Should We Run?

I was thinking about the incredible memories of contrast during 1982.

The reasons for the military coup were many. But since I was not born and raised in Ghana, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to provide opinions on the merits of the military taking over. Historically over many years, there has been a pattern of military coups as a reaction to a corrupt civilian government. Originally British colonists packed up and left, leaving the infant infrastructure to fend for itself. Layered on top of that are issues of expected compliance with the IMF and World Bank, loaning money to a developing country at low interest rates, but also demanding economic reforms which resulted in the public's perception of high interest rates with rampant inflation. Western countries provided economic assistance contingent on their ability to dictate the political development of Ghana. Noncompliance meant its leaders were labeled as pawns of Castro and socialism, or tools of the USSR. Years of corruption, or as we say in Twi kalabule, had created an environment ripe for volatile change. High inflation rates, skyrocketing food costs, soaring transportation costs all lead up to masses of people struggling to make ends meet and to feed their families. The continent of Africa is very complex, and each country has its own stories of hardship and pain at the expense of its people. But ultimately, it's not easy to determine exactly who is to blame.

Unfortunately, the legacy of unjust economic and fiscal reform is still wreaking havoc across the developing world. With the recent economic collapse experienced in Europe and the United States, we are starting to understand the pain that the continent of Africa has been enduring for generations. The error we keep making though, is to assume that politicians will fix these economic problems. Nothing short of a spiritual solution providing for a moral shift in mankind will solve the economic issues that the world faces. According to Oxfam's report "Working For The Few: Political Capture and Economic Inequality" published January 20, 2014, just one percent of the world's population controls nearly half of the planet's wealth. This tiny slice of humanity controls $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.

"Whatsoever passeth beyond the limits of moderation will cease to exert a beneficial influence. Consider for instance such things as liberty, civilization and the like. However much men of understanding may favorably regard them, they will, if carried to excess, exercise a pernicious influence upon men…. Please God, the peoples of the world may be led, as the result of the high endeavors exerted by their rulers and the wise and learned amongst men, to recognize their best interests."-- Bahá’u’lláh, Founder of the Baha'i Faith

Ghana is fraught with examples of extremes of wealth and poverty. Back when I was a student, I stayed at the Baha'i Center when I went to Accra. I could see across Ring Road a one story building and next to it an eight story building. In between the two there was a sign that read Ajeshie Hotel. I never saw anyone stay at that hotel though, so one day I asked why. The clerk who worked at the Center laughed, pointing out that the reason I never saw guests at the hotel was because the hotel was the one story building behind the hedge, and the 8 story building was the house built by a man who had a reputation for skimming money from his construction contracts with the government.

The military coup was a reaction against this excess and corruption, and an effort to shut down the black market which was the real economy in the country. The official exchange rate, for example, would mean a loaf of bread would have cost me about 50 dollars, but by exchanging money on the black market, that same loaf of bread was 50 cents. It was the only way to survive and people who did not have access to hard currency from a foreign source were hit hard. Since I couldn't withdraw dollars in Ghana, I had to keep my money in an account in Togo and each month I traveled over the border to pull out hard currency called CFA used by the Francophone countries and backed by the French Treasury. I hid the bills in the bottom of my shoes or sewed them into the handle of my suitcase, and then prayed as I crossed back over the border while being searched by Ghanaian soldiers, terrified if I was caught I would be taken into the small shack where I could hear the cries of civilians being beaten for trafficking money. When I got to Accra, I met with a money changer in a dark house to get local currency called the Cedi, hoping to God I would not be discovered because the military would shoot anyone on site for changing money on the black market. Many years later as Ghana's economy boomed, the restriction was taken off the government-imposed exchange rates, so monetary exchange is now conducted legally out in the open.

At one point, there was an attempt to devalue the Cedi by reissuing currency, so everyone was required to bring their cash to a bank and exchange it for the new bills, making the old bills useless. A woman living in Bomso, the neighborhood just outside the university gate, was a successful waxprint cloth seller who used the black market rates for her prices. She was so successful that she had a room filled to the ceiling with Cedis. Rather than take the risk to exchange all her money and be beaten to death by the military for conducting black market business and hoarding, she decided it was better to  hide the evidence, so she burned her house down.

And with the military shutting down the black market, the shop owners and mommies refused to bring their goods to the market to sell at official prices set up by the military government. One auntie told me, "Hmm, mo bo dam, paa. They are crazy. I paid ten Cedis for this, and I need to sell for a profit to feed my children. But now the military wants me to bring it to market and sell for one Cedi? Enye, koraa. Don't mind them. I will sit down and I will stay home." And as the markets shut down,  each day came with an increased challenge to find even basic foods.

Some staples became luxuries, like bread. Bread is not traditionally Akan, it was adopted from the Dutch and the British. Bakers build huge clay ovens at their homes, getting up before sunrise to bake and sell bread to neighbors and sellers who take the loaves to the market first thing in the morning.

As time went on in 1982, bread became non-existent because flour at the official rate was ridiculously expensive and supplies were scarce. One day though, Auntie Bea had heard rumor that the woman who baked in Adwaso village near the Ridge Road gate to the university had found a supply of flour and had started baking again. She asked me to go and see if I could beg her for a few loaves to sell to us. Since I was an obruni or white man, the baker would be more comfortable to sell to me since she would know I was not part of the military government or a member of the "people's revolution." I got up at dawn and walked to the woman's house with a piece of waxprint cloth about the size of a bed sheet which I would use to wrap up the bread. As I approached her house, the smell of the baking bread that came from her clay oven was heavenly. We struck up a conversation and I let her know that there were three children at the house with us, and the bread would help greatly. She was very kind, and let me know I could purchase as much as I liked. Knowing that we would probably not see bread for a long time, I asked if I could buy everything she had left - 25 loaves. She agreed.

I stacked the loaves up in my cloth, tied it like a knapsack, and slung the huge parcel over my shoulder. Walking back to the house and carrying such a huge stash of bread was terrifying. At any moment a military truck could drive through, or one of our neighbors could become suspicious and create a scene. I remembered that there was a gap in the iron rods of the university fence, so instead of going to the gate where I would have drawn attention, I went through the bush and found the hole in the fence. Somehow I made it back to our house on campus with no one noticing.

Auntie Bea's reaction to my having bought all 25 loaves was a mixture of joy and rage. Joyfully happy because she knew she would have something for us for breakfast for awhile, but at the same time just as angry as anyone's mother would be, scolding and reprimanding me for having taken such a risk. She yelled at me, "Yaw, you could have been caught and the whole family would have been taken to the barracks and beaten!" I sat at the dining table, taking my punishment while Auntie Bea yelled and cut the loaves to store them in the freezer. By the time she was done, she put her hands on both my cheeks and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Ayekoo, Yaw! Well done!" To this day every time I visit the Asares, Aunie Bea tells the story and laughs.

Finding provisions continued to get more and more difficult in Kumasi, so one day Mawushi and I decided to take the bus to Accra and see what we could find for our families. We braved the checkpoints with the soldiers, and when we got to Accra we hit the streets to start combing the shops. Imagine how surreal it was to walk into a grocery store, finding nothing. Everyone was as quiet as we were, looking at the bare shelves and realizing the gravity of the situation.

We continued to systematically hit store after store. We found a French government issued 4 litre container of corn oil for cooking. We found a sack of Soviet rice. We found a 2 pound tin of processed American cheddar cheese, stamped "Compliments of the United States of America." 

We heard rumor that a shop a few blocks away had powdered milk that they were selling in rations. As we came around the corner we saw a queue of probably a hundred people meandering down the street, all waiting their turn. We shrugged at each other and got in line, knowing that this was going to take some time but we were in no rush to get anywhere.

