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102 | 5 The Compound House Communal Life and Welfare A Birthday Celebration This was a great day for Kofi. He was celebrating his fiftieth birthday. Actually , he was fifty-one years old and celebrating the birthday a week before his actual birth date, which was September 7. He was not able to celebrate his birthday “in grand style” the previous year for two reasons. First, he had not saved enough money for the celebration, and second, several congregation members had had various celebrations during the summer of the previous year and had filled up all the slots on the church calendar before Kofi could settle on a date. For many church members, summer is the perfect time to have parties and other celebrations. They therefore try to schedule birthdays , weddings, funerals, and other events between the months of May and September. Several Sundays before Kofi’s birthday party, announcements were made during worship services informing members of the venue and time. The information was also printed in the church bulletin. Kofi and his family had a lot of preparation to do before the target date. Since Kofi lives in New Jersey, much of the preparation, such as the renting of space, preparation of food, and procurement of drinks was done with the help of Kofi’s friends and family who lived in New York City. Many of them were members of the church. The birthday party was to take place at the Wilson Major Morris Community Center at 459 West 152nd Street in New York City. The center, like many others with large halls in New York City, provides space for the use of African immigrants for a fee. The rental fee for the use of the hall, which has a seating capacity of five to seven hundred persons, was $700. This is obviously a good source of income for the owners of the halls. I had been invited to join Kofi and his family to celebrate the occasion and also say the “opening prayer.” To avoid being stuck in traffic and even more The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare | 103 important, to secure a safe place to park, I left my home in New Jersey at 7.30 p.m. and arrived an hour before the party was scheduled to begin. According to the invitation, it was to begin at 10 p.m. When I arrived, I found only a handful of people in the hall—mainly those who had come to set the place up.1 After an hour or so, the hall began to fill up with members from the church and other Ghanaian and African associations. As is typical of Ghanaian gatherings, most people wore African attire. Others were dressed in suits and other Western-style clothes. The hall was soon filled with festive joy and exuberant laughter. People exchanged greetings with handshakes and hugs. Some people conversed in small groups, while others danced to Ghanaian popular music playing in the background. Appetizers were served as we waited for Kofi to arrive. Two hours passed. At midnight the master of ceremonies (MC) brought the music and dance to a halt with an announcement: “Friends, the moment we all have been waiting for. Here comes Kofi.” Kofi and his wife Akua entered the hall, while all gathered around to welcome them. Both were gorgeously dressed in Ghanaian outfits: Kofi was in kente and jumper while Akua wore a kaba and slit. As the couple walked elegantly into the hall, all who were gathered stood up in their honor. They walked in regally, receiving cheers from the gathering. They waved, acknowledging the cheers as they danced to their seats. They sat together with close family members, friends, and some leaders of the church and the Ghanaian community at the head table. I was called upon to pray for the party, which was scheduled to formally begin at 12.30 a.m. This was followed by a welcome, introductions, and announcements from the MC. The MC read Kofi’s biography, beginning with his birth and childhood in a small village in the Eastern Region of Ghana, describing his days as student and later as an agricultural extension officer in Ghana. In the early 1980s Kofi left Ghana for Liberia, a West African nation which at that time had a booming economy. He left Liberia when civil war broke out in that country, and arrived in the United States in 1986. In the United States he took courses in...

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