*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

** I recently spent about two months in Ghana, and the next series of poems will
recount my observations and experiences. Stay tuned!

We see them
Tourists
Unkempt with pride
Balding in wrong places
Roaming freely and agog
Like freed caged-birds
In boundless territories
In lawless principalities
Sauntering streets
Sauntering markets
Sauntering schools
Sauntering beaches
Sauntering bars/discoes
Dangling dollars in the air
Flaunting their light skin
Showing brown teeth
Ready to grip
Ready to pounce
Ready to prey
Ready to pillage
Ready to plunder
Girls, boys,
Ghanaian girls, boys

We see them
Tourists
Mesmerizing Ghanaians
Ah! Girls/boys peacocking
Hmm! Ghanaian girls/boys
Gawking at dollars
Hawking chest stocks
Mortgaging their morals
Mortgaging their bodies
Peddling their front-sides
Paddling their backsides
Girls preening weave-ons
Weave-ons of horse hair
Blonde camel hair
Brunette goat hair
Black sheep hair
Flashing heirs of hair

Wes see them
Tourists
Gambling with dollars
On Ghanaian girls’ breasts
On Ghanaian boys’ backs
In discoes of dearth
In ghettoes of disease
In halls of HIV/AIDS

We see them
Tourists
Their Western fingers
Civilized fingers
Manicured fingers
Racist fingers
Hegemonic fingers
Clawing at girls/boys
Battering girls/boys
Mauling, abusing them
Mauling the breasts of Osu
The legs of Nkrumah Circle
The thighs of Adabraka
The pouted lips of Labadi

We see them
Tourists
With girls, boys
I saw them
Ghanaian girls, boys
In dimly lit ghettoes
In brightly lit hotels
Preening like parrots
Garlanded in used clothes
With pouted lips
With barricaded chests
With maladjusted backs

We see them
Tourists
With girls, boys
Ghanaian girls, boys
In discoes of dearth
In beaches of death
In Ho
In Accra
In Kumasi
In Sunyani
In Tamale
In Cape Coast
In Sekondi-Takoradi
In Koforidua
Grinding it all
In theaters of decadence
In theaters of debauchery

We see them
Tourists
In citadels of decay
Citadels built for kids
By our society
By our parents
By our schools
By our prophets
By our “big” men
By our governments
Happily churning crucibles
Happily stirring crucibles
Of neocolonialism
Of racial hegemony
Of globalization
Of wanton poverty
Of cruel miseducation
Of greedy bastard-elites
Of greedy leaders, elders
Whose mission is their pocket
Whose morality is a cargo-cult
Whose moment of excellence is graft

*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral
historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with
her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her
pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”
poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com