Cecile Sackeyfio

by Cecile Sackeyfio (South Africa)

I didn't expect to find Ghana

I have spent my entire life making suffering my God. If I was submerged in despair, and then swam to triumph, I was able to navigate the choppy waves of life and gave myself permission to be content. I used to grip the suffering-triumph pendulum as if it was a scarf on a brisk autumn day or latch onto it as if it was a cool breeze on a hot summer night. Lately, however, the waters of life have been calm. This sent me to Ghana in search of my old friend, pain. I arrived in Kotoka Airport to stifling air, yet the cracks in the building’s walls offered invigoration. The building had a story to tell. The bricks were etched with my history and the slabs of concrete whispered, “welcome home”. Everything felt so familiar. Did the hues of blue in the sky mirror the cloudlessness of the southern region of Africa? Was it the speckles of red and purple in the sand that reminded me of Sharm El-Sheikh? I inhaled and realised that I had been to Accra many times. Most notably when a part of my spirit travelled with my father to his resting place. He, and therefore, I, had once again become part of the soil that nourished my grandmother when she knitted my father together in her womb. I wanted the soles of my feet to burn atop the scorching sand, and I wanted my soul to be set on fire underneath the blazing sun. I wanted my old friend back but what I didn’t expect to find in Accra was peace. A peace which has allowed me to breathe without palpable agony. It was waiting for me on Yamoronsa Road—the road that I traversed to face my past. The road that launched me into my present and rendered the future inconsequential. On Yamoronsa Road, I saw skin as smooth as molten lava that beamed and enveloped my entire being and luscious greenery that breathed life into me. The heart-shaped hills ushered in the healing caresses of my ancestors. When the smell of jollof rice, fresh plantains with ginger, red snapper fried over coals, shito, and kenkey converted to taste, I was lulled into comfort. When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing at the gates of the Middle Passage, Elmina Castle. Though I am all too acquainted with the costs of enslavement, the hollow, cold, and dark cubes, which were once covered with shackles, the blood of menstruating women, and decompensated minds and bodies, made the price paid visible. But the ocean proclaimed stories of liberation of those who made it to and endured the Americas to birth my mom and those distant relatives who made it to freedom in the Seychelles. The cascade of torture was subsumed by a wave of peace, which carried me into the present, to Kumasi. In Kumasi, I slept in my father’s childhood home. On the first night, I was greeted by my father and his parents. My father appeared first, and although I was next to him, I was unable to reach him. I writhed myself back to sleep in the torment of finally seeing my father while being unable to speak and grab his hand. I was awakened by grandparents who lit up the night sky with their smiles. Their smiles announced that I was where I supposed to be. The next day, I arose at dawn to run through the mountains of Kumasi. Perspiring and out of breath, I sat on the rocks of the prayer mountain, Atwea, and as I tied up my hair with my gold Kente cloth, I wept from the joy of releasing my friend. A life riddled with suffering and without the promise of a future, it was the pain of my father’s death, the pain of being culturally displaced at a young age, and the pain of tragedy and trauma which never seemed to leave, that held me together. In Ghana, I found a peace that surpassed my greatest understanding. An inexplicable peace that did not wait on the Cecile of the future but hugged and has not let go of the Cecile in the present.