University of New England

Shake the Mango Trees: Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang, UNECOM Class of '10

[Editor's Note: This profile originally appeared in the December 2006 COMmunicator]

Too poor to buy toys, Max was too rich to be unhappy. After all, he had many cousins and aunts in Mampong, Ghana, and he knew the path to the wilds where boys could shake the mango trees. 

He spent his grade school holidays visiting his cousins in the village: “We walked about in the village,” he says, “barefoot and without any toys except milk tins. We spent many hours forming those tins into cars, and when we were done we would tie a string to the car and pull it around.” He beams proudly and says in a colonial British accent, “They were some fine-lookin’ cars!”

On holidays, the boys walked miles to the boundary regions beyond the fields to climb in mango trees. “Some of the trees were very tall,” Max recalls, “and a good climber would go to the top and shake the tree until the mangos fell. The others stood beneath and gathered the mangos from the ground, taking them home to the village to share with the poor and those who could not climb.”

A fortunate encounter and one probing question sowed seeds that brought Max to America four years ago to become a doctor. To this day, Max Opoku still shakes the mango trees.

A Country Begotten

Years before Columbus, Portuguese sailors exploited the human mines of Western Africa, building prisons by every port. The Portuguese are gone now, but stucco castles still dot the coast where slavers chained their groaning gold. Dutchmen came, then English mercantile companies. In their rush to empire, the ever-practical British converted slave prisons to coastal forts - the frowning mouths of cannon can still be seen.

In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to win its independence. It was a country begotten and forgotten, left to its own ill-equipped devices by the retiring British government. Significant tribal divisions, a series of coups, and the resultant military rule helped to delay substantial economic development for several decades. A newly approved constitution in 1992 paved the way for free and fair elections, and greater stability has helped Ghana manage inflation and increase exports of raw materials.     

Today, Ghana sprawls like a great green hippo along Western Africa’s Guinea Coast. Its Oregon-sized tropical stomach bulges around the incision of the river Volta and huge Lake Volta - the ruptured appendix of a waterway that forms a navigable channel to the country’s steaming interior. Little packets ply the river, bringing workers to the north and gold, timber, and industrial diamonds south. Sixty-percent of the workforce labors in agriculture, but poverty settles like Saharan dust on the majority of the people.

The Solution of Education

Max’s family, too, felt the quiet suffocation of a struggling country. His mother worked very hard, but in the depressed economy of the 1980s she could not support her children, so Max’s aunties helped to raise him. In Ghana, the typical nuclear family can barely make ends meet, so the extended family closes ranks to raise the children or provide meals. “I had an aunt who was so close that I called her ‘mother,’ Max recalls fondly, “and I still think of her so.”

He lived in the Ashanti tribal region of southern Ghana, surrounded by lush fields and tropical rainforest. Twi and English were his primary languages, but he understood several of the other 48 dialects common to the multi-ethnic region. “By visiting different aunties, I moved from place to place and became familiar with people from many tribes,” Max says. The contact broadened him and prepared him for leadership opportunities in the future, where his people skills won for him respect and trust. 

When Max visited his grandfather, the former teacher gave him adages and sayings to interest him in learning. Max’s mother, too, preached the benefits of education. “I think that since my mother had to drop out of high school when I was born, she wanted each of her children to have what she didn’t have - education!” says Max. “I think that for her it was a solution, and I always found this very motivating when I was in school.”

A Stone’s Throw of Weeding

Fifty-four students comprised Max’s primary school class. The teacher exercised total control over his young charges, and if any aspiring ne’er-do-well cherished thoughts of pulling pigtails or picking mental cotton, he had another thing coming. “The teacher had the unquestioned right to punish you,” says Max, “and if you did anything wrong, you would be caned for it.” Every morning, the students had a test in arithmetic; they were caned for each incorrect answer. Max grimaces at the memory, but knows that the fear helped him to take his work seriously. He did not want to be caned.

For other offenses, a child would be made to stand in the field by the schoolhouse. “The teacher gave you a stone,” Max recalls, “and as far as you could throw it, that is how far you had to weed the field.” Presumably, the instructor knew the throwing capability of each student and held them accountable to that standard. The punishment was bad, Max admits, but the education was quite good. Textbooks were British and American, and if a student spoke any language besides English, they were punished.

It was at this time that Max’s education nearly ended. “I was nine years old,” Max says, “and I had unbearable stomach pain. It was so bad that I could not go to school for many days.” With her son’s education in jeopardy, his concerned mother took Max to a doctor who diagnosed a congenital hernia. While Max underwent preparations for his surgery, the doctor probed Max’s mind by asking the youngster what he wanted to be when he grew up. Max stared blankly at the man. “I had never thought about the future,” Max recalls, “and I told him that I did not know.” The doctor repaired the hernia and sent Max home. “Much later, I remembered his question, ‘What do you want to be?’” says Max, “and I realized that my whole life was pinned on this man – he had not only given me the gift of a healthy life, but by doing so, he had also given me the chance of an uninterrupted education. I realized that I also wanted to make such a difference in people’s lives. I wanted to be a doctor.”

Stagnant Pools of Knowledge

The operation enabled Max to attend school every day. In high school, he developed a reputation as a keen student of general science. When a teacher spoke of surface tension, Max immediately made the application to his daily life. “I said, ‘Aha! I know what this teacher is talking about!’” Max recalls, “I went outside to see the pools of stagnant water, and I watched the mosquitoes walking back and forth on the water, and it made sense to me.” It would not be the first time that Max’s active mind bridged the gap between theory and practice; he was never content to let knowledge stagnate.

At the Catholic boarding school he attended, Max was elected senior prefect during his final year, which meant that he was in charge when the teachers weren’t around. The position was loaded with challenges. “I was elected because of my show of the discipline that my family had inculcated in me; plus I got along well with everyone,” Max says, “however, it was tough with my mates, because they thought that they could do anything they wanted. I learned a lot as a leader.”

