I Should Be In Ghana.

Right now. Today. And yesterday, and tomorrow. We should have landed the 24th. I had been waiting for that day one hundred and eighty more. Almost two hundreds days, one visa, four or five meetings, one commemorative t-shirt, a new big luggage to fill with goodies and colourful, bright and light clothes, a brand new journal, some hand-written letters, two vaccines and around five reboosts of others and almost one pack of anti-malaria tablets later, I was fully prepared to go and live the biggest adventure of my life until date. And everything mentioned above vanished abruptly in the five to ten minutes that takes to read some drastic and unprecedented news, a very intelligent decision taken by the Ghanaian government and the saddest e-mail I have received in years. Everything was gone nine days before the trip was about to start. The longest flight I would have ever taken became only a deep flight to my broken heart. Introspective, grounding, tough. How was I going to fix it now? It is such a weird way of having your heart broken, but I swear mine exploded in million tiny pieces in my bedroom that night when the message came in and we read the news. It felt, ironically, unbelievable, but it was true. It was a fact. It was done. And my heart was absolutely ripped. That was true, too. Wrecked. Chipped in every form. And I couldn’t breathe. Because it was the thought of Ghana what had been feeding my soul for five months and now my soul was deprived from the most basic nourishment she knows: inspiration. A muse. Ghana was my muse. Ghana was a dream. Ghana was the divine force keeping me functioning. And then it all felt a nightmare. And the gods and goddesses from my seemingly heavenly mind felt mortals again. And, for a moment, I felt dead.

I have been locked in this cage long time before a quarantine was a mandatory task in our world. I think I have known it all this time but I have become more aware of it now. Because once demons come after you and get you, you are completely lost, as I have been. Because demons hate the light, they will keep you in the dark. No friends or family, just work, because monsters hate joy, caress and love. No time for hobbies because your mind likes you busy. No time for distractions, because you don’t want to feel guilty. No time for chilling, because you would only overthink some existential crisis again. No living, just existing. The mere act of surviving to one knock of anxiety after another. And Ghana was the stop sign waiting to act on those demons. Ghana was the avada kedavra of my own monsters. Of Maureen.

I should be in Ghana. The phone of my battery should be dying and I could not be caring less. I should be meeting new people, connecting on a deeper whole level I have never felt before, soaking new experiences in and swimming within them, learning a new language and diving into a whole new culture, grasping the theories of a new religion, distracting myself from the constructed and oppressive meaning of time, working happily and fully committed surrounded by great friends, teaching but being taught too, exploring immaculate oceans, tasting ether that emanates from untouched mountains, playing with monkeys and a wild new fauna never seen before, mumbling mantras to the west-african wind, hearing the songs of drums and tambors, sensing new voices fondling each of my chakras, allowing my mind to escape at least for once… Yes, I should be in Ghana.

Ghana was going to be the release of my own hell-like jail sentence. And just when I was about to nuzzle along freedom, make out and taste it with my lips again, the storm unleashed all over the planet and I stayed imprisoned.

Notwithstanding, over the last few days, I have been given the opportunity to fight back and take some more breaths than usual. In fact, I have been taking what I hadn’t in the last months, and it is not Ghana, and as any world citizen I must stay at home, but at least the doors of my jail got opened and fresh air, although unhurriedly, is entering through it.

I should be in Ghana but I am not. It is a truth I am still struggling to accept during the time the trip would have lasted and every time I think about it my heart aches just like the first day. I am not in Ghana, even though I should be. But, at this point, that only means I will be there another day, another time. And I promise to make the wait short.

Ghana… me gbona.

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