by Maya Angelou
“Now look. See yourself, and tell me.”
I looked in the mirror and was relieved that I looked like every other Ghanaian woman. My hair was pulled tightly into small neat patches and the triangular designs of tan scalp and black hair was as exact as the design in tweed doth.
“Sistah, you have given me such a good laugh, I shouldn’t charge you.” Comfort was washing her combs and rolling her scissors and thread in a cotton white cloth. I knew that last statement was only for show.
In just six months I learned that Ghanaian women might take in orphans, give generously to the poor, and feed every person who came to their houses. They could allow their men certain sexual freedom, but they were very strict in money matters. When it came to finances “Ghana women no play, oh,” had been said to or around me hundreds of times.
I paid Comfort.
She said, “I will come again in two weeks. Oh, how I like to laugh with you.”
I didn’t want to wonder whether she was sincere, but I noticed that I hadn’t laughed even once.
A Black couple who had just arrived in Africa sat in our living room explaining their presence on the Continent.
“Because of Nkrumah” (The man pronounced the President’s name NeeKrumah) “and Sékou Touré, we decided it was either Ghana or Guinea. We have come to Mother Africa to suckle from her breasts.” The man spoke so vigorously his Afro trembled and his long neck carried his head from side to side. He wore a brightly colored African shirt and reminded me of a large exotic bird.
Alice spoke angrily, “Hell man, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Talking about sucking from Africa’s breasts. When you were born Black in America, you were born weaned.”
I said, “Africa doesn’t need anybody as big as you pulling on her tits.”
Vicki said, “And that’s an ugly metaphor.”
The man was sparring quickly. “The Zulus use it.”
“But you’re a Black American,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. Well, who is to say my ancestors weren’t Zulus?”
In just a few months our living room had begun to compete with the Mayfield side porch for popularity. Late nights found us drinking beer and fastidious over even the smallest points in a conversation.
Alice earned her reputation as the most formidable disputant. Having spent her working hours answering telephone calls and receiving embassy visitors, she looked eagerly toward the evenings and weekends. Then she could exercise her sharp mind and quick tongue on anyone within hearing range.
The wise Vicki said, “What Africa needs is help. After centuries of slavers taking her strongest sons and daughters, after years of colonialism, Africa needs her progeny to bring something to her.”
Alice grinned, warming up. She said, “I’ve never seen Africa as a woman, and somewhere I resent the use of any sexual pronoun to describe this complex continent. It’s not he or she. It is more an it.”
The visitors looked disapprovingly at us all. The need to believe in Africa’s maternal welcome was painfully obvious. They didn’t want to know that they had not come home, but had left one familiar place of painful memory for another strange place with none.
The woman, whose large natural matched her husband’s, sat like a broken doll. Her brown face was still, her dark eyes flat and staring. I would not have been too surprised had she cried, “Maa Maa, Maa Maa” in a tiny toy voice.
Alice said, “The Sahara continues to eat up arable land at a frightening rate, and nomadic people continue to herd cattle which eat every blade of grass that pops up. What the continent needs is about five hundred artesian well diggers and about five hundred agronomists. That would have been a gift to bring.”
“I belong here. My ancestors were taken from this land.” The visitor was fighting back.
“Of course, you’re right.” Vicki’s voice was soothing. “And under ideal conditions you could return and even lay claim to an ancestral inheritance. But Alice has a good point. The continent is poor, and while Ghanaians have wonderful spirits, thanks to themselves and Kwame Nkrumah, they are desperate.”
I asked, “What did you do at home? What is your work?”
The man was still silent, and I had spoken only to put sound into the sad silence.
Vicki offered advice, “Ghana would be easier than Guinea, unless you speak French.”
The woman’s voice was a surprisingly rich contralto. “He worked in the Chicago stockyards, and I was a Bunny.”
She got our total and immediate attention. Although she wore no makeup and a sleeved dress of a demure cut, it was easy to imagine her in a bunny costume. She muttered just above a whisper, “We’ve been saving for two years.”
