GHANA WELCOMES WITH OPEN ARMS : AFRICAN-AMERICANS WHO'VE MOVED THERE SAY LIFE IS GOOD.

Byline: Melanie Eversley Detroit Free Press 

Malkia Brantuo shocked everyone at the end of a six-week visit to Ghana in 1973.

``I decided I couldn't go back to Detroit,'' said Brantuo, 66, a former schoolteacher. ``I called my sister and had her retire me.''

And she stayed, lulled by the tropical weather, palm trees, and living among a simpler, untainted people who made her feel like a child again.

``I grew up in Inkster (Mich.),'' Brantuo said. ``It was just like being down south up north. It wasn't developed at all. Everybody knew everybody.

``When I came to Ghana in 1973, a lot of things that Detroit began to lose as far as the closeness of the people, the trusting ways, I found here in Ghana. So it was, like, this is where I should be.''

Brantuo is among a few hundred African-Americans who've found a home in Ghana, following in the footsteps of the late writer and educator W.E.B. DuBois, who died here, and author Maya Angelou, who lived here for a time.

Ghana is welcoming them, eager for not only migration but tourism and investment, too. A big part of the lure: Most of the slave trade passed through Ghana centuries ago, and this little country under the shoulder of Africa may be as far back as many Americans can trace their roots.

``Come home for a visit,'' President Jerry Rawlings said in a recent interview. ``You will not find paradise. You will find a country which is working hard to eradicate poverty, ignorance and ill health. But you will find a warm welcome, and you will find numerous opportunities for a partnership in development.''

Rawlings visited Detroit last year on an investment mission. U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown visited Ghana a few weeks before his death in a plane crash this spring.

International economists say the next few years are critical for the country.

``Ghana is at a pivotal position in its transition right now, and the events that are going to take place within the next few years are going to be very critical in terms of continued momentum,'' said Cleveland Thomas of the U.S. Agency for International Development office in Accra, the capital.

``It's imperative that Ghana continues to position itself in a way that is going to be competitive to the international players.''

Ghana has targeted the United States, the Netherlands, Britain, South Africa, Nigeria and the Far East for investment capital, said Kwesi Ahwoi, chief executive of the country's investment promotion center.

The United States has responded, with 48 companies now doing business in Ghana, but African-Americans aren't heavily represented.

``We haven't seen a lot,'' said James Addo, vice president of Databank, an investment banking and brokerage company in Accra.

``For some reason or another, they don't follow up,'' added Markai Plange, another vice president.

Dr. Francis Duah, a Ghanaian involved in a $4.1 million project to restore two historic castles along Ghana's coast for tourism, said that seven years ago, African-American entertainers Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick pledged to raise $30 million for the effort. Duah said he never heard back from either of them. Neither Hayes nor Warwick could be reached for comment.

``If you make a pledge, I should not have to go around chasing you,'' Duah said. ``If the rich Americans were to invest in Ghana, in Africa in general, we wouldn't be where we are now.''

Ghana's relationship with black America dates back to the birth of Pan-Africanism, an ideology of unity among African people, wherever they may live, and the 1957-66 presidency of charismatic Kwame Nkrumah.

Nkrumah lived in the United States for 10 years, studying at Lincoln University, a historically black college in Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania, and meeting many black scholars and political leaders.

When he led Ghana to its independence from Britain in 1957 - the first African nation to be freed from European colonialism - Nkrumah tried to position his country as the seat of the Pan-African Movement. He dubbed it ``the Black Star,'' borrowing the moniker from Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey's Black Star shipping lines, and hosted the first conference of independent African states in 1958.

Among others, Nkrumah invited African-American intellectual DuBois to live in Accra and publish the ``Encyclopedia Africana,'' a scholarly work detailing the experiences of black people around the world. DuBois died there in 1963 before finishing it. The property where he lived houses his tomb and the Center for Pan-Africanist Culture.

Since 1966, when Nkrumah was overthrown by the Ghanaian army and police, the spirit of Pan-Africanism has faltered. Ghana's struggling economy now takes precedence.

According to a report issued by Rawlings, who came to power through a 1981 coup, Ghana aspires to be a middle-income country by 2020.

It may have a distance to go.

Colorful and balmy at first glance, Ghana also is a struggling nation that held its first democratic elections in 1992. The following year, ethnic warfare claimed 1,000 lives. Alongside Accra's oceanfront and kiosk shops are beggars and open sewers.

More than a third of the citizens are poor, 47 percent of adults are illiterate and the average annual income is less than $500. As Rawlings campaigns for re-election, he is criticized for not doing enough to help the average citizen.

But there is promise. The handling capacity of Kotoka International Airport in Accra has been expanded, life expectancy is up 10 years from the 45 years it was at independence, and luxury hotels are under construction.

