by Maya Angelou
As usual, in the towns of Ghana, the streets were filled with vendors selling their wares of tinned pat milk, hot spicy Killi Willis (fried, ripe plaintain chips), Pond’s Cold Cream and anti-mosquito incense rings. Farmers were returning home, children returning from school. Young boys grinned at mincing girls and always there were the market women, huge and impervious. I searched for a hotel sign in vain and as the day lengthened, I started to worry. I didn’t have enough gas to get to Koforidua, a large town northeast of Dunkwa, where there would certainly be hotels, and I didn’t have the address of my student’s family. I parked the car a little out of the town center and stopped a woman carrying a bucket of water on her head and a baby on her back.
“Good day.” I spoke in Fanti, and she responded. I continued, “I beg you, I am a stranger looking for a place to stay.”
She repeated, “Stranger?” and laughed. “You are a stranger? No. No.”
To many Africans only Whites could be strangers. All Africans belonged somewhere, to some clan. All Akan-speaking people belong to one of eight blood lines (Abosua) and one of eight spirit lines (Ntoro).
I said, “I am not from here.”
For a second fear darted in her eyes. There was the possibility that I was a witch or some unhappy ghost from the country of the dead. I quickly said, “I am from Accra.” She gave me a good smile. “Oh, one Accra. Without a home.” She laughed. The Fanti word Nkran, for which the capitol was named, means the large ant that builds ten-foot-high domes of red clay and lives with millions of other ants.
“Come with me.” She turned quickly, steadying the bucket on her head and led me between two corrugated tin shacks. The baby bounced and slept on her back, secured by the large piece of cloth wrapped around her body. We passed a compound where women were pounding the dinner foo foo in wooden bowls.
The woman shouted, “Look what I have found. One Nkran has no place to sleep tonight.” The women laughed and asked, “One Nkran? I don’t believe it.”
“Are you taking it to the old man?”
“Of course.”
“Sleep well, alone, Nkran, if you can.” My guide stopped before a small house. She put the water on the ground and told me to wait while she entered the house. She returned immediately followed by a man who rubbed his eyes as if he had just been awakened.
He walked close and peered hard at my face. “This is the Nkran?” The woman was adjusting the bucket on her head.
“Yes, Uncle. I have brought her.” She looked at me, “Good-bye, Nkran. Sleep in peace. Uncle, I am going.” The man said, “Go and come, child,” and resumed studying my face. “You are not Ga.” He was reading my features.
A few small children had collected around his knees. They could barely hold back their giggles as he interrogated me.
“Aflao?”
I said, “No.”
“Brong-ahafo?”
I said, “No. I am—.” I meant to tell him the truth, but he said, “Don’t tell me. I will soon know.” He continued staring at me. “Speak more. I will know from your Fanti.”
“Well, I have come from Accra and I need to rent a room for the night. I told that woman that I was a stranger …”
He laughed. “And you are. Now, I know. You are Bambara from Liberia. It is clear you are Bambara.” He laughed again. “I always can tell. I am not easily fooled.” He shook my hand. “Yes, we will find you a place for the night. Come.” He touched a boy at his right. “Find Patience Aduah, and bring her to me.”
The children laughed and all ran away as the man led me into the house. He pointed me to a seat in the neat little parlor and shouted, “Foriwa, we have a guest. Bring beer.” A small Black woman with an imperial air entered the room. Her knowing face told me that she had witnessed the scene in her front yard.
She spoke to her husband. “And, Kobina, did you find who the stranger was?” She walked to me. I stood and shook her hand. “Welcome, stranger.” We both laughed. “Now don’t tell me, Kobina, I have ears, also. Sit down, Sister, beer is coming. Let me hear you speak.”
We sat facing each other while her husband stood over us smiling. “You, Foriwa, you will never get it.”
I told her my story, adding a few more words I had recently learned. She laughed grandly. “She is Bambara. I could have told you when Abaa first brought her. See how tall she is? See her head? See her color? Men, huh. They only look at a woman’s shape.”
