Two hours of jolting down a wavy red road, nearing 130 km/hour in places that seem impossible given the dramatic rolls of the dirt. My head hits the roof of the car several times as we launch off a rise; speed bumps have no authority here. The endless Komkomba conversation emanating from the back seat mellows to a gentle hum, one that I will soon find familiar. I have made this trip between Tamale and Salaga twice before, and with the sight of the rusted van in the ditch, know we are reaching our destination. We stop in the market, the place that hundreds of years ago sold humans rather than the dusty sachets of water I am buying, the mosquito net I don’t end up really needing, the bag of rice I was told to get but am determined not to eat. Fifteen minutes later we pass the dam, its tangle of bicycles casting afternoon shadows on the road, and enter the village of Kuwani. We dip through the ditch to rest at a faded green house, a cavity of brick exposed and brown earth slowly climbing its walls. My new home.

Day 1

A squat woman hustles her way from the mango tree across the road, beaming to reveal orange teeth and a fuzzy tongue behind the twig of sugarcane glued to her lips. She immediately embraces me, pinning my arms to my sides in a sticky squeeze, the top of her head brushing my chin. It is the first time I have been truly hugged in months. “Nna,” she insists, sharply tapping her heaving chest, and “maboo,” brushing mine. Nna. Mother. Maboo. Daughter. We enter the house, most of which is a sort of courtyard made up by three exterior walls of a home and a stone one running along the right, where the yellow headed lizards scamper. A clothesline stretches from the entrance of the yard to the cooking shelter at the back, which is neat with piles of dried cassava in one corner and stony growths balancing pots atop a fire in the other. A village over a man has died, and four days later, the second funeral celebration is taking place. Women dance and chant in an endless curving line, enclosed by men who stomp their jangle-adorned ankles and pound drums. The color is bright and the energy brilliant as men, women, and children run and spin and clap and sing, turning the space into a pulsating sea of people. It is here that there is so much life in death. Everybody is home. Nna’s husband sits in his reclined wooden chair in the corner. Nte. Father. His grandchildren scatter the yard, the older ones ten or twelve, the babies two or three. Gabriel, Jennifer, Eric, Ceilar, Vito. Past the cloud of flies swarming the wavering lightbulb, Lydia and Ebenezer pound fufu with long wooden staffs, sweat highlighting their muscles as they work. Nnikpe. Sister. Nnija. Brother. They tell me to bathe, and I duck behind the three short walls tucked in the corner of the yard to pour cans of musty water over my naked body, self-conscious of how brightly my skin glows. They laugh at the small chunks of fufu I tentatively piece off and slide down my throat, compared to the fistfuls they stuff in their mouths. With the weight of my dinner settling in my stomach, my eyelids flicker, and when the children pull out their sleeping mats I crawl under my mosquito net and slip off.

Day 2

Nna pours a stream of korkor into my cup, a bitter smooth porridge whose taste makes me gag, but warms my stomach. As we approach the clinic the screams grow louder, screams belonging a small boy pinned down by his mother and getting infection cut away from a wound on his ankle. I follow Nna through a door under a faded sign labeling it “detention room,” where a woman is stretched out on a thin sheet of cloth, one palm stressed against the wall, her eyes screwed up in pain as her pregnant belly tightens. Her baby is twisted, splayed within her in the splits; when I return to the clinic half an hour later in search of Nna, the mother has been dressed and positioned on a small motorbike, sandwiched between the driver and the woman who supports her as she writhes. We walk the thread of the red road weaving through the village, the mango I eat streaming sweet syrup down my chin and stickying my hands. Children dimple the wide shorelines of the dam, wading thigh-deep to fill their basins before swinging them onto strong necks to carry home. In only our short walk back the clouds turn dark and threatening, and we rush inside to collect the laundry and frantically gather the cassava drying on the ground. My knees and knuckles grate on the rough stone as I scoop the calloused chunks into a large tub, which smears black grease along my forearms. The children giggle, and Nna proudly bellows I am turning black, which is soon to be a running joke. It pours relentlessly, huge droplets hitting the ground and jumping back up; Ceilar stomps and spins in deepening puddles, and is scolded back under the roof. I hold a yellow pillowcase for Nna and help her strain a mixture of water and freshly ground soya, aggressively wringing the cloth to squeeze out the sweet warm milk. They laugh at how my small hands struggle to grip the fabric, but I determinedly persist until the task is finished and my fingers are pruned. Outside the sky is yellow with storm; huddled under the cooking shelter smoke stings my eyes, yet just as the loving family around me, envelops me in a nostalgic comfort.   

