No Sweetness Here

No Sweetness Here Summary | Detailed Summary

"No Sweetness Here" is Ama Ata Aidoo's short story of the traditional roles of African women as told from the point of view of a Westernized African woman teaching in a small village school.

The narrator, who is referred to as Chicha, thinks about the discussions she has held about one of her students, Kwesi, a ten-year-old boy, with Kwesi's mother, Maami Ama. Chicha remembers commenting on Kwesi's stunning good looks and teasing Maami Ama that if Chicha were to ever go away from the village she will take Kwesi with her. Maami was both pleased and concerned about Chicha's comments, since she lives in fear of losing her only son to her husband, Kodjo Fi.

Today, Chicha waits for Maami Ama to return to her hut from the day's work in the fields. The time is after four o'clock, and school has just been dismissed. The older people in the village who no longer work in the fields call out compliments and encouragement to Chicha for her good work at the school.

Maami Ama returns home a little late today and is separating the gathered vegetables when Chicha arrives. Tomorrow is the Ahobaada holiday remembering a man who sacrificed himself to the gods to save the village from pestilence. Maami Ama has an admirable crop today but appears sad, and Chicha questions her about her mood. Chicha reveals that tomorrow she will be divorced from Kodjo Fi, and she is almost certain that she will have to relinquish Kwesi to his father.

Maami Ama is the first of Kodjo Fi's three wives, and yet she has always been mistreated by him and his family. She has received the least favorable plot of land to work and almost no money to raise Kwesi. Life as one of Kodjo Fi's wives has been an unbearable trial, and Maami Ama would be glad to be rid of the tie to Kodjo Fi if it were not for the fact that she will probably lose her only son in the process.

Kwesi's arrival at the hut immediately brightens Maami Ama's mood, and the boy acts shyly because Chicha is in his home. Chicha cannot help but notice that Kwesi is Maami Ama's whole world and that nothing else exists while he is in her presence.

The next day is the holiday, and all over the village, people are mending quarrels and broken relationships, as is the custom for the day. Despite the holiday, Chicha has not let the children off from school, and their restless behavior all day is payment for this transgression. At three o'clock, Chicha sends the students outside to play with the intention of visiting Maami Ama's divorce proceedings and then returning to the school at four o'clock for formal dismissal.

Chicha makes her way to the home of Nana Kum, Maami Ama's aunt, where the divorce proceedings have just finished. By the bits of conversation Chicha hears among the villagers, she knows that the divorce is final and that Kwesi is to be turned over to Kodjo Fi. In addition, Maami Ama must pay Kodjo Fi for items and money he provided over the course of this ill-fated marriage. Chicha marvels at the strength shown by Maami, who must find a way to pay this amount as well as give up Kwesi to live with his father and relatives who do not know him.

Chicha can do nothing more here, so she returns to the school to find that all the children have already left the schoolyard although their books and other items remain in the classroom. Noise from the street draws Chicha outside, and she sees a crowd of children in the street near Maami Ama's house.

As Chicha draws nearer, she sees Kwesi lying in the street, naked from the waist up, his arm swollen to the size of his head from a snakebite. As the adults gather, cures and potions are offered up to no avail, and the villagers wait nervously for messenger to return from a neighboring village with the chief medicine man.

The medicine man is well known for bringing people back from the brink of death by administering a potion that purges the venom from the victim's body. Usually the potion works within an hour or two, but Kwesi never vomits the venom and is dead before midnight. No one in the village sleeps that night for mourning the death of Kwesi, and the villagers say, "And he was his mother's only child. She has no one now. We do not understand it. Life is not sweet!"

The families of Maami Ama and Kodjo Fi argue about whose family caused this horrible death, and Chicha thinks about the illustrious life Kwesi could have had outside this tiny village given his good looks and intelligence. The only thing to do now, though, is to bury Kwesi, and Chicha takes the schoolchildren to the funeral and to the cemetery to say goodbye to their classmate.

After the funeral, Chicha visits the House of Mourning, where she listens to some of the other visitors comment on Maami Ama's unhappy fate with the loss of her only child. The visitors have no advice, and one of them asks to no one in particular, "What does one do when one's only water pot breaks?"

Chicha leaves to go to Maami Ama's house and finds the woman kneeling on the floor clutching Kwesi's schoolbooks and clothes. Maami Ama does not respond to Chicha's presence, so the teacher leaves the hut to return to her own home.