i.t.b.o.y.g.s

"if the back of your gums stink, lick them." - Akan proverb (collected photos, random thoughts, written words about my experience as a #FirstGen Ghanaian-American)

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"Morning, Trish! Just wanted to point out that you guys kept me alive for another whole year and that I continue to bloom even when the world seems shitty. Also your skin is fire these days, girl. Keep up the water intake." - Bathroom Perennial/Life Coach (at Crown Heights, Brooklyn)

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Bliss is Brooklyn before a holiday, when it feels like the whole city has been raptured. #leftbehind #kirkcameron (at Park Slope)

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Activist swag goals. #withinourlifetime #waterislife (at Mayday Space)

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Roosevelt Blvd has me in all the Madina Market feels. Missing Ghana so much these days...🇬🇭 (at Junction Blvd & Roosevelt Ave)

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at Ugly Melrose

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As if I needed any more evidence that this universe will always provide... #endlesssummer #latergram (at Brighton Beach)

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First 24

- Taking off from Accra, I have to remind myself to take one last look out the window. That feels like information...

- I can't read The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. I start to several times and I can't. Don't know what that's about. I journal instead about what I want my life and future to look like.

- I watch 3 African films on the first flight. 2 are from Chad - Grisgris about a dancer and Un Homme qui Crie about how colonialism fucks up our heads and makes us think that certain things are important when they're not. Then one from Ghana called Rebecca. It had the potential to be good but went off the rails at multiple points. It occurs to me that I had wished three days ago to be able to sit on a plane and watch hours of African film. I marvel at how many versions of our stories there are and how many different ways we can tell them. I notice that I like the Chadian stories better and wonder if they are somehow made by French people and maybe that's why I like them. At one point I think how these films feel too nuanced and artistic to be made by Africans. More information.

- In Brussels I see the sign for T terminal, remember the racism of the last time, and look for it again.  “They will corral us somehow, I know it...”

- Boarding the Brussels to Frankfurt flight. I've left behind the plane full of Africans and transferred to this. I get to my seat and there is a white business lady sitting in it. I hold her gaze and say, "I think you may be in the wrong seat." She doesn't look at her ticket. She doesn't look at the seat number above her. She looks at me in my brown skin and my batik kari and says with a soft chuckle, "I don't think so."  I’m deliriously tired. I sigh so hard. "What's your seat?" I say. "16A..." It starts to dawn on her that somehow the brown person in the batik kari is actually right.  She starts to get up but doesn't apologize. "If you're fine there, I'll just sit in your seat," I say and don’t wait for a reply.  Suddenly she is gracious.

-The skinny white guy in my new row is smiley and trying to make eye contact so he can show me, what? That he’s friendly? That he's not like the annoying maybe-racist lady sitting in my seat? I intentionally never meet his eyes.

- I’m late getting on the Frankfurt flight but I make it in plenty of time. I put my stuff up and start to settle into my seat. "What's your name,” a pinched, older stewardess says." I tell her my name. "We were looking for you," she says disapprovingly, turns, and walks away. I try to place exactly where her disapproval is sourced and landing and remember that being back in the US means constantly having to ask yourself, "wait, what did s/he mean by that?"

- We land in Oakland instead of SFO.  I call the people at the executive shuttle pick-up I splurged on and they are telling me that there's no record that we were rerouted. So I'm a no show and they'll charge me for it. Thomasina the dispatcher (who sounds like a sister) is nice but clearly not going out of her way. I'm scrambling to figure out what to do, download Uber, and curse Execucar for leading me to the dark side.  By the time I land, though, Thomasina is calling me to say that she's done some research and was able to see that my flight was indeed rerouted based on the fact that another flight had the same ordeal. She's sending a car and I am once again saved by the kindness of black people.

- Loaded down by my bags, charging through SFO toward customs. My water bottle goes flying out of one of my bags and lands at the feet of a group of tall German dudes. They laugh (maybe about this but probably about something they were talking about because in their minds, I/this doesn't exist.) Either way, they leave the bottle where it is and continue on their way. I am invisible again.

- There's a ridiculously long line to exit the SFO baggage area. I join the end of it, but 10 minutes later once I’m about halfway to the front, these two post-middle age German dudes just join the queue next to me. They're either avoiding eye contact or actually don't see me (invisible.) After a few shuffles of the line forward, I say, "Excuse me, are you in this line?" The one looks at me with...something. Disgust? Dismissal? And says, "No." He goes back to his world but I've now invaded it slightly. We move again and they are still beside me. At some point he makes a calculation in his mind. He decides, I believe, that there’s a chance I might be one of the crazy ones. He falls behind me.

