Arrival

A poetic note on my first days in Ghana

I am still in Accra, Ghana. I arrived and made it through Passport Control, luggage pick up, and Customs quite quickly. Checked into my hotel, but I had to wait for my room to be ready. This was expected because I landed in the morning. I went to get my hair braided. After a pretty long first day, my evening journal came out in a poem. I hope you all enjoy it.

---

Arrival

I stepped out of the airport and the air kissed me.
Not soft, not shy
but full-lipped like an auntie
who had waited too long
too hold me.

This is not my first time on the continent, but Ghana feels different.
I have danced in the wind in Kigali,
watched the sunset on a beach in Zanzibar,
felt the pulse of Johannesburg streets, 
lost my breath in Cairo's golden glow.

Africa has touched me before.
In pieces and places.
But this was a whole other greetings.
Ghana whispered, "Welcome back."
like I belonged to her
even though we've never met.

I came ready to compare,
to find Rwanda's quiet order,
Tanzania's wild openness,
South Africa's sharp edge rhythm,
Egypt's ancient gaze...
Ghana said, "Hush."
I am not a rerun. I am not a shadow.
I am name you haven't spoken yet.

The heat gripped me like a memory,
tight and forgiving. 
Not hostile, but honest.
It reminded me that this journey 
is not about collecting countries, 
but learning languages of the spirit
in each place calling me.

Women walked past with fruits and fabrics like fire
and grace like water.
Their movements didn’t ask permission.
They declared something.
And I, in my jetlagged joggers,
remembered how to stand up straighter.

Braiders called out “Akwaaba”
and my mouth stumbled over the Twi,
but my heart replied fluently.
Even in unfamiliar cadence,
something in me recognized the rhythm...
as if my blood had been humming it
beneath colonized grammar
and Atlantic crossings.

Still, I felt the ache of newness;
that strange discomfort
of being home-adjacent.
Of knowing I am from here,
but not from here.

This land does not know my family tree,
but it knows my longing.
And I know enough to kneel in its sand
without needing to claim it.

I am not here to be native.
I am here to be honest;
to sit at this table with open hands,
to listen more than I speak,
to gather the pieces of myself
scattered across borders
and breathe them into one.

So I let Ghana meet me slowly,
not as a tourist,
not as a collector of stories,
but as a woman returning
to yet another room
in the ancestral house.

And there...
in the smell of fried plantain,
in the ocean’s rustle against the shore,
in a stranger’s glance that said, "you look like someone"
I found a small, quiet yes.

Not the whole answer.
But a place to begin again.

---

Thank you for reading The Nomadic Scholar! Special thank you to my paid subscribers!

If you’d like to support in ways other than a paid subscription, you can:

Like and/or share this post for visibility.

Buy me a map. Figuratively speaking, that is. This is a way to support me without committing to a paid subscription.

Book me. I write, but I also speak and facilitate. Check me out.