We stood and waited in the hot sun, wiping our brows and getting drowsy in the heat of the afternoon. Suddenly, I heard the sound of trucks revving their engines, shifting gears to speed up, and the rattling sound of "pop! pop! pop!" My stomach sank and the hair on the back of my neck raised up. Mawushi and I spun around, and my heart stopped as everything turned into slow motion. Four huge flatbed trucks were barreling down the street with what must have been 100 soldiers, all armed with machine guns shooting over our heads to get the crowd to disperse. Everyone was scrambling and screaming. I turned to Mawushi and yelled as loud as I could so that he could hear me above the chaos, "SHOULD WE RUN?! SHOULD WE RUN?!" He looked around, and then pointed over my head and yelled back at me, "YES! LET'S GO!"

I have never run so fast in my life. We were dodging through the crowd, jumping over people who had fallen while trying to escape the machine guns. Screaming people were running in every direction, while babies on the backs of women were crying in terror. Mawushi kept pointing, and I then realized he was pointing to the doorway of an office set back a few feet from the sidewalk. The door was locked shut, so we turned and pushed our backs into the door, trying with all our might to disappear. Mawushi motioned to me to keep quiet. I stood so still that I was not breathing, terrified to draw the attention of the soldiers who were now passing us in the trucks. People were running everywhere with the deafening crack of machine guns firing.

We stood motionless. After a few minutes, it was quiet. Bending over, I gasped for air. The trucks and soldiers were gone and the gunfire had ceased. We slowly came out of the doorway; I tasted blood and realized I had bit my lip. As we peered out of the foyer, there was no one around, no signs of anyone. We walked out alone into the street. It was eerie to see it completely deserted. It was as if no one had been there at all.

A month later Nana, Akwasi and I were out on the grounds of Tech. We had gone to the post office on the campus so that I could check for mail from the U.S. It was a day off from school, so we were not in a rush. We decided to go for a long walk.

The grounds were beautiful. There were expansive manicured lawns, carefully groomed by the laga laga men who used cutlasses to keep the grass tidy. Beautiful acacia trees that bloomed with thousands of yellow or red flowers, and Bodi trees with white bark, filled with dark green leaves that stretched far over the lawns. Orchids, plumeria and anthuriums grew in carefully planted flower beds. It was peaceful with just the sounds of song birds singing and the chatter of monkeys in the trees.

As we walked, we saw that the clouds were coming in from the horizon, and soon thunder and lightening would promise wonderful tropical rain. Growing up in Southern California, I missed out on the spectacle of thunder storms, so each one was an event for me while living in Ghana. The homes at Tech were built with concrete block, and yet the thunder was so powerful that it could make the entire house shake. I learned to know when the rain was coming, because the wind would pick up and there was a scent of fresh water in the air.

We kept walking, keeping an eye on the horizon. But this was strange, there was no wind coming with this particular cloud. No rumbling of thunder in the distance. This cloud was too low, and not the usual army of towering thunder clouds. There was something very odd about it and it was moving very quickly.

The cloud steadily approached us over the canopy of the rain forest at the edge of the campus, and as it got closer we noticed the color was strange. Thunder clouds are white on top and dark grey on the bottom, with flashes of lightning that jumped from cloud to cloud. This cloud had none of that. It was silver grey throughout.

And it had become silent. The birds had stopped singing and the monkeys had stopped their fussing.

Our curiosity was soon overcome by concern. We stood still on the pathway at the edge of the vast lawn, and watched what was coming towards us. It got bigger and bigger, moving very quickly and changing color. It was no longer grey, now it was a pale blue.

Frozen in awe, I whispered barely loud enough to be heard, "Should we run, you guys? Should we run?"  Nana whispered back, "No Yaw, not yet. Let's see what happens."  We stood still. The cloud was now an iridescent bright blue, and was shifting and churning like flowing water. Soon it was upon us. And then we were completely engulfed in it.

It must have been a million sparkling blue butterflies. Thousands landed on us while the cloud circled and enclosed us, as if to greet us and tell us that there was nothing to be afraid of. We started to quietly laugh in disbelief. Each of us stood with our arms outstretched, covered head to toe with blue butterflies, each resting their wings.

The silence was incredible. It was so quiet that all we could hear was our breath and the breeze rustling the leaves of the silk cotton trees high above us. Nana whispered, "Aren't you glad we didn't run, Yaw?" I whispered back, "Yeah."

It was impossible to tell where our bodies ended and the cloud of shimmering blue light began. I felt as if I was part of the cloud, and that my body had dropped away. I'm sure Nana and Akwasi felt the same. Millions of glittering wings, catching the light and reflecting the sparkling blue.  

The moment seemed to stand still. Just the three of us in a pool of blue light, a  chorus of tiny wings softly lifting and falling, lifting and falling. Once they were rested after a few minutes, they took flight just as gently as they had landed on us, joining the circling cloud which then continued to float towards its destination in complete silence, up and over the forest canopy. We didn't move. We didn't say a word. We just stood and watched the cloud disappear into the distance, wondering where they were going to. We had just witnessed something sacred, as if the essence of joy had just past through us and we had touched the spirit of God; a moment imprinted on each of our souls, witnessing the perfection of nature and our Creator. This was beauty that could only be created by the divine. As we looked at each other, the words to describe what had just occurred would not come. Nana smiled and motioned to us, and we continued on our walk in silence.

For many Ghanaians those were years of unbelievable suffering. Hunger, danger and political chaos were part of our daily lives and yet we endured. We found our strength through our families and in our faith, carrying on with life as best we could while maintaining our human dignity as we struggled to take care of those around us.

And yet in spite of great hardship, the human spirit seems to blur those horrible memories over time. And the treasured memories? They get clearer and more vivid as the years go on. I look back and I can't remember the faces of the soldiers. I don't remember the hunger from rationing food into two small meals a day. But I do remember every single moment of joy I felt when I first met my brothers Nana and Akwasi, of the serenity listening to a choir and the beat of the talking drums calling out in the quiet night during my visits to the villages to meet with our Baha'i brothers and sisters, and the humbling sacredness I felt when Nana gave me my naming ceremony and the name Yaw under the full moon in a clearing in the rain forest.

I realize looking back that we endured the suffering because there were moments like this, receiving a glimpse of eternity in a cloud of a million butterflies, confirming our faith in such a simple, exquisite and profound way.

 Euphaedra Medon Medon

Native to Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.

Finding My Way Home to Oguaa

Things started to come together very quickly after I made up my mind to go back to Ghana to assist the Baha'i community. Akwasi advised me to write a letter to the National Spiritual Assembly and also get in touch with an old friend, Mawushi Nutakor who was now serving as one of the Auxiliary Board Members to the Continental Counselors. These institutions work to support and assist the local Baha'i communities to develop and grow.

Mawushi and I were also close friends when I was at KNUST in 1982. He's another friend with an amazing story about how he became a Baha'i. A couple years younger than I am, he was a student at Mfantsipim Secondary School in Cape Coast. A fervent believer in fundamentalist Christianity like Akwasi, he planned on proving that the Baha'i Faith was false and contrary to Christian doctrine. His father was a lecturer at KNUST, so when he was home on breaks from school, he also attended the firesides at the Shapiros. And let's just say he was far more head strong than Akwasi.

Auntie Bea introduced us. I was taken aback because Mawushi immediately started asking questions, quoting scriptures and passages from the Bible. Auntie Bea practically threw her hands up in the air and told me that since I was raised Christian, I was now responsible for carrying on these discussions with him. One night we got onto the subject of the Holy Trinity, and this was one of my favorite subjects. Baha'is believe that the concept of the Holy Trinity is like the reflection of the sun in a mirror. The Father is the sun itself providing light and heat for life, the Son which is the Manifestation that I had previously referred to, is symbolized by the mirror having the ability to reflect the knowledge of the Father in the same way the mirror reflects the image the sun, and the Holy Ghost is like the rays of sun reflected from the mirror - redirecting the heat and light from the rays. At about 3:00AM in the morning, he finally got very quiet. I think I had finally exhausted him.

