All that glitters is not gold
It was around 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning when Aunt Mansah called Adobea, her niece, to go and sell her wares.
Adobea had completed senior high school but due to financial constraints, she had not been able to further her education. That was why she had resorted to selling tomatoes, pepper, onions and salt. This was to enable her to raise enough money to support her auntie to help her continue her education or learn a trade.
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Also in this business of selling vegetables was Oforiwah, Adobea’s good friend. Oforiwah came from a family whose financial position was similar to that of Adobea. Luckily for Oforiwah, she got a benefactor who took her to the city to introduce her to business.
Years passed and Adobea never heard from Oforiwah. One day, Adobea returned home after selling, finished preparing supper and she and her auntie were about to eat when they heard a knock at the door.
She rushed to open the door and to her uttermost surprise, there stood her longtime friend, Oforiwah, in the company of three other ladies. She looked completely different and extravagant in her beautiful but expensive dress, shoes and bag that went with the long mongolian weave-on she wore.
Indeed, Oforiwah looked very gorgeous, lavish and tremendously beautiful.
Even Auntie Mansah acknowledged that she looked beautiful the moment she set eyes on her. After inviting her into the house and the necessary exchange of pleasantries were done, Auntie Mansah gathered from the conversation she had with Oforiwah that she was a businesswoman who imported and exported anything. After hours of conversation, Oforiwah left and that was the beginning of Adobea’s doom.
From that time, Auntie Mansah never stopped insulting Adobea as a loser and kept on comparing her to Oforiwah. The night before Oforiwah was supposed to leave the village, Auntie Mansah went overboard when she threatened Adobea that she would not hesitate to throw her out of her home if she did not find something meaningful to do in city. Adobea lost her voice as she wept uncontrollably.
When she finally regained her composure, she made up her mind to go and see Oforiwah to take her to the city and introduce her to her business. Oforiwah welcomed the news and was even eager to take her along with her the following day, which she did.
When they arrived in the city and Adobea saw the kind of house Oforiwah and her friends were living in, she marvelled. It was a big house with beautiful green landscape and the interior decoration was exceptionally done.
Every day, she became eager to be introduced to the business so that she could earn money to buy some of the beautiful things Oforiwah had.
However, anytime she raised the issue up, Oforiwah would ask her to wait for sometime. Apparently, Oforiwah and her three friends were not businesswomen as they had made everybody in the village to believe. They slept with men for money and she was hoping to introduce Adobea into it.
However, realising how morally upright Adobea was, she was finding it difficult to do so but she had to tell her because she could not continue to fend for her.
That evening when Oforiwah and her friends managed to break the news to her, she was shocked. She told them there was no way she would sell her body for money. Upon saying that, the four friends told her that then she would have to leave the house because they could not continue to fend for her.
Adobea left their home but luck smiled on her as she found somebody who decided to take her in. The woman owned a chain of stores and so she put her in charge of one of them. Within months of doing so, the woman recorded a huge sale in that particular shop.
Adobea was in charge and what surprised her was that the sales she made were intact, which to her meant that Adobea was honest.
Adobea worked hard and honestly served the woman. Within a year of working with her, she was promoted to supervise two other shops.
That made her earn more money and she was able to send some to her aunt who unfortunately thought it was too small considering what Oforiwah gave to her parents. One day, Adobea decided to go to their village to spend the weekend with her aunt.
While in the village, she decided to go and greet Oforiwah’s mother and she did so in the company of Auntie Mansah. While they were chatting, a taxi carrying a sick person stopped in front of the house.
The taxi driver informed them that he was ordered by the friends of Oforiwah to bring her to that address in the village.
They went to check whether truely it was Oforiwah and indeed it was her. They learnt from her later that she contracted an incurable sexually transmitted disease from one of the men she slept with for money and because she did not seek immediate medical help, her condition had deteriorated and she could die any time.
Everybody was shocked to know Oforiwah was not a businesswoman as she had made them to believe. That day, when Adobea and her auntie went home, her auntie begged for her forgiveness. She said she was fooled by the material things Oforiwah displayed.
“Indeed all that glitters is not gold and I have learnt my lesson,” she said.
Ellen Ashie Annor,
Star Royal International,
Accra.
