Sakina Mustafa

Leaving Ghana a few days ago was bittersweet. I was excited to get back home and see friends and family, but very sad that I had to leave the friends and family I had made while in Ghana. I learned so much and fell in love with the people and culture, specifically in Accra. Initially, I was supposed to study in South Africa, but because of Covid-19, the program was moved first to Mozambique and then eventually Ghana. But, it feels like I was meant to be in Ghana and I’m so glad I got to have this experience. Here’s a quick summary of my favorite final moments in the country.

~Ghana from above as my flight was departing the country & my flight tracker when I was about halfway back home

The last month of the program was an independent study session, where students chose to either do a research project or an internship. I chose to intern with a film and tv production company in Accra. For the month, I was part of the writing and editing team of a tv show currently in development. I met so many talented writers and producers and made connections that could land me a job in Ghana after college, which I am excited about.

~ Some of our cohort at the top of Mount Afadjato, the highest point in Ghana. We took a trip here before the start of our independent study session.

My birthday was on one of the final days in the program, and my friend and I went to the tallest bar in Accra. However, we didn’t realize that you had to make a reservation and almost didn’t get in. But, a kind couple saw that we were having trouble getting in and said that we could join their reservation. We ended up sitting and talking with them the entire night. This moment was really a testament to the compassion of Ghanaians, especially in relation to foreigners. I don’t think I had a single experience with a rude Ghanaian in the three months I was there. Even on my way to the airport to leave, my Uber driver actually worked at the airport and it was his day off. My friend who rode to the airport with me wanted to come inside to make sure everything went smoothly before I headed to my gate. But, they normally don’t allow people who don’t have flights to enter the airport. So, our Uber driver came inside with us to make sure that nobody stopped us and my friend could see me off. These are some of the moments that made me not want to leave.

~ My friend and I at the airport before I left. Taking the picture is none other than the Uber driver I spoke of previously. The second picture is me at the rooftop bar overlooking Accra.

Our cohort also began to feel like a family. As I mentioned, my birthday fell around the end of the trip. Coincidentally, our chef, Auntie Ama, had her birthday on the 21st and her son on the 18th. So, our program staff decided to throw a joint birthday party at our program site. So many people showed up, some I knew, some I didn’t, but it really felt like a family function. The party really showed me that I have family in Accra whenever I decide to come back and this wasn’t just a study abroad program, but I’ve made lifelong connections.

~ Kojo and I at our joint birthday party. He turned 1 and I turned 21! The other picture is of my fellow classmates and our academic director at our end-of-the-semester dinner after we gifted him a plaque of appreciation. 

While in Ghana, I have been staying in a house with two other students. We have a chef, who we call Auntie Ama, and she has been cooking for us the majority of our time here. A meal of hers that is a crowd favorite among our cohort is Red Red. It’s basically just bean stew and fried plantains. Although the plantains are labeled as a side dish, they always steal the show. And Auntie Ama’s plantains are unlike any other. They are always caramelized to perfection, and the insides are so soft. We have now entered into a part of the program where we are expected to cook for ourselves, and my friend and I have been trying to master our plantain frying skills.

Our first encounter trying to fry plantains was actually towards the beginning of the program. We had a day dedicated to learning how to cook some classic Ghanaian meals. Here we were introduced to the seemingly simple method of frying plantains:
1. Peel the plantains and cut them into slanted pieces.
2. Let them soak for a few minutes in salted water.
3. Fry them in oil, flipping them every 5 minutes, until they become golden brown.
Seems easy enough, but it was not. The plantains did not come out like Auntie Ama’s, even though we cooked them exactly how she taught us. We were puzzled, to say the least.

Discouraged by that attempt, we did not embark on frying plantains for a long while after that. We inquired with Auntie Ama to see how she gets hers so caramelized, but all she told us was to leave them in the oil for a bit longer. So, we were encouraged to try again. We followed her advice, and ended up slightly burning them. Following this, we had many discussions as a group on how to improve our plantain frying skills, and came up with two potential solutions: let them soak in the water longer and/or use very ripe plantains. So, we tried a third time. Employing both of these new techniques, our plantains came out a lot better! They were nowhere near Auntie Ama’s in terms of caramelization, but they were tasty. Another trick we learned that adds to the caramelization is to flip them more frequently than every 5 minutes, and to cook them longer on lower heat. We have been eating an unhealthy amount of fried plantains ever since.

