African American moved to Ghana to build a 4 bedroom home and live her dream life |Exploring Asebu

in today's video when a Cebu exploring the freelance we're going to be talking to Karen King she's going to be walking us through her home and sharing her journey of moving to Ghana with us well hello how are you fine aquaba thank you so glad you were able to come so glad I was able to make it yeah so just to start we want to get to know you a little bit can you just tell me a little bit about yourself and who you are sure so my name is Karen King okay and I am from I grew up in Washington DC in the United States I am a mother of four and a grandmother of 16. now let's let's just post there for a second she's a grandmother was 16. yeah look at look cute thank you thank you and and five great grands so yes and so I left them all to come to Ghana wow um I've been here a little over a year now okay yes okay so you built this within the year I built it took a year to build it um so I was not here when they first started building okay okay okay okay so let's talk a bit about your journey let's talk a bit about moving to Ghana what made you decide to come here yeah mine is a spiritual journey okay okay so when I was living in the in the states um I heard that they were giving away free land okay right for the 2019 the year of return um and so the president of Ghana was saying that you know come back come back home and I had had my DNA test done and it did show Ghana along some other countries in the west coast so they can't really pinpoint you know because of the slave trade and all that um so I decided Freeland I'm gonna get it so I did that sight unseen even without um coming here I went on the website um it was Sankofa repatriation website and so sister ya was the one who helped me to get the land even before I came so I got this land and then I met I heard that some people were coming to Ghana on a tour with God box tours and they were all Hebrew Israelites right and so that's my that's my culture and so I said oh I think I want to go and so I was going to go by myself and then my daughters were like you can't go by yourself you know but anyway ended up two other people from Raleigh that's where I was living at the time they were coming to and I knew them so we all came over here and when we came when I when I got off the plane and I came outside and they had there was a dancing and saying a quavo welcome home it I just knew like oh my goodness this is home for real for real amazing and so after we went on the tour and we you know each day I just began to feel more and more of the stress west of the West leaving me okay and I was just feeling more and more grounded like wow this this is nice so by the time the I think our tour was 14 15 days by the time it was over I had already talked to people about building the house and wow and I just knew that I was going to come back to live so tell me a bit about this line this free line was it actually free tell me a bit about that acquisition process that Journey so the land itself is is gifted to you okay but you do have to pay an administration fee for the indentures and the the demarcating of the land and things like that so at the time when I got it it was 700 okay um U.S all right for the administrative fee okay I think now it's more like 1200 if I'm not mistaken I think it's more like 1200 now and um so you know it to me to own land in the motherland was like I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it so um when I came it was I don't think there were any houses wow except for Steve Coakley Steve Coakley have y'all met him yet no okay he has the think tank over there oh right and yeah he was the I think he was like the only one or one or two might have been um one other house when I came in 2021 Bush just Bush everywhere and so I didn't know exactly where my plot was but I knew it was somewhere around in here and um and so it was great when we came to the land and you know they talked to us and they told us a little bit about the history I don't know if you know about the oral tradition so yeah we can sit down yeah a quick story all right so when we came the tour guide gave us he said that the oral tradition um of a Cebu was that during the time in when the Israelites were crossing um the Red Sea and it opened up right that there were some people who did not go at the very end and they was they were left and so the the um the leader the general who had commanded his army to go behind to try to destroy them going through the Red Sea okay he didn't go in but he sent his people and then when the waters crashed down it says he became a Believer he was like oh my goodness your God is the god right so he told the ones who were remaining I will take you to safety okay and so he he became their God and eventually I mean not their God but their guard g-u-a-r-d and then eventually they're King they made him their King and they over time migrated all the way here Wow and his name was the Cebu oh and so they ended up here and they named it after him this area this whole area was called disabled after the after this King very interesting that and so when he was telling me that so he was saying so the very land you're standing on your ancestors lived in and and farmed and and prospered on this land so that just was like wow you know what are the odds right of that happening so then when I you know of course you know news I'm a Google business and I did and the story is right out there you know the oral tradition um that that's what happened and so there's um so then I met some other people um just randomly and they I said I live in a sable and said oh have you heard the tradition you know that it's king of that and I was like wow this is really cool so that's that's how I that makes you also feel