Her husband stood up scowling, “Don’t tell them anything, Hon. It’s just like Negroes. They are here, in their own place, and they don’t want us in. Just like crabs in a bucket. Pulling the other one down. When will you people learn? Let’s go.”
They would have been surprised to learn that we were no less annoyed with them than they with us. They were just two more people in an unceasing parade of naïve travelers who thought that an airline ticket to Africa would erase the past and open wide the gates to a perfect future. Possibly we saw our now seldom expressed hopes in the ingenuous faces of the new arrivals.
Vicki waved her small hands. “Wait a minute. You don’t understand.”
“Come on, Hon. The taxi driver was wrong.” I asked, “What taxi driver?”
The woman answered, “We don’t know his name. He was driving us around and when he found out we were Americans, he said he was going to take us to a Black American home. That’s how we got here.”
We looked at each other knowing the danger of getting a reputation of inhospitability in this country, where we were striving for welcome.
Alice lit a fresh cigarette from an old one. “I guess because we talk so much, folks have the idea that we know something, so Black Americans come here or to Julian Mayfield’s house. We weren’t trying to discourage you from staying in Ghana. We just wanted to prepare you for what you might, no, what you will encounter so you won’t be disappointed.”
Vicki added, “Sort of immunizing you before you get the disease.”
I added, “We’re trying to explain that if you expect Africans to open their arms and homes to you, you’ll be in for a terrible shock. Not that they will be unkind. Never unkind, but most of them will be distant. One problem, of course, is our inability to speak the language. Without a language it is very difficult to communicate.” The man’s anger had propelled him to the door. I touched his sleeve and said, “Don’t rush off. Have dinner with us.”
All people use food for more reasons than mere nutrition, and I was hoping that in the present case it would work to calm our visitors’ ruffled feathers.
The husband acted as if he still wanted to leave, but was persuaded by his wife to stay.
As I had hoped, they relaxed during dinner and allowed themselves to be charmed by Alice, who worked at being her clever best. She made them laugh at her Chicago stories, Vicki related tales of Paul Robeson, and I talked about my years in show business.
We stood at the door saying good-bye when the man, all seriousness again, shook Alice’s hand. “I think we’ll go to Guinea. If we have to learn a foreign language to be accepted in Africa, we may as well learn French.”
The woman waved. “We certainly appreciate the dinner and your advice. Hope we meet again.”
That they had missed our clearly made points boded well for them. They just might succeed in their search for the illusive Africa, which secreted itself when approached directly, like a rain forest on a moonless night. Africa might just deliver itself into their hands because they matched its obliqueness.
The telephone call brought unsettling news. The secretary’s voice simply said, “You are wanted at the Ghanaian Times.” I sped to the office building, accompanied by nervous excitement. Had my article been accepted, or had the editor discovered what I already knew; that in
order to write about the United States, capitalism and racial prejudice one needed a lifetime, three hundred thousand words, and a lot of luck?
T. D. Bafoo was on his feet when I arrived at his desk.
“Maya!” He waved my pages at me and as usual spoke in short explosions. “This is good, Sister! You Black Americans know a thing or two, don’t you?” He spoke too quickly for me to respond.
“We will have a new baby, you know?” I didn’t.
“And we will invite you to the outdooring, in the country.”
An outdooring is the first African rite of passage. It always begins at dawn, eight days after the child’s birth, and gives family and friends a chance to see and welcome the newest soul.
“I am asking Alice, Vicki, and Julian and others! Come! Black Americans must see how we salute life! Party! We have a great party for life!”
“Come to my house, here tonight in Accra. Greet my wife. I will tell you how to come to us in Kanda.”
I thanked him, took his address, smiled and was again left standing as he hurried away.
