A new start: Esi Edugyan on meeting her grandmother on her only trip to Ghana

The Canadian author visited her parents’ homeland thinking she would find her home. She left feeling less Ghanaian than ever

I was 27 years old when I took my first and only trip to Ghana. My grandmother was old – rumoured to be 103 – and in fact she died the following year. I visited the noisy markets of Accra and the clean, palm-treed avenues of the national university; I visited the slave forts of Cape Coast and Elmina, desolate with their old horrors; I visited my mother’s birth city of Kumasi, with its cluttered, numberless streets; and I visited the miracle of Anomabo beach, where I was chased away by fishermen who did not want to be photographed.

I also met my grandmother: ancient in her white robes, frail, her eyes whitened by cataracts and glaucoma.

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from World news | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2SznkEI