They Told Me to Go Back to Africa, So I Did
My journey to reunite with my roots.
While commuting to work, I sometimes say, “Alexa, play the song of my birth.” Her silence usually confirms her confusion. I’ll reiterate, “Alexa, play the Lion King theme.” It may seem I am joking. But this song is actually a grandiose throwback to my motherland.
I spent my early childhood in Africa, and I could fill pages with misconceptions people have. For example, from the Lion King song, “AAAAAAH-ZABENYAAAA” is actually a Zulu chant that is pronounced, “Natnts ingonyama, bagithi Baba”.
But simple misconceptions were but a small roadblock compared to adjusting to life as an African-American immigrant. I felt stuck. Like I could never win. Like Earl Sweatshirt said in his song “Chum” I was “too black for the white kids and too white for the black.”
It was only a matter of time before I acted on the burning desire to reconnect with my roots and immerse myself in my culture of origin.
From humble beginnings in a faraway land
Being an immigrant to the U.S., I felt myself drifting away from my culture. My fading accent, lack of azonto footwork, declining cooking skills, and increased reliance on processed foods only reminded me of that fact.
Additionally, there were numerous instances throughout my childhood and young adult life where I’ve been told to “go back to Africa”. It may have been a “playful” joke in the cafeteria or in an Xbox Live chatroom. But that doesn’t remove the possibility of it being said with a racist undertone. Sure, it was offensive, yet I would be remiss if I did not consider my Black American counterparts (black friends who are not immigrants from Africa) who unfortunately don’t know their ancestral roots. “Go back to Africa” didn’t sting as much for me as it must have for them. We look the same, but our histories are different.
Around the end of my sophomore year of high school, I told my parents I wanted to return to Ghana. I hadn’t been there since birth. They talked about it all the time but I had yet to experience it myself. Knowing one’s history is absolutely necessary and vital. The history of numerous generations of Black Americans has unfortunately, been rooted in slavery. Their names were changed. Their language was lost. Their families were separated. Now? Their connection to their original African culture has vanished.
Fortunately for me, I know where I’m from. I know the geographic region and tribe I am associated with. I know their various dances, songs, food, drums, and cultural remnants that far preceded European colonization.
I am not defined by my roots but they are a part of me
My classmates would jeer “Go back to Africa,” in response to my criticisms of systemic injustice. Eventually, I took them up on their racially overtoned suggestion.
“Fine,” I said. I began my malaria shots and that summer, I was on my way.
The first stop was Heathrow airport in London as transatlantic flights to Ghana had ceased sometime before then. We flew on an enormous red Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787. The interior was spacious and pristine with state of the art entertainment and in-flight WiFi. We landed, visited a family member, gazed at Big Ben, caught the Piccadilly line back to Heathrow and then we were on our way to Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana. The flight to Ghana, on the other hand, was a little different from the flight to London. Slightly outdated entertainment, slightly less space, and no in-flight WiFi.
I can remember the African landscape rising up to meet our plane as if it were yesterday. I knew I was in Africa when the runway crew hauled over some 20- foot-tall stair rather than an air conditioned jet bridge. It gave me a chance to feel the humid, equatorial heat.
Driving felt like Grand-Theft-Auto but without the do-overs. The taxi driver Mario-Karted and Crash the Bandicooted me and my family all the way to my grandfather’s house in Pokoasi, a suburb in the Greater Accra region. Yeah, they have suburbs there. It was a gated community too. Looks a lot like Florida.
The hour long drive provided its own culture shock. In the United States, farmers herd cows and goats. However, they don’t do it on the shoulder of the highway like they do in Ghana.
There were assemblies of workers standing up on the back of semi-trucks going 80+ miles per hour on the highway like Mad Max (only moderately anxiety inducing), vendors lining the streets and stopping cars at every traffic light to sell whatever they had grown or created themselves.
African diligence on full display
Despite what you have been sold by mainstream media, the entrepreneurial spirit of the nation is astounding. People rise before the sun to earn their living. Grind or don’t eat. They knocked on the passenger windows and showed me their products. Every so often I would roll down my window for a bottle of Fanta or chocolate.
The tropical flavored Fanta in a glass bottle definitely hits different (my immigrant friends know the feeling I’m talking about). It was only a matter of time before rolling down my window proved fatal — to my GI tract that is.
One location we visited, with significant symbolism was the Cape Coast Castle, which was a proximate walk for my mother and grandmother back in the day.
It was a trading post used to hold slaves before loading them onto ships and sailing them off to the Americas or Caribbean.
One of the most notable parts of the Cape Coast Castle was the exit point labeled the “Door of No Return”. I don’t know about you, but something about that phrase made me think that the colonizers had no intention on sailing these people back home.
The guide led us throughout the castle and pointed out with his flashlight the various rooms labeled “male and female slave dungeons”. A solemn feeling swept through the group as people reflected on what it all really meant.
While the “Door of No Return” remains standing after 400+ years, that phrase was written on the inside of the door. The outside of the door reads “Akwaaba” which means “Welcome” in the Ghanaian language of Twi. I couldn’t help but imagine being ripped from my family, uprooted from home placed in chains, and forced into ghastly darkness to sail thousands of miles away to never see your family again. I felt chills as I wandered throughout the castle. The duplicity of my people against each other was reflected in that two-faced sign.
While “Akwaaba” is a simple word, the placement of the word on the door outside of the castle and on numerous entry points of the airport reminds us of our roots. The message says that despite centuries of atrocities and vast diaspora, you are always welcomed home.
My home away from home
The official language of Ghana is English but there are nearly 50 dialects and languages. I was familiar with approximately two, but my parents sneakily would change dialects when they wanted to gossip about me while I was in the same room (they ain’t slick).
My family and I ended up spending an entire month in Ghana. I hadn’t spent too much time there before but oddly it felt like I was home. The food, the warm greetings from aunties and uncles, the blasting music on the weekends, I felt like I belonged. I wasn’t an outsider.
Besides my nike crew socks, sneakers, and cargo shorts, it wasn’t too difficult to blend in. I’m a black man but due to my long absence from Africa, it felt odd yet being surrounded by black people. The neighborhoods in which I grew up were predominantly white. Of course, there was no racial profiling, so that was cool.
I gained a myriad of beautiful cultural experiences that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Takeaways from the trip
After that trip, never again did I feel ashamed about my looks, my name, cultural dishes, or mispronunciation of words. In fact, I fully embrace my culture and am more appreciative of various cultures around the globe.
My heart was happy, but my gastrointestinal tract was not. I wasn’t too cautious about everything I ate from street vendors in Accra: sugar cane, chicken gizzards, goat meat, fruits, you name it.
“What could go wrong?” I thought. Apparently, everything.
I ended up losing nearly 30 pounds due to an extreme case of Montezuma’s Revenge. The runs if you will. The kinds that caused nausea, chills, night sweats, aches, fever, and loss of appetite. Typhoid possibly?
I gained a ton of culture, but I left a lot of pounds in Africa. Great timing for two weeks before football season. I wouldn’t be thick enough to play Tight-end like I had hoped, but my role as kicker worked out!
Lastly, never drink or brush your teeth with water from a developing nation. Your stomach has not built the microbiota to sustain the blows of foreign contamination like the people who live there. Not even my African genes would protect me.
One more takeaway: if you’re Black and live on any other continent around the world and someone tells you to go back to Africa?
Do it.
