I Have Gone to Keta: Daytrip - Rob Taylor

"I want to go to Keta
before it’s washed away
before the palm trees wither
and drown outside the bay"

- “I want to go to Keta,” Kobena Eyi Acquah

They are walking on water in Keta Lagoon
as we pull into town then cross the peninsula
to face the Atlantic from atop the boulders
they stacked here to fix the shoreline in this place
where we stand and watch the ocean swell in, then away
revealing chunks of concrete, shattered fingers
of rebar – startling in their permanence –

then turn and wander past what remains
of the half-drowned castle and children splashing
fine sand before it, chasing
a ball of vulcanized white gold
with sparks in their eyes

then on through the town
pocked with puddles and troughs
of water that expand with every turn
until the buildings give way to lagoon,
sloshing among crumbling cement walls
and briny car parts and a man wading in water
up to his ankles who pulls small, netted fish
out of what was once his neighbour’s living room
and smiles mildly, then turns away –
in the distance more men dragging
nets home, water shimmering
under their feet (a trick of the eye,
a flash of the miraculous that surfaces
in the mind at times then disappears below)

then back to the center of town
where the power remains off and lunch
is warm beer and biscuits at the pub
where drunks slam sticky handfuls
of banku onto our table and a miserably
sober man apologises for all the drunks
and power outages and sloppy banku of Africa
then out again to the glare of the street,
towards the station, past the troop of glistening
boys back from the shore, shouting
and grinning, their ball skipping
ahead, a polished stone

and we are away, trotro engine thumping
and wheezing desperately as we plod
our course back to the mainland along
the edge of the now empty lagoon,
the fishermen home with their children
and wives, who, I imagine, are rinsing
dishes and humming the tunes
to childhood songs whose words
they can no longer recall, whose melodies
they thought they’d long ago forgotten.

Originally published in "The Other Side of Ourselves", Cormorant Books, 2011. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Author Profile - Rob Taylor

Biography:

Rob Taylor lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He lived in Accra in 2006-07 with his wife, Marta. His first collection of poetry, The Other Side of Ourselves, was published in April 2011 from Cormorant Books. Rob will be launching his new book in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto throughout May and early June. For specific dates and locations, please visit his website.

"I Have Gone to Keta: Daytrip" is dedicated to Kobena Eyi Acquah, and is reproduced from The Other Side of Ourselves by permission of the author.

Rob is a co-founder and editor of One Ghana, One Voice.

Five Questions with Rob Taylor (asked by Prince Mensah):

1. In "I Have Gone to Keta: Daytrip", you are a stranger travelling through town, taking snapshots of people and places in your head, trying to understand what it all means. Was it easy to connect to the people (and/or place) or did you get the sense of being foreign heightened in your experience?

The poems I wrote while living in Accra can generally be broken down into two halves, one for the first half of my time spent there, and one for the second half. The first half is mainly poems of alienation and confusion, as I settled into a country very different from my own (i.e. “lost” poems). The second half is more poems that exist both “inside” and “outside” the Ghanaian culture (i.e. “lost then found” poems).

"I Have Gone to Keta", however, messed that system up. Keta is like few places on earth, and upon visiting it I was suddenly disoriented again, and found myself back writing about alienation and confusion. But this time it was a little different, a little more informed (certainly reading poems on Keta by Kobena Eyi Acquah and Kofi Awoonor helped prepare me), so I like to think of this poem as a “lost then found then lost again” poem - as a result, themes of appearing and disappearing, remembering and forgetting, rising and sinking, run throughout the poem. I assume similar themes must run through the lives of the people of Keta, who are constantly gaining and losing and regaining their town in their struggle with the sea.

2. Knowing you as a Canadian son of Ghana, this poem comes as no surprise. What are the other emotions and images that did not make their way into the poem?

Hmmm... I tried to pack most things in there. I do think it’s hard to capture the amazement that I had at taking in the scene of a town being consumed by the sea. It’s a scene that, due to global warming, we’ll probably see play out more often in the future - sadly, I suspect that Keta will become less and less of an oddity over the coming years. But that means that Keta is ahead of its time, in a twisted way. It’s a town on the forefront of learning how to adapt to rising sea levels and coastal erosion. It’s an early warning.