As Mawushi tells the story, he went back to Mfantsipim and would not stop talking about the Baha'i Faith. His schoolmates were so astounded that one actually said to him, "You talk so much about this Baha'i Faith that you should become one of them."

When he came home for his next break, Mawushi came by the house to visit. He was very quiet. His animated quoting of Christian scripture and proposing arguments against the Baha'i Faith were no more. He told us that he wanted to be a Baha'i.  And with that, Ghana was blessed with one of the hardest working, most well read and charismatic Baha'is I know. His dedication is tireless. He travels in his 4 wheel drive truck all over the Accra and Central Regions, meeting with the Baha'is and encouraging their efforts to spread this amazing message.

Back in the 80's, soon after I came back to the U.S., Mawushi left for France for many years to continue his education, returning to Ghana with his beautiful wife Cecile and their wonderful children.

So, about my trip home. I decided to leave it in the hands of the National Spiritual Assembly and Mawushi to decide where I could be the greatest assistance during my month long trip. I secretly hoped that I would be able to go to Kumasi and revisit all the villages that I had grown to love there, but they decided that it was best that I go to Brafoyaw to stay with Uncle Prince and Auntie Aggie Abaidoo, and their  family.  I didn't even know where Brafoyaw was. I looked it up using Google maps and found it was just east of Cape Coast near Moree Junction, the town of Moree which is a 400 year old fishing town, and the town of Yamoransa  - all within a 5 minute ride by taxi.

The Fante people have spent centuries in the area, and the actual name for the city is Oguaa in Fante. Cape Coast is actually a name given by the Portuguese and later translated to English by the British who took over the Cape Coast Castle. It was originally built by the Portuguese in the late 15th century and later taken over by the Dutch in 1610, the Swedes in 1652 and then the British captured the Castle in 1664.  The British staged much of their slave trade from the Castle, as well as El Mina Castle further west of Cape Coast along the beach. I'll tell the story of Alex Koufie and I touring the Castle in a later post. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever experienced, witnessing the depths that mankind can sink to.

Before I traveled to Ghana, there were a lot of details to cover. A mosquito net, a yellow fever inoculation (ouch), a prescription for Malarone, reading materials, shorts and t-shirts, a new pair of filp-flops that we call "charlie wortes" which is slang in Ghana for "Charlie, let's go!", and a crash course in the Baha'i guidance on how to establish Junior Youth Groups. The Baha'i community all over the world has been working to assist young people to come together and form their own non-denominational service groups which provide service projects to their local communities. This can be anything from mentoring children to neighborhood beautification efforts. My friend Al Cadena put me on a marathon course to be ready for my trip. The request from the National Spiritual Assembly of Ghana was to have me assist a couple of Baha'i youths, Alex Koufie and Sammy Arthur, who were working in the area with Uncle Prince to try to get these groups together.

My flight to Amsterdam took 11 hours, and I remember feeling that Ghana was a million miles away. I had a lay-over in Amsterdam for several hours. And then it hit me. I was waiting in the terminal for my KLM flight to Accra, and a couple sat next to me speaking Twi. I had not heard the language spoken like this in 24 years and just the sound brought everything flooding back to me.

As I sat there, the clock slowed down. It seemed that the announcement to board the flight was taking forever. I became anxious, wondering if Ghana had changed so much that I would not recognize it. Or worse, had I changed so much that my memories were distorted in time? I had never been to the Fante land. Would I love these people as much as I loved the Asantes in Kumasi?

We boarded the plane and I was one of the first to be seated. I watched Ghanaian business men filing into the plane, impeccably dressed in suits and ties. Women in the traditional kaba, skirt and apron assisting their small children to get to their seats and settle in. A woman sat next to me and I recognized that she was wearing a gold necklace from Ghana. There is no other color of gold like the gold mined in Obuasi, near Kumasi. It has a beautiful rich hue from the yellow side of the gold spectrum.

I introduced myself by saying, "Awuraa, wo ho te sen?" "Madam, how are you?"  She laughed and we were immediately friends. The thing about Ghana is that there is no "trial period" for friendship like we have in the U.S., where we painstakingly take small steps over months and months to establish a friendship. In Ghana, there are strangers and there are friends. And the shelf life of a stranger is a matter of minutes. It felt like everything was going to be OK.

After 9 hours of flight through the night from Amsterdam south over Europe and the Sahara desert, we finally woke up as the plane flew over Ghana approaching Kotoka International Airport. I peered out through the window. It was my Ghana. Forests and plains of a thousand hues of green, cut by dark blue rivers and bright orange clay roads. The plane landed and we disembarked to the terminal. It hit me as I got off the plane. Not only the familiar humidity and tropical heat, but the intangible relaxation of life slowing down, as if there was a collective sigh that every human being was part of.

I got through customs and immigration, and then walked as fast as I could along the long hallway with my rolling suitcase, knowing that at the end of it Akwasi and Mawushi would be waiting. What would they be like? How different was I? Did I remember everything exactly as it was?

"Hey! Yaw!"

There was Mawushi with his head above the others who were waiting for their family members to arrive. And there was Akwasi. I walked up to them. Akwasi and I just stood still for a moment looking at each other, saying nothing, only smiles of disbelief. I touched his cheek, and then his head of gray hair. Mawushi just kept laughing. It was as if time stood still. 24 years were reduced to yesterday. I was looking at my two brothers, seeing ourselves as we did in our youth, but also realizing that many years had gone by - each of us with a few extra pounds and the wrinkles we collected with our responsibilities of adulthood.

"Menua Yaw, akwaaba," Akwasi said, welcoming me as he teared up. "Yo. Me da wo ase, menua," I replied in thanks. Hugs were passed around, and a group bear hug too. I think we were trying to express the permanency of this special relationship, as if there was an unspoken promise that this bond must be cherished and protected for the rest of our lives. It was bittersweet because Nana was not there, but I wouldn't trade that meeting for anything in the world. No gold, no amount of money could replace that homecoming.

Akwasi's wife and children were still living in Cape Coast while he was transitioning to his new position in Accra as one of the regional heads of the Ministry of Mental Health. He stayed at the hospital while working in Accra, so I stayed the next couple days with Mawushi and his family. Mawushi has done an incredible job with improving his house in Accra, near the Lincoln International School where Cecile teaches and the University of Ghana at Legon where Mawushi is a lecturer in French. He has a whole zoo of animals, including a monkey named Gringo, a pet pig, ducks, geese, a couple fish ponds, cats and a dog named Floppy.

After a couple days, it was time to head to Cape Coast. We loaded up Akwasi's car with my luggage, and we were off. Getting out of Accra in traffic is indescribable. It is like nothing I've ever seen in Los Angeles. In 1982, Accra was still a sleepy town, but with the stability Ghana has experienced for 30 years there has been a boom in a middle class, and whole neighborhoods of beautiful houses, office buildings, high rises, hotels, restaurants and even a shopping mall with a state of the art multiplex movie theater have been built. I was impressed that I got to see the second half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" with digital projection and Dolby sound. There is a saying in Ghana now, "Accra is Ghana and Ghana is Accra." And while I enjoy the conveniences that have developed there, this isn't my Ghana.

We got out of Accra, driving along the coast westward. The roads are vastly improved with very few potholes and excellent asphalt providing a smooth ride. This was far different than the 80's.

And then there was the beautiful countryside that had not changed. This was my Ghana. The wide open fields of tall grasses, palm trees and immense forests of Acacia trees with thousands of bright yellow flowers as far as the eye can see. Villages appearing every few minutes with houses of brown clay walls and thatched roofs, with small boys chasing a bicycle wheel as they roll it with a stick, laughing and waving at the car as we drove by.

I was home. My soul was home. It is a feeling that cannot be forgotten. Your spirit reconnects with this land, your soul sends roots down into this precious soil and everything becomes familiar, comfortable. I was very quiet during that ride. Akwasi had Highlife music playing on the radio. We talked a bit about our lives that we had missed out on, but most of all I took in all the sights and sounds of home.

