“Oh you’re just one proud nigga, aren’t you?” Jobe’s friend says to him while I watch intently from my bed.
Jobe laughs a little, twitches his nose but keeps his face firm. Jobe is the South African with dreadlocks and a bandana. He is my roommate. It is 2018 and we are student competitors at the African Moot organized by the University of Ghana in Legon, Accra.
It is the first morning of an eventful week, we are bonding over J.Cole when Jobe casually announces, “I am going to meet with the president today.”
I think that to call him proud, his friend who annoyingly spends long hours in our room-for-two, must know something I do not. I do not think it is pride. I think it is a joke, a hyperbole. Jobe’s face says otherwise so I ask a keen “How?”
He begins with how he is going to paint the President’s face on a t-shirt, in minutes. I stand in front of my drawer to calculate the logistics. Indeed, the president was in the program for the opening ceremony but what were the odds that this Zulu kid would be granted exclusive audience? I say a dull “goodluck!”
Later that day, during the opening ceremony, I am talking to the hot Motswana lady at the back when I suddenly see Jobe conversing with the event hosts. They nod to his last words, he sits in front and begins painting.
I know the script of this movie so I start to shout, “That’s my roommate and he’s about to paint the president on a t-shirt!”
Surely, at the end of the event, the host announces that a participant from South Africa has a gift for President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Jobe mounts the stage, masterpiece in hand. He says something to the President who unveils the brightest smile. Once the red t-shirt is within the grateful grasp of Mr. President, my roommate walks off the stage, too early for a photograph.
I am piqued.
Once I get the chance, I say to him “That was the President of Ghana, you should have stayed back for more pictures!”
He grins and says to me “I don’t want a picture with the President, I just want to speak to the man.”
His words were from J Cole’s Neighbours, the same song on replay that morning. It hits me.
“Why did he smile? What did you say to him?”
Jobe tells me all about it, but I am not listening.