3. One of the many vivid snapshots of Keta in "I Have Gone to Keta" is about

a man wading in water
up to his ankles who pulls small, netted fish
out of what was once his neighbour’s living room

In this picture, were you pointing to the social scenario wherein some individuals benefit, be it inadvertently or not, from other people's misfortunes?

I was mainly trying to capture the scene. There are so many odd and unexpected sights in Keta that in many ways this poem was simply my attempt to catalogue them. The story of Keta – a town that is being destroyed by the very natural forces it depends on for its survival – inevitably evokes a great number of political, social, and existential questions. My first goal, then, was to have readers see the scene, and then let those challenging or provocative images go to work in the minds of the readers in whatever ways they would.

4. There is another picture that contains a moment of clarity for me. It is

where drunks slam sticky handfuls
of banku onto our table and a miserably
sober man apologises for all the drunks

Do you think what a society does (whether good or bad) as a whole unit forces its citizens, who might or might not agree with those actions, to constantly clarify that society to strangers? In other words, is our misery as individuals caused by the recklessness of our societies?

No, I don’t think so, on either front. I do think it’s difficult to avoid both misery and the desire to clarify.

Often we can’t see the forest for the trees, but in my experience I find it’s just as easy to get lost in the forest and miss the beauty of the trees. For me, when the drunk bar patrons offered us banku, it was a simple act of generosity, but to the other man in the bar it was tied in to all these fraught, abstract ideas about “Africa”.

Depending on your perspective, the state of Keta can be seen as a sign of the peoples’ failure, or of their resilience – this largely depends on whether you focus on the collective or the individual, the forest or the trees. To cultivate a positive mindset you need both perspectives, and you need them to exist in balance with one another. When one dominates the other, misery and a constant desire to clarify can overtake you. But whether you fall out of balance is up to you to determine.

5. Where the words fade, the music remains. Just as the women of Keta hummed

the tunes
to childhood songs whose words
they can no longer recall, whose melodies
they thought they’d long ago forgotten

what are the lingering memories you still have about the Keta you visited in the poem?

At this point it’s hard for me to separate the poem from my memories, as the visit occured over four years ago. Certainly the image that sticks in my mind the clearest is of the fishermen – the lagoon was so shallow that they really did appear to be walking on water. I was very struck by it – as the son of a Christian minister there aren’t many things that you are taught are more miraculous than walking on water!

Keta is a special place. Despite their hardships, the people we met were warm and generous, and often joy-filled. I hope this poem can be seen as an appropriate tribute to them, and their miraculous town.

Contact Rob:

Email: roblucastaylor(at)gmail.com
Websites: RobLucasTaylor.com, spread it like a roll of nickels

The Sea Eats Our Lands - Kwesi Brew

Here stood our ancestral home:
The crumbling wall marks the spot.
Here a sheep was led to slaughter
To appease the gods and atone
For faults which our destiny
Has blossomed into crimes.

There my cursed father once stood
And shouted to us, his children,
To come back from our play
To our evening meal and sleep.
The clouds were thickening in the red sky
And night had charmed
A black power into the pounding waves.

Here once lay Keta.
Now her golden girls
Erode into the arms
Of strange towns.


"The Sea Eats Our Lands" is part five of our five-part series of poems on Keta. Visit our archives to view the rest of the series.

Author Profile - Kwesi Brew

Kwesi Brew was one of the finest poets of his age. He left a permanent mark on the landscape of Ghanaian poetry, and on the country itself - it is sometimes suggested that "The Sea Eats Our Land" played a significant role in motivating the government to construct Keta's sea-defense system. His death last year at the age of 79 is still being felt by those who were moved by his writing.


From Brew's biography in the Contemporary Africa Database:

Born of a Fante family in central Ghana, Kwesi Brew was brought up after the death of his parents by a British guardian who introduced him to books. After his early education in Ghana, Brew was among the first BA graduates from the University College of the Gold Coast in 1951. Later he served both colonial and independent governments in district commissions, and after independence in diplomatic posts in Europe.

While still a student, Brew participated in college literary activities and experimented with prose, poetry, and drama; after graduation he won a British Council poetry competition in Accra, and his poems appeared in the Ghanaian literary journal Okyeame as well as several important African anthologies. Shadows of Laughter (1968), a collection of his best early poems, reveals a thematic interest unusual for an African poet: the value of the individual compared with that of society as a whole. In poems such as 'The Executioner's Dream', which views with something like horror some of the rituals of traditional African life, he suggests that society, in an attempt to purge itself of the ills of life, robs the individual of dignity. African Panorama and Other Poems (1981) draws upon the sights and sounds of rural and urban Africa. In his collection Return of No Return (1995), he pays tribute to the American writer Maya Angelou and to Ghanaians who may have helped reshape his Eurocentric views into Afrocentric ones.

