Akwaaba - Welcome Home.

Among the backdrop of red clay dirt, a Saharan sand-dusted sky, hearty green bushes and trees, reside the most color-filled people of God’s earth. The people of Ghana, with their deep, rich, brown skin tones, adorned with bright, colorful, handmade batiks create a soul-stirring landscape that sings to your spirit…God is here.

Ghana, which is the name given to the former Gold Coast by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is Arabic for independent. The name was given in 1957, when Ghana gained its independence from British colonization. I’ve been forever anxious to know what it would be like be in a place where everyone was Black like me. In a country that is independent of systemic racial oppression and white supremacy. I wondered what would be the psychological status of a people that have never known ‘willie lynch’. My inbred American complexes would have me to believe it would be like the old Tarzan movies full of bush and animals roaming. Or like the way the lady at the place who provided our shots, cautioned us of the numerous infectious diseases and not to eat fruit or anything indigenous or not stamped by the FDA. I even wondered would their be militants running the streets like in every African nation according to CNN…and oh yea, the monkeys…that is another story.

My anxiety grew as we crossed the great Atlantic, then the mighty Alps and finally the incomparable Sahara Desert. In flight, I pondered making this journey in the days of old. How many a soul lost attempting to cross this vast land. I thought of my brothers and sisters who have longed to make this journey, those who will one day and those who will not. I focused on the blessing presented to me and opened my soul to receive whatever good would be awaiting.

I clearly remember waking just at the moment we hit the land shores of Africa. From 25,000 feet it was just as magnificent a moment as I imagined. An excitement of energy resonated throughout my body as I attempted to contain my emotions…I’m flying over Africa. The land from where all of my historical and spiritual contexts were born. What an amazing feeling to return to the place where my ancestors lived since creation. I could almost hear the angels running to those souls, the souls that prayed in the hulls of slave ships and plantations, longing for their children to one day return home. ‘We’re here baby!’ I told my wife as we landed. The plane door opened to reveal a greeting of tropical ocean air and heat. I inhaled the air of my homeland and I prayed the angels to tell my direct ancestors, the ones whose blood run through my very veins, tell them…Hafiz is home. Now the story begins….