Obra Nye Woara Bo

"Obra nye woara bo" means "Life is what you make it" and it's also the title of the Mfantsiman Girls' Secondary School ode. We sang this song at Speech Days when I was a student there and this past weekend, together with class mates I had not seen since I was 15 , and alums from other classes, we sang the song together. Meanwhile copies of Powder Necklace, much of which was inspired by my experience at Mfantsiman, sat arranged on a table for sale. It was a truly surreal moment my 15 year old self never would have imagined, which is also what made the moment so cool. Back then I felt so "different" from everyone, but standing together and later jamming together on the parquet dance floor to the sounds of DJ VJay, I felt like I was with extended fam. When the MC mentioned the book to the guests in attendance--"This young lady, she's an American, a Ghanaian, sent to Ghana by her parents to attend Mfantsiman."--everyone got it. And when one of my former mates saw the cover of the book she smiled. "It's Scotton and Chinery," she remarked of the red and green uniforms reminiscent of the house uniforms we wore at school (Scotton House girls wore red; Chinery House wore green). One alum asked me "Why Powder Necklace?" Then answered the question herself. She asked me what the best thing about my Mfantsiman experience was and I think the best thing had to be the immediate understanding that everyone in that room had had their own Mfantsiman experience, and however many years later we were all in the same room singing the school ode together.