All too soon, I have to start wrapping up my visit and prepare to return home this weekend.
It has been a rather fulfilling break, meeting up with old friends, doing some traveling around and tying a few loose ends here and there that needed my attention.
I was getting worried that perhaps I was beginning to assimilate into UK life all over again.
For starters, I was gradually moving away from an immediate mental conversion into cedis of the price tag for literally everything ― from a haircut to a plate of rice to a taxi fare and more.
Quite interestingly, I am getting used to the chilly autumn weather too, given that I used to shiver when I arrived, to the chagrin and amusement of my friends, especially since winter is yet to arrive.
After a couple of mishaps, I have quite re-mastered the art of navigating around public transport and feel no need to consult underground maps again in getting around.
The transformation back to a London borga is getting dangerously close ― which tells me it is time to go back to Ghana before another five years pass by right under my nose here, leaving me wondering how that happened.
Jakpa dreams
Over the past week, I have had conversations with three young persons ― all in their early 30s ― who found it strange that I was coming back home, and that this was injustice at its height.
As one of them put it “some want, they don’t get, others get, they don’t want”.
He wondered what exactly I was coming back to and proceeded to set out a litany of factors, which, according to him, made Ghana a hellhole not worth living in ― graduate unemployment, corruption, state of our roads, schools and hospital, galamsey and many more.
For him, the notion of ‘jakpa’ (as they say on the streets to mean relocating abroad) was non-negotiable, and he could not wait to leave.
I smiled. I did not have the energy to remind him that I did my own version of ‘jakpa’ back in 1992, when he was a little baby crawling around in diapers, that I ‘did time’ for almost two decades and that I have paid my dues.
I suppose I am currently what a friend once referred to as a ‘retired borga’. Starting all over again after 15 years’ absence is therefore simply not an option.
Of course, I do appreciate the burning desire of many young people to take the jakpa route as I did over three decades ago.
Youth unemployment is a particularly difficult issue and the helplessness, frustration and despair of young graduates trawling the scanty job market year in and year out for largely non-existent jobs can sap their confidence and sense of self-worth.
Ultimately, the state, through successive governments, has been unable to meet the aspirations of the youth for jobs, and this has reached crisis proportions.
In those circumstances, a job abroad ― even manual jobs ― can come as welcome relief for the pocket and do wonders for the psyche.
Reality
When I lived in the UK, I made it a point, as a matter of principle, never to discourage anyone back home who wanted to jakpa, with the explanation that life was hard out there.
How do you persuade your cousin back home thus, when you are holed up there in New York, Atlanta or Berlin? Does it not smack of hypocrisy?
You see, however bad you say life is out there, your people back home are not blind. Life is hard, you say, but you are building a house, whilst he or she is confined to a ‘chamber and hall’ with a cantankerous landlord or landlady for good measure.
Despite your complaints, you send money home regularly whilst he or she struggles on a daily basis.
That is the reality and I think it is reasonable and understandable for young people in particular to be dismissive of claims of difficulties abroad and seek to go out there and try their chances. ‘Seeing is believing’, they say.
In any event, throughout the history of mankind, the urge to seek new opportunities and/or to escape certain challenges in their homeland- whether natural or man-made, has driven many groups of people to migrate and carve new lives for themselves elsewhere.
In Ghana almost every ethnic group migrated from somewhere else centuries ago for various reasons. Migration is a human imperative to improve one’s lot.
Making your bed
The truth is that for some people, moving abroad has been the best decision that have made in their lives and they would not ever consider returning home because of the immense opportunities that have come their way.
Their new countries have become their home, and they feel fulfilled and content building families and careers there.
For others, it has been a horrible mistake full of regrets and they wish they could turn the clock back because they feel trapped. But they trudge on regardless and suffer in silence, because whilst they are not making any progress, they cannot turn back home either.
I suppose at the end of it all, people have to make their beds and lie in them and then see how their dreams pan out.
As for me, I cannot wait to hop on the flight back home this weekend.
I am quite happy as a ‘retired borga’ and have no intentions of coming out of retirement, except for little genteel expeditions to see the rest of the world at my own pace.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com