Two children brought beer and glasses to the man who poured and handed the glasses around. “Sister, I am Kobina Àrtey; this is my wife Foriwa and some of my children.”
I introduced myself, but because they had taken such relish in detecting my tribal origin I couldn’t tell them that they were wrong. Or, less admirably, at that moment I didn’t want to remember that I was an American. For the first time since my arrival, I was very nearly home. Not a Ghanaian, but at least accepted as an African. The sensation was worth a lie.
Voices came to the house from the yard.
“Brother Kobina,” “Uncle,” “Auntie.”
Foriwa opened the door to a group of people who entered speaking fast and looking at me.
“So this is the Bambara woman? The stranger?” They looked me over and talked with my hosts. I understood some of their conversation. They said that I was nice looking and old enough to have a little wisdom. They announced that my car was parked a few blocks away. Kobina told them that I would spend the night with the newlyweds, Patience and Kwame Duodu. Yes, they could see clearly that I was a Bambara.
“Give us the keys to your car, Sister; someone will bring your bag.”
I gave up the keys and all resistance. I was either at home with friends, or I would die wishing that to be so.
Later, Patience, her husband, Kwame, and I sat out in the yard around a cooking fire near to their thatched house which was much smaller than the Artey bungalow. They explained that Kobina Artey was not a chief, but a member of the village council, and all small matters in that area of Dunkwa were taken to him. As patience stirred the stew in the pot, which was balanced over the fire, children and women appeared sporadically out of the darkness carrying covered plates. Each time Patience thanked the bearers and directed them to the house, I felt the distance narrow between my past and present.
In the United States, during segregation, Black American travelers, unable to stay in hotels restricted to White patrons, stopped at churches and told the Black ministers or deacons of their predicaments. Church officials would select a home and then inform the unexpecting hosts of the decision. There was never a protest, but the new hosts relied on the generosity of their neighbors to help feed and even entertain their guests. After the travelers were settled, surreptitious knocks would sound on the back door.
In Stamps, Arkansas, I heard so often, “Sister Henderson, I know you’ve got guests. Here’s a pan of biscuits.”
“Sister Henderson, Mama sent a half a cake for your visitors.”
“Sister Henderson, I made a lot of macaroni and cheese. Maybe this will help with your visitors.”
My grandmother would whisper her thanks and; finally when the family and guests sat down at the table, the offerings were so different and plentiful it appeared that days had been spent preparing the meal.
Patience invited me inside, and when I saw the table I was confirmed in my earlier impression. Ground nut stew, garden egg stew, hot pepper soup, kenke, kotomre, fried plantain, dukuno, shrimp, fish cakes, and more, all crowded together on variously patterned plates.
In Arkansas, the guests would never suggest, although they knew better, that the host had not prepared every scrap of food, especially for them.
I said to Patience, “Oh, Sister, you went to such trouble.”
She laughed, “It is nothing, Sister. We don’t want our Bambara relative to think herself a stranger anymore. Come, let us wash and eat.”
After dinner I followed Patience to the outdoor toilet, then they gave me a cot in a very small room.
In the
morning I wrapped my cloth under my arms, sarong fashion, and walked with Patience to the bath house. We joined about twenty women in a walled enclosure that had no ceiling. The greetings were loud and cheerful as we soaped ourselves and poured buckets of water over our shoulders.
Patience introduced me. “This is our Bambara sister.” “She’s a tall one all right. Welcome, Sister.” “I like her color.”
“How many children, Sister?” The woman was looking at my breasts.
I apologized, “I only have one.”
“One?”
“One?”
“One!” Shouts reverberated over the splashing water. I said, “One, but I’m trying.”
They laughed. “Try hard, sister. Keep trying.”
We ate leftovers from the last night feast and I said a sad good-bye to my hosts. The children walked me back to my car with the oldest boy carrying my bag. I couldn’t offer money to my hosts, Arkansas had taught me that, but I gave change to the children. They bobbed and jumped and grinned.
“Good-bye, Bambara Auntie.”
“Go and come, Auntie.”
“Go and come.”
