Ghana | Preview #1 for hands holding the line...
A simple tenderness unfolds over a bowl of fufu with light soup and chicken. Two women sit on the street, sharing gossip and quiet laughter outside the beauty shop of Daniel Addoquaye, paralegal at CEPEHRG. The dead-end lane is calm, almost secluded, with few cars or passersby. Children play further down, Daniel’s father rests nearby with his cane, and the space hums with a sense of safety and belonging.
Daniel has built more than a business here. This corner has become a small gathering point for Accra’s LGBTI community—woven into the neighborhood, integrated with family, resilient against the shocks of stigma and funding cuts. He speaks of past discrimination, but also of standing now on the other side, supporting younger generations facing the same struggles.
The scene is not loud or colorful, but authentic: rooted, local, humble. It reveals how holding the line is not just an act of resistance in moments of crisis, but the accumulation of choices—upholding a family name, building a livelihood, creating spaces of trust.
Food is central in every culture, and here it binds subcultures too. For me, it ties back to my earliest trips to Ghana, when sharing a bowl was often the first doorway into connection. “You know how to eat fufu?” they would say. “You know red red?” In moments like these, I am simply reliving past lives.
About this article:
- Learn more about the work of local organizations mentioned in this article.
- Part of the hands series: Previews of the people and themes at the center of the response to HIV.
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