Though he walked tall with solid shoulders, and sported the familiar, black, well-trimmed moustache, he could neither hop to "My Boy Lollipop" nor bout with "Twist and Shout", the very lifeblood of the rhythmic youth of the sixties. On that basis, it was decided that "Abruqs" (as we named him) was not with it.
In retrospect, Mr. Abruquah was at his peak, and at the mature age of 42 had returned to head the great institution on whose hearth he himself had been nurtured. At the time, we were simply wanting some more of those things that were follies now but were wisdom then.
Not long after the headmaster's arrival, a piece of confusion - straight out of the blue, without a fluttering flag whatsoever - made its debut. Some anonymous campus disturbance had caught the school prefects napping. The situation (whatever it was) had sneaked in from behind the prefects, brimmed out of control like a virus, and finally settled into the headmaster's lap.
Mr. Abruquah must have passed a casual glance over the nature of the disturbance, and perhaps wondered how it had escaped the prefects' guard and come that far out into his office. As the details unfolded, the headmaster deplored this useless loss of time, and declared (by announcing) that the prefects were "impotent".
The prefects weren't out looking for trouble, but trouble was in looking for them. Some words, rather weak at first, once released in certain contexts, by particular people, evolved lives of their own. Starting off benignly, the word now rippled steadily on the Kwabotwe Hill as if driven by the pump of some mysterious heart muscle; and as a result, a new riot blossomed out of the old one, which had suddenly lost its glow.
The prefects were impotent! The word suggested a perkier, subliminal meaning besides the rather dull abstraction given: helpless, unable to act. The lower forms, bubbling with intuitive powers and imagination (and needing to be tickled, but not tickled yet), suspected the older boys of snobbery (monopolising all important mental exercises) and over-protectiveness.
About to be bred like true scholars, the greenhorns defied the Ecclesiastical order: "If thou has heard a word, let it die with thee: and be bold it will not burst thee." They swarmed to the word like moths to an electric light, dug deeper for some symbolic import, and discovered, with relief, a meaning with lust and revenge in it: lacking in sexual power. Ever afterwards the mischievous boys kept the word ready for use by dangling it like a loose canon to menace the prefects.
The 15-year-old Abruquah was admitted to Mfantsipim in 1936 where he built his secondary foundation. Before returning in full bloom as headmaster in 1963, he had made his rounds at Wesley College, Achimota, Kings College (London), Konongo Odumase, and Keta Secondary (where a house was named after him).
He taught Geography in Form 3A, and at the end of one particular period, to absorb more of his time, I ventured to fall into step with him. Now I had to think quickly of some sophisticated remark. Having conceived one on the tip of my mind, I launched it.
He cleared his throat, and in a deeply strained but coherent voice, probed for the finer hues in my demand. It dawned on me that he hadn't simply framed a short cut, and answered any old question. That act of tiny intimacy has lived with me to this day.
Like the first class teacher and a literary artist, he sought for precision, in bits, largely awaiting with humility and patience the dawning of a new clarity. By the time we had settled on the nature of my uneasy request, we had covered much more than the ground between the class and the Assembly Hall. I returned to my mates elated.
To think of it, at age 42, Mr. Abruquah exhibited a great appetite for life. Though fathers always expected the sons to have their virtues without the faults, he practiced his experience on the youth under his care without any harshness of reproof. Mfantsipim was merely the stepping-stone to the continuation of the reasonably long life he was to live. He had lived a little more than half his years. The other half was still there. Mfantsipim, too, had not celebrated her 100th anniversary yet. The world was still young for both headmaster and school.
One weekend, the school was engaged in the familiar houses athletic competition. There were ten houses competing. Though not a great runner, yours truly was in a group running 440 yards feverishly for Pickard House. Soon enough, the best runner strutted past and touched the finishing line, and three others stormed through and won their respective points.
The healthy conceit of the winners was established. The applause echoed, and died off; and a heavy sense of finality brooded over the race. To all intents and scores the contest was over.
What were the rest of us - our heads banging backwards in sheer exhaustion - still drooping along in the field for? Couldn't we be less masochistic, keep faith and determination on easier terms, and stop right here and now?
Mr. Abruquah, sound hearted but perched on the dais like an eagle teaching its brood how to succeed in the bigger game thereafter, was watching this race to see the end of it. Naturally, he was interested in who won. But what he really cared for were neither the firsts nor the lasts of the competition, but the habit of mind that when we started a race we must finish it.
This business of trial and perseverance built the very landmark in character formation, the stage in self-recognition that must be developed before any progress is possible. Speed may not always be as important as the will to keep body and mind focused on the target. The bigger picture, which was elusive then, was Abruq's greater conviction and settled sense of responsibility in making winners of all in his care. The highest aim in education is to obtain (not particular results, but) powers, the means by which solutions may be found endlessly.
Apart from his confidence and easy power, the headmaster was before all things a mentor. Discreet forms of behaviour provided him models for fusing attitude and success. This portrait of Abruquah, blending the thick and thin of sternness and tenderness, contained the qualities that endeared him to us. His sturdy presence compelled one to walk taller.
Though at times he sounded like he was causing strife, he was merely guiding us to follow the essence of our school anthem "Dwen Hwe Kan" and thereby develop a mindset capable of looking forward in order to avoid being trapped in a difficult present.
In his leisure hours, he wrote two books - The Catechist (which was used as a literature text) and The Torrent. Besides the fondness for reading and writing, he loved agriculture and gardening, and encouraged students to plant citrus fruits in the valley behind the Administration Block which the pundits named Orange Free State.
The University of Iowa (USA) where he lectured in African Literature conferred a fellowship on him (1970). On returning to Ghana, he continued to enlighten, this time at Adisadel College.
At his funeral service (November 29, 1997) in the assembly Hall, my mind flashed back in perks to the old familiar places, and the drama of the live we shared with him now partly summarised in a casket.
Having passed gracefully from youth to old age, Abruqs, at last, learned to die peacefully. Even in death, his peculiar shadows continued to cast long and enduring rays of inspiration. About to be blended with the dust, the tall robust figure emerged in my thoughts sporting that cheerful moustache, and flaring his commanding mien over the educational landscape at Cape Coast, on the last leap in his gallant journey through life.
All is over!
Life is as fleeting as a thought;
Now it illumines, strong and powerful,
Now, like a floating leaf,
It's gone with the timeless wind.
Halfway through the service, the old boys were called to the body to sing the school hymn, For all the saints who from their labours rest. Those who had tears, and could not master their grief, prepared to shed them. It was too late now to have told the headmaster what we owed to him, and how we reverenced him. He had proved his station by beaming his light on small lives that otherwise would remain hidden |
