By Kaiya Laguardia-Yonamine
After six jam-packed weeks and a camera roll full of memories, a lot of thoughts have been swirling through my head about our time in Ghana. Sure, it was my first time in the country. Actually, it was my first time traveling to the entire continent. But even in this new space, there were glimpses of familiarity that stay with me to this day. And as an Indigenous student, I feel like these connections with Ghana’s own peoples, histories, and practices made this trip hit so much harder.
For context, I was raised with a huge love and pride for my Uchinānchu (Indigenous Ryukyuan) roots, and grew up learning from my elders and activists. Coming from an island kingdom in the Pacific, I was always told that the ocean is what connects us; that while Indigenous peoples are not a monolith, our strength lies in our intersectionalities, critical lenses, and shared fights for collective liberation.
That couldn’t have been more apparent than when we landed in Ghana. Even though we were thousands of miles away from my ancestral homelands, somehow I felt closer than ever.
Yuntaku at Work
I was already interested in learning Ghana’s history related to Indigeneity before I got accepted into this internship. After all, it’s the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence from colonial rule, and many Pan-Africanist activists nod to the legacy here. So while I’m aware of my status as an outsider and obroni, I emphasized to my team that I am interested in Indigenous topics – and that I wanted to learn from their stories and communities as well. It was exciting to learn about the sheer diversity of Ghana’s communities from the people around me. With over 70 ethnic groups and over 80 languages spoken in the country, it was obvious how proud everyone was of where their roots were from.
In the following weeks, I learned which villages my coworkers’ families were originally from. While Twi was the standard language spoken at Joy, I knew which coworkers also spoke Ga as their native language, versus Ewe or Fante. I’d get caught in a couple of nuanced disputes about which villages had the best of different Ghanaian foods, or what each region was known for, and what customs. And over time, I started to befriend people who wanted to exchange lessons with me, learning and teaching basic things like “hello” or “thank you” in our respective languages. This pure sense of pride and joy in your Indigenous roots was so heartwarming to witness and to eventually become a small part of.
Finding Comfort in 90% Humidity
I didn’t realize until the week before our trip that Ghana is extremely close to the equator. And that was honestly… a dream come true for an island girl. But more than anything, it was the environment and ways of life that felt similar to the places I’ve called home.
When I saw the fishermen pulling in their catch at sunrise on the Cape Coast shores, I was reminded of my uncles in Henza and our village’s nets scattered on the sea. While venturing the bumpy red dirt roads in Gomoa East, I thought of my summers passing through Kapūkakī (Red Hill), and the mountains surrounding Oura Bay. The mango trees made me reminisce about my aunty’s backyard in Waipahu and my great-grandfather’s trees in Naha. And after going to the Aburi Botanical Gardens, I was shocked by all the lauhala, plumeria, ohai aliʻi, and bougainvillea vining on the walls – as if I just finished hanging out with friends and making lei in my second home of Oʻahu.
Home was really showing up in different ways, literally in front of my face, wherever we went.
Nuchi du Takara and Sankofa
On one of our weekend trips, I met a woodcarver from Aburi who was selling his art to our group. He creates pieces based on different Indigenous values and adinkra symbols seen across Ghana. There were statues of Sankofa – a reminder to never forget where your roots come from – scattered along the concrete. And in the back, a carved hand was shown grasping a green orb through its fingertips. When I asked what it meant, he said matter-of-factly, “Life is a treasure, and we must cherish it at all costs.”
It threw me off, because in Uchināguchi (my community’s language), we have a proverb that says exactly that: ぬちどぅたから / nuchi du takara. Life is a treasure. We come from places and peoples who have been through so much hardship, and yet we still hold onto our core values rooted in resilience and (sometimes) survival. These values felt so in line with how I was raised to see the world, and to see the same sentiments reflected in different communities was both exciting and comforting.
Kente, Kapa, and Bashofu: Weaving Histories Together
While we were in Kumasi, our group had the opportunity to learn two different styles of cloth-making. First, at the Bonwire Kente Village, we took turns weaving kente, a traditional cloth from the Ashanti Region known for its vibrant colors and intricate patterns. But after sitting behind the stool and learning the steps, I realized: this is the exact same way Uchinānchu people make cloth as well.
In Loochoo, it’s called bashofu, a thick cloth made from banana fibers and usually known for its simple designs and yellow hues. And here I was, sitting thousands of miles away from the islands, doing the same motions with a slightly different style. It’s simple: step on the pedal, slide the comb through, push the strands down, repeat. After the first few seconds, the uncle who taught me jokingly asked if I had done this before. And I have – just not in the way he’d think.
After the Kente Village, we went to another workspace in outer Kumasi. Our teacher, David, showed us how to use adinkra stamps, a style that uses stencils to create designs and share messages on outer garments. We pounded and melted the bark of a tree to create the waxy ink used for prints. As we walked through the shop and chose our adinkras to stamp, my classmate Kalani got excited about how similar this was to kapa, a traditional stamped cloth from Hawai‘i that is made from native trees as well.
It’s hard to describe how that felt to see our cultural practices reflected in another community’s traditional ways. I felt equally understood, seen, and embraced, knowing that these very similar traditions in Ghana are also being cherished.
I am not on my islands right now. I’m not standing in my homelands, and Ghana absolutely has its own unique stories and reasons for making things in this way.
But while our histories are unique, they are not separate. And it was amazing to see the ways Indigenous peoples around the world have learned to grow and continue our respective practices.
If I learned anything on this weekend trip, it was that Indigenous communities have a lot more similarities than we think. Our stories live on with our people. After wrapping up this internship with Joy, I hope I can learn to support my own and other Indigenous people’s efforts to share these stories with the world.