El descampado

One time, in my early forties, I was on a business trip to Minneapolis. When I arrived to the airport, I took a cab to the hotel and on the way there, I got into a conversation with the driver, a West African man.

I’m not sure how the conversation became one about his wife and my now ex-wife. I think he was either on the phone with his significant other when I entered the cab, or early into the ride to the hotel, he asked to pull over so he could answer her call. Either way, I do remember him telling me it was his wife on the phone, and that it was important.

Soon we started speaking about our marriages and what he told me about his wife, I will never forget. He said she was the most important person he had ever met in his life, and how she made his life complete and how his wife, who was from Ghana, was the most loving and best person he had ever met. In contrast, although I loved my now ex-wife back then, I couldn’t stay faithful to her, and we had many problems. When he learnt of my troubled marriage, he asked me if I had ever met a woman from Ghana, he emphasized how she was from that area of the world, and how women there were so special. He told me he would never cheat on his wife, ever, because she was too precious for that and she meant too much for him.
Interestingly enough, now about ten years later, I am married to a woman from, you guessed it, Ghana. She is an Ewe, her mother is from Ghana and Togo and her father from Ghana. And indeed, I have never met a woman like Rejoice, my wife. She’s the center of my life, and my right hand. She built my home, which I’m not sure I’ve ever had before, since I left my parents at age 19. She’s also given me an extended family, which are her mother, her cousins, and the whole Ewe community in Chicago. And she’s made my two children her own.

I now fully understand how this West African man felt and what his wife meant to him.

Copyright © 2020 Jorge Luis Carbajosa