THE LAVISTA STORY
 Why should anyone plan as early as age seven to become a medical doctor, follow a career path filled with the sciences, perform medical and biomedical research, attend graduate school to study health policy and management and complete twenty-four years of education executing his goals and objectives to become a medical doctor before realizing after twenty four years of education that he is exceptionally gifted in music and has a place in the entertainment industry? It all started in Hilton Head in a club beneath the lighthouse called the Quarterdeck Club. Yes, this is my story, the LaVista story and how it all begun.
I was seven years old playing soccer in our front yard in Ghana, West Africa when I witnessed a car run-over our family dog, Sandy. After all attempts to revive Sandy failed, my life took a sudden turn. I wanted to become a medical doctor so I can help save lives. I had already started school at age four and amazed my teachers with my academic brilliance. As a result, nobody in my immediate family, my parents and four older sisters felt the need to assist me with my homework. Neither did they influence my career planning as I found myself making all the decisions about what I wanted to become at a tender age of seven.
During my high school education (called secondary school in Ghana), I was a boarding student at Mim Secondary School where I was elected as the President of the Entertainment Council in 1982, the last year of school. That was my first experience with public entertainment. I was responsible for planning activities to entertain my fellow students. I organized dances, debates, symposia, and several other entertaining events making that year one of the most memorable years in the school in the realms of entertainment. I also played percussions for the school band, which performed at several events in the city.
The next two years found me in advanced high school at Acherensua Secondary School, a two-year post secondary school in Ghana where the students had already heard of my achievements or was it my reputation as the President of the Entertainment Council the previous year in Mim Secondary School. I gained followers effortlessly and when it came time for elections the following year, 1984, a group of students teamed up and begged me to run for the President of the Entertainment Council. That time, however, I was seriously planning and preparing to attend medical school in the United States so I turned the offer down. Unfortunately for me, or was it by design, I found my name on the ballot regardless and there was a group with posters and placards campaigning for me from classroom to classroom day in and day out.
The results of the elections, as you can see, were self-evident. It was a landslide victory for me as my opponents faded into obscurity like a bunch of Yugos behind 96 North in a Nascar race. That year, I organized the largest inter-collegiate ever, something that can never be obliterated from the tablets of the memories of the attendants of the fare. I naturally draw the best of the best toward me to form insurmountable teams – teams that win because the members are nothing but the best there is, like some untouchable mercenaries of the Chuck Norris and 007 type who just get it done and return alive, mission completed. This was the type of team that naturally gravitated towards me effortlessly to make it happen once again as the President of the Entertainment Council. I seemed to bring the best out of people and had this leadership skill that was purely God-given and passion-driven entertaining people everywhere I went. Notwithstanding, I still failed to realize that I had a calling in the entertainment world. I even acted in plays while I was in elementary school and could see how the eyes of my teachers would light in approval to my utterances, demeanor, and mannerisms especially my mentor, Mr. Ampong while I acted out my parts in the plays. Yet, my mind was set to become a physician, perhaps a brain surgeon or a neurosurgeon and a mental block of some sort persistently kept me tunnel-visioned focusing only on one career path, a career path towards medicine, tuning out all these other attributes of mine like art and professional soccer that could have led me into stardom during early parts of my life.
In 1985 while performing national service as a prerequisite before attending university, I saw a new wave of friends who were seeking ways to study abroad. This trend brought about the reawakening of my idea of studying in the United States helping it to become more lucid. After being accepted into Universities in Germany, Canada, and The United States, I elected to attend pre-med at St John Fisher College, in Rochester, New York. Unfortunately, there was one big problem – VISA. Because most students who leave Ghana for higher studies do not return to Ghana, the government and the US consulate have teamed up to prevent onslaught of Ghanaian brain drain making it a daunting experience to obtain visa in Ghana, an aspect that severely re-routed my destiny and fully qualify to appear in the LaVista Story. Hey, I told you before and I will tell you again that I like to do things differently to set myself apart from all the copycats. This is my story and I am going to tell it the way it happened. So let’s keep going and I bet you’re going to love and learn something from my mistakes, bad lucks, mishaps, good lucks, blessings and the exciting moments of my life.