By the time we reached Brafoyaw, it was late. We drove past Moree Junction and then turned left on the small bumpy road up the hill into the village. Small kiosks were still open selling toothpaste, soap, sponges, onions, tomatoes and mangoes, each lit by candle light and attended by villagers sitting and visiting each other, catching up on gossip and news.  We finally stopped at the gate to a house, and out came Uncle Prince with his family to greet me, "Oh, this is very fine. Akwaaba. You are welcome."

My life was about to change forever.

Menua Akwasi

My bond of brotherhood with Akwasi represents everything in Ghana that is sacred to me.

About six months into my year there, I'll never forget sitting at lunch with a European woman working in Ghana who said to me, "I pity these people. They have no real food, no real culture and no real language."  I was dumbfounded that this woman had lived in Ghana for eight years and had come to this horrific conclusion. I'll save my thoughts on racism, prejudice, neocolonialism and ethnocentrism for later. Right now, I'll share my own insights about what I learned while living there among the people.

The best advice I received before I got to Ghana was to throw away the urge to make value judgements based on being an American. That value system does not work on the African continent, and if I was to be open I would discover why. And so I did that. I reminded myself repeatedly as I experienced the Asante culture living in Kumasi to be as Auntie Bea told me, "like a child who walks into a room - mouth shut and eyes wide open."

In southern Ghana, there are 6 major peoples that make up the Akan Society - the Asante in the area of Kumasi and Mampong north of Accra, the Akim in Oda, the Fante in Cape Coast, the Kwahu near Nkawkaw, the Krobo near Koforidua and the Akwapim in the hills near Aburi north of Accra.  These different peoples established a federal organization as far back as the 11th century, bound by oral traditions. Their languages were not written ones, but everything was carefully recorded to memory by Linguists who are part of the royal court, entrusted with the preservation of the people's histories, lineage and cultures. Additionally, there is the Ga people who migrated to the Accra area hundreds of years ago from the area now known as southern Nigeria and the Ewe people were split by the arbitrary colonial border set up by the British and French between Ghana and Togo.

The fabric of this federation was held together through a rich culture. It does not separate our lives in this world with the souls of the Nananom Nsamanfo in the afterlife; the Ancestors of our family who have left for the next world and watch out for us. It is a culture that believes that each person is a member of a community and individuality is subordinate to the community's well-being. It treats women and men equally in status in society, as most Akan peoples trace heritage and inheritance matrilineally. It holds true to the belief that children are the greatest gift that any of us can be blessed with and our community roles are to be as custodians for God, raising those children for Him. And it is a culture that understands that the burden of everyone's life is borne collectively by each of us, and we have a responsibility to take care of those around us so that we are never alone in this world.

Annie once told me that there is an Akan proverb that states, "The African wakes up with the name of God on his lips." This describes my entire experience with these kind and gentle people. Much of my understanding of their beautiful, rich, noble and holy ways came largely through my studies in the Art Department at Tech, studying Adinkra symbols, kente cloth and waxprint cloth-making.

To be greeted in the morning I'd hear, "Menua Yaw! Me ma wo akye! Wo ho te sen?!"  Ghanaians don't just say good morning like we do. They say with an open and loving heart, "My brother Yaw! I bring you light! How is your spirit?"

I met Akwasi on the same night I met Nana Boateng. We both have the same stature, kind of on the short side. But his presence and his incredible intellect intimidated me. It was as if he was the biggest person in the room, until I got to know him better.  He came from a humble background in Kumasi, born to a big Asante family and the first in his family to go to the university. He and I understood what this was like, having to navigate through the education system with no assistance or advice from our parents since they were not educated. And for an intellect like Akwasi's, he didn't take on just any discipline. He was a medical student. While Nana and I would get excited talking about oil pastels, paints, dyes, charcoal, light and shadows, Akwasi would light up telling us how hemoglobin worked with the respiratory system to oxygenate blood, or he would recite from memory every muscle in the human body. He had a passion for medicine.

He invited me once to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, where he did his clinical work assisting in the maternity ward. During the 1980's, medicine and medical supplies were hard to come by in Ghana so doctors were more like miracle workers, especially with the delivery of babies when mortality rates were high and it was almost impossible to create a sterile environment to prevent infection. Akwasi was brave; so resolute to be a master of his education and fearless to put it to use. But more importantly, I realized during that visit to the hospital that he had a burning love for mankind which defined his life's purpose.

We recently talked about each of our paths to finding the Baha'i Faith and how we decided to become Baha'is.

I was a strange child who started searching for truth when I was 12 years old, not satisfied with the answers from the priest at St. Therese Parish in San Diego where I grew up. Why were some people saved simply because of geography, while most of the rest of the world was not? Why did those people have a faith that they also dedicated their lives to in the same way we did, but we say that their beliefs are not from God?  Why do I have to depend on the authority of the priesthood to tell me how to interpret what I can read for myself? The response was always the same, to "accept it on faith and don't ask questions."

At 15 years old, I first studied Hinduism after reading "Kalki", a fictional account of the return of Krishna written by Gore Vidal. That lead me to Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. I read the Koran on my own, and fell in love with the confirmations it gave me as a Christian and its lessons about compassion. I found commonalities and a truth in each of them, but something was always missing as well.  I knew that I was looking for faith that would address the needs of our current world. I had not found that yet.

When I was 17, our neighbor across the street sent me to Moloka'i, Hawaii to work for her brother. She and Mike were Baha'is. This was all my mother knew - the name - and she told me the morning before I got on the plane to make sure I don't talk to the Baha'is because she was sure I'd have to shave my head.  Try telling that to a 17 year old boy.

When I got there, I immediately read a book called "Release The Sun" by William Sears about the early history of the Faith. I learned that Bahai's believe in the oneness of God, the oneness of Mankind, that science and religion must go hand in hand, that God sends divine messengers known as Manifestations, such as Moses, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha and Mohammad to educate mankind and to guide us in our progress. And in the late 1800's, God sent us another Manifestation named Baha'u'llah, Arabic for the Glory of God, to bring teachings to unite mankind and fulfill the promise of world peace as the previous Manifestations had all foretold. Nine days later, I became a Baha'i. This was what I was looking for.

During the early years of the Baha'i Faith as it spread over the globe, dedicated Baha'is took up the brave task of leaving their homes to settle in other countries in order to share the news. One such man was Enoch Olinga who left his home in Uganda at the request of Shoghi Effendi in 1953, settling in the Cameroons. Mr. Olinga in turn sent David and Esther Tanyi from the Cameroons in 1954 to bring the Baha'i Faith to Ghana. They are honored in Baha'i history as Knights of Baha'u'llah for their courageous service. Uncle David and Auntie Esther lived in Kumasi and were like family to me. Uncle David always smiled even during the tough times of the drought, and Auntie Esther was quiet and always prayerful. They had an older son named Enoch who was ahead of me in the university, and two younger teenage sons named Kwame and Yaw. Kwame and I became very close friends. We had a connection because we came from cultures outside of Ghana, and knew what it was like to be an outsider at times. Kwame was like a younger brother to all of us, and we we assisted him with tutoring and watched out for him so that he could get into the university. Tragically, we lost Kwame in 1983 to Sickle Cell Anemia.

Akwasi's story of becoming a Baha'i is far different than mine. He went to the firesides I had previously mentioned at the Shapiros home at KNUST for over a year. He went with the intent to discredit the Baha'i Faith since he was a devout Christian and suspected that the Baha'i Faith was contrary to his belief. Enoch Tanyi also went to those firesides, so one day Akwasi - always the studious intellectual - brought a handwritten list of no less than 300 difficult questions about the Baha'i Faith's perspective on complex Christian doctrine. He told Enoch that if Enoch could answer the questions, he would become a Baha'i. Enoch was clever, and answered 200 of the questions. But he told Akwasi that he had to find the answers to the last 100 on his own, and made his library of Baha'i books available to Akwasi.  Akwasi told me that as he researched the Writings of Baha'u'llah, his heart softened and he came to the conclusion that he was a Baha'i. He gave in to his heart and became one of the strongest, most educated and fearless proponents of the Baha'i Faith I have ever known in my life.  He later served for many years in many capacities of the administration of the Baha'i Faith, including being a member of the National Spiritual Assembly which is elected to steer the national community.

