From Akwaaba 🇬🇭 to Karibu 🇹🇿 to Enkwan Dehna Metash 🇪🇹: Researching, Writing & Living as a Digital Nomad from West to East Africa

2 hours ago
7 min read

Part One: My Why

Where I Started From & Why It Matters

I was burnt out. I had to be brilliant, driven & relentless. A fully-funded Masters & PhD right after my undergrad. A Government job which I redefined in so many ways. A prestigious postdoc after that. And then another prestigious fellowship. I was running on beyond empty- fumes actually.

But this was not my first time choosing adventure over comfort. When I just turned eighteen, before university had even started & right after my last A-Level exam, I was on a plane to assume my role as a Camp America summer camp counselor in New York State, America. During my undergraduate degree, at age twenty, I spent a year abroad in Hong Kong- which became far more than a study year. I learned. I connected. I created & curated. I travelled. I explored. I lived my best life.

Something about those chapters never left me- the freedom of it, the fearlessness of it, the aliveness of it, the version of myself I met as I allowed the world to be my oyster- like my dad always told me.

I had been chasing deadlines & building credentials for so long that I had almost forgotten what that felt like. Almost. So when another sisterfriend later described my East Africa chapter as my "working holiday", I knew she had nailed it.

But here is the thing about choosing an academic research pathway- which I even left my permanent Government job to pursue- it gives you something that very few careers do. The power to ask your own questions. To shape your own inquiry. To follow a thread that nobody else has pulled yet & see where it leads. That is exactly what I did. I shaped the questions, I built the projects, & it opened the door to a three-year Leverhulme Trust Early Career fellowship where my research project centres the 'hidden' histories of enslaved African people in Jamaica- including my own ancestors, whose lives & labour created the wealth that built Penrhyn Castle, Penrhyn Quarry & the whole of North Wales (& beyond). Archival research. Interviews with experts, descendants & community members. Site visits across Wales, Jamaica & Ghana. The most important work of my life. Doing it on fumes.

So when my fieldwork in Ghana finally drew to a close, I made a decision that was equal parts fck it* & finally giving myself permission. Permission to stop. To breathe. To do something- for once- entirely for me once more. I wanted to feel that freedom again. That aliveness. I was not going home. Not to Wales. Not yet. I was going South. & I was going to write up my research from the East of the Motherland.

The Academic Life I Had Built & What It Cost Me

It had been non-stop since school. I made sure I got good A-Level grades, a first-class degree- because I knew a first-class degree opened doors. Multiple awards & prizes alongside it. Scholarships. Credibility. The next step made possible. & alongside the studying, I was building the CV- extra-curricular activities, part-time work, internships, all of it juggled without dropping a single ball. That intensity never let up. Not once. Not through the undergrad, Masters, the PhD, Government, the postdoc, or the fellowship. I followed the rules & when the rules didn't work, I made my own. I was the student, as one of my PhD supervisors once noted in a reference, who "never missed a deadline." I sacrificed. I grinded. I chased. I always delivered.

For many minoritised academics- especially Black women- I experienced the instability, the racial battle fatigue, the cultural tax, the pay gaps, the lack of promotion, the imposter syndrome, the mis-doctoring & so much more. The system was not built for us & it shows in ways both loud & quietly devastating. & yet- here we are. Still choosing to take & hold space, still succeeding, still navigating, still showing up & showing out. That resilience is not incidental. It is in our DNA.

April-Louise celebrating passing her PhD after her virtual viva

& then Covid happened. I finished my PhD right at the start of it all- passing my virtual viva with minor corrections- & found myself suddenly still. Truly still. In a place that someone once used the wrongly attributed quote of Dylan Thomas to describe as "a graveyard of ambitions." I looked around & thought: is this it? Is this where I want to be?

I was too young to die with my ambitions. I had done too much. I had too much left to give. So I listened to what my heart & soul were telling me- not just my head- & I went back to academia with my postdoc from my Government job. Then the fellowship followed. & through all of it, underneath the momentum & the achievement & the forward motion, that same quiet voice never stopped. It is time to go.