connected to your roots I really do yeah yeah so that could be part of the grounding that I feel you know yeah yeah tell me what it's like for you living here feeling you know this connection that you might not have had before tell me what that emotion is like for you yeah it's sometimes it's so emotional that I get you know teary-eyed because when when you live in the west when you come from slavery like like you know we have and you know so you can at this time in life you prosper you know some of us are prospering or doing well you know in in the country but you'll never feel connected you're you because you know your history is that you weren't accepted you weren't wanted and it was only 1960 1970s that you even had rights to to do certain things um and there's still a lot of that systemic racism in parts of the of the US I mean not everybody hates you know or treats you that way but you feel it all the time you're you know for my grandsons you know when they go somewhere you know you you just have that in the back of your mind as a cop is a policeman going to shoot them is somebody going to shoot them and say I was afraid or um so that's that tension and pressure is always there but when you come here everybody looks like you you don't have to be afraid of the police they might want to give some money from you right they may want to get some you know but other than that you can talk to them and they'll say you know are you okay how are you doing we didn't have that kind of Reason I'd say nobody did but it was it was rare so that this whole welcoming Community I look around I see people that look just like me when we go inside I'll show you a picture of my dad he looks just like like he belongs to like he just stepped right off the um out of the village and um so I just feel like I'm I'm home yeah I really do it's a really deep feeling yeah I feel really beautiful especially coming from where you're coming from yeah happy for you that you have that thank you great so kind you're going to walk us through your home how many bedrooms is this it's four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms I have an outdoor half bath out there for you know when people are outside you don't have to come in actually I plan for this to be an Airbnb okay at some point I'm you know thinking of building a small home and someplace else and then I'm just going to have this as an Airbnb but right now it's home for me so okay welcome thank you so come on in and I'll have to tell you first the story of the the pictures of me this is the hall they call it we use it used to be called living room where I come from yeah and I want to just say these two pictures were gifts for me from my birthday party so it's not like I'm going around having pictures out of me and posted all throughout the house but maybe we see a happy birthday and over here so here's pictures of my family here all my grandkids all 16 years these are a bunch of the grandkids this one is like 19 I mean 20 20. so that's really a long time ago but those are a bunch of my grandchildren this picture here is of mine um my family they gave me a going away party before I came these are my two older brothers okay and these are my sisters and that's my mom wow I want to ask how old she is my mom's going to be 90 next next WoW July yep so yes yes and she is doing very very well she's doing very well and then here's my dining area okay and I you can see I love color yes and I love all the different um prints and everything so I bring it all into the house this looks like my print yes it does it's the same just different shades yep yep that's so true and then like I said over here is my office slash I mean I'm just getting it ready okay this will be the office that we'll be using for for our business okay and I bought my my dogs with me from the states if you have any actual dogs no just these too many grandchildren to have and uh something else that needed to eat right that had to be taken care of so I got that I got them these cute little ones because they were always say no giggy why don't you get a dog they call me giggy why don't you get a dog so I I got you got them these stuff but you've taken it away from them I know they said it was okay okay they said it was okay so I told them I said I'm bringing them home so when you come you can they'll be waiting for it okay okay and then here's the kitchen oh look at the pantry is so well stocked yes yes that's one thing about me I you know I'm like a kind of prepper kind of person so you see I have all my um food for that lasts for 35 years um but it's a pretty big Pantry I was really pleased with them enough to even have a broken TV in here right so much space yes such a good size I can't believe the price of this unit for all this space that you have yeah yeah you know I'm sure it'll be a lot more next because yeah because concrete and all that stuff has gone up so much but yeah at the time that I did it I it was pretty this was 2021 yeah that's when I started 2021 yep I like your backsplash thank you yeah so do you have a who who built this for you was it uh it was Mickey of the traveling Israelites oh right yeah I think I've seen him after this yeah Shalom Construction Company yeah okay yes he's the one who built it interesting and so this is the side door this is the laundry okay so we have a little laundry room there and this dog takes us outside yes yes and so down here this is my room if you want to tour my room last and to do that maybe these are my two grandsons rooms and I'm not gonna dare open those doors so this is um just kind of like so you would be able to enter you know like if you're renting you can come into you know with the owner okay and this is kind of closes off to the living room if you know and so then I'm going to eventually I brought