![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/ghana-cf4fec4-28a9-11ea-b2ca-2e72667c1741-1.jpg\" "\\"Cardi")
<\/div>Accra – The man from Boston stared at the ocean and thought: Maybe I’ll never go back.<\/p>\n
He’d come to coastal Ghana for an adventure, he told friends, but his motivation ran deeper. Pierre Delva, 32, craved a fresh start without the question that had bothered him since childhood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“Is it because I’m black?” the used-car salesman said, reclining at a seaside bar in the nation’s capital, Accra. “You don’t have to wonder here.”<\/p>\n
What started as an anniversary promotion called the Year of Return – a government-funded call for the African diaspora to explore Ghana four centuries after the first slave ship reached Virginian soil – has enticed some Americans to stay for good.<\/p>\n
Officials in this West African nation of roughly 29 million people say interest has overwhelmed the tourism office as the annual flood of visitors has more than doubled and A-list celebrities spark frenzies around the capital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
By December, border agents were running out of visa stickers. Applications to enter Ghana shot up from about 1,000 per week to a staggering 10,000, said Akwasi Agyeman, chief executive of the Ghana Tourism Authority. Most visitors are American, he said.<\/p>\n
More surprising, he said, was the number of people who have decided to stay: 126 were granted citizenship this fall, including 46 Americans, in the country’s biggest naturalization ceremony since 2016.<\/p>\n
“We could not have imagined this,” Agyeman said.<\/p>\n
The rush to Ghana, where millions of Africans were forced into servitude before the slave trade ended in 1870, intensified after tweets from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump told four congresswomen – including Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee – to “go back” to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” in July, sparking outrage around the world. (All four are U.S. citizens.)<\/p>\n
Omar, D-Minn., responded from the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, where she posted photos with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on an official visit in August.<\/p>\n
“So grateful for the honor to return to Mother Africa,” Omar tweeted.<\/p>\n
The high-profile sparring amplified attention on Ghana, Agyeman said. Calls and emails surged. Hotel costs climbed.<\/p>\n
People spoke of booking a trip, he said, as a way to strike back at Trump’s words.<\/p>\n
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Ghana’s quest to lure tourists began as a strategy to bolster the economy. It’s a mission countries across the continent share as leaders aim to harness historical sites, national parks and glittering shorelines.<\/p>\n
Consumer spending on tourism, hospitality and leisure in Africa is projected to hit $262 billion in the next decade, up from $124 billion in 2015, according to the Brookings Institution in Washington.<\/p>\n
Business leaders laud it as a path to shrink reliance on raw-material exports to foreign superpowers that tend to exploit workers and hog the benefits.<\/p>\n
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The climate in Ghana is ripe for entrepreneurs to fill potholes, add traffic lights and digitize tax returns, among other business moves, said Kojo Terry Oppong, founder of BlackBand, a concierge service for tourists and business travelers.<\/p>\n
“This is a market where you can solve a lot of basic problems and make a lot of money,” said Oppong, 30, who was born in Accra and raised primarily in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
It’s also part of the youngest region on Earth, with an exploding middle class of customers.<\/p>\n
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The problem: Some foreigners associate Africa with disease, war and famine. Celebrities with gigantic social media followings are helping to spread another view.<\/p>\n
Steve Harvey and the rapper T.I. visited the country in recent weeks, for instance, along with Conan O’Brien, who filmed a special in Accra. (“It’s very important to me that I am very popular in Ghana,” O’Brien said in the November bit.)<\/p>\n
The buzz is reaching phone screens worldwide.<\/p>\n
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“People can look up and say, ‘Cardi B’s in Africa?’ ” Oppong said. “What does that even look like?”<\/p>\n
It looks like an artist with 56 million Instagram followers strutting into Accra’s posh Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City one December night as fans sporting Versace and wax prints shrieked.<\/p>\n
A reporter asked Cardi B about her impression of Ghana hours before she played her first show in the country.<\/p>\n
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“They don’t know it’s lit,” the rapper said of her fellow Americans. “They don’t know it’s beautiful. They don’t know the food is delicious.”<\/p>\n
Cardi B had ordered spicy prawns from the poolside grill that afternoon and checked into a suite that costs up to $12,000 a night. (She later performed in a Ghanaian red, yellow and green bodysuit.)<\/p>\n
Down in the lobby, Maurice Cheetham, a Ghanaian American from Detroit who launched a tour company here two years ago, lounged in a leather booth.<\/p>\n
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“When I was growing up, it wasn’t ‘cool’ to be African,” he said as lanky models nearby snapped selfies. “I put it deep inside me.”<\/p>\n
That changed after his father died. Cheetham, 45, felt called to discover his roots and fell in love with Accra.<\/p>\n
“Now everyone wants to come,” he said. His clients have quadrupled.<\/p>\n
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The swelling crowds of Americans are putting more cash into local pockets. Artists at the biggest craft market in town estimate their monthly earnings have risen from about $450 to $750.<\/p>\n
But some see the visitors as rich people in a fancy adult version of a study-abroad program.<\/p>\n
“They already have a lot of money,” said Kojo Osei, 37, who hawks soccer jerseys at an Accra stall.<\/p>\n
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Osei notices mostly families or tourists in their late 20s and 30s – not a lot of high school graduates seeking greener pastures in a nation where the average yearly earnings amount to $2,130.<\/p>\n
“If they really want to see Ghana, they should go to the villages,” he said. “See the reality.”<\/p>\n
Ghana’s government hopes the spotlight will create more jobs for everyone. Next year brings “Beyond the Return,” a public campaign to help new arrivals get settled for the long haul.<\/p>\n
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Delva, the former Bostonian, landed in August with his life savings and a YouTube education on Ghana.<\/p>\n
“I watched every video out there,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Year of Return chatter had sparked his interest. His parents are from Haiti with roots in West Africa. He felt stuck in America. He was sick of the racism.<\/p>\n
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The foreign land across the Atlantic seemed more accessible.<\/p>\n
“You can’t just walk into the Bank of America and ask for a meeting with the CEO,” Delva said. “You’ve got a shot to do things like that here.”<\/p>\n
Now he has a full calendar, a spacious apartment and a mix of friends with big plans.<\/p>\n
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“When I think about going home to the States,” Delva said, “it almost makes me want to cry.”<\/p>\n
Of course, he’ll visit his family. But this place, he said, holds his future.<\/p>\n
Delva recently found a scrawny dog on the beach, fed him back to health and named him Billion – a nod, he said, to his potential in Ghana.<\/p>\n
\nThe Washington Post
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