Adrienne “Rakina” White Publishes Nyumbani About Her Travels And Work in Africa: The Search for Identity
(Above): Adrienne Rakina White who received her graduate degree from UW-Madison (Below): The cover of her memoir Nyumbani: And African Travel Memoir
by Jonathan Gramling
Adrienne “Rakina” White, author of Nyumbani: An African Travel Memoir, had it rough growing up on Chicago’s south and west sides. She came from an abusive home.
“My step father was beating the crap out of my mom a lot,” White said. “I was dealing with that.”
And White was searching for identity in a world that was hostile to African Americans and disparaged Africa.
“There were a lot of misconceptions that people had about Africa like growing up and being in school, looking at Tarzan and being ashamed of being vaguely aware that this is where my ancestors came from,” White said. “I didn’t want to connect in any way. It was an insult to anyone to be called African. There were crazy things that kids were saying and you didn’t want to associate yourself with that.”
But all of that changed for White during high school.
“There were a couple of teachers I had in high school — one was an art teacher and one taught history — who took African names,” White recalled. “And shortly after that, I was given an African name. As a teenager, I was wearing African clothes and head wraps. We all had experience as adolescents who searched for identity and belonging and that is what I was going through as an adolescent, particularly starting at age 13-14 when I got to high school. And I was kind of around a group of people — this was the early 1970s — who were questioning their identity as African Americans and wanting to connect with Africa. This is a time after the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement and a lot was going on in major cities. People were looking towards Africa as the place of our ancestry.”
And then an opportunity came up to visit Ghana and White went for it.
“There were two brothers who were from Ghana that I and my little group knew,” White said. “And they were organizing a charter flight to Ghana. At that time, it was $425 round-trip. That was 1973. When I was a high school teenager, I used to make jewelry like earrings and necklaces. And I sold them at art fairs. And so I was a little entrepreneur. I was able to raise enough money because my family didn’t have any money. We were poor. But I was able to raise that fare in order to purchase my ticket. It was a life-changing experience. I told myself that I would go back. I would go to a university in Ghana. I wanted to be a teacher at that time. And that was my dream of going back. I wanted to connect more with Africa.”
This was the beginning of White’s search of her African identity. But real life intruded on White’s dream.
“I ended up dropping out of high school, getting pregnant at age 17,” White said. “And so I wasn’t able to go back until many, many years later. I talk about that in the book, about my troubles after that trip. I think the chapter is called A Rocky Road Back. One of my really good friends who was with us on the trip died of malaria almost right when we came back. We were kids. No one told us what we needed to do to prepare for the trip.”
The next opportunity to visit Africa was in 1987 when White was earning her BA in nursing. The United States had bombed Libya in 1986 and the Gaddafi government was trying to promote a better image of Libya.
“There were about 200 people from the United States who went,” White said. “It wasn’t just students. There were older people of different ethnicities from the U.S. There was a smaller group of about 100 from Canada. And another 100 from the UK. We went in April 1987. And it was great. It was only four days. The Government of Libya — Gaddafi was there then — had the goal of showing the people of the world that they were not the monsters that the world was portraying them as and to show them what the U.S. had done in Libya. We were actually at Gaddafi’s house. I had only been to Ghana and I didn’t know a whole lot about Africa. And so I didn’t even pack appropriate clothing for North Africa. We had a nice hotel and a nice room. I remember standing on the balcony looking out at the Mediterranean Sea. It was a beautiful view. But I was freezing because I didn’t have any warm clothes. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to Africa.’ I had a sweater, but I needed a coat.”
White’s next opportunity to visit Africa came in 2000 when her friend moved back to Ghana and White took her youngest son with her for the visit. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to stay longer.
