place to dispose off the rest of the plastic ware’, counseled Kwaku.

‘Why are you so worried, do you want to save the world?’

‘No, the earth will save itself, but have you thought about how we came to have lots of these things here that it’s now so difficult to get rid of?’

‘Well I haven’t come here for that. You know why I’m here’. Jesse said lightheartedly.

Kwaku smiled back at him and gently thrust a notebook over to his end of the desk saying, ‘Please sign here with dates’.

Analysis of, 'HYBRID':

The central themes of, 'Hybrid', boarders around social media and Christianity. The author in the first person depicts in the poem his role as a witness to yet another of the cross-examinations of the Christian faith on social media (The bird out my win - dow tuweets again); which he has observed rather as a trend on two of the giant social media platforms. The narrative structure begins by a Twitter notification he receives ( Few-Few - which is one of the sounds made by the mountain blue bird used for the Twitter logo). Line four (Curious, my fingers stacatoe) gives a hint of the author's keen observation of the situation, his own social platform being the medium, and with the line (Louder my pane) gives us a feel of what seems like an outpour of some kind of rage. He describes the comments on these social platforms as throwing stones (who throw stones) by, 'Rumpling pages', rumplimg to imply angry and pages for faces, because they were Facebook comments. 'Silence that strange tongue!', alludes the infuriating sound of the bird to Tongue-speaking in churches.
'Snap the branch it stands on!', in reference to Christ's description of the church as the branch in a vine. 'The poor watered the roots with their sweat', portrays the basis of the unscriptural opinions of non-Christians (and some Christians) that Tithes and offerings are donations of the poor congregations and should be given back to them. 'On the hills we placed you, for the coming of the morning', precedes the culmination and here interestingly the author slightly lifts the lid off his idea of the psychological state of characters in this social environment and introduces a sub-theme of identity. 'Fancy feathers and shiny toes,
What happened to the monk cloaks?', a question used by the author to further investigate the mental state of critics and then thicken his plot by flipping the same question back to them as a reflection of their mental attitude '....turquoise, And then an egret...' is how he resolves this impasse and seem to lead us to the scriptural notion that the church is some sort of unrecognisable creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), and therefore a mystery to those who struggle to understand her ways. 'Well said', is his affirmation of the mystical identity about the church that her critics are confirming without knowing and thereby fulfilling scriptures.
Copyrights © Dickson Osei-Yaw, 2018

MEMOIRS OF A GODFATHER (EXTRACT 2) : EMPTY WHAT YOU HAVE INTO WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE

A wise man once shared with me a moral from a story about the Prophet Elisha, and the widow of one of his deceased servants who came crying to the man of God one day about his husband’s creditors threatening to take away her two sons. After inquiring if she had anything at all left at home she replied, ‘Only a pot of oil’. The man of God then instructed her to go and borrow empty vessels from her neighbours – not a few, but plenty, ‘and when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons and shalt pour out into all these vessels…’ he added. 2 Kings 4:3(KJV).
‘…And shalt pour out into all these vessels’; - the big moral behind this great story was in this statement. However, it was the way in which this articulate wise man expressed it, that stayed with me forever. He said, ‘EMPTY WHAT YOU HAVE INTO WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE’.
Some time went by after that, and as the power of meditation would do, this epigram had come to mean something entirely and completely different to me over the years past.
At a point in time of my career in Spoken Word poetry, when I was torn between where my passion led me and the harsh realities of the responsibilities that were expected of me, what these words had come to mean to me saved my life.
One afternoon, just out of the blue, I was jolted up by this moment of epiphany, and in a clear vision I could see what in the body of knowledge of business accounting was termed a, ‘T account’. In my high school years I was taught a law in accountancy that you should always, ‘Debit the receiver, and credit the giver’.
‘Credit the giver?’ I thought to myself.
Suddenly on the left side, or debit side of the ‘T account’ in my vision, I could see a tall list of almost all the responsibilities I knew of, that I had in my life then, grievously overshadowing the right or credit side of the, ‘T account’ – this became even more vivid as the, ‘T account’ translated into a balance scale with my responsibilities far out-running its pan, whereas the credit side hanged in the air – empty!
‘Credit the giver…’ I heard a voice whisper to me, just in time before I could be transfixed to the scary sight of my accumulating responsibilities.
‘Credit the giver’, the voice repeated, and this time asked me, ‘What do you have to give?’
‘Nothing Lord’, I responded in the vision, ‘I have nothing that I can give’.
‘Take a good look again’, the voice said.
I looked and then retorted, ‘Lord I have nothing’.
Then the voice asked me, ‘What about the life I gave you on earth?’, and then emphasized by adding, ‘You have time; put that to your credit!’
Gradually, as I discerned where this voice of wisdom was leading me, I began to feel very good about myself – hopeful I should say, albeit quietly somewhere in the back of my mind, I kept wondering why something so common as, ‘Time’, had never occurred to me as a form of possession, just like many other people.
‘Could it have been that I was overwhelmed or my sight was blinded by the fact that I had so much problem to my debit?’ I wondered.
Then this voice, to my surprise fished out my thoughts and quickly interrupted by saying, ‘Responsibilities are not problems, it is a wrong mindset to carry’, and added, ‘If you learn to perceive them correctly, responsibilities can be an inspiration or springboard for your success in life’.
‘Take a look at your credit now,’ the voice requested, and then asked, ‘why do you think it says, ‘Credit the GIVER?’’.
‘GIVING is how you take care of all those responsibilities’, the voice revealed.  
‘Now, I have given you time, what else can you add to it that you can also give?’ questioned the voice further.
When I looked again, the balance scale now appeared way better than it had been before, thanks to the voice, I had time to my credit, and my capacity already equaled the aggregate of my burgeoning responsibilities, almost tipping the scale in favour of the right side.
‘I have given you twenty-four hours every day’, declared the voice, and asked, ‘What can you do with twenty-four hours a day?’
‘Spoken Word Lord’, I answered, because that was all I did back then.
‘Ok then,’ responded the voice, and instructed, ‘now empty what you have into what you do not have’.
‘But Lord,’ I questioned, ‘how could Spoken Word possibly keep an eye on my clumsy little cousin at home in my absence?’ I inquired further, ‘how could it ensure that my younger sister was behaving right whenever nobody was looking?’
‘Well I have done my bit, the rest is up to you – I gave you time, and I gave you the ability for words’

