Abrokyire Nkomo: Love, Distance, and the Things We Don’t Say
Somewhere between Kotoka and JFK, many Ghanaians lose their romantic common sense. It’s not jet lag; it’s Abrokyire Nkomo—the sweet, tragic, and occasionally hilarious love stories that travel across oceans and time zones.
For the uninitiated, Abrokyire Nkomo literally means “overseas talk.” But everyone knows it’s more than that. It’s the traditional Ghanaian love story, the messy, long-distance romance between a Ghanaian abroad and someone “back home.” It’s gossip, heartbreak, and hope rolled into one; a love letter written in broken time zones and bad Wi-Fi.
It starts with a message. A Facebook request. A WhatsApp chat that begins with “Hey, long time” or “My auntie gave me your number.” Maybe a cousin plays matchmaker: “There’s this decent girl in Kumasi. Church type. Not like these Western girls.” Or an uncle adds pressure from abroad: “Find someone at home before these foreign boys confuse you.”
Then there is a match.
Soon, calls turn into confessions. Screens light up late into the night. Hearts cross oceans through emojis. And before you know it, someone is boarding a flight home with a ring in their pocket and faith in their chest.
The romance usually peaks at the airport arrival hall and soon wedding bells are ringing. One stays, one returns. There are tears and promises, kisses through glass. “I’ll file your papers.” “I’ll wait for you.” Social media glows with captions like “Distance means nothing when love is real.” Friends comment with fire emojis. Aunties thank God.
Then, silence begins its slow work.
The immigrant partner abroad gets swallowed by survival. Between two or three jobs, rising rent, and the loneliness that hums through quiet apartments, there’s little room left for romance. The calls become shorter, the replies more delayed. At first, it’s “Sorry, I just got off work.” Then, “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Then silence. Meanwhile, the partner in Ghana becomes a ghost in the phone—always online, never answered. Until one day, a friend sends a screenshot: a photo of their spouse abroad, smiling beside a stranger, captioned “New beginnings.”
And just like that, Abrokyire Nkomo claims another casualty.
If you think this sounds like gossip, you’re right but gossip with data. Every Ghanaian community abroad has at least one version of this story. The husband who brought his wife over, only for her to “discover herself” after two winters. The woman who sponsored her man’s papers, only to find out he was “rediscovering” an ex. The pastor who paired two congregants through prophecy, only to become referee when love turned into a lawsuit.
These stories aren’t rare—they’re cultural currency. We trade them over waakye and WhatsApp, half in pity, half in laughter. We say “Ei, people are wicked!” even as we scroll to see who’s next.
But underneath the laughter lies something deeper: a collective ache. The diaspora is lonely. Life abroad is hard, colder than the weather. Many seek love back home because it feels authentic—less performative, more familiar. “Home love” reminds you who you were before migration made you a machine. It’s not just romance; it’s rehabilitation.
Yet love, like everything else, doesn’t always survive the visa process. The immigrant changes; the person back home changes too. Geography rewrites intimacy. Suddenly, the one abroad is accused of forgetting their roots; the one at home is accused of being entitled. It’s not wickedness—it’s physics. Distance stretches affection until something breaks.
What makes Abrokyire Nkomo uniquely Ghanaian is our optimism. We truly believe love can cross oceans, if only the network is strong enough. But WhatsApp intimacy is deceptive. It’s easy to sound romantic when you’re typing under soft light and nostalgia. It’s harder when you share a one-bedroom in freezing weather and can’t afford a ticket home.
Some couples make it work. They pray, they save, they reunite. And when they finally meet again, the reunion is both beautiful and strange. They discover they’ve memorized each other’s faces but forgotten each other’s rhythms. One speaks in Fahrenheit, the other still thinks in Celsius. One now craves cereal for dinner, the other still insists on hot kenkey. Love, once fluent, now needs translation.
Still, we pretend nothing’s changed. We throw parties, post matching outfits, hashtag #TrueLoveWins. But everyone in the comments knows that’s not the full story. Behind every picture-perfect couple is a village group chat buzzing with suspicion.
And when it all collapses—as it often does—the gossip cycle begins again. Aunties shake their heads. Uncles say, “This is why we warned you.” The internet debates who’s at fault: the one who stayed or the one who left. The truth? Both were victims of distance and of a culture that teaches us to romanticize home while underestimating change.
What makes Abrokyire Nkomo fascinating isn’t just the heartbreak. It’s what it reveals about us as a people: our longing for belonging, our nostalgia disguised as love, our obsession with the idea that “real” relationships must have roots in Ghana to survive abroad. We’re trying to hold on to identity through romance, to fight loneliness with tradition, and to balance Western freedom with Ghanaian expectations all at once.
It’s not working.
Maybe it’s time we stop treating marriage as migration strategy, or love as proof of patriotism. Maybe it’s time we admit that distance doesn’t test love—it transforms it. And not everyone survives the transformation.
So as December approaches and the homebound flights fill again, here’s my unsolicited advice: Don’t let loneliness board the plane before you do. Don’t confuse nostalgia for affection. And for heaven’s sake, don’t marry someone just because your auntie swore she saw your faces together in a dream.
Love across continents can work, yes. But it needs truth, not tradition; partnership, not paperwork. Otherwise, you might just become the next headline in the group chat.
Because Abrokyire Nkomo may start as sweet talk, but it always ends as a story—one told with laughter, pity, and that knowing sigh: “Ei, love diɛ, na problem o.”