~some Red Red I made (with nicely caramelized plantains, if I do say so myself)

As I type this blog post from my bed in Accra, I’m reminiscing on my time spent in Cape Coast, Ghana. For the past three weeks, our cohort has been on a trip across Ghana, visiting the various regions and learning about development within the country. For the last week of our trip, we stayed in Cape Coast, a beach town (which you probably could’ve guessed by the name). Cape Coast’s biggest industry is fishing, but they are more widely known for their Slave Castles, buildings where enslaved Africans were held until they were shipped to the Americas. Despite this painful past, the city is warm, lively, and fun, so I would like to share some pictures of my time there.

 

• In Ghana, women carry their babies on their backs using a piece of cloth. These women can be seen doing things such as walking to work, cooking, or even riding a motorcycle, all with a a baby on their back. While in Cape Coast, we were living with our program staff and their families. The baby on my back in this photo is our chef’s son, Kojo. This was my first time carrying a baby on my back Ghanaian style.

• And the beach! Of course, living in a beach town, I got so many pictures of the ocean. We were in Cape Coast for eight days, and I went to the beach at least once a day, sometimes more. Most beaches in Ghana are privately owned and you have to pay money to swim there. But, at night, me and my friend would sneak onto beaches and just watch the waves, which were some of my favorite memories. 

• The house that we were staying in belonged to the mother of our academic director, who is a Ghanaian diplomat. The house was huge, but my favorite part of it was this display case of African memorabilia. 

I have so many more pictures from my time in Cape Coast, but these were just some highlights. What a week!

As a Black American, my heritage is uncertain. All I know is that my ancestors were captured and enslaved through the Transatlantic Slave Trade 200-something years ago. Therefore, it has been very surreal being in Ghana, one of the first countries that African people were captured from.

From the moment I stepped off of the plane in Ghana, it felt oddly familiar. As I was giving multiple airport employees my name, most of them greeted me with “As Salaamu Alaikum”, a universal Islamic greeting, saying that Sakina is a very common name here, especially for Muslims. When I arrived at my program house, one of the staff told me that I looked Ghanaian, and to not be offended if people don’t immediately recognize that I’m a foreigner.

This is a minute example, but in Black American culture, women often do not want to get their hair wet & we will go to great lengths to shield any water from touching our hair. I had always assumed that this stemmed from how much work Black women often put into doing our hair paired with American respectability politics. But, since being in Ghana, I have noticed that this is also an aspect of culture here, making me think about other aspects of Black American culture that may have stemmed from African practices. It makes sense, as Black Americans are obviously descendants from Africa, but at times Black culture seems so far removed from African culture that it is still beautiful to witness the connections still present.

I took a class at Colby last semester about the African Diaspora, which basically asserted (in multiple different ways) that descendants of African enslaved people can find pieces of themselves in cultures all over the world. Being in Ghana has really asserted that diasporic feeling for me, and although I don’t yet know exactly where I am from, I love having this opportunity to explore possible lineages.

Last Wednesday, my classmates and I visited an art gallery that featured a collection of works by a Ghanaian artist named Cornelius Annor. His paintings explored scenes of vibrant every day life while encompassing the past and the present by representing a sort of dialogue between older & younger generations. This goes hand-in-hand with our class discussions on multiculturalism in Ghana, as there has been a battle, in a way, between generations regarding what is “acceptable” in Ghanaian culture.

~one of Cornelius Annor’s paintings

Ghanaian culture is inherently multifaceted. When Ghana gained its independence from British colonialism in 1957, it was established that the country would be a secular nation, as Christianity, Islam, and African Traditional Religions were all very prevalent. However, the colonial footprint wasn’t erased with Ghana’s independence, of course. Many cultural norms that colonialism introduced to Ghana are still very much accepted today, whether it’s concerning religion, women’s rights, or the LGBTQ community, to name a few. Generally, Ghanaian elders are very conservative when it comes to these issues, whereas the younger generations are more liberal.

