American actor Hisham Tawfiq who visited Ghana for the first time this year has shared his experience with Ghana Weekend in an interview.
According to him, coming with his son made it more special aside from the amazing places he visited and the food he ate and the people he met.
He explained that his son who turned 21 on Christmas eve has learnt more from the tour than he has ever been taught in his history class in America.
“My experience has been overwhelming, emotional, amazing. What makes it really special is that I brought my son with me for his 21st birthday. He turned 21 on Christmas eve so I brought him with me to experience this so we’re both getting to see it together and I know one of the things that was important for us to see was Elmina Castle and I was really touched that when he experienced it, he said learned more from that tour than his whole history class back home because back in the State, they don’t teach us that history and as much as we research it on our and we try to learn about it and we pass it down it’s different for his generation and for him to come here and be in that space and to hear it, it touched him more than any class in the states could do.”
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Not only was his visit significant because his son came along, the actor felt at home being among people who did not make him feel like a stranger.
“I mean I’ve been to other parts of Africa. I’ve been to Morocco and Cameroun but being in Ghana, it’s my first time kind of being around people who are my same complexion and my son has my same complexion and I know psychologically it’s just, it’s a different… have you guys ever been to the states?” he quizzed
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“So it’s a whole different feeling that you see billboards with people that look like you. Like in the States the models have to look a certain way, they have to be fair skin or there’s one dark skin like Lupita or somebody like that but over here when you look at the billboard you see all different types of faces that look like you and that means a lot. So, it’s overwhelming experience”
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Touching on African music, he disclosed he loved it even before he set out to come down.
“I loved the music before I even came to Africa. I was always in love with African music, African drums. When I was in High School I took dance class. So I actually danced with a company called Forces of Nature. They was African American company that blended African American dance with West African dance so I toured all over the world doing that so I was already in love with the music and then afrobeat and reggae so it’s in my DNA so that was one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Ghana.
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“When I did my ancestry like 3 /4 years ago, Ghana came back with the highest percentage so I was like okay I gotta go to Ghana and it just so happened with the year of return and my son’s birthday so it all came together. A beautiful thing
Tawfiq who has done other thing including serving in the New York City Fire Department for 20 years, has called Ghana ‘home’ and added that he was going to keep coming.