- At the curb, my executive shuttle shows up. It's a big black secret service SUV. The driver pulls in front of me but the white guy from the couple next to me rushes over presumptuously and says, "for Cameron?" The driver says no and looks at me. I say, “For Trish?” And he says yes. I feel obnoxiously smug that I am being picked up first.

- The driver is from Ethiopia and we talk about going and being home. I ask him about the struggles in Ethiopia and listen. He tells me what Ethiopian goods to boycott and I feel solidarity. We talk African politics and I like that I know (slightly) more than I used to. I ask him to stop so I can get change for a tip and he says no. It occurs to me that my people have gone out of their way for me today and I feel held. I make a mental note to hold others.

- There are white tweens hanging around Amy's stoop. They watch me come in and don't say anything. I assume they are suspicious. I can't remember if people say hello to each other in America.

- I walk into Amy's apartment, drop my stuff, walk over to the sink, pull out a glass, and start drinking water right from the tap. I stand there for 20 minutes drinking glass after glass of tap water.

- I leave Amy’s apartment in search of Zante’s Pizza which I have been craving since before I left for Ghana.  I go to cross a side street with a stop sign and see a car coming from my left. I stop from crossing then I remember that, here, I can trust that he will stop. There's a right of way and I, as a pedestrian, have it.

- Walking through the city, I keep asking myself, "Wait, am I pretty here?” I can't remember. Ghana, yes. Tanzania, no. Germany/Denmark/Geneva, no...Here?

- I walk into a coffee shop and just order, "A coffee." The barista dude very kindly says, "Do you care what size?" I can’t make eye contact and feel so awkward.

- I think about breakfast the next day and want fruit and yogurt. I dip into a Walgreens to get some cut fruit. $5 for a container of pineapple spears. That’s 20 GHC. That Monday I had paid 22 GHC for 4 pineapples and an entire watermelon. I negotiated that price and I put the money directly into the hands of the market woman.

- We give receipts for everything here. Long.ass.receipts.

- I start to wonder if white guys in SF are embarrassed to all look exactly the same. I've passed 100s of them today and they are all wearing pressed jeans, an untucked dress shirt, and brown wing tips. They all have that Macklemore haircut from 2 years ago. Is it so they can recognize each other?

- a young white dude who is maybe homeless says, "afternoon, miss." And I can't place why and why it's important.

- By hour 24, things already feel relatively normal again.  I feel sad at how easy it is to forget that this America is a weird, weird place.

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#dayofthegirl // Thinking of Pricilla today. She's going to be a doctor someday and is one of the kindest girls I know. Except for that time she begged me not to tell anyone that she was the one teaching me Twi because my pronunciation was so bad. Still love her. (at Adenta, Accra Ghana)

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Artist talk with #Ghanaian photographer James Barnor in Harlem, then 2 train to the Village to see #GhanaianAmerican Ato Blankson-Wood's solo show at the Public. You can take the girl out of Ghana...❤️🇬🇭

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Too early to call it? I think #Ghana weddings might be the winner. (No pressure @emilyups 😘) (at Tesano Royale)

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Big ups to this guy and his Thursday night class for making me a just a little less homesick for @urbanasanas for the past 5 months. Namaste, Thomas. (at Bliss Yoga Accra)

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"Stand up, Uncle Rob." "But if I stand up, everyone will know that you are taller than me." (at Gbawe)

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Coming your way @emerhi 🙌🏾 Medaase pii @blitzambassador & @ukuul.official ❤️ (at East Legon American House)

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#Queens. (Yellow is the Colour of Water exhibit; incredible Artist: @jeremiahquarshie; @gallery1957) (at Gallery 1957)

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Pretty good indicator that the #shito you spent all day making is not spicy enough 😂 (at Aburi)

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Fighting a shitty cold right now. At the end of my #spicetour in #Zanzibar, Solom the tour apprentice who must have been listening to me sniffle the whole time handed miss this bundle of cinnamon root he'd dug up. "Boil this. Breathe this." ❤️ 🇹🇿 (at Zanzibar, Tanzania)

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Why you so fly, #daressalaam? (at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)