Akwasi also recognized my passion for the Akan traditions. I recall that one day he took me out to a village outside of town, and we met a Fetish Priestess. We sat with her for hours at a time, over the course of many visits, asking her about the traditional beliefs, what her role was in the village community and how herbal medicine worked. Akwasi patiently translated for me. It was absolutely riveting. I learned that traditional religious beliefs and herbal medicine play very important roles in the village community. The Fetish Priestess is responsible for the spiritual well being of the community, as well as the physical health of its members. She is the mid-wife who is responsible for the delivery of children and she is the the one to help assist with a person's journey through death, providing spiritual support to the family members and providing comfort to the dying so that they can pass with dignity and grace.

When my engagement dissolved, it was as if my soul was stuck in anger and something had died inside. And still, not one day went by that I didn't think about Ghana. I'd lay in bed at night and close my eyes, trying try to remember every detail. The sight of a thunder storm approaching from the distance over the dark green canopy of the rain forest, with lightening bolting out of black clouds as the wind picked up. The sounds of roosters crowing in the morning and the laughter of women as they walked at the crack of dawn to the market. The sights of men and women in traditional cloth on Saturday mornings on the way to funerals. The sounds of the tailor clacking his scissors to let people know he was walking through the neighborhood with his sewing machine balanced on his head. I'd remember Akwasi, Nana and I walking on the grounds of our beautiful campus. I'd remember the nights Annie and I would stay up until dawn with Andrew, Lisa, and Christina, talking about everything imaginable and laughing so hard it hurt. I'd remember the trips to the villages, walking along footpaths while tropical birds sang and monkeys yelled from the top of the canopy hundreds of feet above us. I'd remember the wrinkled faces of kind old village women who would greet me and feed me, give me a place to sleep in their mud huts and make me - a complete stranger - feel at home, part of their families and loved.

When I found Akwasi in 2009, it was after such a long period of darkness in my life that I was terrified he would turn away from me or hold resentment towards me for having cut off contact. It didn't happen. Instead, it was as if I had never left and the years and years of isolation had never happened. I was met with love and understanding. Akwasi helped turn me in the right direction to finding my way home.

I was about to go home.

My Brother and My Name

Menua, me do wo na ma fe wo papaapa.

In 1982, the journey from Accra on the Atlantic coast to Kumasi in the interior rainforest took five hours by bus as we stopped at military checkpoints in each town, where we were forced off the bus, body searched and questioned by the soldiers. It was terrifying because the soldiers were emboldened by their new authority from the coup and their machine guns. Being 20 years old, I never thought my sophomore year in college would turn out like this. But it wasn’t always scary. In incredible contrast, the ride through the rainforest was magical. The silk cotton trees were so tall I couldn’t see the top of the canopy. They were thick with vines painted a hundred shades of green, with monkeys and parrots that chattered at the bus as we wound along the two lane road. The wonderful rhythm of Highlife music played on the radio, keeping everyone in good spirits.

After the tanks and soldiers that policed us all night to enforce the curfew in Accra, Kumasi was a surprising change. It was everything I imagined what tropical West Africa must be like, with orange clay roads, dense rainforest as far as I could see, colonial buildings bustling with people in traditional cloth side by side with men in three-piece suits, and the biggest open-air market in West Africa. I settled in living with the Asare family at their home on the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, fondly nicknamed “Tech” by the students. Luckily there was a reprieve from the machine guns, since the soldiers weren't allowed on the campus. The university was built by Kwame Nkrumah who liberated Ghana from colonial rule in 1957, where the brightest minds of Ghana would be trained to help build the first African country to gain independence. Uncle Ben Asare was the Dean of the Agriculture Department; he was married to Auntie Bea and had three daughters away at school and a son named Andrew who would be my roommate before I moved into the dormitories.

I met Nana Abora-Boaten one night at the Asare's home. He and another student, Akwasi Osei, came to visit me. I remember how far away I felt from home. Everything seemed so strange and I felt I couldn't quite land on my feet; there was nothing to hold onto. Akwasi was very introspective and on the quiet side. Nana had a presence that filled a room. I tend to be quiet around people I don't know, but Nana wasn't about to let that happen. He had this infectious sense of humor that could disarm anyone. He asked me, "Why so quiet?! You can't come this far to be so very quiet! In Ghana there is no room for shyness! Tell us about who you are!" Akwasi and Nana sat on either side of me, making an effort to let me know I was welcome. 

It's the custom in Ghana to walk a guest half way home. When it was time for them to get back to their dorm rooms and study, Nana said to me, "Small boy, you must learn our customs. Come and walk with us." Nana and I took the lead, while Akwasi and another youth were behind us. As we all walked across the campus, I realized that my anxiety was lifting. Nana made me laugh. I felt after all I had experienced in Accra with the military, maybe now I could give Ghana a chance and I'd have some friends here. As we walked, I discovered that Nana was an art student like me, so we had a lot in common. It was easy to talk to him. We talked about everything - Picasso, Degas, traditional wood carving, and kente cloth. The next morning I showed him my portfolio of drawings I would submit to the university for review. I was worried, not knowing what he would think of them, but he took one look and loved my charcoal drawings. He declared that we were brothers. I didn't know what to think. I already had two brothers back in the States.

Unannounced visits are expected and always welcome in the Akan culture. Auntie Bea always had food on the stove. I asked her why, and she told me that you just never knew who would be stopping by. One afternoon Nana arrived with his portfolio he brought to share with me. It was like nothing I had seen before. His aesthetic was not what I was accustomed to. It was painterly, but with an expressionist feel to it. It was beautiful and he had incredible talent. He used bright colors and drew about the peaceful life of farmers in the villages, graceful women carrying clay water vessels on their heads, animated drummers playing the talking drums and happy babies carried on their mothers' backs on the way to the market. And while he had a gift for drawing, his passion was for textiles so he was studying kente weaving and waxprint design. He had samples of his weaving and later on he would show me his loom at his studio at Tech. It was a relief to know I had someone I connected with, and we could help each other in school. But Nana did not intend to be just another friend.

The next day Nana came to visit again, and the day after that, and the next day, and again on the next day after that. Finally with my best American suspicion and arrogance, I asked, "Why do you keep coming to see me every day?" Nana looked at me as if I had lost my mind and then became quiet. He replied, "Because you are so far away from home and I don't want you to be lonely." He just looked at me. I became quiet, realizing I had offended him. In America, we have friends because we do things together; we go to movies, we go to football games, we play basketball together. This was different. Sometimes Nana would come over just to keep me company; he wouldn't say a word, he’d just do his homework or write letters while I studied. He felt that just being in the room was enough to cure homesickness. It made sense because African children do not grow up alone. In Africa, companionship is a right given by God, so there's no such thing as loneliness or isolation in the Akan culture. "We all help to carry the burden of life on each others' shoulders," Auntie Bea would tell me. And Africans see right through our Western facade, getting past the wall we so carefully build in our civilized lives and looking right into our souls. It could be disarming, but the trade off for such vulnerability is a sense of belonging. It's worth it.

As the months went by Nana, Akwasi and I became inseparable. Across the vast lawns at the campus, you could always hear someone yelling, "There goes the three!" We were nicknamed The Three Muskateers.

