Bernice Amoakohene met and courted her future husband in the digital age.
Bernice went to Asamankese, Ghana, in September 2014 with her mother, sisters and brother, to visit her ailing grandmother. They stayed with Bernice's aunt, who had recently gotten a flat-screen television to replace her old tube set.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I thought he was a shy, good-looking young man.”
He says: “Honestly, when I met Bernice, I knew I had met a nice person because she was very open-minded. I guess she realized I was shy. We got along very well, but I did not think we would both end up as husband and wife.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I was excited but nervous and scared. I wasn’t familiar with the traditional ceremony. I didn’t know what to expect or what to do. I didn’t want to mess up the ceremony, I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.”
He says: “I was nervous but it was a lovely day and a day to remember. It was no coincidence it happened on a Valentine’s Day.”
She didn't know how to use it but Richmond Osei-Danquah, her tenant across the street, did.
"Every time she wanted the channel changed she would say, 'Somebody go call Richmond, somebody go call Richmond,'" says Bernice, who moved from Ghana to the United States as a child. "After a while I asked him, 'What is so magical about this TV? What's so special about it that you have to come over and change the channel?' he goes, 'Well, nothing.'"
Richmond didn't mind. He thought Bernice's aunt might be lonely and even stayed to watch television with her sometimes after he changed the channel.
He didn't stay much while Bernice was there.
"I'm a shy person but when I was with her it was different because I could not really look her in the face," he says.
They exchanged contact information before she and her family left a couple of weeks later, mainly because Bernice hoped to stay in touch with some of the younger people in Asamankese so she could hang out with them during her next visit.
When she got home, she saw a text from Richmond.
"He said he just wanted to make sure me and my family got home safely and he said it was nice to meet me, and he asked if I was still interested in staying in touch," she says. "I thanked him for checking on us, and I asked him to let people know that we made it back because it would be a while before we could get around to calling everybody to let them know that we made it back."
That conversation led to another ... and another, much to Bernice's surprise.
It was easier for him to talk with her through Facebook Messenger, he explains, because he didn't have to meet her gaze. They posted photos for one another on Instagram and continued to keep in touch through Messenger and other social media. They talked about current events in America and in Ghana, as well as their shared interest in music.
"We would talk and talk and talk and talk and run out of credit on the calling cards, and we would immediately go and buy some more," Bernice says. "We would talk so much that we weren't even sleeping."
On Nov. 17, 2014, they were video chatting, though she wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. "When I looked up at the screen there was a piece of paper that said, 'Will you marry me?'" Bernice says.
In late January, Bernice flew back to Ghana to wed the man who was a casual acquaintance when she had last been in his presence. On Feb. 14, 2015, they had a ceremony that brought their families together, followed by a traditional marriage ceremony.
"In Ghana, traditional marriages are between families and the families," she explains. "You know how you sometimes meet somebody and you act like you've been together forever? Well, our families came together like that."
Bernice was nervous that day, not so much because she was committing to Richmond, but because she didn't understand the process of the ceremony, even though she'd grown up speaking the native Twi language.
"They explained it for my behalf as it happened," Bernice says.
They chose to marry in Ghana because they knew it would be nearly impossible to get visas for all of Richmond's relatives who would want to attend the ceremonies, and they thought they might have another ceremony when he moved to the United States within the year.
Richmond arrived in Little Rock last month. He was a city planner in Asamankese; Bernice is a pharmacist. For now they are enjoying being together and running a business they started together, RNB Ghanian Fashions.
"It might be a long, long, long time before we get tired of each other or have something to argue about because you know people who date for five or six or seven years and see each other day in and day out, they take each other for granted," Bernice says. "We don't -- we're just happy to finally be together."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:
kdishongh@sbcglobal.net
High Profile on 10/09/2016