Hazel Eyes

I sit on the concrete floor playing with the dogs. There are small prickly dark green cacti right next to me. My curious mind touches the spike on the cactus, I know that it will hurt but I still do it. The feeling of a sharp needle grazing your fingertips slowly starts to wash over me.  I slowly push more and more till I can feel the cactus prick inside me. I release my finger and the dark red blood that I held is slowly oozing out. All the dogs, but one, start to bark at the sight of blood. Peace, the dog not barking, looks at the large brass gate that shields our property from the outside world. The gates’ hinges that have rusted from years of being beaten by rain water slowly start to turn right. As the gate is being opened I see an elderly figure holding a letter. My grandmother slowly starts to walk towards me with glee. With every step it seemed as though the 60 year old woman wanted to hop or skip. As she gets closer I notice a smile on her face. Every single white tooth is shown and the sunlight reflecting of them almost blinds me. When she is within arms distance of me she lifts my three year old self into the air and spins me around. Soundless words are uttered as I am spun till she places me done and says with a big grin; “You’re going to America.”

America. The average African yearns for a chance to enter this beautiful country, but I was different. From a young age I had been told that my parents are in America getting ready for my arrival. This repeated story that I was told made me start to hate this country. At the mere mention of the name America, my blood would boil as if a flame was burning deep within me. Matter of fact there was a flame. A flame of hatred for the parents I did not know, a flame of hatred for the parents that left me, their first and only son for this country. A flame of hatred for America, the country that took my parents. As my grandmother placed me on the ground her joyfulness slowly morphed into confusion. Her face showed confusion as to why my 3 year old self seemed upset but her eyes showed understanding. Her deep brown eyes showed a perfect reflection of me and in that reflection I felt as though she understood everything. As I stood there she took her rough, strong hand, wrinkled from years of working in the farm and patted my bald head. “Nipa trew baku”, she said. One week,I had one week to decide what to do. Would I stay in Ghana, the country who has grown me and I have come to love, or would I go to America the country that I had grown to resent, yet was called the “best” country in the world.

The next morning I woke up greeted by the rays of sun that had sneaked their way through the window and landed on my face. As I lay there staring at the bright pink ceiling analyzing the cracks that ran through the paint as if they were a massive spider web, I remembered. I needed to make a choice. The weight of this decision caused me to feel as though I was in the middle of two planets. The gravitational pull of both planets splitting me in half. On one planet was the warm rays of the African sun, the loud, annoying, and yet loveable barking of dogs, and my grandmother edging me to embrace that world. But the other planet was foreign. It held nothing I knew, it held nothing of grave importance to me. Yet there was one thing, Family. At the center of the planet there was a man and woman edging me to accept this world, a man and a woman holding open their loving arms waiting for me to embrace them. Inside me I was being told by a voice to go to the man and woman, it felt right, it felt like that was where I am destined to be. As I slowly stopped resisting and allowed foreign world to pull me in a scent slowly creeped its way into my nostrils. The scent of jollof, a simple dish that is made up of rice and stew. This scent brought more than a yearning in my stomach for the dish, but memories. Memories of the times spent with my grandmother. Memories of the constant times I had grown bored and played with the cacti. Memories of Peace, the dog that I have always loved. “Be didi.” These words knocked me from my trance like state and as I look towards my open door, I see my grandmother holding a wooden spoon in her hand. It is now that I realize the scent of jollof was not an imagination but a reality. The scent bombards it’s way into my room blocking all my senses and causing my mouth to water. “Be didi”, my grandmother says these words once more, urging me to come eat. I slowly get up from my bed to go brush my teeth. There may be a choice at hand but for now the only thing I care about is jollof.

The day continues as normally as most African days were. I ate, I played, then I ate again. A repetitive pattern I had grown accustomed to. However, for the first time the pattern seemed unique. It seemed as if I did everything for the last time. It was the voice. The voice was telling me to leave my home, leave the dirt roads, the deep brown eyes of my grandmother, and to leave the jollof. Once again the man and woman made their way into my minds. Arms outstretched waiting for me. However this time there was a difference. The woman had the deep hazel eyes of my grandmother. As I stared into the woman’s eyes I saw myself. I saw myself embraced by the man and woman being held as if I was the most precious object in the whole world. Around us, we were surrounded by numerous foreign monsters slowly making their way closer and closer to us. The figures stopped embracing me and grabbed my hands. The man held my left hand. His rough strong muscular hands showed experience and years of hard work. The man stared at the foreign monsters with a look of protection. The man brought a sense of security. His rough strong hands and the daggering look he administered to the monsters brought upon an unspoken promise. A promise that I would never experience pain, a promise that I would be guarded. The woman holding my right hand was not looking at the monsters, in lieu she was staring at me. Her deep brown eyes pierced my being in the gentle way the cacti would pierce my fingers. The only difference was that unlike the cacti, who brought a sharp pain, the eyes delivered a deep love. This love added with the protection brought by the hands caused the man and woman to slowly start changing. Not a physical change like that of a butterfly in metamorphosis, but an internal change in opinions that I felt. The man and woman were no longer foreign strangers pulling me into a foreign world. In contrary the man and woman where now my sources of love and protection against the monsters that I will face. The man and woman where my family.