I Didn’t Want to Move to Ghana. Now, I Can’t Wait to Go Back

When my family and I moved to Ghana, I really didn’t want to go — at first.

I had very mixed feelings about it because I didn't want to leave California and my friends.

But my mom and my five siblings wanted to go around the world and discover another country. They wanted to start a new life. We had been through a lot as a family, and my mom felt that it was time for a new start. She was right and in time, I grew to adore this African nation.

When we arrived in Ghana’s capital city Accra, the Ghanaians looked at us in amazement because we were American. They weren’t used to Americans coming to Ghana to live and not just visit. Our journey struck the Ghanaians as brave, yet strange that we’d want to leave “America the great.” But people very soon accepting us as fellow locals most treated us well.

Most anyway. Some were not really kind, perhaps because they were jealous assuming we were rich Americans who didn’t have to struggle. But we didn't worry about those who were less welcoming because so many of the people loved us.

When we came out of the airport upon arrival, we got into a car and went to an Airbnb. A man and woman met us there. He was pretty sociable, and she was nice. After that night, we started looking for our own home. It took a week for us to find one a three-bedroom apartment we liked. Once settled in, we got a cat and dog. Maybe three weeks after we moved, a stray kitten followed us to our doorstep and just sat there looking at us. He was so young when he came to us, so we took care of him. We originally thought he was a girl and named him Bella, only to find out Bella was a boy.

That was the funniest discovery ever. That’s how Bella became Bellis.

Exactly one year after moving to Ghana, we found a beautiful six-bedroom house with its own compound. There was a store attached to the wall of our compound for us to do business out of. There were huge fruit trees in the backyard. We had a basketball hoop as well to give us a taste