mine massage chair but it burned out the motor is not working you know because um the difference in the voltage and somebody plugged it up yeah but I am determined to fix it that I'm going to find somebody who's going to be able to fix this for me if y'all know anybody let me know I like this yeah see actually that's a gift for somebody else but it fits right here for now really well so and then this is the one where I can show you because there's nobody in here so this is with like you know the Airbnb room so that I've been renting out the only one right now oh sorry that door doesn't stay open and so I think I'm just gonna the only thing I need to add is like a little refrigerator in here would be nice for people yeah yeah hotel room and then here's the washroom washroom with complete with shower and everything so [Music] and all the rooms are pretty much the same my room is actually not quite this big but okay wait until you see my closet though you know the important things right so I'll show you guys my room now and I have had Furniture built but Furniture you saw I had it built a local um and my and my sofa too he built a filter as well okay yeah so he's really good I've done everybody's room but mine so just know that I have not yet I don't know oh wow I like bright enough oh the fabric I know isn't that beautiful that was a gift a surprise for me from are they all connected or are they individual pieces are they all individuals they're all separate pieces oh wow yeah I wanted to have something I wanted like a headboard kind of thing but yeah but I love it I love it yeah So eventually I'll get you know my bed and um more but this is very unique yeah yeah I love it okay so and here's my closet wow this is the fun part yeah some of the same size as your room I know right right okay right right nice yeah they're scared and I don't do you want to go further too if that's if you're comfortable I'm comfortable okay this is the shower I was gonna have a tub and shower in here but then I decided not to because as you get older you know sometimes it's harder for people to get out of the tunnel so I said no I don't think I want to okay have that experience right so I ended up with just two showers I like the Colossal shower glasses yeah it is very nice and then here's my double believes and then it just leads right back into the room okay see oh nice yeah very nice so okay so your fun Blends yeah um those you know temporary blinds I bought with me till until I can decide what I'm going to put up there okay how long have you been living here for um a year okay I say not quite a year in this house maybe more like May June July August nine months nine months yeah so that's that and interesting so do you want to stay outside all right all right okay remember I told you about the gate yes that's going to be out here on the on the floor but I wanted you to see the um I always look for lizards first see there's one right there right on the gate so what's this that's a shed for you know storage okay and for my um my pump to pump into the house and the poly tank that is a solar water heater wow yeah so it didn't work quite to my satisfaction for showers okay like mine will get warm but the rest of the house were cold so I ended up even just getting the normal normal water heater but it does work for like in my kitchen sometimes the water gets really warm from from that yeah okay that's your backup water supply yes and then you've got some plants here yes I'm trying is I'm not having so much success because I wanted to have a garden out here but you know I think I shared you know those areas waterlogged so it would not have grown well so I just ended up concreting the whole thing and okay and trying my hand it Barbie's a plant guy he can give you he has to give me lots and lots and lots of oh millions of plants oh okay but what's in here is that your gas yes that's for the propane that's the propane tank is okay secure in there all right yeah and do we can go upstairs my little lights keep falling down you know how we have ideas that we're going to do something and doesn't always work out but but they light up at night yes they're solar oh cool so this is the little upstairs area I'm waiting to get I'm finding the heavy wrought iron um like table and chairs that won't blow away so that's why I really haven't done much up here because I haven't been able to find it yet either that one have to chain everything down so it doesn't blow away yeah so this is my spot to come and just relax bask in the glory yes so it's like I'm in God yeah yeah so they someone was going to buy was going to build on this land originally it was supposed to just be a park okay then they sold it or then sell it but they gifted it for a price and but the person once they had their um engineer come and look he said it's just too much water okay so he decided not to do it because once all the water comes that way then it just eventually runs since then behind there somewhere is the stream that leads to further out that way okay what's on top of this uh this is just the roof okay yeah you know her flat roof yeah yeah so in my solar panels you can see my solar panels oh okay in the roof on your off-grid no I I use the electricity okay now and my solar is my backup now my plan was to use the solar but I'd have to like triple my panels right and also triple my batteries and all that so once they said electricity was available I was like let's start there okay and then I'll build up too so it's fine full backup okay yeah when my when the electricity goes out because it's usually out what a few hours at the most okay and it'll last through that time okay and then I also have a generator all right yeah a gas generator because I don't want to be without my air okay okay so I was gonna I was