October 12th-23rd, 2011- MoCADA and 38 people from all over the country embarked on a 10 day cultural journey home to Ghana, West Africa. With a packed of This enlightening experience included a visits to the W.E.B. Dubois Center, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Center, Aburi Botanical Gardens, Elmina Slave Castles and much more! We learned, we ate, we danced, we shopped…we enjoyed an incredible glimpse of the richness that permeates the Continent. Ghana is a must for anyone who desires to re-connect with their African roots! Testimonial
Oh Mother Africa, you have welcomed us home – It’s so cutting, like something opens me up and reveals more than I can handle. On Tuesday, October 18th, I wrote these words as I sat at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean after breakfast just a few hours before we would go to St. George’s Castle Dungeon at Elmina. My first Journey Home was a gift in oh-so-many ways. The opportunity to travel to my cultural home with one of my own children as my guide, or as a sistah-friend said “…you literally produced the path for your journey back”; to spend days in the Motherland with a group of young and young at heart people who love and value art, culture, themselves, and Africa; the heat, the sounds, the rhythms, the food, the smiles, “Akwaaba!”. When mvmt and MoCada announced the Journey Home I knew that I had to take advantage of this great opportunity. It was time. Many people who know me were surprised that I had yet to make a trip to Africa. Previous opportunities had presented themselves, however for one reason or another, I did not go. The Journey Home felt right from the moment Terence told me about it and when I saw the online poster, I knew that come October, 2011, I was going to Ghana.
There is no way that these few lines can begin to capture all of the remarkable, inspiring, beautiful, energizing, balancing, wrenching and overwhelming experiences that came my way while in Accra, Elmina and Cape Coast, Ghana. I am deeply appreciative to mvmt and MoCada for organizing such an enriching sojourn. I walked through the treetops over 100 feet above the forest floor in the rainforest of Kakum National Park. I tearfully and sorrowfully descended to the depths of the dungeons of the castles in Elmina and Cape Coast, feeling the torment, grief, and resilience of my ancestors who fought, endured, and survived so that I could be. I walked on the beach in the early morning as villagers made their way to work, and their children to school. I returned at dusk and sat in the Atlantic Ocean as the waves washed over me, cleansing, refreshing, centering, and bringing me peace. A full moon in Osu over “Oxford Street” at night and learning to bargain in the very hectic market at the Art Centre– greeted at every turn with shouts of Mama Afrika! Sitting with hundreds of people under the night sky, watching a film made by my son and feeling everyone connect… followed by Blitz the Ambassador, the ‘Native Son’ returning home to powerfully and fiercely bare his heart and soul in concert, but not until the beautiful Les Nubians sang ‘til the skies opened up … purifying. The Journey Home was a gift to me that while a long time coming, was right on time.
I cannot recall a time when I did not know the name and work of Dr. W.E.B. Dubois. When I was in high school I vividly remember interpreting his short story, On Being Crazy in a speech competition. SO, going to his home at the W.E.B. Dubois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture, walking where he walked, seeing the books in his library, and being able to sit on a stool at the foot of his tomb, was surreal. As I stood at the case displaying his teacups and began to cry, I had to stop myself for fear that if I released, it would take too long to come back.
From the moment we walked onto the grounds of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, I felt as if I was on holy ground. The huge bronze statue of Dr. Nkrumah that stands on the exact spot where he declared independence in 1957 vividly reminds us to keep moving forward ever, backward never! I came to know of Nkrumah because of my mother, and as I walked through the park, the museum, and the mausoleum, I wanted to make sure that I took in each and every detail so that I could share them with her.
All this and so much more are part and parcel of my Ghana experience. I am still grappling with and processing my time spent in the castle dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast. I expect it will be quite some time before I can begin to approach adequately relating what I experienced there.
Much of what I have reflected on was on the itinerary, yet there was one thing for which I was truly not prepared. The Billboards! In my 10 days in Ghana I saw billboards everywhere and all of them, except one had Black people on them. All. Of. Them. I kept staring at them, and then I started taking pictures of them. I couldn’t help but think what it must be like to grow up surrounded by huge pictures every day of people who look like you! My favorite was one of a little boy lifting weights, and try as I might I could never get a picture of it. Our last evening in Ghana, as we drove to the airport, we stopped at a traffic light and to my delight, there was the billboard and I was able to get a picture. A little boy about 4 years old stands in a pair of huge tennis shoes with his hands on a set of barbells that clearly weigh 4 to 5 times his weight. He stands poised to lift the weights with the caption, It’s In You!
Indeed.
I am a child of Africa. My name is vickie, I have made my first Sankofa, and I thank God for the Journey Home.
