Close to Gaoso, Western Region, Ghana. Cocoa growing area.

They came as a team responding to our invitation to discuss cocoa farming and migration.

All were born in neighbouring Burkina Faso. They came to this cocoa growing area in their teens.

One man married a local, forest woman, the sister of the local Chief. His brother brought him when he was 10 years old. He is particularly happy of his past choices and of his luck. His firstborn son might become the next Chief.

His “brother” on the contrary says that all in all, he regrets his migration; he is not better off than his brothers who stayed at home in Burkina Faso and he is away from home. When he goes back there, they insult him. He came here in 1946. He has two wives and 20 children. Elderly people from his hometown came to visit him; they have been with him for the last 3 months.

“Before, foreigners came to work the land, locals did not work, and all they did was to inherit land from their uncles”

Their children are faring well, that is a source of joy and praise.  None of them want to stay on the farm; they all want to go to school. They say that they cannot constrain them to stay on the cocoa farm.

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