A Home Above Water
NZULEZU, GHANA
March, 2023
– “Ahye oo!”
– “Heloo!”
– “Kɛɔ deɛ?”
I hear loud voices discussing, joyful laughters, water splashing, kids screaming in the distance – and I feel my bed slightly wobbling from side to side, feeling the tremble of kids running around right outside my room. I turn myself from my stomach onto my back before I finally open my eyes. A golden ray of sun is gently coming through a small opening of my wooden hut, lighting up the right side of my room. I look up to my ceiling and think about the long journey that took me here. I am finally here. Here, in Nzulezu.
I quickly slide out of my blue mosquito net (that is actually nothing else than a fishing net) which is humbly surrounding my “bed”, slip into my ankle-long white dress and open the door to a life that is still wonderfully unknown to me.
A bit more than a week ago, I boarded a Trotro in Ghana’s capital Accra. With no further information but a phone number of a friend’s friend in my phone, I took on the seven hour journey (that rather turned out to be fifteen hours) to a village – that is built entirely on stilts and tucked away from all civilization. Nzulezu is a very small village built on the Amansuri River. Only 510 men, women and kids call this place home. And after living in Nzulezu for four days, I do now call this magical place home too. I became part of a community where time seems to stand still, where joy seems to be inevitable and where current world events seem to keep the inhabitants of Nzulezu unbothered.
510 people. Men. 510 Faces. Women. 510 Stories. Children. Each one contributing with their own individuality to a greater story. Each story intertwining with the story of the other.
In Nzulezu everyone knows everyone. Old knows young, young knows old. And everyone looks out for the other. But even though each life seems to beautifully intertwine with the spirit of the village, every inhabitant has their own personality, their own tasks, their own story that they contribute to the village.
Where mundane intertwines with peace. Where little joys of life lie in the ordinary. Where liberty goes far beneath the banks of the river. That is where Nzulezu is.
A part of my favorite experience in Nzulezu was seeing the connection the villagers of Nzulezu had to the water. In so many parts of the world, there are stereotypes about Black people and the fear of water. Being here, in a tiny village in Westafrica – and witnessing how men, women, kids, and even babies jump into the water, swim from one side of the village to the other side of the village, canoe from one side of the river to the other side of the river, bath themselves or fetch water from the river to cook their daily stews – I understood there’s a part of this narrative that needed to be shared. Seeing how the people from Nzulezu are one with the waters from the minute when they are born – was not only mind-altering, but also magical.
Early in the morning, when the rest of the villagers are still asleep and the river is quietly flowing from north to south, the fishermen of Nzulezu take their canoe, and paddle their way into the middle of the Amansuri River, hoping that the fish trap they set the night before is filled with plenty big fish to bring back to their community when the day arises.