In our series of letters from African writers, journalist and former Ghana government minister Elizabeth Ohene writes about how the prospect of living abroad has lost its attraction in the time of coronavirus.
We used to say here in Ghana, half in jest, half in truth, that you can find a Ghanaian in every country in the world.
I’ve heard of Ghanaians in Greenland, Iceland and Papua New Guinea. I admit, I haven’t heard about a Ghanaian in the Faroe Islands, which is my idea of the most exotic and faraway place, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us is there.
From the middle of the 1970s through to the end of the 1990s, circumstances had conspired to turn us into a travelling people.
Over the past 20 years we have continued to do it, not because the things that used to drive us away still exist, but simply because it has become a habit and our minds are tuned that way.
The middle classes now try to send their pregnant wives to deliver babies in the United States. They beg, borrow and steal to send their children to universities in the US and UK and encourage the children to stay on after completing school.
Then there are the adventurers among us who have always taken off to go and try their luck and seek fortunes wherever is said to be the current land of gold.
Source:Â BBC