Attracted by the dynamics of the area people and a rising market, an increasing number of African Individuals are selecting to settle in Ghana, West Africa’s second largest financial system.
From our Accra correspondent,
A roof within the coronary heart of Accra, within the residential space Asylum Down. The bartender serves subtle cocktails to about fifty visitors. Within the audio system pressed to the restrict, you’ll be able to hear classics from American hip hop and Ghanaian dance corridor. Among the many visitors, a person is chatting with an “I Love Black Folks” T-shirt with a younger girl with a powerful American accent. The host of the night, some thirty with comfortable options framed by lengthy braids, interrupts the music to talk. “Who amongst you is returning?” About ten fingers are raised, together with the speaker. “We aren’t simply right here to drink, dance after which go residence,” he resumes applause. If we’re right here at present, it’s to create hyperlinks between us. ”
In Ghana, we name “returning” an Afro descendant who got here to decide on African soil. “After I lived in California, I used to be filled with clichés about Africa,” says the person with the slogan T-shirt when the music resumes. I even thought folks lived in huts! However I had a Ghanaian household and considered one of them died. I got here right here for the funeral and I cherished the nation. So I made a decision to remain. ”
Deconstruct the clichés about Africa
In 2019, the Ghanaian authorities launched “The Yr of Return”, a nationwide initiative to rejoice the victims of slavery, 400 years after the primary Africans arrived on the land of Virginia. The occasions organized on the time had enabled Ghana to welcome one other 200,000 vacationers, who had largely documented their journey on social networks. A few of them have chosen to not depart and be a part of the thriving group of American foreigners. In 2019 alone, a few hundred African Individuals and Afro-Caribbean have gained Ghanaian nationality.
“We aren’t just like the Individuals who got here to settle right here within the Nineteen Seventies and had been largely rich retirees,” explains Morris, a 46-year-old entrepreneur dwelling in Accra, the place he began his journey company, “Roots Journey Company. We’re youthful. We don’t stay in luxurious villas however in society. We go to native bars and eating places, we combine with Ghanaians. We need to become involved. Initially from Detroit, Michigan, Morris is half Ghanaian. He additionally arrived in Ghana for a funeral in 2015 and determined to remain. “Ghana is Africa for learners!” He is kidding. “The returnees really feel secure right here. Folks communicate English, the nation is secure, the federal government is democratic. ”
An opinion shared by Voltaire, the night’s organizer. The 30-something from Los Angeles, California, arrived right here in 2018, simply earlier than the return 12 months. He says he has lived in about 20 international locations and has hardly ever felt as secure there as in Ghana. “Accra is among the solely locations the place ladies can stroll alone in the course of the evening with out concern for his or her security. Even within the US or England, we really feel extra in peril. “But when Voltaire selected to settle in Africa, it’s above all out {of professional} ambition,” to hitch a fast-growing market. ” “Africa for me at present is like China within the Nineteen Eighties. In Europe, america or Asia, most markets are saturated. However right here something is feasible.”
“Our ancestors had been pushed by the ‘Door of No Return’, and their descendants have returned”
Nonetheless, this alternative of Ghana is just not trivial. The nation was a middle of triangle commerce within the seventeenth century, and lots of sturdy slave merchants dot the coast. Essentially the most well-known, within the metropolis of Cape Coast, has grow to be one of many predominant locations for memorial tourism. A whole bunch of tourists flock there day-after-day: First Girl Melania Trump visited it in 2018, as Barack Obama had achieved earlier than her. Each crossed the notorious “Door of No Return”, by which slaves had been despatched to slave ships.
This city, Voltaire and Morris visited it. It is just a 3 hour drive from Accra, the place they stay at present. “No, it is not painful,” Morris explains. I see it extra as a celebration. If you go to the previous slave forts, it is like giving your ancestors a smile now that you just’re residence. You’re free, you construct your personal existence. And also you do that, the place your ancestors had been compelled to be slaves. Voltaire confirms: for him it’s “a triumph to be right here.” Our ancestors had been pushed by the “Door of No Return”, and their descendants have returned. They refused to die in order that we may stay. And at present we’re again, free and affluent. ”
To positively bury Cape City’s darkish previous, the metropolis has simply launched the mission “Wakanda Metropolis of Return”, named after the legendary kingdom from the film Black Panther. Ghanaian Wakanda will provide vacationers luxurious stays in 5-star lodges in addition to excursions and lectures on the historical past of African civilization and on the continent’s rising position within the new world financial system.
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