I went home to Lagos by way of Accra, stopping there for four days to explore what I termed as Lagos’ “sister city.”

This comparison made sense to me — Ghana is the other large anglophone country in the region, the other subject of “Detty December,” and the one whose actors frequently featured in Nollywood movies. I had been there in the past, volunteering in a little village called Ekumfi Ekotsi, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to explore its capital, and this time, I realised that I had been right in my description. Like some sisters, Accra and Lagos bear a striking resemblance to each other but are not quite the same.

In a car, with the windows down, riding on familiar tarred roads, with ads and jingles on the radio and news on the hour that was incomprehensible to me because it was in Twi, I could have been in Lagos, hearing the Yoruba programming that the driver liked to listen to, in words that I also don’t understand but would be exposed to for longer because of the traffic. In Accra, I was surprised to see a Zenith Bank roundabout with Christmas lights that transported me to Lagos, to the other display of festive cheer sponsored by the same financial institution.

In Accra, the people were familiar too. The same patterns of speech, some of the same expressions. Like the way we say “I’m coming” when we are requesting patience, when we are thinking about the answer, or the same way the airport officers say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Weekend” when they want some cash. But there are subtle differences in the way that certain sounds sit on the tongue, a reminder of how language, how place, is carried in our voices. There is also a tendency to offer praise and worship in the most unlikely places, the same boundless devotion to religion I already knew. From the lobby of an exclusive hotel, I heard voices singing “come and see what the Lord has done.” I heard improvised drumming, and it made me smile.

At mass, I heard the same words, the same pauses. We sang “rejoice,” a favourite in my Lagos church, and the words of the hymn fell neatly from my lips. I was brought back to the place, to the context I was in, when I heard the word “kronkron” being sung on repeat, proclaiming God’s holiness in a way that was new to me. A man at church reminded me of home — there was something familiar about his red sunglasses and his white caftan with red embroidery; about his light face and dark hands; about the way he danced and waved his napkin almost the whole way through, searching for attention.

Here, for Sunday brunch, I indulged in a buffet spread at a hotel, as I would in Lagos, surrounded by mostly well-dressed people who looked like they came from church, just like in Lagos. There was a woman who performed while we ate, and as she offered songs by Tems, Burna Boy, and Davido, I was reminded of how close I was to home. In the bars, I heard the same familiar music from the DJs, with King Promise, Sarkodie, and some other artists mixed in. The presence of a hype man was familiar too, with a face towel in his hand, with his words of “come on” and “here we go” trailing the beat.

The foods were familiar. I had jollof rice, chapman, beans, plantains, fufu, tilapia and suya, with only a few dishes like waakye that I couldn’t find a parallel for in Lagos. There were still differences — the jollof in Accra was milder, less spicy but still delicious. Their beans (red red) were made with black eye beans that stayed firm on cooking, instead of the softer honey beans. In Lagos, garri is more likely to be eaten as a side, mixed in a separate bowl with water and maybe sugar, but here the white garri grains were offered as a condiment, to add texture to the beans. Here, they had another version of plantain called kelewele, seasoned and cut in thinner strips. It was a joy to think of food as an example of all the ways that culture retains itself across boundaries and keeps a familiar shape.

I went to Osu Castle, and saw that, like in Badagry, like in many other parts of West Africa, there was a point of no return where captured people were carted off across the Atlantic. But in Accra, I realised how much the country has become a place of return, where African Americans have found home.

The country itself is familiar, getting independence from English powers, except three years earlier, in 1957. Maybe this is why their democracy feels further along, why their country feels less fractured. Maybe they have more ways to understand each other, less languages that fight to be audible, with 80 as opposed to 530. I went to the Kwame Nkrumah memorial, and thought about how, like many great minds of his generation, he would be disappointed by all the ways our continent is still divided.

I went to Makola market, and it felt like I was in Balogun market. So much was the same. So many people, so much industry heaving in a trampled corner of the city. So many stalls that exist so closely to each other, with the same traders hoping to sell their wares, calling to me as I walked past, offering me mangoes and yams and milo and Indomie and the Super 2 biscuits I used to take to school. There were rows of shoes and clothes on big-hipped mannequins with crumpled tits, just like in Lagos. And there was a more startling similarity.

In Accra, people coming from behind me with heavy loads on their heads shouted out “ago” (pronounced “ahh-go”), and I had heard the same word in Balogun market too, used in the same context, not knowing what it meant in both cases, but knowing that I was expected to leave the path. I found out that this word, said in Ga in Accra and said in Yoruba in Lagos, was a request for space. Through this word as a lead, I discovered that there was an ancient link between the Ga and the Yoruba people; that the Ga people are believed to have journeyed from Ile-Ife, passing through what is now Benin and Togo, to settle in Ghana; and that there are more reasons why Accra feels familiar.

This trip emphasised what I already knew — that borders are artificial, and there are bits of home strewn across the continent, especially in West Africa. Instead of focusing on who has the best Detty December or the better jollof, my trip to Accra was an invitation to appreciate all the ways that we are connected.