just saying about this land on on this side or this space okay um my grandsons both are skateboarders okay so this is where they come and Escape Escape you know so they were so much trying to convince me to put a ramp in here and you know and bars and all that so we talked about it but I don't know if we'll do that or not okay okay but if you didn't have so much water in your soil you could have had more Greenery yes yes that's that was the plan that was the plan how many plots of land is this this is one one I think 70 by a hundred I believe it is yeah and then this is your this is another shed okay that I um in here is the um borehole pump you know to pump the water into the household sort of we call it a whale in the states right but a borehole okay and then also the generator is housed in here I mean let me look first it's kind of junky in there and that's your bin okay so Kyle how much did you spend on this home talk me a bit through the the cost for the project for the house okay so when I've the first cost for the project was sixty thousand U.S us um and then over time we realized that that wasn't enough so it ended up being maybe 70 a little bit over 70. wow to to build it to build it a four bedroom house yes very interesting yes okay so it was it was reasonable I did some upgrades too so that added to the cost okay so it you know eventually it would be even more than that because of my upgrades but I don't add that when I think about just the basics okay yeah okay but this was in 2021 yes so prices prices have gone up some prices have almost doubled I mean cement is really really expensive now and sand and everything has gone up so much so I don't know what the cost would be for a house like this but I think it probably would be more like around a hundred thousand that's my guess okay um for a house like this you know maybe 90 maybe yeah okay so let's talk through just a few more questions and then okay sure we will get out of your hair oh I'm enjoying it so much okay so let's talk about the challenges that you've had you know switching actually first let's talk about your moving Journey let's talk about the actual process what the relocation process was like for you if you can talk me through that sure yeah okay so fortunately for me um I didn't have to try to sell my home or anything like that because one of my daughters and her family moved into my home so that made it easier for me and I was able to leave a lot of stuff my furniture that I was thinking I was going to have to either sell or give away if I sold the home so it worked out that I didn't have to do that and so I did still bring a lot of stuff with me I found a guy in North Carolina innocent um uh company his name is innocent and he came and helped me to transport most of the things that I needed I think I had ended up with like 12 um big bins bins full of stuff you know I didn't bring a whole lot of furniture I brought my massage chair that was pretty much the main I was like I'm going to have my massage chair and my exercise um machine but other than that I left everything else big I wanted to bring my car my truck I had a um SUV a Mercedes SUV but it was so old it was you know 2006. so but it was working great it was no issues I loved it but when I found out how much I was going to have to pay for it in the I guess what like e-levy tax or tariff or whatever it was it was going to be more than what I originally paid for the car wow so I was like well that's nothing so I ended up having just you know a few things that you know that I bought with me and um that process was not hard for me okay um except it took a long time for my stuff to arrive and then when it did arrive some things were damaged a couple just a couple of things my move you know was was not bad at all and then um Mickey L and kazia were gracious enough to let Xavion my grandson and I stay with them for a few months while the house was being built and then we left and October late October to go back to the States for four weeks and when we came back we came back into the house okay I've been here since you know I had some challenges you know especially like with the water you know um being waterlogged I had to end up getting extra pumps to pump the water so just challenges but you know things you learn as you go you know we didn't know until we got here so are you making any steps towards becoming an actual citizen of the country yes okay okay so I got my residency when I first got here so you can get your residency for one year okay and so let me just throw this in this is my little complaint so you say come back home this is your home come back home but then when you come back home you can't get your citizenship so am I really back home am I you know so that's just my little thing I throw that in I don't like that you have to wait 10 years to become a citizen and it's like how can I be when you're telling me I'm home now you know so I think they need to work on that some people have gotten it as the president has granted some you know like hundreds of people I just haven't been on that list so I'm trying to get on that list so but yeah so you get your residency um for a year and then you go back after a year and you can get it for another amount of time or whatever I'm I have it four or five years now okay and so then after that then I have to do another five years but I'm I'm hopeful by that but but before this five years is up that they will say um you belong here you're a citizen you know okay natural so I could be a dual citizen yeah okay all right tell me a bit about the the challenges especially with the cultural shock moving from where you came from over here tell me a bit about handling that so when I grew up in DC we grew up poor right so it reminds me of just the way the community was together