The modesty of T. D.’s pretty bungalow was surprising. He was a Big Man, and even in Nkrumah’s best of all worlds, Big Men often lived in coarse ostentation. Some owned huge castle-like houses and were driven by chauffeurs through the streets of Ghana in Mercedes-Benzes and limousines. Although most cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, government administrators, and wealthy businessmen wore the common matching shirt and pants which had been popularized by the President, their wealth and power were not held in secret. Wives, mistresses, girlfriends, and female relatives were known to wear heavy gold necklaces and bracelets to market and to import expensive furniture from Europe. It was not unknown for some Big Men and their women to treat the servant class as slaves. They were generally unpopular, and in safe company they were ridiculed, but their power was threatening and little was said of them in public.
A smiling T. D. met me at the door. “Sister, come, come inside. You are finally here. You are at home, and meet my wife. Come, we will eat foo foo and garden eggs.” Although he still spoke as if he needed to cram everything into one sentence, he was a quieter man in his own house.
His wife was a tall, brown woman with an earnest face and a beautiful voice, and was very pregnant. She smiled and took my hand.
“Sister Maya. Akwaba. Welcome. I am making chicken for you, since you can’t eat fish.”
T. D. grinned, “Sister, news travels in Ghana. We know everything or nothing. Come, we will have beer. What do you like?”
Beer preferences were fiercely defended or opposed. The two vying brands were Star and Club.
“I’m a Club person myself.” I spoke as proudly as I had heard Ghanaians do.
“Ye! Ye! I knew you were okay. I am Club too. All Star drinkers are untrustworthy. Differences between good and bad beer drinkers are stronger than the imperialist introduced divisions between Africans. Don’t you think so, Sister?” T. D. laughed like a boy and took me into his study. “We will drink in here.” He spoke to his wife, “Join us when you can.”
We sat down in a room crowded with books and papers and magazines. Mrs. Bafoo spoke from the doorway, “Kwesi, are you going to give Sister Maya your famous speech? You would do better if you stand on the chair.” She entered carrying beer and laughing.
T. D. had the grace to drop his head. When he looked at me his eyes were sharp with mischief. “Sister, I am Fanti. This woman is a nurse, but she is also an Ewe. A terrible mixture. Nurses think they know the body and Ewes think they know the mind. Oh boy, what have I married?”
I spent the afternoon eating with my fingers and listening to T. D.’s political discussions. I experimented with my Fanti, much to the amusement of my hosts, and found that while I had a reasonable vocabulary, my melody was not in tune. T. D. suggested I pick up Ewe, but when I heard Mrs. Bafoo sing-speak her language, I decided I would continue struggling to master Fanti.
The couple, throughout the evening, tenderly but relentlessly teased each other about their mixed marriage, laughing at their differences, each gibe a love pat, sweetly intimate.
I left after nightfall with directions to T. D.’s country place, and the feeling that maybe the new friendship would lead me behind the modern face of Ghana and I could get a glimpse of Africa’s ancient tribal soul. That soul was a skittish thing. Each time I had approached it, bearing a basket of questions that plagued me, it withdrew, closed down, disguising itself into sensual pleasantries. It had many distracting guiles.
The musical names of Ghana’s cities were lovely on the tongue and caressing to the ears; Kumasi (Koo mah see), Koforidua (Ko fo rid you ah), Mpraeso (Um prah eh so). Ghanaians boasted that Accra and Sekondi were old towns showing proof of trade with Europeans in the fifteenth century. I loved to imagine a long-dead relative trading in those marketplaces, fishing from that active sea and living in those exotic towns, but the old anguish would not let me remain beguiled.
Unbidden would come the painful reminder—“Not all slaves were stolen, nor were all slave dealers European.” Suppose my great-grandfather was enslaved in that colorful town by his brother. Imagine my great-grandmother traded by her sister in that marketplace.
Were those laughing people who moved in the streets with such equanimity today descendants of slave-trading families? Did that one’s ancestor sell mine or did that grandmother’s grandmother grow fat on the sale of my grandmother’s grandmother?
