In the afternoon we walked
Some roads paved, most roads dirt
Deep trenches for drainage and sewage
No sidewalks
Few street signs
Bicycles, street peddlers, cars, motorcycles, walkers
All in a kind of dance across the roadway
In perfect harmony, or a dance of death
A ten year old girl walked in front of us - white shirt, denim skirt
Fruit and nuts piled on her head
Thin, but not frail
In her hand a plastic bag with toilet paper
Her sister or friend two steps behind
Single file or risk the motorcycles
I don’t haggle with people
I don’t know their lives
But assume this Fante man
Would rather be doing something other
Than driving American tourists around
So when he overcharges us by five dollars
I give it willingly
I have five dollars to spare
And am not very interested
In keeping the money
I brought here
I buy a bar of FairAfric chocolate
That says on the back
70% of the world’s cocoa is from West Africa
And only 1% of the world’s chocolate is made here
I see visions
Of child laborers
Like in the cobalt mines of the Congo
I see Swiss chocolatiers
At elegant European shops
So proud of their craft
The delicious labor
Of African children
In fields
An NGO anti-slavery regulator
Found Lindt chocolates broke labor laws
in Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana
Learning about the exploitation of black people
Is like watching re-runs of a 1990’s sitcom
The heroes are white
The jokes are not funny
But the laughtrack
Seems to enjoy it
For a moment I see again
The girl who walked before us
Carrying her goods to market
Or to a street corner
I never saw her face
And never will
Should I have bought something I didn’t need
Just to give her the money?
When W.E.B. Dubois
Lived his last years in Ghana
He finally saw
What I am finally seeing
An entire black nation
Beautiful, flawed, rich, poor, broken, whole
But determining their own fate
So Dubois decided to die here
His tomb
Not far from Kwame Nkrumah’s tomb.
I wonder
Where I will decide to die
If I am ever courageous enough to die
Or if I die screaming and weeping
Too afraid to face it with dignity
Too much a child
To find the resolve my stepfather had
A warrior,
Who set his full gaze on death,
Ready for the final mystery.
I must see everything I can
With eyes unclouded by hate
Like Prince Ashitaka
And report back
To my beloveds at home
Many of whom
Will never step foot on the African continent
They must know what it is like
To drink this humid air
And stand beneath these lush trees
Dark and green as kambaba jasper
And look into the eyes
Of our long-lost cousins
God give me the tongue to speak
God give me the lips
To form the words
To build the bridge
Across this wide
Wide
Wide
Atlantic
Ocean
