Akwaaba

Sum up of an AMAZING summer

From the sponsorship of the "Eyes on Africa Initiative" from Pomona College, and the hard work, time, and commitment that so many people contributed to making this summer and the work I did possible, I am forever thankful. Special shout out to James Taylor, Deborah Asiimwe, Arielle Brown, Emelie Pinamung Asiedu, and Elizabeth Sutherland.

My To Do list before beginning my journey, this is how it ended up looking at the end.

OH THE PLACES I WENT!!!!

Finally got back to Claremont, California,but I wasn't ready to let go of Ghana yet or ever, so I was still rocking Ghana's flag for international students!

The museum of Uganda, Independence monument

Friends made abroad

This guy was such a life saver, serving as a friend and my personal bobaboda(motorcycle driver) to and from work

Goodbye with a poem

Ghana (ma baa bumom, I have come again)

Akwaaba, the warm wind whispers to me as I step off the plane

voices composedof that familiaily, ancestral tongue of twi

I have come hoe to findi t waiting changed and unrecogniable at times,

yet still home

still grasping at my heart

hugging my head with tiny recalling of memories triggered from random acts, spontaneous smell and welcoming wanderers my spirit has forgotten

faces forgetten

memories mesmerized to the backdrop in my brain

I feared, I will forget you grandmother, but now I know that could never occur

I feared, I would not recognize you father, but now I know amidst a sea of strangers, your face is in mine and shall never fade

land where my blood was made spilled and blessed

I feared you would regret me, would not recognize the new, fresh skin, the filled in meat on my bones. the ages featrues, the americanized tongue

but I promised I will come back, so ma baa bumom( I have come back)

the brightest black star of Africa

Maama Yaa Feniba

Owusu

Fobih

Kwame Nkrumah

in all this, I came back.

I felt your love tugging at my being, 11 years had been too

our secret sorrows were turning distant and objective

our helpless hope fleeting without resistance

our tongues slowly detangling

To you I have retruned, from you I shall leave once again with the lesson, always SANKOFA. Though I may go from coast to coast, The Gold Coast, whose riches will forever bless me

whose ocean will forever purify me whose land will forever ground me

me da see (Thank you always)

Akwaaba photos

Every time a family member went back to Ghana, they took this picture which was their akwaaba (welcome back) pic, dressed fully in kente, I was definitely excited to take mine.