Day 3

It is 5:30 am; roosters and goats wake me up. The air is sweet and heavy with last night’s rain, cool in the birth of the day. Nninja and I weave through the neighboring huts, which grow increasingly staggered as they spread out into the brush. One cedi earns us pito, a flat fermented juice handed to me in a calabash with a warning not to drink too much. It is market day, and Nna and I slice the tofu that has been setting overnight, her gently humming a note approval with every pass of my knife. We walk the street while the sun is still new, my fingers slipping in and out of Nna’s clasp as our disagreeing strides form an awkward gait, one that is perversely comfortable. Nna introduces me to Nte’s mother, whose cataract-stained eyes are shrunken within her leathered face. I slowly piece together the Komkomba word, and am rewarded with a delighted exclaimation of “maboo” and a tackling embrace. Nnya. Grandmother. Her worn hands graze my breasts and she smiles knowingly at Nna. “Young.” Seated at the ankles of our habitual mango tree, we shell peanuts until my thumbs grow tender; I am lost in thought, roused only by the occasional exhale of a cool breeze. The golden hour dawns and two women wander by, connected by their pair of swinging hands and amicably bumping shoulders and hips. I bravely grab a fistful of fufu, and calling Nna’s attention, stuff it into my open mouth, earning another engulfing hug and laughter from the rest of the family. The power quits, and the stars glisten without competition. As I step into the street to admire them, a lizard squirms past my feet. But it is not a lizard; the shine of its back gives it away. A glossy scorpion scuttles off into the night.

Day 4

The newborn sun kisses my skin, and the soft murmur of the awakening day is a peaceful hum. My other grandmother smiles a toothless hello from the usual mat under her mango tree, flexed feet sticking straight out and knobby hands clasped in her lap. Nnya, adona. Grandmother, good morning. A goat runs out of a nearby house chased by an assaultive stick, and a girl teeters by on a bicycle much too long for her young legs, one of which she sticks through the middle bar so as to shakily peddle. The children rush from school to play soccer, delighted when I move from the shade to join in the merriment. As to not slide on the loose pebbles I fling off my flip flops, and instantly regret it as the sand scorches the soles of my pampered feet. Nna’s thundering shout of “kursei” attracts children from all directions, bearing dishes of cassava in exchange for these soya donuts Nnikpe fries above embers transported under the tree. In the growing dusk, I introduce my childhood clapping games to the kids, and am taught theirs. Soon the whole family is paired off, the slap of hands and snap of fingers ringing through the yard. Nna gets faster and faster, laughing as my eyes widen at her sudden change of pace and cheering as I catch on and keep up. My palms are red and stinging, and we are all laughing.

Day 5

I sit on the stump in the morning shade of our little house, and lift my head to find a growing crowd of children standing in front of me, just looking at me. I smile and wave and they reply, but still they stand, looking. A boy with a tear straight up the back of his emerald shorts, a girl with her hip stuck out to support the baby she totes. A woman bearing a load of firewood on her head tsks at them and they disperse, but I can feel their eyes peeking back at me from a distance. The man in the grinding shed is powdered with the delicate snow of cassava flour, which dusts his eyelashes and hair and clings to the pearls of sweat on his skin. Some catches the wind and is scattered back to where we sit on a table of wooden planks, the ones that nestle against the trunk of nearly every mango tree. This tree is large; a boy uses a long stick to coerce mangos to the ground before hurriedly discarding it in his scramble to catch the falling fruit. I study the pattern of the girls’ jumping and clapping game and am brave enough to join in; they nearly fall to the ground laughing at my mistimed claps and awkward kicks but hopelessly try to teach me. Back at our mango tree, a chicken pecks around the napping Ceilar, who is splayed out in every direction, crumbs of rocks sticking to her velvety cheeks. I play volleyball with Eric and Gabriel until my back is wet with sweat, our frenzied skids billowing dust clouds that color my toes brown once more. There are no obscuring clouds tonight, and I show the family Orion’s strong, dependable belt, and the big dipper, upside down in this African sky. A piece of Alaska to share, for them to see, and to remember.   

Day 6

Light streams from a cross of cut-out bricks behind the preacher, whose comically magnified eyes are barely visible behind the glare of his glasses. The raw harmonies of the choir swell in the small church; I can feel the music pulsing through my entire body. I sit with the kids in front of the house, interacting through gestures and laughter as we whistle, snap, roll our tongues, crack our fingers. They stripe a finger down my braid, poke my freckles, wonder at how my skin is temporarily ghosted with a white fingerprint if pressed hard enough. Nna pulls me into a room heaped with old clothes and fabrics, a beautiful old hand-turn sewing machine in the corner. Without speaking she lifts the hem of my shirt, and determinedly wraps two strings of cobalt beads around my waist, tying the thread with a firm knot so they rest on my hips. The traditional nlen that all women hide beneath their skirts, a sensual reminder of their femininity. She softly pats my new secret, squeezes my hands and gives me a smile, one that is intimately loving rather than her usual unbridled exuberance. “You Ghana now.” Ceilar squeals and darts away from my tickling fingers, and Veto spins beneath a shower of agushi shells, dancing to the faint clicks of an old power bar.

