My name is Michael Fiifi Deku. Fiifi, my middle name means I was born on Friday and identifies me with an ethnic group from the Akan tribe named the Akuapems. The Akan tribe is the largest ethnic group in Ghana made up of different subsets of tribes distinguished by their dialects. The most famous and powerful tribe within the Akans are the Ashantis who are well recorded in the history of Africa. The Akuapems live in a town named Akropong from where their name originates. Akropong sits at the peak of the Aburi mountain ranges in the mid-eastern part of Ghana.

Most tribes and ethnic groups who have survived throughout history have done so by strategically residing in geographical areas that give them a military and economic advantage over any would be attackers. For the Akuapems the mountains served as a fortress from any attacks.

.I was born in Accra the capital of Ghana where I did my primary and secondary School Education. My parents migrated to London when I was about 8 years old due to intense economic and political hardships. Ghana had just experienced a military coup a few years earlier and the democratically elected president had been overthrown by a soldier who had taken power.

All citizens had to subscribe to military rule or risk being harassed or killed. Being the Public Relations Executive of a major national corporation my father was in the headlights of these new set of leaders. As a chilling but unimaginable pattern started to unfold in the country it became clear that my parents would have to make the very tough decision to leave the country. On a regular basis senior members of the old government would be seized and basically disappear into thin air, some never heard of again, for others their families would not be heard from for many years, with no knowledge of their whereabouts. Targets gradually moved from political figures to any influential opposing public voices and then eventually to high ranking company executives. When my Dad arrived at work one morning and found a bloody note nailed to his door, he knew it was time to leave.

Writing was one of my first loves growing up, I remember writing a composition which Americans call an essay when I was about 10 years old and getting full marks for it. If you come from Africa getting full marks in school is next to impossible. Education in Ghana is an opportunity and not a privilege, the intention of the Government is to get everyone educated but the reality is only a few have the opportunity to go to the best schools and be well prepared to take on the rest of the world. For those of us who do the curriculum it is strenuous and high level. I was writing 6-10 page analytical essays of Shakespeare and Robert Frost when I was 15 years old. Tenses and grammar were critically reviewed and graded, like we say in Ghana, we speak the Queen’s English, the burden of our past is also the pride of our future, a former colony of England and a member of the Commonwealth, Ghana is one of those countries where there is a general and common feeling of national pride.

You will find a common thread when you run into any Ghanaian anywhere in the world, an immense pride for country, education, hard work, and sports in that order. The theory in Ghana and Africa as a whole is that you always have to work hard to earn your stripes in anything especially in education. Every project almost always involved a long essay, A’s in anything were the exception rather than the norm, it almost seemed like the directive was to make sure the students didn’t get an A. The competition was always intense because we had to read and memorize everything from cover to cover, plus we had no computers and were not even allowed to use calculators unless you were in an advanced Calculus class.

If you had a brain then you could access the calculator and the computer in there, after all how were you going to survive in the world when one day all the power went out or you had no access to a calculator; that’s what our teachers would say. By the time I got to the States school was easy after going through an educational boot camp in Ghana. I’m ever so grateful now for the education in Ghana because it allowed us to be heads and shoulders over other students once we were got into universities all over the world and excel over all obstacles.

Our headmaster always said “Go us living waters to a thirsty land.” We used to laugh at his comments back then now we know we had an incredible education and upbringing that makes us better prepared to lead in all spheres of life. Writing fulfills the fruits of my imagination. I’m one of those people who have a wondering mind. If I grew up in America I would probably have been diagnosed with AD/HD but no such thing in Ghana. If you didn’t pay attention in class you got a nice padding on the buttocks, hence all my intelligence emanates from down there to my brain..(laughing). I daydream and visualize a reality for my daydreams instantly, words come to me in pockets of poetic rhythm and I need to store them somewhere before I lose them forever.

By writing I am able to physically capture my imagination, and going back to read them sometimes give me window into my own soul and mind. Coming from Ghana has given me a different perspective that I can express and share in America, the choice of words, grammar, prose, style of writing and presentation is all a reflection of how I was raised and educated, and represents a different perspective that enhances the diversity.

I have always been a dreamer and throughout my entire corporate servitude (that’s what I call being employed), I just lived those dreams in my mind. Now I can wake up every morning and decide “today I’m going to find a way to impact someone’s life and business”. My passion is to interact and extract the best out of each person I come across.. What makes America so great IS the fact that you can really live your dreams even if it’s just a microcosm of the entire sphere.


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Written by Fiifi Deku