When I was a kid, I was embarrassed to be Ghanaian/African. It was the '80s, the Ethiopian famine was in full effect on a seemingly endless evening news loop, and kids at school thought it was funny to throw the term "African booty scratcher" around. Going to Ghana changed this for me.
As jarring as it was leaving all I was used to in the States, for other reasons it was a relief to be in Ghana. For the first time, my name "Nana Ekua" wasn't "different," and my dark skin wasn't a suffix for the phrase "you're pretty for a dark-skinned girl." I didn't have to explain why I didn't eat sandwiches for dinner or what language my parents were speaking. My identity as an African was no longer synonymous (in my mind or others') with poverty, disease, or head-shaking pity.
On the flip side, Ghana didn't have to remain the place my parents romanticized as the birthplace of perfectly-behaved children who respect their elders without question. Ghana and its culture could exist as every other place on the planet did and does: a hustle of people pursuing happiness and peace, with all the obstacles, opportunities, and music that hustle comes with. Ghana could be mine.
I get into a little of that in this interview with AfriPOP!'s Mawuse Ziegbe.Take a look.
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