A Hybrid without a Home

“The truth would set you free,” I have always been told. And for the most part I believed it and still do… to some extent anyway. Sometimes my truth does not set me free, just apart, which is very different.

I was born and raised in Ghana and currently I live in the States as I am going to college here, and of course as an alien I would look for those comfort zones, aka any places with more Ghanaians than usual, simply so I can surround myself with conversations filled with “ah, ehen, oh, EI!” (Sway) lol. I had to add that.

But the point of me putting these fingers to my keyboard today is that whenever I find myself among these people and before I can start using my “chale” or “tsew,” (and sometimes even as I use them) I’m hit with “So where are you from?” and in response to my obvious answer, the next question is always, and I mean ALWAYS, along the lines of, “Wo ti twi?” My response: No.

The truth shall set you free? Really?

It is at this point that they go through the entire list of languages that they are absolutely positive that any Ghanaian would know and my repeated answer of “No” meets every one of them. They finally give up, fling their arms into the air with a "tsew" and proclaim me “not Ghanaian,” and then proceed to exclude me from conversation except when saying something vaguely uninteresting like the fact the sun is shining today, is really great.
Kwasia …tsew.

I have been told often enough that I have a British accent. Meaning I could always say I’m from England. I live in the States and I don’t have the thickest Ghanaian accent so I could also say I’m from here, I could claim I'm German, but even that I don’t speak…. I could always lie about where I’m from since NOONE on the first try ever guesses I’m from Ghana. But from where would I claim a true identity? Nowhere. No one would believe I’m Ghanaian since I don’t speak Twi or Ga or even Ewe despite a surname like Tamakloe. I could pretend I'm from so many places but what good does it do me?

There seems to be no place for a hybrid like me except among those who can't question my origin as they really know nothing about it. But its not with them but I belong nor with them that I identify. But where else can I go, if my own people refuse to accept me?