From Brew's obituary in The Guardian:

Kwesi Brew, who has died aged 79, was a Ghanaian public servant and businessman, and one of that talented generation who came to maturity during Ghana's independence 50 years ago.

Born of a Fante family which played a distinguished part in his country's history, he spent part of his youth under the guardianship of a British education officer, KJ Dickens, to whom, he used to say, he "owed everything". He was one of the first generation of undergraduates at the University College of the Gold Coast, where he read English and became known for his acting talents.

On graduation, Brew was recruited into the administrative service - part of the Africanisation programme to replace the British colonial officers - and was successively assistant district commissioner and then district commissioner, mainly working in the Kete Krachi area. He had to make his way among people who were not used to seeing a fellow African in such a post, but was soon warmly welcomed for his affability and lack of pomposity. Among the challenges he had to face was the imminence of the giant Volta Dam, which was to flood some of the Krachi lands.

Brew was recruited to the early Ghanaian diplomatic service and worked in the UK, France, Germany, India and the USSR, before serving as ambassador in Mexico, Lebanon and Senegal.

Later, out of sympathy with the politicians of the time, he left public service and went into business, first joining his younger brother Atu and working as resident director of the Takoradi Flour Mills from 1975-81. He then developed his own company, the Golden Spoon Flour Mills, based in Tema.

Kwesi Brew was in the tradition of writer-diplomats, producing elegant and elegiac verse. His only internationally published collection was The Shadows of Laughter (1968), but he wrote a compassionate poem on the downfall of Kwame Nkrumah. He is survived by his second wife and three daughters.

Keta - Andy Kwawukume

Where the ravenous sea eats the land, the homes
And the graves of the ancestors.
Exiles have your sons and daughters become
Refugees to roam in strange lands
Haunted by the ancestral spirits no longer at rest.
What untold sins not atoned for did you commit?
Our tongues are weary from wailing.

But Keta, you were once a maiden fair.
Your sandy palmy beaches stretched far.
Your fair goods sought after by suitors near and far.
Agudayevuwo covet you,
and the road to damnation on which you were led,
as the spirits of the sea wreck vengeance in appeasement
must come to an end.

And so you shall rise again, Keta,
Like the Phoenix from the sea
And your grandsons and daughters shall regale in you.
And suitors near and far shall once again
seek your fair goods.
And the music and dance shall last to the wee hours,
as we forever celebrate your re-birth.


"Keta" is part four of our five-part series of poems on Keta. Our final installment will be posted next week.

Author Profile - Andy Kwawukume

Biography:

Andy Yao Kwawukume was born to Mr. and Mrs. Alfred and Constancia Kwawukume of Anloga, in Accra on 2 June, 1955. He attended Avete Primary and Middle Schools, Anloga, then Anlo Secondary School, Anloga, and Mawuli School, Ho. He took his university schooling at the University of Ghana, receiving a BA (Hons) in Political Science with Philosophy in 1980.

He taught in both Ghana and Nigeria before moving to Norway for further studies. He later worked in Bergen, Norway, before moving to London, where he now runs his own business.

Five Questions with Andy Kwawukume:

1. What inspired you to write "Keta"?

I was inspired to write the poem "Keta" because I know Keta and its (tragic) history and had actually written a poem on Keta before - in 1970 - just as others have done.


2. Who are your favourite poets? Do you have any favourite poems about Keta?

Years ago, R. Tagore and Wordsworth were my favourite poets. I think the poem "The Sea Eats the Land at Home" is my favourite and most influential on Keta.


3. Have you ever been to Keta? If so, when was your last visit?

I have been to Keta several times, and my last visit was in 2003.


4. What comes to your mind when you first think of Keta, or hear someone mention it?

The sea erosion and the destruction of the town are things which come to my mind about Keta.


5. Do you think it is possible for people to understand Keta without having personally visited?

No, I don't think even people who have been to Keta can understand Keta and what has happened to the town. It is incomprehensible and that is the allure about Keta. To learn that where the sea rages now, there was land, buildings, graves, palm plantations, names of places, white beaches, is simply beyond grasping!

