My Mom's Visit to Ghana

About a year before I joined the Peace Corps, my mom visited me in Las Vegas, where I had been living at the time. If you’ve been to the strip before, you know that Las Vegas is a city of excess and we took every advantage it had to offer for a mother and son. The trip included a fancy Italian dinner (or two or three), a Celine Dion show and plenty of sight-seeing.

Nearly two years later, she was coming to see me again in my new home, Ghana. But this time we had a different kind of agenda and the memories we created were of a different variety. Las Vegas is focused on things to see and stuff to do. Ghana is about the people you meet. You need to walk around in the towns and villages – the further away from a city the better – and talk with people, take the public transportation, wander around a market – do the things that Ghanaians do in their daily lives.

Of course, in Ghana, this comes with its own set of challenges for a visitor. Among the million other obstacles keeping people from experiencing Ghana to the fullest, the food is completely different (and will likely make a newcomer a little sick), the weather is uncomfortably hot, and everyone is speaking a language you probably struggle to even pronounce, let alone understand. But I’m super proud that my Mom stepped out of her comfort zone for a day and visited my community. For this we were both rewarded with an amazing experience.

We arrived in my community around 9am and she was promptly greeted by some of the elders of the community, including my counterpart. Then the assemblyman led her on a tour of the community followed by a procession from my house to the church, where they held a mass attended by members of all 8 churches in my community. The end of the mass turned into a welcome ceremony for my Mom that included the assemblyman reading a 3-page typed speech about how much they appreciate my contributions and positive attitude. If that wasn’t enough, some of the women took my Mom into the back and dressed her in traditional kente clothe and draped a sash around her that read “Welcome Mrs. Dawd,” all of which was a gift for her to keep. Yes, they spelled my last name wrong, but that was somehow endearing. My mother had gifts of her own to present but we were so busy that we only ended up giving a couple of them out that day.

After mass, we went back to my house and had a late lunch of local food (akple and groundnut soup with chicken) before walking around and greeting as many of my friends as possible with the limited time we had left. To cap it all off, we took public transportation (a taxi and then a tro tro) to my market town and walked around for a bit until it got dark. At that point, we were both exhausted and we made our way back to Accra.

I feel so exceptionally lucky to have been able to shared my home with my mom and to have created these memories with her that will last a lifetime!