Episode One: The Loner
I was six years old when my parents decided I should move to the city to study.
Why me—out of their three children—I never understood.
I wouldn’t call myself the most brilliant child, but I was serious. I loved school. I loved books. I loved the feeling of getting answers right. Back then, my grades were always good, and my father was proud of me. That year, I was supposed to begin Basic Three.
The day I left was bright, but it felt heavy. I said goodbye to my family, my home, and the only life I had ever known. Somewhere inside me, excitement stirred—who wouldn’t be excited about going to the city? It felt like a flex. But beneath that excitement was fear. I was leaving everything familiar behind for a world I didn’t understand.
My aunt had come from the city a few days earlier, and she was the one taking me with her. I cried that day—more than I wanted to admit. Still, I told myself this was for my own good.
We arrived in Accra the following day and continued to Tema, where I would live with my grandmother and uncle. That was where my new life began. My uncle enrolled me in one of the most prestigious schools in town—Queens Court School.
I thought things would get better from there.
They didn’t.
School was hard. Very hard. I wasn’t fluent in English. I struggled to express myself, struggled to write properly, struggled to keep up. In a place where confidence lived in language, I had none.
I was sent back to KG2.
It felt like falling from the top of a staircase straight to the bottom.
But I worked hard. I stayed quiet. I studied. Eventually, I was promoted straight from KG2 to Primary Two. I skipped Primary One entirely. It was an achievement, but it didn’t feel like one.
By then, something in me had already changed.
Dear reader, in this generation, not being able to speak English properly can destroy you. It destroyed me. My confidence faded. I stopped trying to fit in. I stopped speaking unless I had to.
Even when I finally mastered the language, the damage had already been done. The time to make friends had passed. Everyone already saw me as the quiet one. The nerd. The girl who kept to herself.
And so, I became her.
That was the beginning of my story as the Loner.
