People always ask me “How often do you go back home?” and I think ‘what do you mean? I go home every night 😉😄. But I know what they mean. They want to know how often I go ‘home’ to Ghana.
It has been so long since I left my home country that it is even embarrassing for me to say ‘not often’ without adding how expensive it is to go back and visit for a couple of weeks. To see my mum, dad, siblings, mates/friends. I would love to visit every year because that is where everyone lives, everyone but me and my half-sister who lives in New Jersey.
Everyone one living away from ‘home’ has a different stories, different needs and reasons for settling down and planting roots in another country. Me, I came to visit and loved it – that simple! I didn’t have a big elaborate plan.
My sojourning started on a holiday trip back to the UK while I was in college, I met a young man. I was 21 then. He wanted to marry me so desperately he followed me back home to Ghana when my holiday in the UK was over and asked my parents for my hand in marriage. I had known him for 3 months. I saw him every day. We worked together in McDonalds. He was the manager. uh huh! Don’t judge. lol. It was all very exciting, and I was very flattered. After that, every holiday I would fly back to England. As soon as my 4-year degree was over and I got my BA certificate in Graphic Design, I packed bag and baggage, got on the first flight out and said “see ya family, I’m off to be a wife!”
We had this big elaborate engagement ceremony before I left, which is basically a marriage in the traditional sense of the word in Ghana. My mum tried to tell me that a marriage is not all what it is cracked up to be and I should not be in such a great hurry to run off, but I was in love (or so I thought?) and possibly running away from something? Nothing? I don’t know what exactly I was running from, but I was running towards love, and I was excited about it. Because I went back and forth so many times, it was not hard to get the fiancé visa (anybody watch 90-day fiancé on tele? yeah, that was me 😊).
It was exciting at first. I stayed home, watched copious amounts of television, we went sightseeing, we moved different places, finally getting a home in Cardiff in Wales and after 5 years together, called it quits – more like I called it quits. It was a very quiet break up but it wasn’t a good situation. I felt trapped. What was I thinking? Fresh out of college, the world at my disposal and sitting at home, cooking, waiting for my fiancé to come home, and watching tele. With the urging of my father and concern of my mum and everyone else I got on the first flight back home to Ghana, under the pretext of visiting my family. I didn’t go back. I left my ring on the windowsill. Yeah, that was bad. I know. He called and asked why? What went wrong? Are you coming back?
I haven’t seen or heard of him since.
Well, that was then. So, after a few years working with the Ghana Postal Service, I moved back to England. I moved to Crawley. Crawley was my home for a few years and then I came to visit my cousin (father side) who lived in California. I was in awe of how huge and large everything was. Everyone knows that when you are on holidays, you have the best time in a country. Living there, working and paying bills is a different story.
I was so taken by California, I went back and handed in my resignation at Transco Gas and moved to California with 2 suitcases and shipped the rest of my things back to Ghana. My work mates were so jealous. Everyone one wanted to move with me to sunny California.
After 4 years in California, I visited another cousin (mother side) in Virginia and fell in love with the greenery the state had to offer so in true single free Brenda fashion, I went back home to Highland in California, gave in my resignation at the Redlands-Yucaipa Guidance Clinic as the assistant operations manager and relocated to Virginia. Just as well I did because I met the hubs 2 years later. We moved to North Carolina with our 2 bambinos in tow 6 years later and the rest is history.
Last year I took my kids back to England and we went around where I lived in Crawley. My daughter enjoyed the visit to England so much that she asked why I moved to the US. Well, we all know if I didn’t there is no way I would have met Brian and no way I would have had my 2 angels. :). Destiny! I wouldn’t change a thing. I am where I am and needed to be because it was all predetermined by God.
They have visited Ghana twice and loved it. The hubs was impressed by what he saw when we went in 2015. He said, “this is not at all like what they teach us or don’t teach us in school in America.” He was amazed by the civilization and growth.
Next to introduce my children will be California, where I lived when I relocated from Crawley. Moving to a new country is exhilarating and scary. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it. All that bouncing around different countries and states in my 20’s. Luckily for me, the cultures in all these countries are not that different, and the main spoken language is English, so I did not have to be faced with much cultural or language barriers that were markedly different than my own. I didn’t feel much change. People would comment about my accent or “how well you speak English being an African.” Yes – I have been told that many times but the trick is to embrace everything about your new country, and its people, some of them very ignorant, and not let the statements, comments or stares get the best of you, and that is what I have done for the past 22 years since making the USA my home.
I don’t feel homesick that much anymore. Infact a lot has changed since I left Ghana more than 25 years ago, to when the kids and I last visited in 2019. Everything looks a bit smaller; it feels a bit hotter and more crowded and definitely more expensive. The people are still the same good people. The kids always want to stay longer when we are ready to leave – but that is because it takes them a few days to warm up to everyone and everything and by the time they start to really enjoy themselves and the culture and their cousins, it is time to return🙁.
I am grateful for social media as a way to keep in touch with my family, friends, school mates, work colleagues. We did not have all of that when I moved to the US in the year 2000 so I have lost track of most of my colleagues in the UK. Thanks to Facebook, I have kept in touch with a few wonderful friends. I try to make a concerted effort to keep in long distance touch with everyone, a job made much easier in today’s digital age.
I am also grateful for the new friends I have made in the US from all walks of life and cultures. It is not as easy to have long lasting friendships and relationships when you move around much. It is rare that I find a Ghanaian in my little village here in North Carolina and I miss that camaraderie with someone from my culture. I see my Filipino neighbors do it. They have such a strong bond together and keep their culture alive. I am a tad bit jealous of the bond they have as a culture. On one hand, it can feel good to surround myself with people and things from my own culture. But I think it also holds me back from fully embracing all the novelty of what’s around me. I don’t want to completely shut myself off from the local culture and environment I’ve moved into, so I immerse myself into my new culture and try to find new friends that are not necessarily from my country. It is these experiences that I learn and grow from, that opens up my mind to other ways of living.
But I know that when I feel melancholy or miss my family, they are (an expensive) plane ride away, a Wassup message away or phone call away.
Have you relocated from another country and made the US your permanent residence? How long ago was that and how easy was it to fit in?
