Home away from home
By Ama Asante
When the new township of Tema, near Accra, was built in Ghana in the early 1960s it took until almost seven years later before the first burial took place in Tema.
Until that time, even though many people had bought houses built by the government in the township and lived there in all senses of the word, very few people considered Tema their home.
They lived there, their children went to school there, the Tema market had become established, there was even a football team from Tema in the national football competition, and yet you couldn't find anybody who would admit to calling Tema his hometown.
The truth of the matter is that even after a quarter of a century there is still hardly anybody who would call Tema his hometown.
For the Ghanaian, the ultimate signal of accordance of the status of 'hometown' is where you get buried when you die. When the first burial took place in Tema therefore, there were many sighs of relief among official circles for they were on the verge of giving up on the idea of Tema ever being accepted as a hometown of any Ghanaian.
In the Ghanaian scheme of things the place of birth has never mattered very much, but the place of burial has been the all important indicator. Which explains why when the first burial took place in Tema, officialdom was so happy that the Tema township experiment would succeed.
This is not to suggest that Ghanaians are only concerned with deaths and burials, but the fact of the matter is that it is still regarded as something of a taboo and a slur on the family if somebody dies and is buried somewhere other than in his hometown.
To be your hometown, you need never have been born there, nor gone to school there nor grown up there nor worked there nor even retire to that place. You need not to have even spent two nights there ever, it can still be your hometown, once that is the place of origin of your family. No matter where you died, your family will consider it their duty to bring your body 'home' to be buried.
In many ways this preoccupation with burial places has been the reason why Ghanaians have always found it difficult to make successful transplants in other cultures the thought is always there that this is only a temporary sojourn and they will be going back home even if it is only the dead body that makes the journey back.
Like the gradually filling cemetery in Tema, however, things are changing.
There is a perceptible change in the psyche of the Ghanaians who live in Britain. It used to be that people would more readily admit to regarding Tema as their home than admit to regarding Britain as their home..
The joke used to be about greying elderly gentlemen who had spent the better part of forty years in Britain who insist every day that they are going home 'next year', the trouble being that 'next year' never seemed to come.
Ghanaian cultural troupes are often invited over to perform at functions overseas.
Now the charade has been dropped. Nobody seems to talk about planning to 'go back home next year' and the ultimate psychological barrier seems to be broken now that Ghanaians no longer consider it imperative that dead bodies are flown back home.
It possibly is the result of bowing to economic reality and the changing types of people who make the journey out of Ghana. They are no longer served. students coming to study, get a qualifi- cation to enable them join the Ghana job market at an elevated position. Apart from those with political problems, an increasing number are those who have already lost the battle in the job and economic market place in Ghana. When they get to Europe or wherever, they are definitely not thinking of 'going back home next year'.
The pre-occupation now seems to be with creating a 'little Ghana' wherever they might be and once again it is the death rites that seem to be most important. No matter how cold it is, the attire has to be the traditional Ghanaian 'mourning cloth' which means that there is always a booming trade in the traditional cloths used for funerals in Ghana.
The funeral rites are conducted with the most meticulous care and libation is poured with enthusiasm no longer visible in present Ghana as though to placate the absent gods that a child of Ghana is being buried outside his hometown.
But it is not only death that is seen to, the outdooring ceremonies that celebrate a birth are regularly observed.
Ghana's economic problems and the desperation with which everybody in the country craves 'foreign exchange has meant that even at the height of last year's massive starvation in Ghana, the shops in London that sell Ghanaian foodstuff were always well stocked for those who insist on Kobi garden eggs were satisfied.
A new feature of this attempt to create a 'Ghana' out of their new places of residence is the celebration of traditional festivals.
Thus, whenever it is Fetu Afahye or Akwanbo or Homowo time in Ghana, those whose areas in Ghana are involved in the festivals consider it imperative to mark the occasion.
This writer has not heard of the Hogbetsotso of the Anlos being celebrated in Britain or elsewhere outside Ghana yet, but doubtless it might very well be in the planning stages. The most recent of such celebrations in London was by the Ga Adangbe community which marked their Homowo festival.
The ceremony was held at the United Reform church in North London and the chief of the community in a speech reminded all Gas that 'even though they are thousands of miles away from their traditions'.
To emphasize the point, the traditional Homowo festival food 'kpokpoi' was sprinkled around in much the same way as the Ga Mantse would do in Accra.
