BACK TO AFRICA, PART 1

Florida Courier Publisher Charles W. Cherry II writes about a fact-finding trip to Ghana with his brother Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, where an oil discovery is expected to spark additional economic growth in one of Africa’s most stable countries.

BY CHARLES W. CHERRY II
FLORIDA COURIER

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It’s Tuesday, April 12 – departure day for my trip to Africa, and I have to make sure I can get to Tampa, almost 300 miles away, for a late afternoon flight.

In some ways, Ghana is a contradiction. (PHOTO BY CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER)

I wake up at 4 a.m. to finish packing and leave my Fort Lauderdale-area home at about 9 a.m. The trip was thankfully uneventful and I arrived at 1:30 p.m. at my brother Glenn’s home, well within the necessary schedule time.

His wife Valerie rides with us as we head toward the Tampa airport after stopping to pick up memory cards for my cameras, and I’m loaded for bear: two pro Nikon digital cameras and two lenses, long & short, my 10 year-old daughter Chayla’s Kodak sports video camera, and a brand-new 17-inch Mac Book Pro, replacing my five-year old Mac Book Pro which had a cracked screen and was literally held together by vice grips.

On-time departure

We boarded the Delta flight to Atlanta. I sat on the aisle next to a big steroid -swole White woman who kept her arms crossed over her chest and didn’t say a word to me the whole 90-minute flight. Think of a blond, 300-pound Rosie O’Donnell with tattoos, and you get the picture.

We arrived in the ATL with plenty of time to catch our connecting Delta flight 132 direct to Accra, Ghana’s capital city – an 11-hour overnight flight. Glenn hustled up to get something to eat while I worked on the Daytona Times and the Florida Courier, sending in last-minute articles. We waited till the last group was called to board and joined the organized chaos onboard.‘Soul Plane’

Most of the passengers were Africans, many with kids, and a smattering of Whites-some young, maybe on an excursion to West Africa like we were; some older, including some Texas-type middle-aged yahoos wearing cowboy hats with the name of their heavy equipment company there.

The problem was gridlock in the aisles, caused primarily by too much carry-on baggage and no place to properly store it. But the predominantly Black flight attendant crew had obviously been through the drill before. T hey firmly but politely told people with shopping bags, knapsacks, etc. that they would have to check their baggage, and made it clear that the flight was going to leave on time, urging everyone to sit down immediately. In the interim, there was a cacophony of voices speaking in English, French, some Spanish, and African native languages.

Top: Charles Cherry II and Dr. Glenn Cherry with members of a local storefront church. Bottom: Ghanaians give credit where due to Africans and African-Americans in this sign at a local store. The country’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, graduated from historically Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. He is known as “Osagyefo”-“the Redeemer.” (PHOTO BY CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER)

The Delta jet would push back very close to the 8 p.m. scheduled time, and we didn’t wait on the runway long before we began our 11-hour journey. As soon as the wheels lifted off, at least three of the babies on the flight began to cry loudly, as if they were on a relay team – one would yowl like a cat in heat, stop, and then another would take over – for the next 20 minutes until the plane reached its cruising altitude.

Real-time tracking

This particular flight had an onboard GPS tracking system that allowed you to see our progress across the southeastern United States, into the Atlantic Ocean past southern Bermuda, then across a long stretch of ocean to West Africa. Glenn and I settled into our seats and dove into the meal we brought on of fish and chips. Glenn

watched some TV programs then nodded off to sleep. (We are both big men, more than six feet tall and 235 pounds apiece. Fortunately, we had empty seats on each side of us.)

Approximately an hour into the flight, the flight attendants served a light dinner. Three hours out, judging by the snores and the crooked heads on seats, just about everyone but the flight crew and me were asleep.

In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," MLK said that while you are in jail, you could only "think long thoughts and write long letters." As Glenn and others snored and shivered under the thin covers of their airline blankets, I thought many long thoughts.

