Suffering Ghanaman Overseas: Prelude to Marriage

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

**This is a part of new poems on Ghanaians overseas. Today’s poem is about
Ghanaian men who travel overseas and later return home to marry. Look forward to
a number of sequels. The next one is tentatively entitled, “Ghanaman Goes Home
to Marry His Fate.” Please, note that the perspectives on Ghanaian women,
children, family, etc. overseas will be tackled later.

Ghanaman abroad
Usually travels abroad alone
Struggles like fish on sand
Aburokyire meditations
Invocations of home and kin
Painful moments of truth
Hunts for papers, krataa
Forages for companionship
Surveys all types of women
In search of ME BURONI
The wrinkled ones in polish
The fat white goddess in satin
The fattest prize there is
The one white men “dislike”
Ghanaman BE FA (takes it all)

Ghanaman abroad
Trapped in two abysses
His own “African” corpus
Devalued by self-depreciation
The urge to speak like whites
The wish to “behave” like whites
White supremacy blooms in Ghana
Seeded long before the journey abroad

Ghanaman abroad
Bombarded with images
Kaleidoscopic mirrors
Born out of insidious racism
Coffined by white snow
Accents that betray identities
Choreographed by silly laughter
Silly laughter in place of speech
Laughter that flatters whites
Paternalism, condescension
Assertive, self-assured Ghanaman
Constructed as a black paranoid
Has no place on White Earth

Ghanaman abroad
Suffocated by demands
Demands from home
Paying connection fees
Putting up a house
Buying coffins

Ghanaman abroad
Demands overseas
Suffocating household bills
Car payments
School fees, credit cards
Paper, krataa, immigration fees
Identity crisis, depression, alienation
Accent in a Burger King drive thru
Sudden nostalgia for a Ghanaian chop bar

Ghanaman abroad
Squatters of the night
Watchman as a Security
Taxi driver in a robotic pose
Cleaners of the acidic cold night
Cleaners of wrinkled white behinds
Cleaners of ungrateful dead bodies
Deprived of sleep, rest, respect

Ghanaman abroad
Ringing-phone announces death
Ringing-doorbell is immigration
Ringing-siren is imminent deportation

Oh! Ghanaman abroad
Loneliness and deprivation
Killer of the soul
Assassin of the body
Executioner of food-appetite
Harbingering alcohol, drugs
Assuaging pain, grief
Desolation peers in the window
Across manicured lawns are deserts
Neighbors with radioactive greetings

Ghanaman
Back home is adored
Remembered all the time
Happy days, sad days
He bears his pain abroad
Bears it boastfully, gallantly
Picks up the phone and tells it all
Mortuary attendant says he is a doctor
Live-in says he is an RN on loan
Toll-collector is a state accountant

Ghanaman suffers abroad
But worshipped in Ghana
Ghanaian women adore him
Women in love with abroad
Ghanaman is the ticket to abroad
ABLORD or aburokyire
The crucible of crafted divorce
Choreographing divorce dance
Marriage is Ghanaman’s fate abroad
Bolts & knots that make Ghanaman
Like a soothing rain in a dry spell
Bolts & knots that unmake Ghanaman
Like a rampaging tornado at dawn

*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained
oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in
Pennsylvania with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college
in Maryland. In her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist
hyperbolic, satirical” poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com