Day 7

The power is out all night, the fan that struggles to send a feeble wind through my mosquito net standing motionless. The slap of little feet outside my door wakes me from a fitful sleep and I bathe to cool off, the water accompanied by its usual urine-reminiscent scent. With the morning blanket of clouds still wrapping the sun I walk through the village, between the trees and the chickens, the goats so young dried umbilical cords still dangle from their bellies. Ceilar tentatively joins me, skipping and stumbling on her Adidas slides, and before long I have accumulated a procession of children dedicatedly marching along behind. Nnya and Na are arranged beneath our mango tree, patiently stringing minute glass beads onto lengths of thread. Nna slides colorful bracelets from her wrist to mine, tapping my left, “four,” and my right, “one.” Stealing the women’s discarded flip flops, the children draw circles in the sand and we pass the shoes between us, slamming them down in the dust and grabbing the next, going faster and faster and faster. We play jacks with shea nuts, toss stones into a hastily drawn target, outline hands and feet with sticks in the earth. And then we go to the dam. A stampede of children thunders past me, daring to tag me before running forward to strip and sprint into the marshy, muddy water at the head of the lake where there are no crocodiles. They scream as I follow unreservedly, slipping on the greasy sludge of the bottom and falling into the crowd. We kick and splash and spray and squirt and race, sticking our legs up in wobbly handstands and creating waves with cramped somersaults. I duck down and child after child clamors onto my shoulders; with my eyes squeezed shut I spin them around before they catapult off, the sound of raw, unfiltered happiness filling my ears. The warm walk home dries my hair quick and tangled. Music gathers the family together as the dark settles, Nninja’s own songs, his voice bright and carefree as it emerges from the tinny speaker. And we all dance, and sing, and cheer, blending into the night and visible only through our flashing smiles, our bright whirling clothes, and the sound of our laughter.

Day 8

It is 2 am; the metal roof above me sounds as if it is being torn to shreds by the wind and rain, yet when I emerge from my room only lightning blazes to reveal an angry sky. Everybody else rushes into various rooms, dragging their sleeping mats behind them, yet I pull a chair out to the middle of the courtyard and sit under the clouds, watching the storm move in. A bowl of zesty wasa wasa steams on my lap as I watch Ceilar chase Vito around the yard, her golden nlen bouncing above baggy underwear. I wander out of the house and onto the shy wooded paths I’ve spotted over the past few days. Tall trees line each side while dragonflies with translucent wings capped by parallel black bars flit around my ankles. Nna and Nnikpe sew in the shade, straining fabric to cut with a razor blade before somehow transforming the fraying patches back into a skirt. Nna laughs as she passes me a tub of cassava flour to carry down the road; I cautiously stretch my spine tall and use my fingertips to balance the load on my head, but I neither stumble nor spill. Jennifer bends over the dishes with legs splayed like a newborn foal’s, and as I kneel down to rinse, accidentally splashes me with the sudsy water. Her eyes dash up to mine, nervous for my reaction until I plunge my hand into the foam and wipe bubbles across her face and she bursts out laughing. Immediately bubble beards and mustaches take priority over the dirty dishes as the adults look on, amusedly shaking their heads. The grease of a pot stains my hands black and I impishly hold them up to show Nna, who throws her head back with the expected hearty laugh, but then quiets and tells me I am wonderful. I look at her. “You come to my house, dirty dirty. I don’t speak, I no school, I sit here, you still come. You are wonderful.” I beg her to understand that my life is not better than this, than hers. That my house might be bigger, less “dirty”, I might not have to grind cassava and pound fufu for my dinner, might not worry about how much water is left. That I do have that easier, and have many things that I don’t really need but am privileged with. But that the day to day life around me simply just isn’t as happy, as shared, as celebrated as it is here. That I am so thankful to be here, with all of them. Nna leads me into my dark room and clasping my hands in hers, sings in a low husky voice much gentler than her usual tone. Praying for me, for my home and my family, for my safe journey away from them. And tears prick my closed eyes.

My knees are cut and bruised from the rough stone floor, my feet dyed brown from endless dust, my thumbs tender from hours of cracking peanuts, my shoulders sunburnt from the places I couldn’t reach. In eight days I have swarms of new freckles dotting my arms and nose, 100% more beads on my body, a dirty and smudged camera lens, and memories I’ll forever treasure.  I’ll miss Nnikpe’s laugh when I insist on helping her, Nninja’s dancing and deep conversations, Nte’s quiet yet amused presence. Gabriel’s playful competition, Eric’s huge grin, Jennifer’s shy giggle. Veto’s sticky hands and Ceilar’s bright eyes. And Nna’s giant, sweaty, stinky hugs. I learned to jog down through the ditches to avoid sliding on the round pebbles, when to use the outhouse to avoid the swarms of flies at midday and the active bats at night. How to eat a mango without getting all syrupy and wrap fabric into a skirt that won’t fall down. How to eat foods I don’t really like and be fearless in trying new things. How to be content in my own head for hours, and to laugh at everything. How life can be simple but still hard, and hard but still joyful. So beautifully joyful.