bryanjazz

After my last trip to West Africa, I wrote an article about my travels (which was published last summer in a quarterly periodical, Pulse, produced by Gay Men of African Descent). I even mention it in my bio page. Well, since a year has past, I figure I should finally post the essay on my site. As I begin to feel more and more acclimated here, and as I ponder the meaning of home, the significance of my first journey increases. Enjoy!

A Journey of My Own Choosing

The sun was shining, breezes were blowing, and the waves were crashing on the shore. I walked toward the water, away from my friends, stepping into full consciousness that this was the moment I had created for myself. Looking out across the water, I allowed all the thoughts and feelings to rise to the surface: the realization of who I was, based on my history and actions…based on my heritage. Long ago my own ancestors were taken from these very shores, on a journey not of their choosing, to a new world of struggle and suffering, of endurance and triumph over adversity. And I had chosen to return, several generations later, a son coming home to the land of his ancestors.

Traveling to Africa has been a desire of mine for several years. I’ve known for some time that I must go and “see for myself” the land and the people about which so much has…and has not…been written. I wanted my own sensory experience of it, slashing through all of the media images, literary references and cultural stereotypes of the continent. I frequently retell the experience of seeing my first African film when I was much younger. The film opened up with a wide shot of a sprawling African metropolis, with cars hurriedly rushing by crowds of pedestrians and tall buildings, on their way to take care of the business of the day. It was a simple and beautiful, establishing shot. Yet for a few seconds I was startled by the image. It was not that I didn’t know, intellectually, that there were big cities in Africa; it was that I had never seen them in film. The few images I had actually seen were largely of the African countryside, and interior shots of African political officials in the news (when Africa makes the news). It was a revealing moment for me, one of those that helped to formulate my desire to supplement my intellectual understanding with tangible experience.

My choice of where (and when) to go on this vast continent of thousands of cultures was influenced by my own experience studying African spirituality (specifically of the Dagara people of Burkina Faso) and by the fact that a good friend had spent the majority of the past few years in Ghana. Since Ghana is bordered by Burkina Faso to the north, it felt as though my ancestors were clearly indicating in which region I should begin my exploration.

Upon exiting the airport in Accra...(see full text here)