My Ghanaian "AH-HA" moment...

At first it’s easy to believe I’ve landed in Accra, Ghana for as we file out the door of the huge plane, we are immediately enveloped in heat so thickly hot and sweet it feels like we’ve been embraced by a lover after she's run a marathon in July in Tucson.

Then, having to climb down a ramp of stairs, bounce across a softened tarmac to a waiting feebly air conditioned bus to be dropped off at the back doors of the terminal, we emerge into a bright cement building bustling with Ghanaian life.

Beautiful people whose amazing glowing rich warm dark dark dark chocolate skin enhance the bright colors that adorn their bodies, open faces with kind eyes and broad smiles, generously hand out bottles of water along with sincere welcomes.

It’s almost 2 weeks after xmas but jolly white santa’s still adorn walls and shelves and poles. We pass thru customs without a hitch and excitedly join the throngs striding out onto the sidewalk, past storefronts and thru street vendors hawking their wares and taxi drivers offering special rates as they pace in front of the terminal…

The very first thing I see is a u.s. military vehicle - full of white, u.s. soldiers.

Yes folks, a fuckin u.s.ofa. military vehicle in fuckin Ghana. 

Now we (the us) did not officially ever conquer Ghana – that was the Dutch and the Portuguese, the French (maybe not in that order) and lastly the English. 

I know you must be thinking slavery has been outlawed, so we’re not there anymore to capture humans, beat, rape and chain them, and then pack the survivors into ship galleys to send off to the u.s.

It is not until returning to the airport almost 2 weeks later that I make the real connection when I read the headlines: “US Mines $274 million in gold, pays Ghana $7 million.”

Now, just to be clearer, US doesn’t mine shit: US uses Ghanaians to do the dirty, dangerous, hard work of extracting gold from the Mother Earth. And pays them negligible wages.

I google gold and Ghana and read that Ghana has the 2^nd largest gold reserves in the world. The ah-ha moment hits: therefore our military presence. 

It’s so unconscionable, this exploitation and genocide still raging as we continue to loot the richest continent in the world, making us filthy rich and most of the people on that continent extremely poor.