Nana patiently taught me words and phrases in Twi, the language of the Akan. There are five major peoples who make up the Akan society - the Akim, Asante, Akwapim, Fante, and Kwahu. All share  Twi as the common language, although the Fante and Akwapim have their own dialects of Twi. Soon I was speaking so well that Auntie Bea told the family would have to speak in Akwapim because I knew too much Twi. Nana also taught me about the Akan proverbs and the Adinkra symbols that I would later study at Tech. Beautiful Adinkra symbols like the swirling fist of God called "Gye Nyame", which means "except God." Everything in life is a blessing from God and nothing is given to us without God's mercy. And the stylized mouth with teeth called "Bi nka bi" which means "no one should bite the other," signifying the importance of unity and acceptance of everyone in our community. The symbols are carefully carved into stamps made from calabashes and printed on cloth to tell a story. Adinkra cloth is traditionally worn by the royalty of the Asante people on special occasions.

I think fufu was my door into the culture. Nana was amazed that I loved the food and could eat fufu, the national dish. Most obrunis who come to Ghana have a hard time with food because it can be very spicy and the textures are not something we are used to. Fufu is made from boiled and pounded cassava and plantain, making a starchy dough that is covered with soup, eaten with the fingers and sort of swallowed and chewed. Nana sat quietly mesmerized, studying this white boy eating fufu and enjoying it. Nana would say, "My brother, you have tried!" But the thing is, I love fufu. It's soul food that sticks to my ribs and to my heart, made with the love of my Auntie's hands, making me feel comforted and loved.

Nana and I spent a lot of time in villages helping with research for the Art Department at Tech. After a while, it dawned on me that Nana was guiding me in order to bridge the gap between the people and me. Obrunis are treated with great hospitality, but it's understood that they typically do not know the Akan culture, they don't speak the language and do not eat the food. Nana's education connected me with the people. In the villages, I was humbled by the respect I was accorded simply because I showed a love and appreciation for the cultural traditions, the food and the language. But more importantly, Nana's teaching awoke something inside of me. It was as if I had known these people my entire life. I loved their way of life and I felt comfortable with them. In time as I became more accustomed to the traditional culture, we became as one. I learned what it meant to be part of the history of generations and a member of a community. I discovered what it felt like to wake up in the morning secure and happy because I had so many people to share my life with. No matter what challenge I faced, I was surrounded by family who were more than willing to help. 

I remember getting very sick with the flu, and Auntie Bea confined me to bed rest in my little twin bed upstairs. I stayed covered with a sleeping cloth made from traditional waxprint, and slept during the day while I fought the fever. On the third day, I woke up to voices outside the house and the sound of tree branches brushing against the roof. I sat up and peered out the window where I could see Nana way up in the mango tree, straddling a branch while he held a wooden crate box. Too feverish to keep watching, I laid back down and listened to Auntie Bea and Christina fussing at Nana in Twi to be careful. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps quickly coming up the staircase and Nana burst into my room. He dropped the crate, spilling over with mangoes, at the foot of my bed and asked me if this would make me feel better. He knew how much I loved mangoes. It took two more days for the fever to break, and Nana was there around the clock sitting at the foot of my bed, telling me stories and making me laugh.
 

On one of our research trips, Nana and I spent a weekend in a remote village north of Kumasi near Mampong, the second royal capital of the Asante people. In a mud brick hut, we were given a small room with nothing more than a bed and a neatly swept dirt floor. The village women knocked first, coming into our room with our meal, crouched low to the ground because it's considered disrespectful to enter a room with your head held higher than that of the guest. They carried several white enamel pots, filled with nkontomeri and yams. Nkontomeri is made with the dark green leaves of cocoyams, boiled like we prepare collard greens and mashed using the tapoli and asanka bowl, then mixed into sauteed onions, garlic, red pepper and spices. Grilled pieces of fish or chicken is mixed into the stew. Yams are not like our sweet potatoes. The flesh is similar to potatoes, but pure white without the hint of bitterness. We ate the traditional way, sharing the pot with our right hands, using a piece of yam and our fingers to catch the stew. The food was excellent, and we were fed so much we couldn't breathe. It was important to eat everything we were given or risk insulting the cook and embarrassing the host. After we ate, we went outside to enjoy the evening. The villagers were all sitting by candlelight, quietly chatting and laughing, playing oware and enjoying the cool evening breeze. Across the village, we could hear a choir singing traditional hymns in Twi. From deep in the rainforest came the voices of the talking drums conversing between two villages. Monkeys chattered and fussed hundreds of feet above us in the canopy. Life was not complicated, it was essential. That night I felt a peace that I had never felt in my life.

A few weeks later back in Kumasi, it was very late one night while I was studying. Nana grabbed me from my desk and told me we were going for a walk. I was puzzled as he walked me out into the rainforest just outside one of the gates at Tech. The sky was crystal clear and heavy with stars, sparkling through the high branches of the rainforest canopy way above us. Birds were still singing and bush babies were yelling out their night calls. We walked along the footpath winding through the forest, lit by fire flies and the full moon's rays that peeked through the tree tops. Nana refused to tell me what we were up to until he found a spot in a clearing where the moon was directly overhead. The air was warm and still. I looked up; millions of stars and the moon were so close that I could have reached up and touched them. He brought out a flask while asking if I knew what day I was born on. I told him it was a Thursday and asked him why. Nana poured libation onto the ground while reciting a prayer. Then I realized why he had brought me here. This was my naming ceremony, a sacred ceremony given to children of the Akan on the eighth day after their birth.

Nana Nyame, mekyere wo nsu, na menma wo nsu

Nana Nyamewaa, mekyere wo nsu, na menma wo nsu

Osoro, gye nsu nom

Asaase Afua, gye nsu nom

Abosom nyinaa, gye nsu nom

Abusuafo pa, gye nsu nom

Me Ntoro, gye nsu nom

Nananom Nsamanfo, gye nsu nom

Me Asamanfo pa, gye nsu nom

Nana recited this prayer, in which an offering is made to Nyame and Nyamewaa who are the masculine and feminine attributes of the one Supreme God, to the Abosom who are the deities protecting all of nature, and to the Nananom Nsamanfo who are the generations of the Ancestors whose souls have past on from this world to the next and watch out for us while keeping balance in our lives. Some may call them angels. Others may call them inspired souls. 

Nana then had me face him. He put a hand on each of my shoulders and told me that from this day on I was Akanfo, meaning a member of the Akan people. He called me menua, "my brother." And he gave me my soul's name, my kraden which is Yaw, the Akan name given to boys born on Thursday, used with great affection by close family members. Nana saw who I was. I didn't have the greatest memories of my own family life, other than turmoil and chaos. But underneath it, he saw who I was. This recognition overwhelmed me. It was an admission to myself that in order for others like Nana to see me, I needed to see myself. I needed to trust that at the end of this journey, there I would be standing, accepting who I really am. 

The Akan believe that the souls of infants wait in the next world in a pool of collective consciousness, and when the time is right the kra, or soul of the child chooses its parents, finding its way down to this world through Lake Bosumtwi near Kumasi and joining the child upon conception. The baby will be born on that kra's day of the week, so the kra of Yaw is always born on a Thursday.

My name comes from the spirit of Awuo, the planet Jupiter, who is my protective Abosom and part of my soul. The spirit of Yaw is guided by Preko the great boar who is focused, determined and not easily discouraged. With this ceremony, I joined the lineage of generations going back in history for centuries, our names remembered by our linguists who keep our oral traditions and the record of our family. I became part of the traditions of royal ceremonies, of the wisdom in the proverbs and story telling that our people have cherished for a thousand years. My great grandchildren will sit at the feet of their grandmothers, listening to stories of a young man who came from far across the ocean to become their Nana Yaw.

From that day on, I have never heard anyone in Ghana call me Dennis. I am Yaw. My soul is forever joined with the Akan people through my kraden. Every time I hear it said, it's a reminder of the gift that my dear friend Nana gave me, the gift of belonging.

Towards the end of 1982 the situation in Ghana became much worse, partly due to the worst drought that the continent of Africa had seen in decades, but also because of the increasing difficulty caused by the military government. We were tired from hunger. We were down to two meals a day because of the shortages of food. Fufu and kenkey were eaten rarely, but since the maize used to feed cattle was still available, we ate a mashed form of it called banku every day.

