by Maya Angelou
As the Ghanaians operated an efficient civil service, hotels, huge dams, they were still obliged to be present at customary tribal rituals. City streets and country roads were hosts daily to files of celebrants of mourners, accompanied by drums, en route to funerals, outdoorings (naming ceremonies), marriages or the installations of chiefs, and they celebrated national and religious harvest days. It is small wonder that the entrance of a few Black Americans into that high stepping promenade went largely unnoticed.
The wonder, however, was neither small nor painless to the immigrants. We had come to Africa from our varying starting places and with myriad motives, gaping with hungers, some more ravenous than others, and we had little tolerance for understanding being ignored. At least we wanted someone to embrace us and maybe congratulate us because we had survived. If they felt the urge, they could thank us for having returned.
We, who had been known for laughter, continued to smile. There was a gratifying irony in knowing that the first family of Black Americans in Ghana were the Robert Lees of Virginia, where the first Africans, brought in bondage to the American Colonies in 1619, were deposited. Robert and Sarah Lee were Black dentists who had studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania with the young Kwame Nkrumah, and had come in 1957 to Ghana to celebrate its just won independence. They returned a year later with their two sons to become Ghanaian citizens.
The Lees and the presence of W.E.B. Du Bois and Alphaeus Hunton nearly legitimized all of us.
Dr. Du Bois and his wife Shirley Graham had been personally invited by the President to spend the rest of their lives in Ghana. Dr. Hunton had come from the United States with his wife Dorothy to work with Dr. Du Bois on the ambitious Encyclopedia Africana.
The rest of the Black Americans, who buzzed mothlike on the periphery of acceptance, were separated into four distinct groups.
There were over forty families, some with children, who had come simply and as simply moved into the countryside hoping to melt onto the old landscape. They were teachers and farmers.
The second group had come under the aegis of the American government and were viewed with suspicion by Ghanaians, and Black Americans stayed apart from them as well. Too often they mimicked the manners of their former lords and ladies, trying to treat the Africans as Whites had treated them. They socialized with Europeans and White Americans, fawning upon that company with ugly obsequiousness.
There was a minuscule business community which had found a slight but unsure footing in Accra.
Julian’s circle had stupendous ambitions and thought of itself as a cadre of political émigrés. Its members were impassioned and volatile, dedicated to Africa, and Africans at home and abroad. We, for I counted myself in that company, felt that we would be the first accepted and once taken in and truly adopted, we would hold the doors open until all Black Americans could step over our feet, enter through the hallowed portals and come home at last.
Guy, wearing a metal and leather neck brace, enrolled in the university and moved happily into Mensah Sarbah Dormitory Hall. I was surprised and delighted to find that being alone brought a deeply satisfying bliss. I hummed, sang to myself, strutted, cooked and entertained for a month before the professor returned and claimed his house.
The YWCA wasn’t as sterile on my second stay. I had a job, a car, some money and amusing friends.
All meals were served in the ground floor dining room under the watchful eyes of Directress Vivian Baeta, the daughter of a Ghanaian clergyman. Miss Baeta was young and pleasant, but a little too correct for our tastes. She frowned upon loud voices and noisy laughter and most diners, often white collar workers from nearby office buildings who filled the restaurant each mealtime, acceded to her wishes. The Black American residents, however, having no living room save Julian’s side porch, used the dining room as a place to gather, to talk, to argue and maybe to flirt with male friends before returning to the celibate cells on the second floor.
Although we tried to respect Miss Baeta’s desires, passion dictated the volume of our conversations. The directress’s disapproving look fell upon us frequently.
One lunch time Vicki, Alice and I were occupying our usual table when a voice louder than any tone we had ever used split the quiet air.
“No rye?” Again, “No rye? What fa country you peepo got? No rye?” A huge, six-foot-tall woman was standing at a window table. She wore West African cloth, her head tie was large and beautifully wrapped, and she was angry.