The voice carried on, ‘Well perhaps you should begin to look at what you do (Spoken Word), in the new light of what it means to empty what you have into what you do not have’.                                                                                                                                         ‘Spoken Word should not always mean to you formulating words into verses and presenting them to an audience on the stage’ the voice added.                                                                              ‘It is the way you have viewed it all these years, and used it – according to the limit of your understanding, but I did not put those limits on it when I gave it to you’.                                               ‘You can make that picture richer for example, by considering the various steps that constitute the creative process of formulating words into verses, and delivering them on the stage to an audience, - classify these steps into unique individual elements, and then use as ingredients to prepare the solution for any responsibility – when you do this, you will discover that there are innumerable responses to any responsibility that seem to weigh you down – that is how much answers I have placed inside of you, - in abundance!’
‘Lord, Lord!’ I exclaimed in amazement of such revelation knowledge, ‘I had never thought like that before Lord’, I said, ‘Wow Lord, thank you!’
‘You shall henceforth learn to perceive what you do differently and creatively,’ he said and added, ‘If you are going to succeed, how you view the rod in your hand is very important’.
Until that day when I listened to the voice, it had never dawned on me that all these years I had wrongfully perceived the gift of Spoken Word given me, – as just another talent, and this of course, accounted for why society also projected such reckless image unto me – just another talented guy, another untrained guy, wanting to live forever in the limelight – with no depth, just another talented guy refusing to understand, that his talent contributed only one percent to his success. Another burden to the world, who doesn’t know the value of planning, preparation, strategy, grounding one’s self, and living unselfishly through serving others first.
That couldn’t be more true, I was indeed the very image of that talented guy, living society’s expectations- going the way every talented person was expected to go – put themselves out there in the way of brute public scrutiny in the name of stage performances, jump at the beck and call to any invitation to events just to get that little piece of attention that they so craved like a drug, in order to keep them going on the high, that made them believe the lie that, ‘We all dey hustle’, just like society itself. Expend his talent at party after party, and hopefully end up in the limelight, like many today, with everything private they do always public in the media, living other people’s dreams and expectations and not really having a plan or any vision of purposeful, truthful or authentic impact – not taking time off the, ‘scene’, to recuperate what they had emptied themselves out of, until the day they just crushed and burnt and couldn’t function anymore.
‘Talent can run out you know’, the voice jibed.
‘I had no idea my Lord’
‘That is why you must plan for it, set goals to achieve within a timeline’.
‘Yes Lord, I am changed from now on’.
‘Now take a look again at your,‘T account’’, the voice admonished.
I looked, and Lord was I not excited? Time and Spoken Word to my credit, the two completely outweighed my responsibilities – which still kept coming, but with my new revelation knowledge I knew just how to stay on top of every situation.
‘So, after emptying what you have into what you did not have’ the voice said, ‘after filling up all your empty vessels with your pot of oil (what you have), next is to go for the barns, widen them – and DREAM BIG!’
At this point I just kept quiet and listened to the voice.
Have a vision, and set new goals, objectives and targets for your gift.
A vision is the practical impact of your gift – solve practical problems, don’t complain like those who do – turn situations around and make a fortune.
I was the voice that spoke through that very accomplished man who once said that if you wanted to make $1Billion, you should solve a $10Billion problem.                                                                                                           
Does that sound too abstract?                                                                                                              
Well think about a city like Accra for example, with over six million people living in it, if you were able to create a system of work, with time and Spoken Word for example as resources, to solve a problem on that scale so that your solution generates an impact in the city, you would be rolling in millions.
Another way of looking at this, is if what you do with what you have, currently is bringing you about a $1,000 monthly, it would then be the magnitude of the problems you are solving, and if perhaps the people that altogether exchange this $1,000 for what you do with what you have constitute between five and ten, these five and ten people would then amount to the magnitude of the practical impact you are making with what you do with what you have – which could be the equivalence of a nuclear family.
Now, if you wanted to graduate from impacting five or ten people into impacting five million people, which is the equivalence of the population of the city of Accra, what you would then need to do would be to RE-PACKAGE whatever it is that you do, in other words, re-organising the business methods or systems and structures of  how you solve problems with what you do, making more room with the city in mind, and then moving on from impacting the equivalence of the size of a nuclear family to venturing towards processing the size of the equivalence of a neighborhood, which is about some 20 times the size of your current impact of a nuclear family. Now re-package again, this time with an eye for the community, the equivalence of about ten neigbourhoods, and eventually you will be impacting a city of five million people.

Now if impacting the size of a nuclear family is bringing you a $1,000 monthly, then impacting the size of a neighbourhood, which is about twenty times that of the size of a nuclear family, will then be bringing you about $20,000 monthly. Further, impacting the equivalence of the size of a community which is about ten times that of the size of the equivalence of a neighbourhood will be bringing you about $200,000 monthly. You can now do the rest of the math for yourself to see how much should be coming in after impacting a city the size of Accra, that has hundreds of neighbourhoods inside it if not thousands – this form of  critical thinking and innovation is called, ‘Emptying what you have into what you do not have’.


                                                                                                          09/17/17
Osu, Accra