“Kofi” Mohammad: Carrying Ghana in my Heart

Written by: Elizabeth Rivas
Edited by: Sheridan Block
Contributors: Allytah Baquero, Callie Carpintery, Malena De Tomas, Sydney Eldeiry, David Hazday, Aubrey Lea, Zen Panos, Amanda Priore, Elizabeth Rivas, Avre Smith, and Grayson Williams

Kofi Mohammad (Photo credit: Avre Smith)

Dr. Mustapha “Kofi” Mohammed is from Kumasi, Ghana. He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from the University of Ghana, where he taught in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies for three years. Dr. Mustapha recently received his doctorate in anthropology at the University of Florida. He teaches History of West Africa in the History Department and the Akan-Twi language for the Center for African Studies at UF.

Mystory, my immigration story, will not make sense if you do not understand the historical context within which I come from as a West African, as a Ghanaian.

In Ghana, the youth have the perception that we need to travel for validation, economic empowerment, and resources. As a child, I always craved validation; so I wanted to travel abroad after every educational milestone: receiving my high school diploma, obtaining my bachelor’s degree and then my master’s degree. The lack of opportunities for the youth in Ghana is why we want to travel. Even those who do well wish to travel to achieve that respect. We want the opportunities, resources, and capital which aren’t found at home so that we can come back and establish a business. We tell ourselves “I’m going to travel”, but how it will come about, we do not know. We only have hope that it will happen someday.

This is the framework within which every West African is born.

The African economy and socioeconomic dimensions are derailed due to past influences, and now they follow a model that wasn’t originated by its own people. It is not indigenous. We experience so many failures and drawbacks because these models are unnatural to us. If we were to use and implement a structure that we created, we would understand its model and how to carry it out. As things are now, we will stay in this continuous cycle of failures until we use a government structure created by us for our specific needs.

Origins

Long before I came to the United States, I have always been independent. At 17, I moved from my hometown Kumasi to Accra for my bachelor’s degree. Since then, I have not returned to Kumasi to live again, but visit occasionally .

After attaining my BA from the University of Ghana, I planned to attend graduate school abroad. I applied to some schools in the United Kingdom and even got accepted into a master’s program at the University of Buckingham; but ultimately, I decided to stay in Ghana.

After getting my Master’s in Philosophy at the University of Ghana, I taught in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies for three years. I taught courses such as Understanding Human Societies, Archeological Field Methods and Techniques, Human Origins and Cultural Foundations in Africa. In my classes, I loved discounting misconceptions of Ghanaian society, and I especially loved seeing students come up to me after class to share their thoughts. After teaching for three years, my next step was to obtain a doctoral degree. However, coming to Florida for my PhD was rather coincidental.

One day, I went to the pharmacy for some medicine. I was watching the news on TV about three armed robbers. I started discussing with other customers how unfair it was that they addressed the first two people by name and the last one only by their ethnic identity. Listening to me from behind was a professor from the University of Florida. The professor approached me and appreciated my perspective on the issue. We kept in touch, and she eventually invited me to do my PhD at UF.

Again, because of the ideologies embraced by some Ghanaians, my family and friends understood the idea of leaving the country to get a PhD. It was an opportunity for me to get new experiences in a different environment, make the best out of it, and then come back to Ghana. It didn’t matter where it was.

Moving to the States

Map of Kofi’s migration journey (Image credit: Avre Smith)

Without a doubt, life in Ghana and life in Florida are different. However, amidst all the differences between the two places, I found some similarities. I remember when I first arrived, my advisor drove me from the airport to where I would stay. I was in awe at the number of trees and plants I saw, including some which I thought were indigenous to Ghana, or at least to West Africa. At first, I thought Gainesville was some forest-looking place we were driving through to get to our destination. Even when we arrived at the place I was going to stay at, I thought it was only some kind of pit stop and that we would head to the city later. Little did I know, those were my first glimpses of where I would be for the next seven years.

Adjusting to life in the US had its roadblocks. During my first year, I didn’t have many friends or a car, so I didn’t go out much. I grew up without phones, so I had to learn how to use them and the GPS to find my way around town. As the years passed, I felt more comfortable here and made more friends.

As an international student, my experience has been mixed. In regard to teaching, I’ve come to realize the teaching style in the US is different from that in Ghana. For one, in Ghana the students are assigned readings after class; whereas here in the US, the readings are expected to be done before class. There’s also more flexibility here with grades. In Ghana, there was one time I got a B- for an assignment and went to speak to my teacher about it. Before I even got to speak with him, the office manager advised me to just keep the B- because I risked getting a C if I spoke to the teacher about it. In terms of teaching in Ghana, there were some classes where the number of students ranged from 20 to 30. In others, I had over 600 students. When I came to the US in the summer of 2015, I was still grading papers from the previous term.

Since the start of my PhD program at UF, I have taught different classes and co-taught with other professors. I have taught the Akan-Twi language offered by the Center for African Studies. I am also an instructor for the African Flagship Languages Initiative program, which is hosted by CAS. Currently, I teach the History of West Africa in the history department, but it is also cross-listed by CAS. I teach courses listed by CAS because my funding comes from there.

As far as social life goes, I’ve had my share of culture shocks. One of the greatest shocks was at a bar in town. I was hanging out with a group of African American students. They thought I was from the Caribbean, but when they found out I was African, they didn’t want to hang out with me. That was when I realized there is this unspoken tension between Africans and African Americans in the U.S. This tension is historical as people can be controlled and turned against each other by agents of colonialism.

The easiest way to control people is to divide them.

There is more to the origin of this tension than meets the eye. There is also the lack of education about race within Ghana’s educational structure, which is dominated by a colonial legacy.

