So before we start, we just want to outline how this is going to go.
Both Barry and Rabby will be writing in this section.
So, Rabby's contributions will be written in Italics and Barry's will be in bold, to make following easier for everyone.
So!!! I thought it will be cool if we wrote about when we met but when I asked Alan, he said: “We met in Ashesi, or?” we didn’t. I was doing what I love doing, he was doing what he loves doing and that’s how we met. That’s the short version. Here’s the long one:
In the year 2008, a mutual friend (who will be called Tracy for the purpose of this blog post) was organinsing a fundraiser for orphans. It happened at the Citizen Kofi building in Osu (It’s no longer existing, I think) [The building still exists but I think it has been given to a bank] Alan was there to sing and I was there to organize / coordinate. A lot of our colleagues were at the event.
A little background – Tracy was a Senior High School (SHS) classmate who went to Junior High School (JHS) with Alan. Being the exceptional storyteller she is, she shared a lot of information about her JHS days which in part constituted stories about Alan and his best friend Bill, how they used to be, how they are now, how amazing Alan’s voice is. She used to say, “He can saaaang!”
Back to the story -> Before I met him, I had imagined he (as well as his Crossfirefriends) was a stuck-up boy who thought he was sleek, fresh and fly just because he could sing. I barely said hello to him. Very unfair but its cool lol.I remember prompting him when he had to go on stage, but that was it. It was about 4 years later #atAshesi that we met a second time, and became friends.
You should understand me – I couldn’t for the life of me remember the first time we met because honestly, she didn’t mean anything to me at that time. I am actually still struggling to remember it entirely, but if I had known we would end up together, I would have written it down. As it is, it was not a ‘love at first sight’ situation, so most memories got lost somewhere . I remember seeing her at the fundraising concert, though. She had a car waiting for her as early as 3pm, when the event had barely started (Side Note: She is a serious daddy’s girl) so she had to rush off pretty early.
I have about three faint memories of the early days in our friendship. One was when we used to call each other tag-team partners – we did a lot together. Study, gossip, chat the night away etc. We didn’t really think the same way, but we understood each other and were real to each other. That made it easy to be a voice of reason in each others’ lives.
The second faint memory I have about us, was in a personal moment of thought during the ‘Jamaican Madness’ party in Ashesi. This party was the very first my graduating class organised and it must have happened within the two months of freshman year. At this party, I remember watching Ewurabena from a distance. She wore a pink top with yellow leggings and she wouldn’t stop dancing. I mean, she danced – like really danced. I remember asking myself how we could be so different and yet, such good friends. I had no feelings for her – I was amazed and wondering why she was going through the trouble to do all that dancing. I mean, with the same enthusiasm she used to light up the dance floor, I stood back and observed everything going on, because I suck at dancing. (Lies! He dances very well!)
The third faint memory I have of us, was when we stayed up all night talking about life in general. It was a very cold night on campus, but there was so much more to share about our weaknesses, past experiences and shared interests, that we just didn’t want to leave the staircase by the basketball court. With regards to our beginning, these are the earliest memories I have. There is a lot of history (and drama) in how we started dating and all that but all shall be revealed in subsequent months.
The reason why I thought it was cool to recount how we met is, the beginnings of these things, (just like every part of the relationship) are never the same. In our case, as he said earlier, it was not a love at first sight thing. The important thing to note is the value of a true friendship, whether it came first, or after being love-struck. Having a strong friendship matters a lot – it did to us . In that friendship, I realized that we were able to be real with each other – after all, what? It was the ‘realness’ in our friendship that helped us point out each other’s folly and helped us make each other better people. Again, there is a lot of history (and drama) in how we started dating and all that but all shall be revealed in subsequent blog posts.
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[First published on 1st January 2017]