It’s now early 1986 and I have been accepted into a Pre-med program in a college in the United States. My parents have saved towards my education and were ready to launch me to the moon if that was where I wanted to study. All my four older sisters completed college but elected to follow my mom’s steps -- owning and running family businesses. I was about to be the first child to crack that tradition wide open and to start something new and possibly, sway my two younger brothers to follow different career paths other than the family biz thing. I was about to bring one professional career into the family and my parents especially my dad would give a limb to see that dream become a reality. However, the likelihood existed that I may never get a US visa. Having been warned against seeking visa in Ghana where getting visa was like getting a flight to the moon with NASA, I was challenged to seek visa elsewhere, in other West African countries where US visa acquisition was minimal, and for that matter, easier. As a result, I found myself in Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Cote D’Ivoire (The Ivory Coast), where still, all attempts to secure a US visa were to no avail. Finally, after attempts to get the visa in Ghana also failed, a gentleman who lived from across our family store, “Home Sweet Home,” who suspected some fowl play approached me to render his advice. The young man thought some witch was responsible for my inability to secure US visa. He advised me to go to a church in a small town near Cape Coast, Ghana to see this pastor called Maame (Mother) Grace. You see, the Ghanaian culture believes in ghosts and witches. Whenever a young person dies or some form of misfortune, accident, calamity, catastrophe, or mishap strikes, people are more likely to blame it on some elderly from the victim’s family who in my opinion may be just blessed with longevity perhaps due to a healthier lifestyle, being fortunate to avoid accidental death, bad luck or a debilitating illness, or just being blessed to have a good genetic make-up. As a native of Ghana, I used to share the same beliefs about witchcraft, ghosts, zombies, and voodoos until I studied more about what is fact and what can be speculation through science, and until I got exposed to other cultures besides my own that shared completely deferent views regarding supernatural powers. The fears I used to have for the existence of these powers is something I reminisce and laugh about today. Presently, I believe that misfortunes happen because unfortunately, they are a part of our lives. The choices we and or the people around us make when we come to crossroads is what lead us to some form of blessing or disaster. Through prayers and by calculating our risks before we make choices, we can reduce the amount of misfortunes and thereby increase our chances of prosperity. Even though I believe that the environment that I was in, being a native of a third-world country was the only reason why I couldn’t secure visa in a timely fashion, going to Edumfa was one of the best milestones of my life as it helped me to become a better believer in, and to get closer to God.
The events that took place during my visit to Edumfa were dazzling, even miraculous and far exceed the scope of this text and will be better suited in our movie also named “The LaVista Story,” which will be filmed in the very near future. In a nutshell, Maame Grace took and kept my passport for the duration of my stay (one week). She advised that I went to the American Embassy in Accra, Ghana to seek the visa. She professed that I would get the visa with no questions asked. And that is precisely what happened the next time I visited the American Embassy. I received the visa at the very first attempt without a single question asked. The new African American Consular who reminds me of James Earl Jones of Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” fame, was fuming and could not understand why a brilliant pre-med student who had received scholarship to attend college in the Fall of 1986 was denied visa making him miss the Fall semester. You can imagine what came next – a ten-year student visa and finally, a trip to the United States of America.
January 13, 1987 was the day I first stepped on American soil. It would be the same month and day ten years later, that my only daughter would be born. My story is quite like Eddie Murphy’s Kunta Kente (Akeem) with a few exceptions. I didn’t come to find my bride even though I found one. Or is it she found me? I did not find her in Queens either. She is from Virginia and I met her in Rochester, New York. We met at the University of Rochester Medical Center where she was doing part of her residency in OBGYN while I was doing AIDS and Cancer research at the Infectious Disease Unit. So you see, I didn’t get the chance to mop my way into her heart at McDoughs. But I took her to Toronto to see the CN Tower twice. When my Dad and mom visited, they kept a very low profile. They did not sleep at the Waldorf-Astoria and there were no flower-petal-sprinkling on the paths as my mom, the queen walked. I still don’t have that cool lion outfit but I plan to get one soon. I had maids back at home but never had any royal baths. I don’t know why my mom never thought of that. That could explain why Akeem survived the sub-zero weathers and the frost bitten ears, hands, and feet upstate. I fled to the South. Yes, the South and that is where I discovered music and entertainment.
It all started the summer of 1997 in a small town, Dalton, the carpet capital of the world. My parents were here for their first visit since my arrival in 1987. The OBGYN practice that my wife joined after her residency had a condo in Hilton Head, South Carolina (by the way, does anyone know why they call it Hilton Head? It looks more of a foot to me than a long head. If anyone has something to say about this idiosyncrasy, please send comments to the Newsletter Session of the website. That can be entertaining and that is what we do -- entertain and maintain. Sounds like a rapper just wanna rhyme?) Sorry for the digression. Hilton Head is in my story and I struggle with this phenomenon every time I tell it. If Lucy named this Island, Ricky would say, Lucy, you got some splaining to do. Yeah, someone’s got to splain that to a brother. It was summer time and Fresh Prince’s “Summer Time” was bumping once again. If you traveled on I-75 south, all you would see was scores of vacation vans and recreational vehicles heading towards the South-East. It seemed like going to the beach was the thing to do so my family of procreation (that would be myself, my lady, my seven-month-old daughter, and my eight-year-old son that I neglected to tell you earlier) (TO BE CONTINUED) |