“You peepo! You Ghanaians. You got yourself your Kwame Nkrumah, but you got no rye. Last night, you give the peepo cassava. Breakfast you give us garri. Lunch you give us yam. Still no rye.” She was complaining specifically to the persons in charge who were nowhere to be seen. Miss Baeta had poked her head into the dining room, seen the irate woman, and had hastily withdrawn. Other diners put their heads dangerously close to their plates as if searching for some microscopic intruder in their food.
The woman continued. “I come to you peepose country from Sierra Leone where we serve rye. I know this country is proud Ghana, but it still is Africa and you don’t give me rye. You think you England? You think you German? Where is the rye?”
The woman was demanding rice and I quickly sympathized with her. The grandmother who raised me was a firm believer in rice. The only white newspapers which reached our house were brought at grandmother’s request by maids oncoming from work. Momma was a good cook who experimented with the exotic recipes she found in the White papers. She would prepare Italian spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, scalloped potatoes, O’Brien potatoes, creamed noodles, but still she served rice with each meal. The family was not obliged to eat the rice if we were pleased with the other starches, but Momma never felt the table was properly set until the filled rice bowl was placed in its usual spot.
The African woman was screaming, “You peepo, you got your Black Star Square. You got your university, but you got no rye! You peepo!” She began to laugh sarcastically, “You make me laugh. Pitiful peepo. Pitiful. No rye, no pride. Ha, ha. See me, Sierra Leone woman, laugh. Ha, ha. Ha, ha!”
I went through the private doors into the kitchen. The cook was sitting on a stool drinking a soda. I said, “Uncle, please excuse me.” He looked up frowning, apparently expecting one more complaint.
“Uncle, there is a woman out there who is dying for rice.”
He shook his head. “Rice tonight. For dinner. Rice tonight.”
I said in a sweet voice, “Oh please, Uncle. She must have rice. Please.”
He said, “She must wait, or go somewhere else. Rice tonight.”
I was defeated. I turned to leave, then turned back. “The woman will go back to her home thinking Ghanaians are mean.”
“Let her go. Rice tonight! Anyway, where is she from?” He wasn’t really interested. I had my hand on the door. I said, “Sierra Leone.”
The cook jumped off the stool. “Why didn’t you say that? You said ‘a woman.’ I thought you meant a Black American. Sierra Leone people can’t live without rice. They are like people from Liberia. They die for rice. I will bring her some.”
The woman was still standing and talking to the air, although weakly, when the cook passed through the dining room bearing a large platter of rice. He placed it on the woman’s table without a word, and she sat down speechless, her eyes hungrily counting the white grains.
When the cook reached the kitchen door the room exploded in applause.
The University of Ghana with its white buildings and red tiled roofs loomed like a chimera atop Legon’s green hills. The Moroccan architecture of arches, wide, low steps and loggia gave the institution an unusually inviting warmth. African students and faculty paraded the halls and grounds in distinctive and often colorful outfits.
Women often wore short cotton skirts and blouses or the richly patterned long national dress, consisting of provocatively cut peplum blouses and long, tight skirts meant to accent small waists and abundant hips.
Some men wore the northern te
rritory woven smocks which were highlighted with bright embroidery, while some others favored Western slacks and short sleeved shirts. Moslems from Nigeria or Cameroon wore the Grand Bou Bou: twelve yards of fine cotton fashioned into pants, shirts and a matching floor length over-smock. Despite the hot weather there were a few African professors who elected to wear the Cambridge or Oxford school gowns over woolen pants, buttoned down shirts and ties. Some wore Nehru jackets made popular by President Nkrumah. It was not surprising to see a lecturer in national dress on Monday, a casual smock and slacks on Tuesday, and worsted tweed on Wednesday. Ghana’s colorful cloth was sold in every marketplace, so status could not be determined by clothes. Thus the market woman, the bank teller and the student might wear the same pattern on any morning and nothing was thought of the coincidence. A fragrance of flowers permeated that riot of color, sound and activity provoking all the senses into constant exercise.
