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Where is Gabriel?
They say a good title should provoke questions in the reader’s mind. I’m guessing you already have two questions: First, why the title: “Where is Gabriel? Did he go missing or something?” Second, why another climbing wahala? Well, climbing things always seems to get me into trouble. If you’ve read my earlier story, “The Unknown: A Dangerous Place to Go,” you already know what I mean. You’ll find that story in the top-left corner of the page. And as for the question, “Where is Gabriel?”—well, you’ll just have to read on to find out.
This time, our story takes us to Teshie Nungua Estate —the land of Great Possibilities. Wait—you didn’t know that? Well, just so you know, America actually borrowed that slogan from my town. Back in Teshie Nungua Estate, we lived in a compound house shared by about eight nuclear families. At the age of six, we moved to Madina, the land of … I would have told you it’s slogan, but you wouldn’t believe me if I said Europe got theirs from us—so I’ll keep that secret to myself. Every weekend and holiday, we traveled back to Teshie to spend time with our extended family.
As kids, what we loved most was playing football. Football was life. We could play football for about five straight hours without getting tired. We had a porch with a flat concrete ceiling and for some mysterious reason, the ball always found its way up there. Thankfully, the wall had holes we could use as footholds to climb up and retrieve the ball—but honestly, it was risky. So risky that one fall could have caused serious injury. Time and again, we were warned not to climb that wall. Whenever something fell up there, we were told to just leave it.
Can you imagine??? I don’t know why parents do that. Some advice parents give, we all know, has a very slim chance of being followed. In fact—very, very slim. How can you tell me to leave my ball up there when we could just climb the wall and continue our game that felt like a World Cup final? They told us that they would later call someone to use a ladder to pick up that ball. As if that was enough to stop us from climbing the wall. It’s not that we were stubborn oo—we just couldn’t stop playing in the middle of a match. It was impossible. I’m sure you understand what I mean. All these explanations are just to convince you that we weren’t stubborn kids. And if I still haven’t convinced you—well, at least I tried my best.
On this fateful day, we were in the middle of what felt like another World Cup final. This match felt extra special because our mothers had gone to a funeral, and we didn’t expect them back anytime soon. I can’t quite remember how the ball ended up on top of the porch, but it did. I wasn’t the eldest, but somehow I was tasked with the responsibility of retrieving the ball. Maybe I was just blessed with climbing skills—yeah, I think so. So, I began climbing the wall. Maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through me, but I scaled it with surprising ease because I was desperate to get back to the game.
Just as I reached the top, I heard urgent whispers from below: “Gabriel, Gabriel, lie down! Grandma, Sister Nortso, and Mummy are coming!”
In that moment, a thousand questions raced through my mind: Oh my God, what a coincidence! Why me? How are they back this early? Or is it late already and we didn’t realize because we were so engulfed in the match? Oh my God, what am I going to do?
I had no choice but to flatten myself on the concrete roof so that I wouldn’t be seen. From that position, my only view was the sky. Down below, the other kids were already pretending to be saints—I heard them welcoming my mum and grandmothers, even helping them carry their things
From the sound of their voices, I could tell they were genuinely happy to see the kids. Then I heard one of them say: “Ei, you children have been playing football all day long—just look at your dirty clothes.”
When I heard that, I gave a slight sarcastic laugh and thought to myself: “Dirty clothes? Just wait until you discover where I am right now. Oh no, may they not find out—in Jesus’ name I pray. And all the saints say, Amen. If you actually said Amen, then you’re a true friend, and I appreciate you.”
They went on chatting with the kids and slowly moved to the other side of the house. Then, silence. I could not hear anyone’s voice anymore. There was total silence. The kind of silence that makes you notice things you usually ignore—the wind, the stillness.
At this point, my dilemma was whether I should come down now, since everything was quiet, or wait for my brother and cousins to give the signal. At that moment, I weighed my options. I decided to wait—because if any nosy person saw me coming down, they would report me, and that would ruin the plan. No, our plan.
I knew when my siblings came, they’d make sure the coast was clear before signaling me to climb down.
My siblings later told me this side of the story:
When they got to the other side of the house, our mothers kept them busy. They had to help unpack all the things they had brought back. They planned to wait for our mothers to enter their rooms to change, then quickly run to tell me to come down. They were down to the last few items when my grandmother—popularly known as “Auntie Christie” (may her perfect soul rest in peace)—suddenly said, “Ah, where is Gabriel?”
As soon as she asked, the other women noticed I wasn’t around and began questioning the kids. The kids were startled, confused, and kept staring at each other. Our mothers’ tempers started rising as no one gave any response. They had no choice but to confess, because no child in their right mind dared test the patience of an angry African mother.
A few seconds later, I heard loud shouts in our local dialect: “Herh Gabriel, come down, come down! What are you doing there?” My heart raced, my body trembled, instant heartburn. Those two minutes of descent were the longest of my life, and the thought of what awaited me below nearly made me collapse before I even touched the ground.
I finally got down. “Ei nye fiar careful ee,” which, in our local dialect, means “you guys should really be careful oo.” I know what you’re thinking — we were beaten, right? I’m not even surprised; that’s the norm in most African homes.
Unfortunately, my people — unfortunately, our World Cup ball was cut into pieces. At that moment, we were furious. I mean, how could they? But looking back, I believe they did it out of love — a painful kind of love meant to correct us. Human beings often focus on the pain of correction rather than the correction itself — and that pain and anger blind us to the very lesson meant to help us.
Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — we couldn’t stay angry for long. Those same mothers we were mad at were going to feed us in a few hours, and no child would ever say, “Because I’m angry, I won’t eat.” Ah, how? That’s not possible!
That’s the end of the story!
You can find the other stories in the top-left corner of the page.
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