A new home for the African diaspora in Ghana stirs tensions
ASEBU, Ghana — Nestled in the sleepy town of Asebu, a few miles inland from the Atlantic along Ghana's Cape Coast, lies a serene 5,000 acre rural settlement. A mud road at the entrance weaves through a dense, green landscape of dozens of homes and partially built concrete structures, enveloped by miles of farmland and palm trees.
"Nobody's ever lived here before," says 74-year-old Lenval Skiers, from the sun-lit lounge of his six-bedroom home and guesthouse. "It was me alone in the forest. It was idle land, but I braved it." From his wide-set balcony on the second floor, Skiers points to his large garden, full of clusters of cassava, avocado and sugar cane. Beyond lies Pan-African Village, a stretch of land recast as an idyllic haven for settlers from the African diaspora.
Skiers is among a small but growing community of some 30 people, most who've arrived from the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. They regard themselves as the first wave of settlers, among a new African community in Asebu, carving a new life in their ancestral homeland, devoid of racism and repression in the countries their ancestors were forcibly taken to.
They're among the latest in a rich history, where many thousands of foreigners of African heritage have made Ghana their home — a proud legacy championed by independence leader Kwame Nkrumah, and his vision of Ghana as a beacon of African unity. Many are drawn to Ghana as a country cast abroad as a prosperous African nation on the rise. But a wave of returning diaspora, while welcomed, has become more contentious during some of the most trying