The Journey Home: Ghana
The Journey Home
October 12th-23rd, 2011- MoCADA and 38 people from all over the country embarked on a 10 day cultural journey home to Ghana, West Africa. With a packed of This enlightening experience included a visits to the W.E.B. Dubois Center, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Center, Aburi Botanical Gardens, Elmina Slave Castles and much more! We learned, we ate, we danced, we shopped…we enjoyed an incredible glimpse of the richness that permeates the Continent. Ghana is a must for anyone who desires to re-connect with their African roots!
Testimonial
Oh Mother Africa, you have welcomed us home – It’s so cutting, like something opens me up and reveals more than I can handle. On Tuesday, October 18th, I wrote these words as I sat at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean after breakfast just a few hours before we would go to St. George’s Castle Dungeon at Elmina. My first Journey Home was a gift in oh-so-many ways. The opportunity to travel to my cultural home with one of my own children as my guide, or as a sistah-friend said “…you literally produced the path for your journey back”; to spend days in the Motherland with a group of young and young at heart people who love and value art, culture, themselves, and Africa; the heat, the sounds, the rhythms, the food, the smiles, “Akwaaba!”. When mvmt and MoCada announced the Journey Home I knew that I had to take advantage of this great opportunity. It was time. Many people who know me were surprised that I had yet to make a trip to Africa. Previous opportunities had presented themselves, however for one reason or another, I did not go. The Journey Home felt right from the moment Terence told me about it and when I saw the online poster, I knew that come October, 2011, I was going to Ghana.
There is no way that these few lines can begin to capture all of the remarkable, inspiring, beautiful, energizing, balancing, wrenching and overwhelming experiences that came my way while in Accra, Elmina and Cape Coast, Ghana. I am deeply appreciative to mvmt and MoCada for organizing such an enriching sojourn. I walked through the treetops over 100 feet above the forest floor in the rainforest of Kakum National Park. I tearfully and sorrowfully descended to the depths of the dungeons of the castles in Elmina and Cape Coast, feeling the torment, grief, and resilience of my ancestors who fought, endured, and survived so that I could be. I walked on the beach in the early morning as villagers made their way to work, and their children to school. I returned at dusk and sat in the Atlantic Ocean as the waves washed over me, cleansing, refreshing, centering, and bringing me peace. A full moon in Osu over “Oxford Street” at night and learning to bargain in the very hectic market at the Art Centre– greeted at every turn with shouts of Mama Afrika! Sitting with hundreds of people under the night sky, watching a film made by my son and feeling everyone connect… followed by Blitz the Ambassador, the ‘Native Son’ returning home to powerfully and fiercely bare his heart and soul in concert, but not until the beautiful Les Nubians sang ‘til the skies opened up … purifying. The Journey Home was a gift to me that while a long time coming, was right on time.
I cannot recall a time when I did not know the name and work of Dr. W.E.B. Dubois. When I was in high school I vividly remember interpreting his short story, On Being Crazy in a speech competition. SO, going to his home at the W.E.B. Dubois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture, walking where he walked, seeing the books in his library, and being able to sit on a stool at the foot of his tomb, was surreal. As I stood at the case displaying his teacups and began to cry, I had to stop myself for fear that if I released, it would take too long to come back.
From the moment we walked onto the grounds of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, I felt as if I was on holy ground. The huge bronze statue of Dr. Nkrumah that stands on the exact spot where he declared independence in 1957 vividly reminds us to keep moving forward ever, backward never! I came to know of Nkrumah because of my mother, and as I walked through the park, the museum, and the mausoleum, I wanted to make sure that I took in each and every detail so that I could share them with her.
All this and so much more are part and parcel of my Ghana experience. I am still grappling with and processing my time spent in the castle dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast. I expect it will be quite some time before I can begin to approach adequately relating what I experienced there.
Much of what I have reflected on was on the itinerary, yet there was one thing for which I was truly not prepared. The Billboards! In my 10 days in Ghana I saw billboards everywhere and all of them, except one had Black people on them. All. Of. Them. I kept staring at them, and then I started taking pictures of them. I couldn’t help but think what it must be like to grow up surrounded by huge pictures every day of people who look like you! My favorite was one of a little boy lifting weights, and try as I might I could never get a picture of it.
Our last evening in Ghana, as we drove to the airport, we stopped at a traffic light and to my delight, there was the billboard and I was able to get a picture. A little boy about 4 years old stands in a pair of huge tennis shoes with his hands on a set of barbells that clearly weigh 4 to 5 times his weight. He stands poised to lift the weights with the caption, It’s In You!
Indeed.
I am a child of Africa. My name is vickie, I have made my first Sankofa, and I thank God for the Journey Home.