I AM My Hair.

WOOOO!!! I just had my hair did!! And its fly!! (No, literally, you should see the Minnesota ice air blowing it into my face and blinding me. Silly thing. ;) )
A couple hours ago I couldn't even get my big toothed afro comb through the thing and now I can wrap it even!!! (Can you tell how excited about it I am??? :D)

So anyways, there is this thing going on in my school where girls left, right, center, above and below (trust we scots to go there too) are cutting their hair. And I don't mean the short bob like Mandy Moore oooo, I mean short like Solange! (One even has a Cassie. She might have changed her mind half way? Idk) Their excuse: "My hair is too straight!"
To think the ones whom Africans looked to and began to perm their hair are actually sick of it now and want curly hair!!! We humans are NEVER satisfied with what we have, are we? ARGH!

My hair is permed, but Lord knows this thing is only "straight" for the first 2 weeks after a perm and then its back to the frizz. And I'm looking on as head after head is shaved thinking nnooooo and I realise just how much I love my hair and how like it I can be.
Before my hair was permed I never did it myself. I couldn't. It was long and thick with tight curls that created knots like they were holding on to each other for dear life! I remember my mother would ran a comb which started with 14 teeth through my hair and it'd come back with 10 because those bonds were that tight. On one hand, we both were stubborn without give, on the other we linked strands/hands and refused to let go. I look at my life and the close friends I have to whom I'm holding on to like my curly strands would hold on to each other.

Then I got a perm. Probably because people who had to deal with doing my hair couldn't anymore. I know I couldn't (When I was left to wash my own hair I had to do it in sections…funny). We are both now changed, newly formed in new ways and trying new things.
But most of all, we do not forget our roots. They spring back up, thick, curly and AFRICAN! Intertwined to link strands yet again. Yes, I am mixed and my skin pays some homage to my European side but we are talking hair and I was born and raised and still grow African.

You can take the girl and her hair outta Africa but not the African outta the girl OR her hair!!

As much as I would llooovveee to my full head of knotted hair back, I know I can't shave my head. eish!! There is a reason hair is there to cover the head. haha. Besides I like the fact I can comb my own hair now (sometimes). ;)

NOTE: I repeatedly said Africa because this kpenkpeshi hair is not only in Ghana. But I would like to say here: I'M A PROUD BLACK STAR (with cream) OF GHANA!!! WWOOOOO!!!!

Oh, Happy Independence Day Naija! :)

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?