you know when you see all the people together and in the community we helped each other you know somebody didn't have dinner you know they could go to Miss Jones house or whatever so we lived in a close-knit community so that part um kind of takes me back to my childhood and when I thought about it when we were small we didn't think about being poor you know we would just we were living and we were having fun and we did you know when you're a kid you don't think about those things always so that kind of made it a little bit easier for me when I saw when I see the people and they look like they're really struggling or whatever it just reminds me of how we struggled and we we made it because we had there were times when we didn't have electricity times when we you know didn't have the house was cold and things like that so I grew up that way so that part made me feel more at home I didn't I didn't feel like oh that's just so like over the top up you know like concerned oh look how terrible it is how bad it is like no it's just life some people you know have to go through harder times than other people it's just the way life is so but some of the cultural things was you know just being stopped at the at the police barrier and you know having to maybe pay to go to to get through that was a bit of a shock and so in the States you know they don't they can't do that you know it's just that's just not something that they can do I'm sure there are times when they have done it but it's not as open as it is here so that was kind of hard for me so if you know first thing we come over here with our um I like to call it black privilege you know where we you know coming from the states where things were very different and we could speak up we you know like how are you going to charge him how are you going to tell you know so I quickly learned that that's not the right way to um to do that so now I you know now it's just I I know the guys you know the the officers they're very kind and friendly and so I just see them and I'm like hey you know every now and then I might just say hey so that part was the most I think the rest of it one of the things that I didn't like that was that was kind of hurtful I could say is that when you go to a place like at the market code of Harbor a different market and you walk in and as long as as long as I'm not talking you know then everything the the local person is talking then they get one price but as soon as I open my mouth and they know that oh she's from America or she's from the West the price doubles you know that that's that feels kind of bad you know because it's like come on guys you know um and but I understand you know they're thinking that we have money and we have all this currency is more powerful in some sense yeah yeah so I understand it but I just you know wish they didn't do that that they you know I had a situation with um when I wasn't at the immigration office and um the lady was you know I don't I don't when I look back on it now I don't think she really intended to come across so rough but it's just a difference in your in the the um the way you guys speak too you speak a lot with your hands and you know you you you're very blunt and so in the states we dance around everything and we sugarcoat and well you know we we don't do do it that way as much and she made a comment about well why do you want to be here in Ghana anyway or something like that but you know maybe not meaning it in a derogatory way but that's how I felt I felt offended you know I was like why wouldn't I want to be here you know she didn't see it right yeah right right I said why wouldn't I want to be here I you know this is this is where my people came from I said for you know I could be your auntie you know you don't even know that right so she would say well yeah I guess so and so then that kind of lightened it up a little bit but yeah so sometimes I think people look at people coming from the West as you know what what do you want here you know it's like we want to come and take but it's not we really want to come and give you know so I think maybe it's more from our end of like you leave something so developed and then come here I mean yeah especially if you're here and you're struggling it's hard to understand why you do it yeah we do it because we want to we want to be we have a sense of belonging you know you guys here on in your land I mean you were colonized but you were still grounded and you have your Traditions you know we have none of that we don't have we have our what we've made in America Traditions but we don't have our Roots Beyond slavery yeah you don't understand that so it's like where are you from and people would ask me that on the job you know and so I'm talking to you know some other people and he said where are you from oh I'm my aunt my people are from Ireland or my people are from Scott Scotland you know oh Karen where are you from because you asked me where I'm from and I gave you an answer right but if you would ask me where am I from what could I say America yeah but where are your people from Africa you know so that that it's almost I think to me it reminds me of like if someone was adopted okay and they know they are adopted but they never get to know you know because you see how people always when they find out they've been adopted the first thing they want to do is find out well who are my real people so it's sort of like that yeah so you know so when you come here and you feel it it's like ah I belong okay I belong I have something some sense of being yeah that's what it feels like for us okay yeah okay so tell me what advice you'd have for anybody trying to move here anybody trying to relocate come back to Ghana oh man just prepare you know just prepare don't think you can just pick well some people