“I was living in Wisconsin because that is where I moved to from Chicago,” White said. “I was working as a nurse practitioner. A friend told me about the Global Health Institute, which was new at that time. I think they had graduated a first class. I applied to get a post-graduate certificate in global health. Finally I was starting to see that maybe I could do this thing that I had wanted to do most of my life, go and work in Africa and spend significant time in Africa. While I was completing the program, I did a project in The Gambia. It was in a village. It was part of our requirement for our clinical experience. I did a project with adolescent girls in the village. A year after, I received a travel grant from the university to do another project with those same girls in that program. Those were four-week and six-week projects. I had that experience under my belt. But now how could I really work in Africa.”
The opportunity came through The Global Health Service Partnership between PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief), Peace Corp. and SEED Global Health.
“I was able to go to Tanzania for a year,” White said. “They partnered with universities in different African countries. The sent nurse and physician educators. And so I was teaching nursing students in the classroom and the clinical setting for that year. I was in Dodoma, Tanzania, which is the capital. Africa is so diverse. That is something that I have learned just from these experiences. There are different climates and people. I personally found that East Africans are, in general, more reserved and harder to get to know. West Africans, in general, were more open and outwardly welcoming. I love spicy food and West Africa has all of the flavors and the spices. And East African food seemed to be relatively bland.”
White wasn’t done experiencing Africa
“I actually took a volunteer position with Peace Corps Response,” White said. “It’s part of Peace Corps, but it isn’t the regular Peace Corps where it is a 2-3 year commitment and you are placed in rural areas. The call Peace Corps Response Peace Corps for Professionals. It is still volunteer. You get a nice stipend and a nice place to live. And it’s in an older area. I did that for a year in Zambia. I visited or lived in 12 African countries if I count Libya. And I count Malawi although I was only in Malawi for a few hours. When I was in Tanzania, we went on a road trip and crossed the border and hung out a little bit in Malawi.”
White named her book Nyumbani — Swahili for home — because she was searching for that peaceful spot in her being where she felt at home with herself and who she was.
In discovering Africa, White experienced the beauty and the pain of Africa.
“I had one aunt who was still living when I was in Tanzania,” White said. “My aunt passed away while I was there. I was working with another faculty member with whom I was very close. And I told her that my aunt had died and I was very sad. I couldn’t go to California for the funeral. And she told the class. I didn’t know she was going to tell the class. In Tanzania, Swahili is one of the official languages. Most people speak Swahili although the instruction was in English. If you are just having a conversation, it’s mostly in Swahili. One of the students started speaking in English. She asked me, ‘Madam, can I address the class?’ I told her yes. And she started speaking in English. It made me wonder because usually when students address the class, they are speaking in Swahili. She was talking about the fact that I had lost my aunt and they really cared about me. And they gave a long condolence speech and then they presented me with a gift. And most of these students are on government scholarships. They come from villages from all across the country. They are really struggling. In fact, some of the government money that they get to buy laptops they end up having to support family members. They gave me a beautiful outfit, some of the material, a blanket and other gifts. They hugged me. And I was in tears. I was really, really touched by that.”
White also learned what it was like to live without running water for three weeks when she lived in Uganda.
“The water pressure was a little bit less,” White recalled. “It was never very strong anyway. And then the second week, it was less water. And by the time the third week came, it was down to drips. And then there was no water. Everybody stored water. So you had these big 50-gallon containers that you stored water in. And you would have buckets all around the house. That was challenging. Not only do you have to bathe — I learned how to do a bucket bathe — but you have to cook and wash the vegetables and wash dishes. That was quite challenging.”
White will be in Madison on August 17th to do a book signing at the UW South Madison Partnership Office from 2-4 p.m.
“I’m happy to be coming back to Madison,” White said. “I am a UW-Madison alum. And Madison was good to me. I hope people will come out. I look forward to seeing people and being back in Madison even though in the book I talk about how I was really ready to leave Madison. I just want people to come out and support the book. My goal is for people to read the stories. I want people to read the stories and I want people to have conversations around them. And I just encourage people to travel. That’s my big thing. I want people to travel because travel can really change your life and open your mind to possibilities.”
Travel is what allowed Adrienne “Rakina” White to find home: Africa.
