TEMA, GHANA - Andy Agyemfra's great-grandfather was the leader of one of the Ashanti nations. Agyemfra was named after him, and so everyone calls him "chief." Even on his business card, where he describes himself as a senior program coordinator for the United Students' Association, an exchange program for Ghanaians wishing to study in the United States, he is known as Chief Andy Agyemfra.
His small office is located on a sandy lot behind the head offices of the Income Tax Authority in the coastal town of Tema. Inside are two computers and a printer, all of which he purchased in Israel. Outside is parked a used car, bought with money he saved while working in Israel. On the
other side of the tax building is the school where his eldest son, a 6-year-old who was born in Israel, studies.
A lot of good things happened to Agyemfra in Israel. First of all, he was cured of a paralysis that afflicted his leg, the result of a curse put on him by members of a rival family. When Agyemfra speaks about the angels that revealed themselves to him in Jerusalem and healed him, those listening are amazed. On a continent where popular beliefs in spirits and gods mix seamlessly with a devotion to Jesus, it is entirely obvious to them that such miracles occur in the Holy Land.
Agyemfra left for Israel in 1989, part of a group of pilgrims. At a mass prayer meeting in Jerusalem, he relates, a man came up to him and selected him, from the mass of people present, to go up onto the stage. The man prayed for him, sang with him, brought him medicine and then disappeared without a trace. From that moment on, Agyemfra explains, he began to recover. He decided to stay in Israel and try to earn back the money he had spent on the pilgrimage. For six months, he worked for a farmer on Moshav Neot Hakikar. After that, he moved to Tel Aviv and began cleaning houses.
Wedding in Jaffa
After three years in the country, he brought his fiancee from Ghana. The wedding ceremony was held in a church in Jaffa. Agyemfra worked for several different families, and in the little spare time he had, he played saxophone in the Ghanaian community church in Tel Aviv and learned to fix computers. In 1997, the couple's first son was born, followed, three years later, by a second son. The family lived in a small Ramat Gan apartment, adjacent to the Diamond Exchange.
During the first few years of his time in Israel, Agyemfra used to send money home to Ghana, to his brothers and parents, so that they could build a house for him and his wife, and so that they would have extra money to live on. But, following the birth of his second son, the family's expenditure grew and he was forced to cut back on the money he sent home. Without medical insurance, every visit to the pediatrician costs money - in cash - and the cost of clothing and food also added up. Without the safety net of an immediate family, Agyemfra's wife Pat was forced to give up work in order to take care of her two children.
Construction of the house in Ghana stopped. "I saw that all my money was going on living expenses, and I was scared we would start using up the money we had saved as well. I said to my wife, `Let's go back home, because if we use up our savings, we're lost'," he says, stopping to drink the milk of a coconut he has just bought from a barefoot youth pushing a rusty cart full of the fruit.
Agyemfra planned to start a computer support service in Ghana. He bought two computers, printers and a fax machine, and sent them home to Ghana in a shipment, along with the furniture he had purchased. Six months ago, he took his two children and flew home to Ghana, while his wife remained in Israel. She was in the final weeks of her third pregnancy and - given the higher infant mortality rate in Ghana - preferred to remain in Israel for the birth. Three weeks ago, she gave birth to a third son, and the Immigration Police informed her that she had until November to leave the country voluntarily. Agyemfra is now trying to raise the $550 airfare, a tough proposition given the fact that his monthly salary is no more than $100 or $200 - much higher than the national average, but not a lot for someone who has become accustomed to a Western lifestyle.
Agyemfra did not, in the end, start a computer repair business. Instead, he decided to join the family business - established by his brother using money Agyemfra sent from Israel - the Ghanaian branch of an American company, which places students from Ghana in pre-academic courses in the U.S. and finds them lodgings with American families. Living and studying overseas are a goal for all Ghanaians, and the business appears to be prospering. Agyemfra says that his brother has already opened branches in Zambia and Nigeria, and he himself is due to travel to neighboring Togo to look into opening a branch there. He has even arranged for a friend, recently returned from Israel, to open a branch near the capital city, Accra.
No regrets
Agyemfra has no regrets about his decision to return to Ghana. While life is hard - his small children, who live with relatives, miss their mother - but he hopes that when she returns he can reunite his family and begin a new life. "I tell everybody that they should come home," he says. "There is no future for us in Israel. Anyone who manages to save $3,000 can make a fortune here. It is also not good to stay in Israel because of all the terror attacks there. Here we are free. Even if a policeman stops me for not having a driving license, I am not afraid. In Israel, I was afraid all the time."
But he knows that there are Ghanaians who have not been in Israel for 13 years, and have not managed to save like he did. Several weeks ago, for example, he went to the airport in Accra to meet a friend who had been deported from Israel. On the same flight was another deportee, who arrived home with just $15 in his pocket - not enough for bus fare to his hometown of Kumasi.