I drove into Cape Coast before I thought of the gruesome castle and out of its environs before the ghosts of slavery caught me. Perhaps their attempts had been half-hearted. After all, in Dunkwa, although I let a lie speak for me, I had proved that one of their descendants, at least one, could just briefly return to Africa, and that despite cruel betrayals, bitter ocean voyages and hurtful centuries, we were still recognizable.
The worthy Otu dropped his customary aplomb and rushed nimbly into the kitchen.
He whispered, “Madame, Nana’s driver is here. Madame, I didn’t know you knew Nana. His driver has come to get you. He is waiting in the car. It’s Nana’s Mercedes outside.”
He was shaken by excitement and awe and the dual assault made him accusatory.
He peered discourteously into my face, “Madame,” [the friendly title “Auntie” was forgotten] “do you know the Nana?”
“Yes.” I gave him the answer dryly, shielding my own surprise.
One evening, months before, I had met the chief at Efua’s house and had spoken to him about Guy’s entrance into the university.
Although Conor Cruise O’Brien was then head of the University of Ghana, Nana Nketsia had been the first African Vice Chancellor, stepping down for O’Brien at his own decision.
The Ghanaian academic system, following its British model, accepted students who had completed a Sixth Form, which was equal to an American two-year junior college course. Guy had only completed high school, but I explained to the Nana that at home he would be qualified to enter our best institutions. My argument, assisted by the pathos of a mother appealing for a sick and hospitalized son, won the day.
Weeks later I was informed that Guy would be accepted if he passed an entrance examination. I had not seen the Nana since that first meeting, but I had heard much about him. He was an Ahanta Paramount Chief who, in ancient times, would have had absolute power. The modern Nana was fiercely political. He had been the first Ghanaian chief to be arrested for resisting British colonialism and had been educated in Britain, coming down from Oxford with double firsts, equal to the American summa cum laude. He was an adviser to President Nkrumah and Ambassador Plenipotentiary. Along with those staggering credits, Nana was handsome.
If Otu was shocked by the unheralded appearance of the Chief’s driver, I was stunned.
I waged a small war in my closet, selecting and rejecting what was to be worn to a chief’s house. As I walked outside, Otu, who had become a stranger, stood at sharp attention, his arms at his side, his eyes down.
“Good evening, Madame.” As if I didn’t have sufficient nervousness, he transferred his tension to me, and I barely greeted the driver who held the car door open.
The drive was too short to clear my mind. I had never been face to face with royalty and didn’t know the protocol. I suspected that I had been sent for to discuss some incident pertaining to the presence of Black American residents, and I was nervous. I knew I was given to dramatic overstatement, or was known to waffle about repetitiously. To further complicate matters, I was sincere. Sincerity badly stated elicits mistrust.
The driver stopped before a mansion, which in the dark, surrounded by even darker trees, appeared ominous. Light came from a few windows, and the small fires of servants were visible in the compound beyond the house. Muffled drums could be heard from a distant hill. I noticed only a few cars parked along the street when I got out of the car. I asked the driver if the Nana was giving a party.
He shook his head and gave me an impish smile. “Auntie, I do not hear your language.”
The driver opened the front door for me and I walked into a woodland fantasy.
The large living room was furnished with rich sofas, burl tables and was interrupted by a wide-branched tree that grew up through the ceiling. African mats were thrown on the tiled floor, and in a distant corner two men sat talking under lamp light.
The chauffeur disappeared after he ushered me through the door, and the men seemed to take no notice of me. I stood unsure in the shadows and struggled with a decision. What was the proper way to address a chief, and more hazardous, what would he think of me if I violated some unknown but sacred taboo?
In Egypt I had seen well-dressed and urbane diplomats prostrate themselves before a visiting Hausa chief, and I had read that the Akan chiefs were believed to be the living embodiment of all the Fantis and Ashantis who had ever lived; therefore, their leaders’ physical bodies were sacred.
Admittedly, my ancestors had come from Africa, but I was my own person from St. Louis, Arkansas and California, a member of a group which had successfully held a large and hostile nation at bay. Anyway, I had been minding my own business in my own house. I hadn’t asked to come to pay homage to anybody.
