On the sides of the busy road between Ghana's capital, Accra, and the town of Adenta to the east, you can buy coffins of every shape: for fishermen, there are boat-shaped coffins, while for hunters, they are gun-shaped. George Darko, who worked in Israel for 13 years and left last week under threat of deportation, says that he misses Israel very much but it may be for the best that he and his friends were forced to leave. In Israel, he says with a smile, you can't be buried on the Sabbath. And there are no broom- or mop-shaped coffins for foreign workers.
Darko returned to Ghana last week on a plane chartered by the Immigration Police for foreign workers leaving "of their own free will" - workers who were encouraged to leave rather than risk arrest and deportation. Darko's first task upon return is to rebuild his family. After that he will
decide where to live and what to do. His son left for boarding school in another city the day before he and his wife came home and they have not yet seen him; the last time they saw him he was only a year-and-a-half old. Their eldest son, 17, was among the hundreds of friends and relatives awaiting their return last week at the Accra airport.
When Darko and his wife Esther left for Israel in 1990, he left his two small children with his in-laws, hoping to see them again in a few years after he had earned enough money to build a house. But the years went by. They had another son while they were in Israel, and it seemed better to send money from here, rather than try to make a living in Ghana, where the average wage is less than $100 a month. Things have gotten much better since then, and those who returned from Israel with a few thousand dollars and an entrepreneurial spirit have gotten along. But the longer the returnees have been away, the greater the shock of the return.
Darko's story, uprooting himself from his homeland and splitting up his family, is the story of foreign workers throughout the world. But the experience of the Ghanaians in Israel is unique. Most of them are religious Christians who saw Israel as a source of spiritual as well as material fulfillment. The government decision to deport them was difficult for them to swallow. Those who returned of their own free will and managed to get along economically are less angry, but many of those who were forced to leave feel betrayed.
"We always heard that the people of Israel were the chosen people. But now I see that you are selfish. I am in shock. I did not believe that you could behave this way," said Patrick Opindapa, who returned on last week's flight after eight years away. "We worked for you for years. You gave us the keys to your houses, you trusted us. We cleaned, and you went to your professional jobs. I am also a professional, a tailor. But we understood that we could not take work that your citizens wanted to do, so we only cleaned.
"Suddenly, the government decided that we are causing unemployment and we are a negative influence. Negative? Did you ever hear about a Ghanaian who stole, or who bothered women in the street? All we did was work and go to church. We actually created work for Israelis. We bought food, we rented apartments. But the government decided. And what did you do? Nothing. Where was your protest? Why didn't you take to the streets? I thought that's what's done in a democratic country. Most of my employers were nice, good people. But when they saw we were being deported they took advantage of the situation and refused to pay us severance. One gave me $50 dollars after I worked for him for eight years. Another told me he would call the police if I insisted on severance pay. Another said that because I was not a citizen I was not entitled to compensation."
Opindapa's wife, Evelyn, who worked for a family in Yehud 12 hours a day, six days a week, for two years, received NIS 900. "Israelis come and invest money in Ghana and make money. No one bothers them. But if an Israeli delegation comes here tomorrow, I will organize a demonstration against them at the airport," Opindapa says. "The government has to admit that it made a mistake and stop deporting my brothers and sisters. If they would give us time to get organized and leave, everyone would go."
About a year ago, when the mass arrests began, another returnee, Ray Dadebo, decided that he could not stand the shame and the sorrow if he were to be caught. He bought a few computers and printers with his savings and returned to Ghana. Since then, he has been working to build up a small office services business. This week, he finally began to refurbish the store where he will put his office. Dadebo, who was in Israel for nine years, is convinced that he would have left Israel soon, without the encouragement of the Immigration Police. Dadebo knew that not only could he not become a citizen or permanent resident of Israel, he also could not remain a cleaner for his entire life. Once, he says, he worked for a family who asked him to clean their oven. "The kitchen was small, the cleaning fluid must have been very strong, because it cleaned well, but I fainted. Many of my friends in Israel got sick because of their work, the constant pressure, missing home, the fear of returning home," he says. "The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky - when they get cold, they always return home, don't they? That's the way it is with people as well. I missed home. My grandmother died while I was in Israel and I could not go home to bury her," Dadebo says.