Contact Andy:

cyandyk(at)tiscali.co.uk

Keta Stories - Prince Mensah

I remember meditating
on Mawu’s [i] handiworks;
I was a boy entranced, doting
over sands and old rocks,
over scenes of this lagoon
in radiance of full moon.

Oh, how these waves steal the land
from us. These beautiful waves,
thieves that defy defined lines
between ocean and earth.
Strange to see sea pass Mawu’s hand,
forcing us to become slaves
to campaigns to save land lines;
for Keta’s life or death.


Xevikpodzi, where the songs
of a thousand birds merge
amidst sounds of crashing waves:
Beauty for which my heart longs,
my mind enshrines the pledge
to save Keta from these waves.

Fort Prinzenstein and memories
of greedy merchants
wooing the land with cheap dowry,
feeding all their wants,
leeching a welcoming culture,
turning brother against brother;
these rapists caused rapture
of slavery and slaughter.

These are things Daada [ii] told me,
also things I shared with Mawunyega
as we ate aboloo [iii] with keta
school boys [iv]. School boys who loved
to know how this used to be;
we walked the shore with no fear of danger,
The lagoon is our friend; we enter
with respect, we are beloved.

We loved the truant trips to old town
where we remembered no more
six painful lashes meted out upon
our buttocks from Teacher Akator’s
kerosene-soaked cane
Mawunyega was smart, I was clown
so our humiliation bore
unending laughter from mates and deep scorn
from all disciplinarian-tutors
who thought we were vain.
Vain to glorify fetride [v],
akpele [vi] and stringing okro soup
in our essays for mid-term.
I wrote about food Daada made,
she always made the best light goat soup
that lingered all through the term.

Hogbetsotso-la. Tro-tro. Bone-shakers.
Face to face. The driver’s voice
contained halitosis emanating
from last-night’s tilapia dinner.
We wait for relatives who bring crackers,
news from Anloga. Rejoice,
local gossip, eagerly commenting
on the festival. Asaana, [vii]
as she pauses to sing ancient chants,
about frenzied girls, bouncing bosoms,
sweating dancers, the Agbadza; [viii]
hands in ninety degree posture,
swinging back and forth with frenzy.
Our eyes beamed with youthful interest.

Davio! Davio! Davio! [ix]
The old man shouted, ‘Megbona?!’ [x]
We were way into the sea,
no warning could stop us
We were trouble for Leo,
‘Megbona?!, ‘Megbona?! ‘Megbona?!
He could not understand why
the young wanted to die.


From the sea, we saw a crowd
deal with a fiafito: [xi]
They rained slaps and lashing
on his hapless self, kicking
his groin as he screamed, ‘Ao!
We had had images of owners
chasing thieves who jumped
into the arms of the sea for safety.

I reminisce my love affair with corn,
without her, I am forlorn.
Nyeblo [xii], the truth must be told;
the sea’s thievery is from of old.
I am too young to tell how it begun,
too old to forget how it stung
to lose precious pieces of Keta
as the forces of nature enter.

We have grown, we are now fully-matured men.
Life plays like a set of congas.
We live by fruits of the pen,
by experiencing, exploring
sources of present peace.
We loved choral songs of weary fishermen,
the hail of patient fish-mongers.
We were the little children
who stole fresh fish, disappearing
behind coconut trees.



[i] Ewe name for ‘God’
[ii] Ewe endearing word for ‘parent’
[iii] It is a baked corn cake
[iv] Smoked fish in the Volta Region
[v] Food made out of corn dough
[vi] Another variation of food made out of corn dough
[vii] Local drink made out of corn
[viii] Trademark Ewe dance
[ix] Ewe word for children
[x] Ewe word for ‘why?’
[xi] Ewe name for a thief
[xii] Ewe word for brother



"Keta Stories" is part three of our five-part series of poems on Keta. Further installments will be posted weekly throughout January.

Author Profile - Prince Mensah

Biography:

Prince Mensah was born in August 1977 to Dr. Louis and Rose Mensah. He attended Adisadel College, Extra Mural Academy, African-American HIV University(USA) and Mediation Training Institute(USA). He has written an extensive body of work including plays that have been staged at the Arts Center in Accra. "Beach" is from his soon to be released anthology, entitled, "Memoirs of A Son of Ghana".