At first when those baleful thoughts interrupted my pleasant reveries I chased them away, only to learn that they had the resistance of new virus and the vitality to pop into my thoughts, unasked, at odd and often awkward times.
So I had been intrigued watching T. D. and his wife using their tribal differences to demonstrate their love. Getting to know them might lay to rest the ugly suspicion that my ancestors had been weak and gullible and were sold into bondage by a stronger and more clever tribe. The idea was hideous, and if true, I was forced to conclude that my own foreparents probably abstained from the brutish sale of others simply because they couldn’t find tribes more gullible and vulnerable than they. I couldn’t decide what would be the most appalling; to be descended from bullies or to be a descendant of dupes.
The Bafoos’ love could erase the idea that African slavery stemmed mostly from tribal exploitation.
On a midmorning break I went into the Senior Common Room. My entry made no impact on the confident people who continued their conversation, offering their voices to each other as beautiful women offer their hands to homely suitors.
The Englishman was speaking desultorily through a thin nose, “I understand their anger. I do think it is unattractive, but I understand it.”
A Yugoslav woman, too intellectual for cosmetics, argued without passion, “But they have been treated like beasts.”
The Englishman was a little petulant, “That doesn’t give them the right to act bestial.”
A Canadian attempted to bring balance. “While it isn’t a laudable response, it is understandable. The effects of cruel treatment die slowly.”
The Englishman said, “Look here, they’ve been there three hundred years, why the devil are they starting up now?” He raised his voice and ordered, “Another beer, Kojo. Fact, beer all around.”
He was an irritated Ronald Colman in an old movie. I sat in a corner drinking tepid beer, knowing I had walked in on a theatrical set and that I would be wise to either sit quietly or exit stage left.
The Ghanaian steward, old and doddering, understood “all around” did not include me, so he took bottles to the large table and went back to his stool behind the counter.
The Senior Common Room at the Institute of African Studies was reserved for professors, lecturers and some administrators. Although it was filled with ancient furniture and a persevering odor of beer, some employees from other faculties at Legon University preferred it to their own lounges. I supposed its popularity could be credited to the nearby Faculty of Music and Dance. At any
moment in the day pretty girls and half-dressed men rushed past its door en route to dance classes. Master drummers gave demonstrations hourly outdoors behind the building. Singers practicing in the high-pitched Ghanaian tones could be heard in the area stereophonically. The lounge itself was stuffy, but the surrounding area was fresh and appealing.
The German professor from another department spoke loudly, “Old Man,” he said, attempting a British accent, “it’s understandable that you’re tired of unrest. Your empires have exhausted you.”
The Englishman answered, “I don’t know about my empire,” he pronounced it “empiah,” “but agitation becomes a bore after a while.”
The Yugoslav woman was ready for a fight. “But not to the agitators.”
The Canadian spoke and the room was no longer a set, nor were the people characters I could laugh at or ignore. He said calmly, “But American Negroes are not the masses. They are only about ten percent of the U.S. population.”
They were talking about Black Americans. I was sure that the recent riot in Harlem which had been front-page news in Ghana had stimulated the discussion. I focused to listen and to find a place to enter.
“More beer, Kojo, please.” The Yugoslav woman’s voice was as neat as her body and clothes were abandoned. “I put it to you that the American Negroes are fed up with the system because Democracy does not work. They feel that they are proof.”
The old long-snout Briton popped up, “Democracy was never created for the lower classes. Everyone knows that. Just like at Ghana.”
As I was gathering a response to singe their ears, a Ghanaian professor of English walked in. He went to the crowded table and said, “Hello, old chums.” Without turning to face the steward, he raised his voice. “Beer all around, Kojo.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “You were saying ‘just look at Ghana.’ What about my country?”
I let my preparation scatter. Here was the proper person who would have the arch counterstatement.
The Englishman was already bored with the conversation, but he forced himself to respond. He said, “Democracy which has never worked anyway, was never intended for the masses. And I gave Ghana as evidence.”
