If I Decide to Relocate to Ghana, I Will Be Living in a Small Town or Village| Forget Accra, Kumasi & the Others …What About You?

I have in the past considered moving to Ghana in the near future—but my chances of becoming a returnee keep diminishing, owning to the increasing social, economic and political problems in Ghana.

And don’t tell me I should go down there to help because it has been proven more than enough, that you cannot help anyone who is not ready to be helped—and when the mindset is glued on absurdity, no amount of sense can cleanse it.

I am sure majority of the many Ghanaians living abroad have a dream of one day returning to Ghana no matter their acquired nationality—since there is no place like home. But then again, you wouldn’t want to be part of a failing campaign or call a hostile habitat your dreamland.

Interestingly, I recently got into a conversation about returning to Ghana with a female friend, who quickly suggest on hearing my plans of settling in Ghana one day that, East Legon or Cantonments will be perfect for me—and “you will love it there”, she added.

For the many years I’ve contained a dream of re-settling in Ghana one day, I have never considered anywhere in Accra or Kumasi as my final would be destination, and as such, I probed my friend further to find out why her East Legon or Cantonments suggestion…

Quickly, she stated among other things, that these two places are very developed, living there commands great respect, the places are expensive and they have beautiful and high standard neighbourhoods.

On the sarcastic wave, I pulled her suggestion aside and said, “and I bet these places do not even have consistent running water and I will still need a generator to be able to have constant flow of power. Not to talk of the unmoving traffic”.

On a serious note, my friend’s suggestion sounded attractive but not persuading enough to any returnee like me, who will abandon London, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, Vancouver, Venice and some of the most expensive—and high standard cities in the world to move to Ghana.

It was difficult to make her understand that, if I was looking for a high neighbourhood to live in, I will rather choose one of the above cities and not relocate to Ghana. This fits the same box of coming on a holiday to Ghana and placing “myself” in long queues just to buy KFC.

At the end of the conversation, I felt I did a bad job with the presentation of my case as she sounded bemused by my contrary suggestion of living in the countryside where I would be able to enjoy the beauty of being a true returnee—I mean, enjoy the sense of community-ship, the natural environment, the local food and be far from the chaotic and unending African city lifestyle.

Since the day I had this conversation, I have had chats with several other friends living abroad concerning their dreams of ever returning to Ghana and the reasons why this ‘run away from the West’ journey is so important to them.

As expected, many wanted to be home, be able to enjoy the beautiful social life that living abroad has for many years robbed them of, and more importantly, live peacefully in a naturally beautiful environment—making the small towns, villages or outskirts of the cities their ideal location.

It looks like, when you have seen them all, experienced them all and have enjoyed well developed country’s lifestyle with the accompanying hostilities that living in some of the greatest cities in Europe/America bring, you yearn to be local; you yearn to return to the basics.

On the flip side, I believe this is why the many Ghanaians abroad are hooked on Kumawood movies, sharing and enjoying what those who live in the cities in Ghana will probably find “too local or too pathetic”.

I know I did not set forth the reason for this post in any of the above paragraphs and therefore you may wondering about the sort of mark I intend to make with this post.

I want to know this from those Ghanaians living abroad; in your ideal returnee mindset, where in Ghana would you prefer to live—-a city, a small town or a village. And why…?

To me, Ghana cannot offer any desirable “high cosmopolitan lifestyle” compared to the other cities (where I’ve lived where I can today move to if I want to). Therefore, if ever my dream of returning to the beautiful country of Ghana come to pass, you may find me wasting my left years at Ada, Prampram or some little village near Bimbila—eating “dawudawa “ until I fall dead under some tree with birds singing all manner of crazy songs over my head.

If you have a dream to live in the West, remember I also have a dream to live in Bimbila and I am seriously working tirelessly towards that!