Five Questions with Prince Mensah:

1. What inspired you to write "Keta Stories"?

I have always held a fascination for the Anlo & Ewe people. Kofi Awoonor and Kofi Anyidoho are literary inspirations. Some of my best friends are Ewe and I have enjoyed their culture through cultural practises and history. My maternal grandparents used to live in Hohoe and I traveled the Volta region quite a bit.

"Keta Stories" is actually born out my concern for the future of this historic town. I got the little stories from conversations I had had over the years with family friends from Keta. I realize the sea is ruthless in taking over and man is helpless in keeping what is his. This scenario presents the robbery of a tribe's history and dreams. The best action, maybe the weakest one at that, is to make Keta a fresh memory no one wants to forget about.


2. Have you ever been to Keta? If so, when was your last visit?

Once, but I was too young to grasp lasting memories. I, however, remember through subsequent visits to other parts of the Volta Region, how fondly people spoke about Keta. I transposed those experiences to that of a young boy in Keta to create the sense of nostalgia in the poem.


3. What comes to your mind when you first think of Keta, or hear someone mention it?

A fading history. Only God knows how much history has been erased by the sea. It is like having the Elmina or Cape Coast castles being taken away by the sea. If the Netherlands can reclaim land from the sea, I do not see why we cannot get help to fix this problem once and for all.


4. Do you think it is possible for people to understand Keta without having personally visited?

Yes and no. Beauty is partially appreciated in pictures and lectures but the experience of facing it face to face is phenomenal. To understand, you have to undertake a visit to this town. It will help the local economy as well.


5. "We had had images of owners / chasing thieves who jumped / into the arms of the sea for safety." This is such a powerful portion of the poem. Where did you derive this image from? Was it inspired by a real image you have heard of or experienced?

To the Ewe, the sea represents justice and sustenance. However, the sea robs Keta of land and is ready to shelter thieves from justice. Nature can be ambiguous in definition and this is an attempt to ignite that thought. I have had experiences where wrongdoers were sheltered by the law but the same law made the lives of the law-abiding citizens harsher than necessary. This is just my take on these themes. Every reader is welcome to reach their own conclusions.

Contact Prince:

Email: pryncemensah(at)yahoo.com
Website: http://www.freewebs.com/pryncemensah/

Prince's Past Profiles:

Issue 1.28, September 29th - October 5th, 2007
Issue 1.18, July 21st - 28th, 2007

Keta My Love - Kwofie Matthew

Strong winds coax you into the brook with love
caressing every hair and the flesh of your body
as though the world cares about your beauty
Monstrous waves spread their daring tentacles
around your devitalized shoulders with impunity
as though to offer the soothing comfort you desire
Boastful lazy rocks flood your coasts in queues
showing off their apparently sharp edges and cracks
as though to provide the indomitable defense you cleave

But where are those multitudes of wading birds:
the herons, storks, ibises, spoonbills, and flamingos
that used to surge your shores with news of your siesta
Where are those naughty bunch of school boys
who had always boisterously invaded your shores
with their intriguing compositions and inventions
Where are those adventurous old fishermen
who used to engage your corridors every Tuesday
with poetic melodies that stiffen their weakening nets
And where have those tall coconut trees gone
that your house looks so desolate and abandoned
as though never inhabited in centuries

Keta, Oh Keta my once adorable queen
Your children desert you with fear
Your servants denounce you in despair
Your armies surrender with haste
Your calm wails collapse unheard

I see specks of native islands in the distance
I hear the sounds of bold steps nearing
I hear sweet melodies of new beginnings
I feel cool breezes move over your horizons
And the masts of ships on your waters

Rejoice in the midst of your troubles
Keta, Oh Keta my love
Your true sons and daughters
Your servants and army
Are about to arrive



"Keta My Love" is part two of our five-part series of poems on Keta. Further installments will be posted weekly throughout January.

Author Profile - Kwofie Matthew

Biography:

Kwofie Matthew is a professional teacher, and a student of the University of Cape Coast. He enjoys creative writing and hopes to be a great author or journalist in the future.

Five Questions with Kwofie Matthew:

1. What inspired you to write "Keta, My Love"?

First of all, I guess I was inspired by your advertisement. Secondly, I think my usual desire to write about things I see and feel around me also contributed greatly.