Even still, I had work to do. During my last month before I left the country, I lived among the Kusase people in the village of Timonde in the north, near the border of Burkina Faso. A project of a tutorial school for farm children was set up at no cost to their families. I was there to assist the teacher to settle in. 

Getting there was a challenge. I rode on the top of the cab of an eighteen-wheeler transport truck, directly above the driver. It was amazing, with the wind blowing while I rode through the sub-Saharan scrub land, past beautiful villages of round clay huts. Thousands of exotic birds would fly along side the truck as we made or way along the winding dirt roads through fields of yams and millet. The millet fields were like oceans of long grass, waving in the wind as far as I could see. Since the curfew was in effect nation-wide, we had to sleep on the side of the road. Even that was an adventure, since we could hear animals howling in the night. It took 18 hours to drive to Bolgatanga, then a taxi for two hours to Zebilla, and then we walked for five miles through the millet fields to Timonde. When I arrived, the villagers formally greeted me. Tall men shook my hand and inquired about the health of my family. The women knelt and offered their hand while patting me on the back and asking about my own well-being. The small children screamed and ran in horror with their hands thrown up. They called me the ghost. They had never seen a white man. There was no electricity and no running water. This was as far away as it possibly gets from any reference I had to my own life.

photo courtesy of Mary Jane Cassidy

I stayed with the chief of Timonde, a very quiet but imposing man. He was tall - probably 6'5" - and walked with such grace that it was as if his feet did not touch the ground. He had three stunningly beautiful wives and ten children who worked very hard on their farm. His senior wife allowed me to come into her kitchen and watch as she and the two junior wives prepared our meals.

The chief's house was a very large compound of round rooms made with clay walls from mud and dung, and covered with thatched roofs. The construction was ingenious because the clay dried hard, and was then hand-polished. Each compound also had a polished clay floor. It was spotless, and the walls and floors were decorated with intricate abstract designs that told the stories of the Ancestors and mankind.

The chief honored me by giving me the room with the most spiritual significance to his home. It was the room that held the fetish. It was a matted ball of feathers and blood, twice the size of a basket ball and used in ceremonial sacrifices to the Ancestral gods for good crops and healthy children. The chief was proud of his culture and I was humbled by this gesture that he would have me stay in the holiest place in his home.

There was a young man there who could translate the Kusase language for me. One night, as the chief's eldest son Kuma and I sat on goat skins near a fire looking at the stars, we talked about what we wanted out of life. He told me he wanted an education, to be able to see the world and provide a good life to his family. This young man's life was as far removed from mine as it can possibly get, and yet he was so much like me. The chief came out afterwards and sat with us. A few days prior to this he had asked me about my family name, and he was very pleased that it was Hunter. That night, he presented me with a rolled up piece of handwoven cloth. He unrolled it for me, and there was a mud painting depicting a hunter in ceremonial dress and mask, hunting an antelope and a guinea fowl. I have that painting framed in my living room.

I was fascinated by the farming techniques they used. Guinea fowl are beautiful birds with grey feathers and white heads. They have the capability of full flight, but the Kusase would trick them by taking the eggs and having chicken hens raise the chicks. They never learn how to fly and run freely through the compound. The cattle and goats are kept in a large room inside the compound at night. At first this seemed strange to have them penned so close to where we slept, but then I realized that the body heat from five head of cattle generates efficient heat for the entire house on cold nights.

I still think of the chief, Kuma and the family. The Kusase are a quiet and incredibly noble people. Their music was inspiring. Their love of God and their faith humbled me. In that month I learned more about the concept of faith in God than I could have learned in a lifetime living in the United States.

The trip back to Kumasi was alarming, and it was an indication of the tension created by the drought and the public's frustration with the military. While getting through the military check point in Bolgatanga, I was pulled into a shack and questioned for being a CIA spy. I prayed for protection as a drunken soldier waived a Russian machine gun in my face. I repeatedly reminded him I was a student and showed him my ID card. He finally gave up and motioned me to get out of his shack.

When I got back to Kumasi, there were reports coming from Accra that expatriates were being hassled and beaten. I had to quickly decide what to do, because there was a threat that the universities would close again because of student protests. Should I stay another year, or get back to school in the States? I consulted with Auntie Bea and Uncle Ben, and it became clear that I needed to go back and finish my degree. I had wanted to stay, but the risk was too great. I packed and in a few days I was ready to go to Accra and get on a plane.

 
Nana was heartbroken by my decision. For two days he didn't speak. By that time, we were roommates at Independence Hall at the university. I would catch him looking at me, saddened. The day came for me to head to Accra, and he told me that he and some of my friends would see me off. What I didn't realize was that there were ten of my friends with Nana and everyone rode the bus for five hours to Accra to see me off at the airport. That goodbye was one of the most difficult things I have experienced in life. I know that Nana had a very hard time with it as well.

He and I stayed in touch by writing letters about once a week. I would tell him about my studies in the Art Department at San Diego State University. He would tell me about his latest waxprint project for school, or the kente weaving he was working on. At the end of each letter, he would ask me when I was coming back.

And there was someone else I kept in touch with. While at Tech, I fell in love with a beautiful Akwapim girl. She was a music student who had a beautiful voice, played the guitar and was studying traditional drumming for her degree. She had a wonderful sense of humor, she was kind, stunningly beautiful and so easy to be around. We started out as friends at school, and then I found out through a friend that she had feelings for me right about the time I was leaving the country. Since we were both still in college, we decided to stay committed through letters and see where this lead. After four years we finally decided to ask for the consent of our parents to get married, according to Baha'i marriage laws.

Since she was Ghanaian, I also had to follow tradition so I flew back to Ghana in 1986 to speak with her parents about the consent. My friend Mawushi picked me up at the airport. After four years I felt like I had never left. It was that feeling you have when you walk through the door of your home after being away on a trip. Nana met me in Kumasi, and I remember he practically smothered me with a hug. I stayed for a month with Nana as my host, as he orchestrated this meeting for marriage consent. My fiancé and I spent a lot of time together, going for long walks at the university campus and planning our future together.

"Adoa" by Nana Abora Boateng

During that time Nana took me on a trip to his hometown Oda in the lands of the Akim, his people. His mother was a farmer, raising all kinds of crops as well as beautiful white pigs. Her house was simple, and I bathed from a bucket of water each night, standing on a slab of concrete in the moonlight. Nana took me everywhere in Oda - where he went to primary school, where he went to church, and to his secondary school where he painted a beautiful mural entitled "Adoa". The title comes from the Adoa dance, which is very traditional in the Akan cultures. He depicted a woman dancing with a scarf in her hand, and drummers and musicians surrounding her. Nana was sharing his life with me, and he told me that in order for me to understand a brother, I must know his history.

I had several meetings with her parents. They were primarily concerned with what my plans were after college. I explained that I was focused on getting into graduate school at UCLA, studying ethnic symbolism and anthropology. Eventually I wanted to teach and do research. My fiancé's parents were very supportive of our decision to get married and once the consent was granted, it was about time for me to get back to the States.

A few days before I left, Nana and I spent the day in his flat. We didn't say much and it reminded me vividly of the first days that I got to know him, when he would come to visit me to keep me from getting homesick. Nana suddenly became very serious and asked me to sit down so he could talk with me. He was so serious and his heart was heavy. It was puzzling because he was so happy that I was there. He attempted to tell me something, but he stumbled to find the words. Finally, he grabbed my hand and almost crushed my fingers, and he told me he was not nearly as strong in his faith as I was and he prayed that I would not judge him for decisions he was about to make in his life. I told him that I would never judge him, and that he was my brother. I didn't realize that this was a plea for help.

