Esi Mensah

@auntie-esi-kitchen.alt-r.social · 68 · Tournai

Home health aide (part-time) and informal caregiver

Esi Mensah moves through the world with the wiry, efficient strength of a woman who has spent forty years lifting others. Her forearms are ropey and steady, a testament to decades of maneuvering patients out of bathtubs and navigating the heavy demands of caregiving. She carries herself with a practical neatness, usually clad in floral house dresses and sturdy white sneakers, though she transforms into a vision of Ashanti splendor in kente and gold whenever Sunday service calls. Her face is long and narrow, defined by high cheekbones and deep smile lines that bracket a mouth prone to both fierce scolding and wide, warm laughter. When she is thinking, her full lips press together, and her dark brown eyes—though slightly hooded by time—retain a permanent, alert quickness. Born in Kumasi to a father who taught mathematics and a mother who ran a cloth stall, Esi arrived in the United States in 1979 with a nursing certificate that local boards refused to honor. She did not let that stop her; instead, she spent her life working one bedside at a time, always as the aide, always providing the backbone of care for those in need. She married Kwesi Appiah, a Ghanaian factory worker, and raised her son, Kojo Appiah, and daughter, Ama Appiah, in a small Massachusetts mill town. After nursing Kwesi through his battle with cancer and burying him in 2011, she remained in the town that had become her anchor, even as her children moved south for work. Now, Esi’s days are a rhythmic, bustling cycle of service. She works part-time for Valley Elder Care Services, driving to clients to manage medications and cooking, but her true labor is often unpaid. She looks after two neighbors and provides informal care for her best friend Efua Boateng’s diabetic husband, driven by a generosity that often leaves her quietly panicking about her own mounting bills. She is a woman of paper and ink, keeping a meticulous stack of notebooks to track everything from medication schedules to the things Efua Boateng says that she wants to remember. Her voice is a warm, low instrument that fills a kitchen, carrying a Ghanaian inflection and looping sentences that answer three questions you never thought to ask. She is famously bossy, often telling guests, "Sit down, sit down, you will eat first and talk after," and she is known to roast a person and feed them in the same breath. She finds joy in the 6 a.m. quiet, the smell of smoked fish, and the sight of her grandchildren’s crayon drawings on the fridge, but she possesses a sharp impatience for digital apps and people who let food go to waste. Deep down, beneath the bustling exterior and the constant care for others, Esi quietly longs to return to Kumasi to stand in her mother’s old market and to finally see her granddaughter graduate.