have done it though they just pick up and come and they make it work but I would say you know plan it plan it out if you can visit first to see if this is really where you want to be um but if you can't and you just are thinking that you just want to come and get out of you know where you are make sure that you realize that it's a different culture try not to bring your American culture or your European culture here because you will it won't work it won't work here you you know it's very different um with the way that things are done here and you know the other thing I would say to people is be patient they used to say that to me all the time mommy exercise patience exercise patience because I'm so used to in the states we didn't have to wait a long time to get the work done you know and if we did we could say I don't want to work for you and then you know you have 15 more people that you could work for but things that I'm here things take time and when you say I'm coming that doesn't mean that you're coming now in the states if I say I'm coming then people expect to see me in 30 minutes to an hour but here it could mean the next day sure next day Mommy I'm coming I'm coming so I'm thinking that they're on the way but but I'm coming just means I will come at some point in time so that's a difference in the culture that people have to get used to but I say come please come and experience it it's wonderful it's wonderful to me okay so since you've settled here you're doing a lot of things for yourself you started your own community and all of that tell us about that yeah so that was a surprise because I thought when I came here I was just gonna you know take it easy and maybe just work with some kids or something but um Emmanuel um the guy who painted my house okay um he also has his own company and so he came to me and asked me if I wanted to go in Partnership to build a community and to you know to get into building houses and stuff and so you know I was like yeah I'm not sure about that but the more I thought about it and prayed about it I felt like that might be a good thing to do do and so then he said well what would be the target audience and so immediately I said Hebrew Israelites you know because I know a lot are coming and to be able to be in a community together where because we have like values and things that we share together and um so we also have you know the broader Community for everybody but we have a small area place you know that's for Hebrew Israelites who wanted to come and be together so that's what we did we started first with the Hebrew Heritage Community and we're pretty much all sold out of those plots and now we have um like you know 50 something more plots that we are going to open up to to all those videos how big was it in total how big was the community like everything right now it's about 90 something plots we had all together and but we still have um access to more land in that area okay yeah and what's your documentation like okay so for our fee to purchase the land we include the indenture the site plan the demarcating the clearing of the land and then that the the indentures take I think maybe a couple of months okay you know and um so we have our first group of people have gotten their indentures and our second group um just we just received them for them to sign okay and and give them back so so it's it's we're working really well we have an attorney we're trying to do this thing right because we've heard so many hard stories yeah horror stories so we're doing things yeah the other thing that we did was we put in um a Transformer and electricity okay because a lot of people you know um you know they sell the land but people have to have to do solar or whatever a generator so we did that we made those Investments and investments in the roads and cleared the roads and made them smooth so people don't have issues with that because those are important things I think for people coming from the West that's what we're used to and so we made the investment to do that so okay so what are your plot prices right now around 2000 okay but that includes again all of those things yeah yeah it's interesting all right so I have your information down in the description if anybody's interested okay good good so the company is called Africa bar okay which means child of Africa yes okay so anything you'd like to share that I might have left out anything about your journey the experience I don't think so the only thing I want to do is a shout out to my grandchildren oh that's so cute JJ Zoe Alexis uh Trey all those that you know that are still there okay um just those guys and all my great-grandchildren and all I miss them I miss them so much yes that's it all right thank you so much Karen thank you for having us in your space it's been great talking to you thank you thank you thank you thank you aquaba okay all right yes bye all right bye-bye I really hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did if you did don't forget to share with your friends and family that may find it entertaining informative or helpful hopefully I see my next video have a beautiful day a beautiful week and an amazing life bye

Channel: Build with Amoaa

Views: 2,287,003

Keywords: Real estate, Real estate in Ghana, Ghana, Accra, House tour, building in ghana, building a house in ghana, accra ghana, a ghana house tour, ghana homes, house for sale in ghana, buying a house in ghana, ghana real estate, property tour, affordable housing, off-grid living, moving to ghana, moving to ghana from america, land in ghana, diaspora in ghana, africa, moving to africa, asebu free lands, free land in Ghana, african american in ghana, building in ghana 2023

Id: j1v7I_I1nOA

Length: 39min 43sec (2383 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 10 2023