Nana took me to the airport and in front of my fiancé, our friends and a crowded airport Nana completely broke down. This bear of a man sobbed like a child, taking both my hands and refusing to let go. With tears running down his face and sobbing uncontrollably, he told me that he would never forget his brother Yaw and that he would never have a friend like me ever again. He gave me a bracelet that I wear today and told me there is a belief among the Akim people that the bracelet is modeled after a type of grass that grows in the villages. No matter if you dig it up or try to burn it out, the grass will always grow back. This bracelet is given to a close friend to signify the importance of that bond. He told me to remember that no matter what we were like that grass.

All of my American friends pitched in to help out with the wedding plans since my fiancé would only have a month in the U.S. to get married under her visa. Even my mom stepped in to work with the florist. During this time, my fiancé called me from London to tell me she was traveling to see friends while she was killing time waiting for the visa.

Finally a couple months later, exactly a year after I got back from asking for consent from her parents, I cabled her to let her know her visa was finally approved. I had spent hours each day waiting in line at the U.S. Immigration Service, processing applications and paperwork. I worked two jobs so that I could save money for her plane ticket and to give us a start when we both moved to Los Angeles to study for our masters degrees. She waited a month to respond to my cable, and let me know she needed more time because she felt rushed. I agreed, and let her know I would wait as long as it would take. But I never heard from her again. Two years following that telegram, I discovered through friends that she had been dating someone else during the entire time of our engagement. The phone call from London was actually a shopping trip for her to buy a wedding dress on her way to Germany to meet this man's parents. She lied to her parents and told them that I had called off the engagement. I heard through friends that she was seduced by the relative wealth of this older man. She married him within a week after I had sent her the cable to let her know her visa had been granted to come to the U.S.

With that news, all my hopes of ever having a family and children snapped inside of me. The betrayal was blinding. The anger was a test that I could not bear, and I was so angry that I cut myself off from everyone I knew in Ghana. I didn't want anything to do with that country. I was going to put all of this behind me and try to forget that any of this had happened.

I poured myself into my career and for years became obsessed with having a bigger job title with a bigger office, losing contact with everyone in Ghana as I tried to destroy any recall of my life in Ghana, but in spite of all my efforts I could not destroy the memories. I finally admitted it to myself, in spite of what she had done - the rest of these people were my family. I told myself that one day I would somehow find Akwasi and Nana, and I would make things right again. One day I would go back and it would be like it had always been. But I used my ambition to make excuses. I fooled myself to believe that it wasn't ever the right time because of my career, because of a lack of time, because of money, because of any excuse I could come up with. But in the back of my mind I knew one day I would go. 

Later on I heard that Nana had entered into politics and became a member of parliament. This is what he was trying to tell me about his fear of not having enough strength. Nana had ambition and wanted to provide a better life for his family, but it conflicted with moral principles because unfortunately the practice of politics is connected with corruption in West African countries. Every now and then I would wonder about how he was doing, and how all my friends were getting along in life.

Then in 2008, 23 years after my last trip to Ghana, I found Akwasi through Facebook. We exchanged emails and phone numbers, and I called him. After a lot of tears and a lot of catching up, I begged Akwasi for Nana's phone number so that I could call him immediately. I could feel my heart beating like it was about to explode. I would finally be able to fix the past and reconnect with this dear brother of mine, whom I had never forgotten as hard as I had tried. Akwasi became quiet. He stumbled as he told me I must not have heard the news. I asked him, "Akwasi, what news?" Not too long before this phone call, Nana had died in his house in Accra while his wife and children were in Oda. The neighbors had suspected something was wrong because for two days they had not seen him leave the house. They sent their house boy to see if Nana was OK, and he found him in bed. He had died in his sleep, alone.

The wind had been knocked out of my lungs; it felt like someone was standing on my chest. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think straight, so I asked Akwasi if I could call him back later. I put down the phone, feeling the hurt surface from deep inside. I cried. It came from a place deep in my soul. It was the pain of having lost the most influential person in my life, and it was the pain of having let him down when he had asked me to be there for him. The last conversation I had with him when he begged me for help played over and over in my head. The guilt was overwhelming. I didn't sleep for three days, laying awake and remembering all of our time he spent with me to heal my homesickness and all those moments we had at the university in Nana's studio, laughing and talking while we studied. I dug into my storage chest where I keep my grandmother's wedding ring and my grandfather's pocket watch. I put Nana's bracelet on and promised him I would never take it off again.

I decided that the only way I could cope with the pain and guilt was to somehow provide community service in Ghana, so I made plans that I would take my vacation and go back for a month to assist in whatever way I could, and I would dedicate my trip to Nana's memory. The direction of my life was about to change in a profound way.

I have to wonder if Nana had orchestrated everything for that trip to occur. I think Nana made a deal with God that if he could help set me back on course, then he would get to experience his own reckoning as well.

It all feels so unfinished.  I've never met Nana's wife or his children. I wonder how many sons and daughters he had. I wonder, is there a boy who looks just like him with those eyes that light up, who has his sense of humor? Does he have Nana's incredible heart? This is the hurt that I bear. I have to go back to Oda and find the family, and let them know what Nana meant to me. That he did not die without having touched and changed someone's life. I owe that to Nana. I owe so much.
 
I don't think we ever quite get over the loss of a loved one. We get past it. We learn to cope with it. The hurt sits in our hearts where we make room for it like an old friend as it greets us when we wake up in the morning and it says good night to us as we lie awake in the darkness, remembering. Sometimes I feel that I was never worthy to have such a friend. Even now the tears come, not because Nana passed away but because I lost irreplaceable moments with someone so important to me. And the tears come because he had asked me for help and I wasn't there for him. I have prayed every night for his forgiveness and in doing so, I have learned that forgiveness is the greatest and most powerful human virtue we have. And its not just forgiving others, but forgiving ourselves.

One day, Nana my brother. One day, you and I will be in the next life sitting with a big asanka of abenkwan and fufu between us, sharing the fufu in the traditional way, laughing like we always did and catching up on all those years we lost together. Until then, ma fe wo paa.

Education and Machine Guns

After trying for months to get a visa to go to school in Colombia, and finally being told that Americans were discouraged to go there due to the danger caused by the drug cartel, my good friend Cristy Athan returned from spending the summer in Ghana. I told her about my dead-end with Colombia, and she asked me if I would consider Ghana. Sure, why not?

Just as everything was set to go to Ghana, a military coup occurred on December 31, 1981. The borders were closed and the airport was shut down. We decided to still go, waiting nine days until the airport reopened. After a twelve hour flight to London, we flew another eight hours to Ghana over the Sahara desert.  The view is forever set in my memory. It was like a vast ocean of burnt orange, and I could see the paths that were originally used by camels on the Moslem Trade Route, carrying spices and fabrics into tropical Africa.

I arrived at Kotoka International Airport in Accra on January 12, 1982.  At the bottom of the stairs on the tarmac, I was met with a machine gun pointed at my head while a soldier pat-down searched me. I spent the night in Accra before heading for Kumasi, since there was a curfew and travel hours were limited. The danger of being caught on the road after the curfew started was too risky. 

That night I sat in the dark in the foyer of the guest house where I was to sleep, watching military tanks roll down the street while listening to the sirens announcing the start of the curfew for the night. Anyone caught out on the street after dark would be shot on site.

What on earth had I done coming here?

A Journal From Africa

The incredible life you are about to read is mine, through my journal of stories from my life in Ghana, West Africa starting with a year of service during my sophomore year at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in 1982. As destiny would have it, my life's path found its way back to Ghana after twenty-four years.

In finding my way back, I've been accepted as one of the Fante people and I've been blessed with being adopted by the Koufie and Abaidoo families living near Cape Coast, which I now call home.

Some of these stories are scary and others heartbreaking, but most are filled with joy and hope.

The future now holds the promise of returning to Ghana for good, to live the rest of my life with my family there and to be buried in the land I believe my soul came from.

My year of service changed everything about me. I hope that these stories will inspire youth to think beyond the safety and comfort of what is familiar, to take the initiative to go out and see the world, and to be of service to mankind. Please feel welcome to post your thoughts and feelings about my stories - you can do so at the bottom of each page.