An example of these stark cultural disparities lies in an experience I had on Friday visiting a mosque. Just to preface the story and for context, there is a cultural expectation in Ghana to always use your right hand when interacting with people, especially elders, teachers, community leaders, etc. Using your left hand is seen as disrespectful. However, one of our professors informed us that this belief is dying out and most people in Ghana today really don’t care what hand you use in their presence. So, flash-forward to the mosque: Our class was talking to the Imam (comparable to a preacher in Christianity) and when we were finished, he wanted to give us all Qur’ans as a gift. When he handed me my Qur’an, I mindlessly extended my left hand to take it from him, and he gasped and pulled his hand back before I could grab the Qur’an. I immediately realized the mistake I had made and extended my right hand, and he offered the Qur’an again. This is just a small example, but I think it shows how passionate many Ghanaian elders are about preserving their cultural norms.

Something that the younger generations have been trying to get across in their battle for contemporaneity is that many of these cultural traditions, norms, and practices that Ghanaians hold so dear to them are derived directly from colonialism, which obviously is not interested in the well-being of Ghanaian communities. Colonialism existed as a means to control and exploit Ghanaian resources, while simultaneously destroying traditional ethnic and cultural loyalties, which was a very important aspect of pre-colonial Ghana, among other things. So, how can Ghanaians reclaim aspects of their traditional African religions and societies without completely overturning most of the values deemed central to Ghanaian life and culture? And is it even possible to keep those values when trying to liberate a whole society from a colonial mindset? These are some of the questions young Ghanaian activists are trying to tackle and, so far, it has been very eye-opening speaking with community members about these issues.

 

 

Studying abroad during a pandemic was a risky choice. But I decided it would be better to go now under these circumstances than never. I found myself constantly doubting my decision these past couple of days. The government of Accra, Ghana requires all travelers to quarantine for 5 days upon arrival, with quarantine ending after a negative COVID-19 test result. Africa has been both praised and met with skepticism as a result of the continent’s extraordinarily low COVID-19 numbers. This aided highly in my decision to move forward with my plans to study abroad here. So, in no way am I criticizing Ghana’s approach to mitigating the spread. They’re obviously doing a lot right. This is just how it has affected me.

America has been in a sort of quarantine for almost a year now, so when I was told I would have to quarantine upon arrival to Ghana, I felt it was no big deal. 5 days is nothing! I could deal with it. But, I don’t think I really took into account what being in quarantine might mean for someone in a totally different country. Moving to a new country is a culture shock and a big transition in and of itself, and it can be very hard to feel comfortable, welcomed, or even happy in such a new and sometimes jarring space. I had experienced this before when I studied abroad in India during JanPlan, but I immediately got over this feeling as we instantly got to know the local people, explore the town, and become familiar with the social scene. Approaching day 5 of my quarantine, I am just now starting to feel comfortable in Ghana. 

For the first four and a half days in Accra, I was alone in my room, only leaving to eat meals. There are other students on the trip, but we were encouraged to quarantine by ourselves and not visit each other until after the quarantine was over. Living near a busy street, I often heard the bustle and chatter of people outside my window, and felt like I was missing out. This may all sound very depressing, but I decided to write my first blog post on this topic because through this experience, I have come to understand the importance of patience in anew place. Although Accra is a metropolitan area, the lifestyle is way more relaxed and chill than any city I have visited in the states. I had to realize that the outside wasn’t going anywhere and the same people I heard laughing outside of my window yesterday will probably pass by again tomorrow. Quarantining is just one of the many ways that I can play a part in keeping myself and my new community safe, and the Accra I experienced in quarantine is not representative of what my experience will be moving forward.

My test result comes back tomorrow, so let’s hope it is negative so I can finally be released!

 

• my first meal in Accra: spicy baked chicken, jollof rice, and salad