The Bowl
In Ghana, where I’m from, girls are prepared from a young age for marriage. A big part of the
preparation is learning to cook. All the women have their own cooking bowls that are passed down
from mother to daughter on her wedding day.
When I received my mother’s blue and white bowl I wasn’t too impressed. It was old and
chipped. But my mom’s proud face made me glad to accept the bowl just the same.
The day before I left Ghana for America my mom made a special trip to see me and remind me
to be of good character and, yes, use my bowl. She had cooked for her family with it and I should cook
with it for mine.
In America I was introduced to Sears and Macy’s. They had really nice plates with nice bowls.
My mother’s old bowl got lost in the back of the cupboard.
Then my aunt came to visit from Ghana. She began to tell stories about back home and I began
to feel nostalgic. One night I took out my mother’s old bowl with the chipped edges and made my son a
traditional Ghanaian porridge called cocoa.
He gave the bowl a long and hard look. I’m sure he was thinking we have plenty of better ones
to choose from. In his little seven year old voice he asked, “Where did you get this old bowl from
mommy?” I told him how it was my mother’s bowl and her mother gave it to her and so on. That didn’t
satisfy him. I began to tell him how one day he’d probably give it to his wife. The thought made him
cringe.
I began to tell him stories about the bowl my mother had told me. One was how when the
Nkrumah regime was overthrown the army had come through our village ravaging things and the bowl
was one of the few things to survive intact. Also it survived when so many other things were destroyed
during one of the worst and windiest of rainy seasons.
I told him, too, how my grandmother used the bowl to make fufu, a traditional west African
dish, for all the grandchildren on Sundays. She’d pound that fufu into the bowl so hard I thought it
would break. But it survived that just like it survived the army and the awful rainy season.
My son is now grown up. He recently graduated from Miami University. He’s a fine young man
and I’m proud of him. He’s very pleased to know that when he settles down the chipped blue bow will
be his.
Laila Adams