2. Have you ever been to Keta? If so, when was your last visit?

No, I have never visited Keta, but I have heard and read so much about the prevalent situation. I have planned paying a visit though. It is just unfortunate; nature forcefully arresting and enslaving a very beautiful human settlement. I think the usual ‘wait and see’ attitude of the Ghanaian is manifested in what is happening at Keta; an early stitch could have saved a neigh. I also think we humans must learn to respect nature and to stay away from places nature considers uninhabitable.


3. What comes to your mind when you first think of Keta, or hear someone mention it?

I think of a once peaceful village now at war with nature.


4. Do you think it is possible for people to understand Keta without having personally visited?

Hmn! I will say yes and no with a lot of caution. Firstly, one can easily paint a mental picture of the state of affairs at Keta upon reading or hearing something about that place, but I doubt if one can really come to true terms with the actual situation on the ground without visiting the place.


5. What similarities can you draw between Keta and your home town of Elmina? What differences?

Can I really respond to this question into details without being biased? I know Elmina very well, but do not know Keta that well. I have read quiet a lot of articles about Keta but I still don’t think I know that town well enough to attempt to compare it with another town.

All I can say basically is that both towns are fishing communities and whereas Elmina is inhabited predominantly by Fantes, Keta is inhabited predominantly by Ewes. Also, Elmina has very calm shores and beaches which apparently is not the case at Keta.

Contact Kwofie:

nanakofi442(at)yahoo.com

Kofi's Past Profiles:

Issue 1.31, October 20th - 26th, 2007
Issue 1.23, August 25th-31st, 2007

Without Roots - Edith Faalong

through the journey i rode behind the jolting bus and reminisced.
soon...
soon...
and my heart smiled.
soon i would glimpse Keta,
the jewel of the ocean that sired me and many.

i could barely wait to see gleeful children in tattered clothes rush to
greet me,
mouths wide with grins of anticipation,
old arms of aunties around me.
to smell fish, baking in the sun, smoking on fires, sizzling deep in hot oil.
to stub my foot on forgotten fish bones in the sand.
to laugh with Enyonam about my adventures in the city.

but when i alighted from the bus,
i found rubble and stone buried beneath huge waves of water...
in the stead of our house.
where is our family house?
no one to greet me.
only a cradling fire in the distance and an echo of bewilderment in the
stillness of the night.

where went our land?
after the bare bottomed children have swam and played, to where will they
retire?
shall day and night be spent in the embrace of foreign soil?

where went our land?
the tide came and went.
when it was gone, so was our house and land,
sucked into the hungry, roaring belly of the sea.

i drop my bag and begin to walk.
to where?
i don't know.
where does a girl without roots go?



"Without Roots" is part one of our five-part series of poems on Keta. Further installments will be posted weekly throughout January.

Author Profile - Edith Faalong

Biography:

Edith N. Faalong was born to Mr. Joseph Y Faalong and Madame Hellen Tanye in the Upper West Region of Ghana. She currently lives in Accra, reading economics and geography as a third-year student at the University of Ghana.

Five Questions with Edith Faalong:

1. What inspired you to write "Without Roots"?

In writing "Without Roots", I was inspired by the plight of people who lost their homes to the encroaching sea and also by the late Kwesi Brew's "The Sea that Eats our Lands".


2. Have you ever been to Keta? If so, when was your last visit?

Yes, I visited Keta some five years back.


3. What comes to your mind when you first think of Keta, or hear someone mention it?

When I hear Keta mentioned, I think of a normal fishing town.


4. Do you think it is possible for people to understand Keta without having personally visited?

I think it is very possible for people to understand Keta without having personally visited it. That is why we write anyway...so people can understand and appreciate what they have not seen or been through.


5. Your previous poem featured on OGOV, "Sankofa," and this poem, both deal with the importance of history in our attempts to move forward - could you speak a little more on this theme, and how it connects with our theme of Keta?

I believe history is the people. It is the genesis, the basis. Without it, there is no people. It is our reference point to the future. From history, we carve our road to, and nature of, our destination.

With Keta, when we lose the land and homesteads, we lose history. And without origins and roots, we find lost, empty people. In effect, there cannot be a people without roots and origins.

Contact Edith:

edithfaalong(at)hotmail.com

Edith's Past Profiles:

Issue 1.26, September 15th - 21st, 2007