Part of the change is due to the economic recovery program that Rawlings launched in 1983, helped by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In 1992, the U.S. Agency for International Development gave Ghana an $80 million grant, payable over five years, to expand exports and market the country to global investors.

The USAID program is boosting what it calls nontraditional exports, such as pineapple, African handicrafts, and canned goods, said Jeffrey Lee, private enterprise officer for the agency's Office of Trade, Agriculture and the Private Sector.

Ghana's African-Americans are from a range of places, from Detroit to the Bronx to backwater Texas. They laugh about giving up dependable electricity, hot water and other amenities, and say they have come to give something back.

About 150 African-Americans live in greater Accra. They have worked hard to fit in, learning the native languages, the subtle gestures and the unwritten rules of etiquette and communication. They've launched businesses and services, including companies providing secretarial services or tours geared to African-Americans.

For Sterling Sangoma, a native of Detroit who operates a scholarship program for Ghanaian schoolchildren, the sacrifice is worth it.

``I've had such wonderful experiences in Ghana, and it's been so enriching in my life, that I feel I owe Ghana,'' Sangoma said. ``There is not much that I can do for Ghana that would impact in any significant way the way it's impacted on my life.''

Sangoma has recruited Detroit residents to donate the school fees of 67 Ghanaian children. His association with Ghana dates back to his college years.

He was a highly ambitious student at the University of Michigan when his doctor told him he had borderline high blood pressure and should slow down.

``I'd just had it,'' Sangoma said. ``School was too white-oriented for me because I had a black consciousness and didn't go to a school that appreciated any of that.''

Sangoma enrolled at the University of Ghana at Legon, in suburban Accra. He hired a boy to do his laundry and asked him why he wanted the job.

``Please sir, I want to go to school,'' the boy said. That's how the school program started.

Sangoma said he has become obsessed with Ghana and is making plans to move there permanently.

``I love it, I believe in it, I'm wrapped up in it,'' he said. ``And these are kids who want to go to school.''

The American transplants say Ghana is a safe, unfettered place to raise kids and feel good about themselves.

``We wanted to come where we could enjoy the beauty of the country and relax, maybe make a contribution,'' said Ada Willoughby, a Chicago retiree who moved to greater Accra with her husband several months ago.

``We're settling in and I feel as if I am at home,'' Willoughby said.

But coming ``home,'' despite its benefits, can still be difficult without the luxuries westerners take for granted.

Ghanaians also tend to be wary of Americans, a feeling rooted in lingering suspicion that the United States staged the coup that overthrew pioneer leader Nkrumah.

``Most Ghanaians do not see us as African-Americans, but as Americans,'' said Helen Opong-Kesse, a Texas native who lives in Accra with her Ghanaian husband.

``They have certain perceptions as to who we are, and we need a certain educative process to address those problems and perceptions.''

Deborah Kofie, 41, a Milwaukee native and tour operator who lives in greater Accra, said she found less black unity than she had anticipated when she moved to Africa 10 years ago.

``I don't think the spirit of Pan-Africanism was as high as it was during Nkrumah's time, that type of African brotherhood. But it is developing,'' she said. ``There is a new crop, I believe, of people our age who are really trying to foster the spirit of Pan-Africanism.''

Jackie Jones spent 15 years planning her move to greater Accra from Connecticut. She arrived a year ago with husband, Errick, and their 9-year-old daughter, Amadi.

``You have to do your homework,'' Jones said. ``A lot of people come here and think the red carpet is going to be rolled out. Ghanaians are going to do it the way they do it. There's nothing else you can do about it.''

But Americans can live with some comforts of home.

U.S. television `programs are shown on M-Net, a cable channel from South Africa. The International Herald Tribune newspaper is available. Maxwell House coffee imported from Europe is sold at Kwatson's supermarket. Brantuo, who divides her time between Ghana and Detroit, said: ``If you understand people or if your disposition is not that you're superior and you don't look down on folks and you're not obsessing because they're different from you, then you can get along with anybody.''

The tourism industry is trying to lay more groundwork as hotels are built in Accra, Kumasi and the Cape Coast area, said Edward Komla, deputy executive director of the Ghana Tourist Board.

In 1997, Ghana will host its third Pan African Historical Theater Festival, or Panafest, a biennial celebration of black culture around the world. Panafest will take place in Cape Coast, Elmina and Accra.

``There's been a desire for (displaced) Africans to associate with the motherland,'' said John Darkey, director of the Panafest Secretariat.

And Ghana native Ashim Morton has launched a World Wide Web site, Ghanaclassifieds, that provides business and historical information.

``Before the Internet, it was very difficult for Americans to actually find out about the intricacies and downright homely history about Africa,'' Morton said. ``This way, people can actually read about things that have gone on in Africa at a cost that is minimal.''