My office door opened onto a grassy courtyard and the windows looked out onto a dance pavilion. Students, faculty, tradesmen, market women selling roasted peanuts and plaintain, visitors and administrators were in constant view. Astonishingly, in that strain of energy projects were designed and work was completed.
Efua wrote and directed plays. The handsome Joe de Graft taught acting, and occasionally graced the stage with a quite heroic presence. Bertie Okpoku and Grace Nuamah taught the traditional dances of the Ashanti, Ewe, and Ga people. Professor Nketia, with disarming gentleness, controlled all the artistic temperaments while teaching music, music theory, music history, and African musicology.
I worked wherever I was needed. Professor wrote Kple, Music of the Gods, a book on the liturgy of the Ewe, and despite my scanty knowledge of typewriters, I was asked to type the manuscript, and did so. Reports on students’ development, their absences and illnesses were kept in my files. Sometimes I handled theatre reservations or sold tickets at the box office in town. When Ireland’s Abbey Theatre director, Bryd Lynch, came to teach at Legon, she chose to present Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage in full production, and I was chosen to play the title role.
My son was growing into manhood on the university campus, under my eye, but not my thumb. Ana Livia and Julian, Efua and her children, my housemates and our lusty friends provided recreation enough. At last life was getting itself in joint.
Vicki, Alice and I had decided to share a house, and the pretty white bungalow we found was a proud prize. There were three bedrooms (Vicki characteristically offered to take the smallest), a commodious living room and dining room. The kitchen was a disappointment to me, but my housemates, who claimed no interest in cooking, hardly noticed its meagre appointments.
Vicki Garvin was a pretty little yellow woman, always immaculately groomed with tiny, graceful hands. She had been a national union organizer in the United States and was highly respected in American and European labor circles, and had come to Africa in the legion of hopeful returnees. She was strong-nerved, but years of unsuccessful bargaining with American bosses and reluctant workers had left cynicism in her voice and her face was quick to adopt a shadow. She had a Bachelor’s degree in English, a Master’s degree in economics and years of experience.
She had gone first to Nigeria, but after a bitter reception, or rather, a bitter rejection, had been encouraged to believe that she would easily find creative work in the progressive country of Ghana.
For months she carried her qualifications as burnt offerings to labor and trade union offices, and when not ignored outright she was told “the big man,” meaning the boss, “is travelling. Come again.” When Vicki did find work it was as a typist in a foreign embassy. She refused rancor, saying that right now “Ghana needs its jobs for Ghanaians, but someday.…”
Alice Windom, the youngest in the bungalow, was also the most explosive. She was a dark mahogany color, had a wide open smile and the prettiest legs in Accra. Men used to sit in our living room, oblivious to the exquisite conversation of three bright women, too busy ogling and loving Alice’s legs. Alice had degrees from an Ohio university and a Master’s from the prestigious University of Chicago. Her argumentative talents, so recently exercised in the school environments, were as pointed as broken bones.
She had come from a family of university professors, and had debated with her siblings for dominance. Neither visitors nor the other bungalow inhabitants could best her in verbal contests. During her last school years, she had vowed to save her money and come to Ghana to live forever. Her field was sociology and her dream was to belong to a community of African social workers. She searched in associations and congresses and committees, but her diligence went unrewarded. Alice became a receptionist in a foreign embassy.
As was expected, Alice was not as casual as Vicki on being denied a chance to work in her field of interest. “Damn, these Africans in personnel are treating me like Charlie did down on the plantation.” There was never a suggestion that she might leave Ghana for greener pastures.
It was agreed in the house that as far as work was concerned, I was the most fortunate. As administrative assistant at the University of Ghana, I had direct contact with African students, faculty, administrators and small traders. While the job was a blessing, the pay was not bounteous.