The current Ghanaian educational structure has a legacy of traditional institutions that control the syllabi and what is taught in history classes. Because of this, I learned more about Africa after I moved to the US than what I did when I was in Africa. I even learned that I was Black! There are so many things I didn’t know about myself until I moved to the US. So, it is evident that there is an educational gap between African Americans and Africans.

Due to the impacts of colonization in the educational system, Africans are not knowledgeable about Africa or the African diaspora and their conditions. There is so much information being withheld from the population. Educational systems are maintaining the current ideologies, those which weren’t originated by us. They only teach what they want, and they want to keep us in the dark. We can be African in color and body, but not in mind. Just like that, these pre-constructed structures and the hierarchy stay in place.

It is rather disappointing, but the youth in Ghana don’t grow up with this knowledge. Education is viewed as a means to employment instead of an understanding of our realities and lives. Still, this lack of knowledge goes both ways. Many African Americans aren’t knowledgeable about Africa (present or past), its colonial legacies, and the economic and social impositions. They have this false notion that Africans facilitated this displacement, that they served as collaborators in the slave trade. It is this lack of knowledge from both sides that gets in the way and reveals that we don’t know each other that well.

I’ve also come to interact with other Ghanian students. When it comes to living in the US, we share similar experiences and are able to help each other. However, when it comes to Ghanaian issues, I’ve come to realize that I’m rather excluded. They tend to be more private and conservative, really expressing that Ghanaian humbleness; whereas I am more outspoken and critical. While I attribute the economic situation and failures in Ghana to human causes that can only be corrected by the people, they believe there can be some divine intervention in the solutions to our problems; not blaming and holding those responsible to account nor criticizing the wrongdoings of the government, but trusting that everything will work out.

Throughout the Years

Though living in the US is different, I have become accustomed to the way of life here. Leaving your home country certainly feels like being a fish out of water. It is hard to leave your home — the place you are most comfortable — and learn how to survive in an unfamiliar place. But with time, living here got easier.

The original plan was to get my PhD within four years and return immediately to continue teaching at the University of Ghana, but the dynamics have now changed. It’s been almost seven years since I left and I have yet to return. There are those of us who have left Ghana only to realize the grass isn’t actually greener on the other side. There are others — like me — who assimilate and have some entanglements that prevent us from returning.

In my case, I find myself in a liminal state. There are various reasons I have not gone back: economic, social, and ideological reasons. We have a different government. We have a different economic situation. COVID-19 has radically changed all of our lives.

Among the changes I have undergone in the US, religion and spirituality make up a big part. I have a different approach and interpretation to religion. I realized that religion is a political tool and a human construct. I now appreciate spirituality that connects humans to nature and the environment. I feel better connecting to nature through the same ways my ancestors did.

I respect nature. In the past, whenever I was prevented from entering a sacred place, I would allude to the restrictions of peoples’ old customs and beliefs. Now, I respect their beliefs because I understand it’s their way of preserving nature.

For example, in Accra the fishermen didn’t go fishing on Tuesdays. In the past they were told that if they did, they were going to meet something. That something was never clarified, but they still obeyed the guidance. But with the flood of new religions in the region — Christianity and Islam in particular — people go because they are not scared anymore. What they didn’t realize is that day of rest allowed the fish to regenerate and avoid becoming depleted. However, since many stopped living by these teachings, there has been a great decline in fish; they are becoming too depleted to recover. This is why I keep these traditional laws and regulations. I’ve come to learn that there is more than meets the eye, there is a reason why these regulations and laws were placed.

Carrying Ghana in my Heart

Kofi holding the cowrie shells he inherited from his family (Image credit: Zen Panos)

Many things have changed, but what still motivates me is helping people. If I go back to Ghana, I will be taking over for my grandfather as the chief of our clan. Sometimes I think, Why am I still worrying? Why don’t I go back home, inherit all these resources, eat, sleep, and have all these people around me doing all these performances for me? But if I do so, I’ll disadvantage many of the youth there who financially depend on me. I’m motivated to build that space and open that door so that the youth from my community can also go through it and lead better lives.

Though I’m far from home, I always carry Ghana and my people in my heart. I have found ways to hold on to them even from thousands of miles away. I have daily contact with them through messages and calls. In terms of physical artifacts, I have brought things I inherited from my grandfather — namely, cowrie shells that allow me to connect with my spirituality. I also deeply cherish an almost 20-year-old handwritten letter from a friend back home; it is something I read over often. I carry it almost everywhere for fear it will get damaged or lost. These are minor ways I keep my home close to me. No matter the distance, I will forever be carrying Ghana in my heart.

In this video, Dr. Kofi talks about one of his treasured reminders of home, the cowrie shells he inherited from his family. (Video Credits — Producer, Creator, Editor: Callie Carpintery Background set up: Malena De Tomas Interviewers: Sydney Eldeiry and Amanda Priore)

Looking forward

As a student of Anthropology, one of the theories that I find very interesting is Historical Particularism. It’s a theory that was co-founded by American anthropologists in the 1900s, mainly by Franz Boas. Franz Boas and his students propounded this theory into a concept used today in Anthropology:

Whatever we see today in the modern world has a historical context.

I began this story with the idea that one needs to understand every society within its own context, not one’s own. Until one understands the background of the people one is looking into or studying, one cannot appreciate it.

WeaveTales and UF English Department’s “Journey to Florida” exhibit will be on display at the University of Florida’s Scott Nyugen Scholars Studio at Library West in Gainesville, Florida starting April 13, 2022. There will be a discussion about immigrant communities in Gainesville and the importance of community engagement in English studies from 3:00 to 4:30pm. The event and exhibit are open to the publish, and the English Department will collect books and cash donations for Gainesville Books to Prisoners. Please RSVP to Dr. Laura Gonzales at gonzalesl@ufl.edu.

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of WeaveTales and its employees.

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