196 Books: Ghana

 Journey by G.A. Agambila 

We visited Ghana for this book:

And summary:

Journey is an absorbing exploration of reality in contemporary Ghana, juxtaposing tradition and modernity, wise old age and frivolous youth, north and south; male and female. This book and its author will help re-define the national literary landscape as well as re-examine aspects of Ghanaian life easily taken for granted.

So, the summary explains almost nothing about the actual storyline, but something about it caught me. I think there's constantly a struggle between the opposites: older and younger generations, different personalities, men and women. And in this case, that includes the "old ways" and the ways adopted after colonialism, as well as a group of Gods versus the Christian singular God.

The book follows Amoah (I think he's about 16?) as he finishes up secondary (boarding) school, visits home for a short time, and then heads off to the big city to work and save up for university. There's a lot of question of what to do about life, about growing up, about trying to make it and take care of your loved ones. And also a lot of male chauvinism and teenage boys wanting to have sex. That got old pretty quickly, but maybe it's because I've never been a teenage boy. ::shrug::

When Amoah is with his family in the country, who are set in the "old" ways, their conversations consisted of mostly parables. It seemed kind of guarded, which was a bit sad. The speech also switched between "regular" English and Ebonics (not sure if this is the term used throughout the world or just in the US). I had somewhat of a difficult time with the Ebonics; a lot of it I could kind of say out loud and get the meaning, but some just went beyond me. 

One portion I really liked was, "But the past is like a loved one who has died. You can't bring her back to life. You must manage your house now the best way you can."  I've been trying to remind myself lately that replaying things in the past, playing the What If game, and missing parts of your life that are gone is all a waste of time. None of it matters or can be brought back. We have to do the best with what we have now. 

I also really liked the ending. For all the crassness of earlier in the book, he finally gets with a girl at the end, and it's very sweet. The author tells it in words of climbing a mountain, making a journey together. And after a few pretty bad things happen to Amoah, I liked the tenderness of them coming together.