By David Harrell
Fifty-seven years ago Papafio, one of five sons and six daughters, was born in Amanokrom, Ghana, a tiny village 30 miles east of Accra, the capital. His father grew corn, cassava, and plantains; his mother sold some of the food at the local market. Their sturdy brick house, built by Papafio’s grandfather, sheltered an extended family–as many as 30 people spent the night, along with several sheep and goats.
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Government-funded high schools didn’t exist, and Papafio, like many other children, couldn’t afford private schooling. So at 15, he set out for Accra. He spent several years there, working as a mail carrier, as a clerk in a government warehouse, and then as a file clerk in a government office. He also managed to see plenty of movies, many of them made in America and some starring black actors such as Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge. Fascinated, he began visiting the American embassy library to read about the U.S.
When he arrived at the headquarters of Argus Camera he was ushered in to meet the company president and personnel director, who said they’d train him to repair cameras and pay him about $3.50 an hour, double the minimum wage. They also advanced him $35 and helped him find temporary lodging at a YMCA.
Eventually the camera factory relocated to Michigan, and Papafio found evening work operating machines at a paper factory in Mount Prospect. His plans were interrupted when his girlfriend, a white Northwestern University student, became pregnant. They married and had a son, but soon divorced. In 1973 he married his current wife, a Muslim from Nigeria named Germinatu Ali.
People increasingly turned to Papafio to emcee Ghanaian social events–weddings, “outdoorings” or christening parties, birthday parties, fund-raisers for the needy, funeral celebrations, and the Ghanafest, which has been his gig every year except last year, when he was recovering from his cancer treatments. “He’s almost like the PR officer for the Ghanaian community,” says Clement Timpo, the Ghana National Council’s secretary-general. “He is always trying to pull us together.”
Appeals for donations are made periodically over the next few hours, in English and in Twi. By the time the party breaks up at 4:15, close to 1,000 people have stopped by, according to the man who organized the event. And several thousand dollars have been collected, enough to cover Papafio’s remaining medical bills.
