Daabi.*
By Trish Tchume.
When I left for Ghana in March of 2016, I looked at it as a six month trip. The idea was simply to go, build a relationship with the country and with my family, and spend this time without a job thinking deeply about my purpose. I was staying with my retired uncle and aunt at their gorgeous house in the mountains of Aburi, and my day-to-days unfolded around those basic ideas.
I’d begin each day slowly with an hourlong meditation, another couple of hours of reading and writing, then a little bit of self-guided yoga before I even thought about emerging from my room. When I did, I was greeted by warm conversation, hearty breakfast, and a balcony overlooking the valley where I could sit and drink my coffee, paint, or chat with my my family or whoever else had dropped by. Most days turned around just one planned activity if that — a walk with my aunt, or an errand with my uncle. If I was feeling ambitious it might be a trotro ride to visit another auntie in Madina or a lecture or art opening in the city.
The pace was everything my life in Brooklyn was not and I’d never been happier.
So I think for everyone, (myself included) there was this question looming over my entire trip: “Is this move permanent?”
It wasn’t always a spoken question, though some people I met during my time there did ask explicitly. Others did more than ask, they insisted that Ghana was the natural place for me to be, even the better place for me to be. During my time there, Ghanaians watched from afar as Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were murdered on video within 36 hours of each other against the backdrop of the ugly wave of violence and racism Donald Trump was riding to prominence. It sometimes felt as though the US was hellbent on making the case for these folks, that the US is not for Black people. I remember attending an event and getting into a conversation in which the young Ghanaian dude sitting next to me, Yaw, asked in honest bewilderment, “You have the choice to come back home. Why would Black people in America choose to live in that cage?”
I don’t think there was ever one point at which I directly said no to the question of staying. It really was more of a series of decisions which resulted in the no (or at least the “not now.”) Some of the decisions were practical: one of my best friends was getting married and I at least had to go back for his wedding; I hadn’t found a job yet that seemed like a good fit; etc. But Yaw’s philosophical question was real and actually still haunts me every day. I think of it whenever I actually pause and reflect on the pace that my life has resumed since returning to the US. Or each time 45 makes it clear via action, inaction, or tweet that people of color are not considered to be of any value much less fully American.
So Yaw’s question remains valid and probably always will be. For now though I’ve concluded two things:
First, my experience in Ghana, though beautiful, made it clear to me that the “Africa is home to all Black people” narrative doesn’t really bear out.
On a social level, in Ghana even I as a Ghanaian-American was welcomed, but othered. On a personal level, Ghana is my homeland but it is not yet my home. I do not have the set of experiences and relationships there that would allow it to be. So to say we were “choosing the cage” implies that Africa or Ghana specifically is more of an option than I found it to be in reality.
Second, call the US a cage, but for better or worse it is the cage that I know.
While most Ghanaians saw those shootings as all the information necessary for me to stay in Ghana, I saw them as the main reason I needed to return. America was never meant for Black people but it is ours nonetheless. Our blood and bodies have built this place and now that it cannot use our bodies in the same way, it is attempting to reject us. I refuse. We refuse. And so now we are in another period of active demand for our full liberation within this place. In the US, I know how to be a part of that demand. I have a crew, I have networks, I know the levers of power and resistance. In Ghana, at least at the moment I felt impotent, separated from my ability to engage in the ways that I knew. It just felt wrong to be there when there was so much work to be done here.
I don’t have any regrets about making the decision to come back to the US last year. It was the right decision for that time and I have been able to re-engage in Black liberation work here in the US in the ways that I was yearning for while I was in Ghana.
I also don’t see this as a forever decision.
I hope that there will be a point in my life when I spend more of my time in Ghana than in the US and my days are slow and peaceful once again, anchored only by visits to various doting aunties. For now, I just feel lucky that Ghana is a place that I miss everyday, and that I am one of the fortunate few who has another place in this world outside of the US where I feel rooted.
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Find more of Trish Tchume’s writing here.
*Daabi = Twi for “no.”