I received no housing, tuition, or dislocation allowances. On the first day of every month, when the small manilla envelopes of cash were delivered to the offices, I would open mine with a confusion of sensations. Seventy-five pounds. Around two hundred dollars. In San Francisco, my mother spent that amount on two pairs of shoes. Then I would think, seventy-five pounds, what luck! Many Ghanaians at the university would take home half that much with gratitude. My feelings slid like mercury. Seventy-five pounds. Sheer discrimination. The old British philosopher’s packet was crammed with four times that, and all I ever saw him do was sit in the Lecturers’ Lounge ordering Guinness stout and dribbling on about Locke and Lord Acton and the British Commonwealth.
I would count out the paper money, loving the Black president’s picture. Thirty pounds for rent; thirty for my son’s tuition, being paid on the installment plan; ten for beer, cigarettes, food. Another five for the houseman who my friends and I paid fifteen pounds per month to clean the bungalow.
A grown man could live on fifteen pounds, and there I was being a simpering ass. I was my mother’s daughter. When I left her house at seventeen, she had said, “I’m not worried about you. You’ll do your best, and you might succeed. And remember, as long as you’re making a living for yourself you can take care of your baby. It’s no trouble to pack double.” All I had to do was find extra work.
The editor’s office of the Ghanaian Times had all the excitement of a busy city intersection. People came, left, talked, shouted, laid down papers, picked up packages, spoke English, Fanti, Twi, Ga and Pidgin on the telephone or to each other.
T. D. Kwesi Bafoo perched behind his desk as if it was the starting mark for a one hundred yard sprint. At a signal he would leap up and hurl himself past me, through the crowded room and out of the door.
His cheeks, brows, eyes and hands moved even before he talked.
I said, “I am a journalist. I’ve brought some examples of my work. These are from the Arab Observer in Cairo.” He waved away my folder and said, “We know who you are. A good writer, and that you are a Nkrumaist.” I was certainly the latter and not yet the former.
As he stuffed papers into a briefcase he asked, “Can you write a piece on America today?”
“Today? Do you mean right now?”
He looked at me and grinned, “No. America today. America, capitalism and racial prejudice.”
“In one article?” I didn’t want him to know the request was implausible.
He said, “A sort of overview. You understand?”
I asked, seriously, “How many words, three thousand?”
He answered without looking at me, “Three hundred. Just the high points.”
The seething energy would no longer be contained. Bafoo was on his feet a
nd around the desk before I could rise.
“We’ll pay you the standard fee. Have it here by Friday. I have another meeting. Pleasure meeting you. Good-bye.”
He passed and disappeared through the door before I had gathered my purse and briefcase. I imagined him running up to the next appointment, arriving there in a heat, simmering during the meeting, then racing away to the next, and on and on. The picture of Mr. Bafoo so entertained me that I was outside on the street before the realization came to me that I had another job which paid “the standard fee.” I was earning that at the university. In order to afford luxuries I had to look further.
The Ghana Broadcasting office was as to the Times newspaper office what a drawing room was to a dance hall. The lobby was large, well furnished and quiet. A receptionist, pretty and dressed in western clothes, looked at me so quizzically, I thought perhaps she knew something I needed to know.
She frowned, wrinkling her careful loveliness. “Yes? You want to talk to someone about writing?” Her voice was as crisp as a freshly starched and ironed doily.
I said, “Yes. I am a writer.”
She shook her head, “But who? Who do you want to talk to?” She couldn’t believe in my ignorance.
I said, “I don’t know. I suppose the person who hires writers.”
“But what is his name?” She had begun to smile, and I heard her sarcasm.
“I don’t know his name. Don’t you know it?” I knew that hostility would gain me nothing but the front door, so I tried to charm her. “I mean, surely you know who I should see.” I gave her a little submissive smile and knew that if I got a job I’d never speak to her again.