He also learned a lot as a student, but his stellar grades in general science slated Max for agricultural school, not pre-medicine. In Ghana, a person is tracked according to their measured aptitude, not necessarily their desire. As far as his native country was concerned, Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang was going to be a farmer, not a doctor. He left the central jungles with their mango trees and went to Cape Coast University, near the sea.

Between Two Castles and the Sea

In a twist of irony, Cape Coast University overlooks the same ocean as the medical school Max would later attend in the United States. According to its website, the University’s “main entrance is only about 50 meters from the Atlantic Ocean, whose waves thunder intermittently against the shores, sending their showers and music across the verdant green campus - adding poesy to the academic and social life of the University.”

History, too, was sometimes overlooked. In a burst of enthusiasm, the University website notes that “Its strategic location lies also in the fact that it is spotted midway between the famous Cape Coast Castle, the first Seat of the British Colonial Government until 1879, and the Elmina Castle, the first port of call of the first European merchants to the Gold Coast in 1487.” Unhappily, those first European merchants were Portuguese slavers. Max attended university at the same location where Ghanaians were shipped to the Americas some five hundred years before. His place of education was a profound juxtaposition of historical wrongs and current rights.

Max made the most of his time at Cape Coast: the UN gave him an award for an essay he wrote in diplomatic studies; he joined the Air Force cadets; he served his dorm as a writer, and he moved on to become the president of the Cape Coast National Union of Students in his final year. While he found his academic work interesting, Max most remembers the hours after class when the 400 men in his dorm gathered around the central arena to talk, drum, and dance. “Before this time, I was very shy and quiet,” Max says, “but ever since, I have loved to drum and dance as a way to relieve stress.” He sits back and smiles and says, “Ah, yes, I remember those days.”

“Some Thought That I Was Lazy”

By the time he was a senior at Cape Coast, Max knew two things for certain: he wanted to become a doctor, and he could never do so in Ghana. He went to the Ministry of Education and used his leadership connections to secure a letter of recommendation from the Minister, which in turn procured him a visa to the United States. Max said good-bye to his family before he left for the airport. “My mother was not sure about this,” Max recalls, “but she trusted that I was making a good decision. The day I left, we had a family meeting and said a prayer.” Max boarded the flight to America with barely any money – an uncle in New York had even purchased the ticket.

Culture shock was predictably tremendous. Max was a long way from Mampong, Ghana, and Manhattan had very few mango trees to shake. “I got out of a bus,” Max recalls, “and I remember dropping my bag and looking all… the… way… up… to… the… top… of the tallest building. The man next to me had also come from Ghana a few years before, and he laughed and said, ‘Brother, I did the same thing!’” 

Max lived for a time with his uncle, and then visited his cousin who worked in Rhode Island while attending college. “I realized that I could do this, too,” says Max, “and so I worked in an automotive engineering plant while I took pre-med classes at Providence College.”

A full class schedule and his 40-hour work week took its toll, and Max sometimes nodded off on the night shift. Co-workers had no idea that Max was a full-time student: “Some thought that I was lazy,” he recalls. That changed when Max applied for a machine set-up mechanic position. “There were five other applicants, but I received the highest score,” he says, “I worked three 12-hour shifts on weekends after that.” During this time of working in the automotive industry, he volunteered in the ER at Miriam Hospital and patented a transparent sun-visor for vehicles, once again applying science to everyday life.    

“You Might Consider Osteopathic Medicine”

Physicals always seemed to change Max’s life. “The first doctor I saw when I had my immigration physical was a UNECOM alum, Dr. Joseph Grande,” Max chuckles. “He asked why I was in America, and I said that I really wanted to go to medical school. He said, ‘You might consider osteopathic medicine.’” When Max had completed his pre-medical requirements at Providence, he went back to Dr. Grande to talk about the application process to medical school. “He recommended UNECOM, since that is where he went, and I thought it wise to apply,” says Max.

He is glad that he did. “I had a good interview,” he says, “and when I look around at the environment and see the open space and the grass and the trees, it gives me a sense of hope and serenity.” While there are no mango trees in Biddeford, the Atlantic Ocean swells the Saco River only a few feet from campus. It is strange to think that Ghana lies somewhere on the other shore.

Max was elected secretary/treasurer of the class of 2010 by his peers, and he likes his classmates and the friendliness of everyone he meets. He believes in working hard and having fun, and the rigor of academics has whetted his love of learning. When asked if medical school is sometimes overwhelming, Max replies with undisguised passion, “Every day I like it more. Every day is a new challenge. Every day of medical school is like falling in love with the prettiest girl in high school; but she is playing hard-to-get, and that makes you love her even more.” There is little doubt he has found his calling.

The Fruit of His Labor

Though he is now in the States, Max does not forget his life in Ghana. “I want to wear my white coat with humility,” Max says about his future, “that is what I pray for all the time.” He plans to practice in Providence when he graduates, hopefully serving those who can’t afford healthcare, whether through primary care, surgery, or even medical education. When he is a doctor, Max intends to return to Ghana each year to give free medical services to the villages. His strong character has not changed since the days as a boy when he shook the mango trees to give fruit to the poor.

“I returned once to Ghana for one month before medical school,” Max says, “and I never saw my mother so happy.” His mother knows that she helped Max to achieve the education she could never afford, and the whole family – aunties, uncles, cousins and siblings – is very proud of their sojourning son. When the days and nights are long and studies burden, Max still exerts himself on behalf of those who will need his help. The cost of becoming a doctor is great in many ways, but he does not regret the path he has taken.

For just ahead lie the mango trees.

-Steve Smith, RSAS