Nzema people

Mm-hmm.

What business do I have learning Nzema?

No.

Exactly.

Mm

...

if you don't want to learn Nzema that is in your own country that you might need.

Exactly, exactly.

... to come and compete and cook, you know.

You know, um, Nzema has good delicacies-

Yes

...

Will you serve them jollof? [laughs]

[laughs] No, we won't serve them jollof.

We'll serve them Nzema food.

[laughs]

From Accra, past Cape Coast, down to Takoradi, then west to Essem for the Kundum Festival.

I've spent months listening to the drums of the Nzima people and watching the sea turtles nest under the full moon.

But today, the rhythm changes.

Today, we go inland.

Thank you.

Uh, this one says, "Obi, my name is Banana from Nzema Nginase w'otsia opapano mami.

Mr. and Mrs. Nemeson, and also Nzema mayor, Honorable Emmanuel Ama Kofi Boa." Very well.

That's the MP for Ellembele constituency.

We talked about the festival about how it brings everyone home.

She said Kundam is the one time of year when the whole Nzima people remember they are one family.

Sitting there, I started thinking about the practical side of staying longer.

Not just the romance of it, but the actual logistics.

If you want to settle, you need the Ghana card from the National Identification Authority Office.

That is the key to everything, every SIM card, every bank account.

I have heard the branches here are the smaller rural banks, like the Hantaman Rural Bank or Nzima Mono Rural Bank, and they work with your Ghana card or passport.

It is a process, but it is not an impossible one.

So who fell under their sway on the coast, for example?

To the south, you had coastal kingdoms like Wassa, Nzema, Twifu, Akwamu, Akyem, Akuapem, Ga, Adangbe, and significantly, the Fante chiefdoms.

They often had to pay tribute or at least acknowledge Asante's ultimate authority, their suzerainty.

Which limited their own dealings with Europeans, presumably.

drum stopped sometime in the night i don't know when i just know that when i woke up this morning the silence was so complete it felt like a physical weight had been lifted off the town for two days straight the condom drums had been the heartbeat of essence now the only sound was the soft patter of drizzle on my window and far off the low growl of the atlantic It's day three of my stay in this Nzima coastal town, and the day after the festival's peak always feels like this.

Like the morning after a great storm.

The air is clean, washed by the rain that's been falling gently since dawn.

Every corner of Essem, this Axem which people call Essem, has a story.

The Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, all of them left their mark.

And then the Nzima people who've been here for millennia, keeping the land and the sea in balance.

For lunch, I decided to treat myself.

I walked up to a small place I found in Upper Axum called the Treehouse Restaurant.

It is the Kundum Festival.

The Ahanta and Nzima communities along the coast are holding their harvest celebrations.

The sound draws me out of the museum, pulling me back to the streets of Sekondi.

I follow the sound, walking through the European town district, past the old High Court and the colonial era buildings.