I had spent two weeks in Senegal and Cote d’ Ivore (also known as the Ivory Coast) with a group of Black lawyers who were members of the National Bar Association; Mom Julia and sister Cassandra accompanied me on that 1991 trip that changed my life. What I found in West Africa was Black psychological and physical energy that’s missing in America.

Not for everybody

Africa is ancient, hard, tough – and extreme in many cases. And the continent ain’t for everybody. African plant, animal and human life is relatively cheap, and conflict, the struggle for survival, and death are not sanitized and filtered like they are in the United States. On that first trip I saw the best (families sticking together no matter what) and the worst (extreme poverty and sickness) of human civilization.

Just like The Spinners’ song "Love Don’t Love Nobody," I learned that although I may love Africa, Africa didn’t necessarily love me-in fact, the continent "don’t love nobody." I contracted malaria in 1991 and spent the worst 48 hours in my life (thus far) feverously praying that I would see the next day. (The puzzled South Florida hospital staff couldn’t figure out I had malaria until my Black doctor convinced them to test me for malaria and told them how to do so.)

I’ve also learned to respect Africa. And I respect it enough to get shots for virtually every communicable disease known to man – yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, tetanus, you name it – as well as the malaria pills you take before, during, and after the trip.

In charge

In 1991, I saw Black people in charge of their own country (though we all know that the ‘former’ European colonialists and America, at the time, were pulling the financial strings.) I saw Senegalese men – from the richest and most powerful to the poorest man walking down the street – proudly wearing their own clothing, not the cheap black K-Mart suits and cheesy neckties that some African political leadership wears today.

I perceived that as a cultural statement of pride and dignity. And with very few notable exceptions – much to my mother’s chagrin – I haven’t worn a European-style business suit and a necktie since 1991.

This 2001 trip is different. Glenn and I were coming to evaluate business opportunities and to write about the rise of Ghana as West Africa’s leading business center. Our guide was to be Judith Aidoo, the principal of Caswell Capital, an investment advisory group. Judith is a Ghanaian-American Harvard Law School graduate, investor and investment advisor, and close friend.

On the coast

Looking at a map of Africa, if you put your finger on the closest point to America and move your finger from left to right down the Africa’s western coastline, you’ll run into Ghana. The country itself is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon.

Ghana was formed when two British colonies, the Gold Coast and the Togoland Trust territory, fought and broke away from Great Britain in 1957 to become Africa’s first country below the Sahara Desert to become an independent nation. Its founder, freedom fighter Kwame Nkrumah, is as revered in Ghana (by most people) as George Washington is revered in America.

We would stay two weeks at her family’s home in Accra, Ghana’s largest city – population 2.3 million – making its population about the size of Miami-Dade County’s. Judith’s contacts within the investment community and the letter of introduction from our 200-member Black newspaper trade group, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, would give us access to powerful people in the know about Ghana.

Large footsteps

Still, there was an intellectual and emotional component to the trip for me. I was walking in the footsteps of Black liberation fighters W.E.B. DuBois (who moved to Ghana and died there), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who came to Accra in 1957 to support the newly independent Ghana and its first president, Kwame Nkrumah) and El hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X), whose 1964 trip to Ghana changed the trajectory of his life. (He was murdered a year after his Ghana trip.) In fact, Ghana was on MLK’s mind the night before he was killed. In his "Been to the Mountaintop" speech, he said that Black people’s desire to be free resonated in Accra, Ghana as loudly as it did in Memphis, Tenn.

I was too jazzed up to sleep. So while hundreds of people slept around me, I played a video puzzle game called "Chaind" for hours. I finally nodded off as we crossed the Atlantic and passed over Senegal before making a right-hand turn toward Accra. Two hours later, we touched down and I returned to West Africa after a 20-year absence.

We walked off the Delta jet at 11 a.m. the next day from the rear down a set of steel stairs and got onto a shuttle bus for the short trip to customs and the airport terminal. It was hot and dusty, but still a welcome relief after 11 hours in the air. As we waited for a bored female customs officer to stamp our passport, I read a sign warning pedophiles and sexual deviates to stay away from Ghana. "If this is your intention, you are well advised to do us both a favor and go somewhere else," the sign said.