So when my fieldwork in Ghana finally drew to a close, I stopped waiting. I finally acted on it.

Giving up everything (apart from my fellowship which became my anchor as I nomaded around) made me lighter. Light enough to fly- literally.

I was also witnessing my aunt/sisterfriends- women doing it, living it, building lives on their own terms & in their own image- two of whom I went to stay with during my nomad time. Seeing them move through the world like that gave me something important. It gave me permission to reimagine it for myself. & Covid, for all its devastation, had shown us something we could not unsee: that work could happen from anywhere. That technology made location a choice, not a constraint. That the old rules about where you had to be to do work- they no longer applied. I filed that away. & when the moment came, I used it.

I recently attended the launch of We, the Living Archives- an edited collection of essays published by the amazing organisation Whose Knowledge? During the event, contributors spoke about something that stopped me in my tracks, though I had heard echoes of it before: the idea of joy as resistance. They asked a question I haven't been able to put down since:

how can we resist without actually fighting?

I think I can answer that now. I think that is exactly what I did.

Choosing to be a digital nomad at that moment- exhausted, over-extended, a one-woman team carrying some of the heaviest research of my life- was not a retreat. It was resistance. It was joy, chosen deliberately & without apology, as an act of defiance against every structure that had demanded my brilliance without protecting my humanity. I stopped fighting & instead, I lived.

Why East Africa? Why Then?

Ghana had given me more than I can capture in this post- & I have written about it elsewhere. Finding belonging I hadn't anticipated. A scholarly home at the University of Cape Coast (UCC). A writer's haven at the Library of Africa & the African Diaspora (LOATAD). The final stretch of my fieldwork. Ghana gave me everything I came for & then some. What I needed next was space- warm, gentle, loving space- to process it all. Not in Wales. Not in the belly of the beast where my research had begun. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere that would hold me while I completed the work.

& practically speaking- East Africa made financial sense. Significantly cheaper than the UK & Ghana, with British currency stretching beautifully. I could save, live well & work freely all at once. That combination mattered enormously.

Tanzania & Zanzibar came first, & not by accident. For those who don't know- Zanzibar is a small, stunning island sitting just off the shores of mainland Tanzania, semi-autonomous but very much part of the same country. I spent time in both. On the mainland I based myself in Moshi - the town that sits in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. On a clear day, from my aunt's balcony, there it was. The mountain. Just there. Quietly extraordinary. So beautiful.

Beautiful Kilimanjaro mountain behind April-Louise as she stands on her aunt's balcony

My aunt had gone to Tanzania, fallen in love with it, & stayed. My friend had gone to Zanzibar on holiday years ago & never came back- carving out her own beautiful life on the island. Two strong Black women, living their dreams & building their worlds entirely on their own terms. Being around them at that specific moment in my life was not just comforting - it was necessary. I had visited Zanzibar before as a tourist, but this time was completely different. This time I came to work, to rest, & to witness- up close- what was possible when you chose yourself.

I should say- Moshi surprised me with its cool, crisp air. I had arrived expecting warmth & instead found myself reaching for layers. Beautiful, but my body was already quietly registering its protest.

Ethiopia had been on my vision board for 2025. Literally pasted there. I had been drawn to it for years- familiar with its culture through Ethiopian & Eritrean classmates at primary school, & deepened by my connection to Rastafari traditions, where Ethiopia holds a central & sacred place. The colours, the symbolism, the spiritual significance- I had always felt the pull. & then there is the lived reality of it: the injera, the coffee ceremonies, the white cotton & linen worn with extraordinary elegance, the beauty of the people- especially the women- who carry themselves with a quiet, unshakeable grace. Close to Zanzibar, accessible, affordable. A why not moment if ever there was one. The decision made itself.

Part Two- What Digital Nomading Actually Looked Like, What It Gave Me & What I'd Tell You- is coming next. Subscribe so you don't miss it 🖤

Akwaaba. Karibu. Enkwan dehna metash. You are always welcome here- real talk 🖤