I walked past the tree over the slippery mats and into the light.
“Nana? I am Maya Angelou. You sent for me?”
Both men looked up and their smiles were quick. They had been aware of my entrance and of my hesitation all along.
“Miss Angelou. Welcome to my home. Please meet Mr. Kwesi Brew.” The chief wore a white Northern Territory smock. His black skin, white teeth and red tongue made for an unutterable drama.
Kwesi Brew rose and shook my hand. I had read his lyrical poetry and knew that he was Minister of Protocol in charge of State formalities, so I was not prepared for his boyishness.
“Sister, so I am getting to meet the very famous Maya Angelou. Too many people in the country say good things of you. Can you be that good?”
“Mr. Brew, I am happy. It is always a pleasure to meet a poet.”
He was caught off-guard, but recovered in an instant. “Oh, Miss Angelou, you don’t mean you have wasted time reading my sad little efforts?”
“Mr. Brew, I am certain that your poem, ‘If this is the time to conquer my heart, do so now,’ is neither little nor is it sad.”
A delighted laugh popped out of his mouth. “Oh, oh, Nana. This one! This lady. But she’s quick, oh!”
Nana nodded, smiling, “Kwesi, sit. Maya. May I call you Maya?” I nodded.
“Maya, sit. Welcome to the Ahenfie. That means the house of the Nana, and what will you have to drink?”
I said I had no preference, and he shook his head. “A woman like you should always have a preference.” I thought of my grandmother. If I responded to a question of choice by saying, “I don’t care,” she would give me a look identical to the one I had just seen on Nana’s face. Then she would warn me that “Don’t care ain’t got no home.”
I told Nana, “I’ll have gin and ginger.” He said, “You can have schnapps. Schnapps is the proper drink for serious conversation.” Immediately I drew up, stiffened my spine. “I’m sorry, I don’t drink schnapps. If you don’t have gin and ginger, I will have water.”
Kwesi laughed, “Oh, Nana, I had better be your Ocheame.” He turned to me
still smiling, but with a formal air. “Sister, anything you want to say to the Nana, say it to me. I will be your correspondent. Speak only to me.” He had the posture and only needed the livery to be taken for the chief’s spokesman.
“Please, Ocheame, I would like to have a schnapps. It is good for me.” Nana smiled, acknowledging my tact, and called for drinks.
I had never heard such a voice. In ordinary conversation it had been deep and mellifluous, but raised to a shout, it rattled and clattered and clanged like a cowbell played by a madman.
“Kwame, take whiskey and bring it.” He shouted, or yelled in Fanti, and I imagined that every mote of dust in the room quivered into action. I must have jumped because Kwesi put his hand on my arm and grinned. “My chief’s got some voice, huh?”
When drinks were placed before us, Nana poured a libation on the tiles and said a prayer to the old ones. It was done as perfunctorily as grace is said at an informal family table. He drank first then in an ordinary voice he said, “Maya, we have been talking about the Afro-Americans. Osagefo knows America. He said that in the United States he was not an African from the Gold Coast. Whites only saw the color of his skin and treated him like a nigger.”
Kwesi added, “Aggrey of Africa also lived in the United States for a while. You know who he was, don’t you, Sister?”
Nana intruded, “Dr. Kwegyr Aggrey from Ghana earned a doctorate from Columbia University and taught in North Carolina. He understood racism and he loved his Black skin. He said, ‘If I died and went to heaven and God asked me would I like to be sent back to earth as a White man’”—Nana’s voice was thundering again—” ‘I would say no, make me as Black as you can and send me back.’” The klaxon trumpeted. “Aggrey of Africa said, ‘Make me completely Black, BLACK, BLACK.’”
That was the spectacular language, the passion of self-appreciation. I had traveled to Africa to hear it, and hear in an African voice, and in such a splendor of sound.
The gold chain on the chief’s black chest was cruelly bright. “Aggrey speaks for me. Aggrey speaks for Africa. We are Black, BLACK! And we give no explanation, no apology.”