We each got our two bags. I’ve packed strategically, bringing one 50-pound bag (the weight limit) and another bag that’s practically empty, so that I can refresh my own clothes closet with new West African gear and satisfy the long list of requests I got for African dresses and fabrics without paying a steep overweight baggage charge on the return trip.

Taking a taxi

Judith was happy to see us, and led us through a large group of people who were waiting outside the airport. (Traveling abroad, I’m always conscious of how big many Black American men like me are. We stick out like sore thumbs almost anywhere around the world, but because of our size and height, not necessarily our color. And it’s been no different as I’ve traveled even in Mexico and the Caribbean.)

Judith doesn’t drive. A taxi driver approached her and the negotiation began.

"How much to the Emmanuel Eye Clinic, my brudda?" The man told her it would cost seven cedis. (A ‘cedi’ – which is the name for a cowrie shell, Ghana’s traditional currency – is worth about 75 cents. He was charging approximately $5 to take three of us and our baggage to Judith’s home about 10 minutes away.)

She fumed at the man’s price. "My brudda, why are you trying to take advantage of me? I have two visitors here from America and you are making Ghana look bad. The trip is short short and is worth no than four cedis, eh, brudda?"

"But madam..."

"Four cedis and we are ready to go, brudda. My guests have come a long way and are very tired. Let us go."

He meekly accepted. We piled our luggage into the man’s little station wagon, took the short ride to Judith’s home on "Hotel Obama" Road.

Straddles time

On the way, I noticed that Accra, like much of West Africa, is a contradiction with one foot firmly in the 19th century (horse and human-drawn wagons in the city center) and one foot firmly in the 21st century (cell phones, satellite TV dishes sprouting everywhere). One example: according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s most current "World Factbook," 6 of every 10 persons in Ghana owned a cell phone in 2010.

The driver’s radio was blaring American hip-hop from one of several of Ghana’s extremely competitive FM radio stations (there are no AM stations). In fact, Judith had arranged for us to visit some radio and TV owners.

Accra also has huge two-story vertical billboards, sometimes three or four to a block, and signs everywhere. I saw Tavis Smiley’s and rapper Ludacris’s faces on billboards, but they were advertising a local business and a barbershop. I wonder if they know that.

Our temporary residence

We pulled up to a walled compound with an eight-foot brick fence around the perimeter with barbed wire across the top and an enclosed metal gate. The driver blew his horn and Judith’s 20-something ‘houseboy,’ Yow, opened the gate.

A sleepy dog roused itself to meet Judith as the driver parked under a large mango tree that dominated the yard. To the left was a single-story building that Judith’s parents had originally constructed as a guesthouse; it was now empty. The main house was two stories with an adjacent two-car garage that was used for storage.

As we went inside to the second floor, there was a fragrant smell of old wood that permeated the house. Judith’s family’s home was full of polished hardwood floors for which Ghana is internationally famous, and it makes the entire place constantly smell like fragrant incense.

In the city

We went upstairs, unpacked, and took showers before hitting the streets of Accra for the day, starting with Nonterah, an African urban wear clothing and design shop owned by one of Judith’s friends, Ben Nonterah, and supported by an American expatriate named Kweku Fleming. The designs were a great mixture of traditional African clothing and some of the oversized, graphics-heavy fashions we see here in the states – and the clothing reflected its custom-tailored and designed prices. (See more at Ben’s website, www.nonterah.com)

From there, we walked past an open-air church filled with Black women dressed in white, then picked up two roasted seasoned chickens from a local restaurant.

Before returning home, we stopped at another clothing store owned by one of Judith’s friends, but I already had many of the items. I made note and decided to make time to go to one of the large local markets – or maybe to pay one of Judith’s female friends to do some shopping for me to get the best prices.

We returned after dark to Judith’s home. I fall asleep in Africa for the first time in 20 years and dreamed lyrically of some childhood classmates I had not seen for decades.

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Click here for Part 4

Click here for a gallery of Day 1 pictures. Contact Charles W. Cherry II at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .