The Geuleui’S Dynasty

THE GEULEUI’S

DYNASTY

N’Dolo

Copyright © 2014 by N’Dolo.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014911985

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-4557-4

                Softcover        978-1-4990-4558-1

                eBook             978-1-4990-4556-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 07/01/2014

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

PART TWO

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

My book is in the memory of my late father, one of the last kings of the Savanna, Nanan Agba Ehoussou II, and in the memory of my late mother, N’drin Marie Therese Meney.

I’m dedicating this book

to my children,

to my sister Api Marcelle (Thank you),

to my friend Hyacinthe Kakaou (Thank you for believing in me as a writer),

to my friend Dr. Assane (Thank you for being there for me),

to my friends at Nathan Adelson and Creekside Hospice

(You know who you are), and to my mentor Angie R.

PROLOGUE

E ven though I was born in West Africa, Ivory Coast, to parents who were very proud of their African culture, these same parents focused my upbringing on a mainly European lifestyle. My parents made sure that I spoke perfect French and knew about Europe’s history first before anything else. Thinking back, I realize that my parents were just following what was back then the trend of most middle-class African parents of my generation. My parents never bothered to make sure that I spoke my African dialect first or well; however, they made sure that I attended the most Europeanized African sch ools.

I was born and lived in West Africa, Ivory Coast, for twenty-nine years before I immigrated in the States. I also lived in Paris, France, for a short period of time. Back then, I was never bothered by my lack of knowledge about my culture. Instead, I proudly labeled myself as a modernized African woman. That was until I immigrated in America in the early ’90s. I suddenly found myself in a society that did not let me escape my hidden truth. Little did I know, I landed in a race-polarized American society that demanded that I identify with my race and origin in order for me to fit in. My first reaction was panic; for the first time in my life, I was faced with an identity crisis.

After a period of soul searching, I realized that I was not able to run away from my hidden truth anymore and decided to stop hiding behind slogans such as a modernized African woman. Next, I had to come to terms with my lack of knowledge about my roots. Writing The Geuleui’s Dynasty was part of this process for me. It served as a vacuum for me to display my originality and as a way for me to get in touch with who I am. Although my main goal in writing this book was to get in touch with my Africanity, my other motive was for the reader to have a glare of pre- or postcolonial Africa.

In reading the Geuleui’s Dynasty, my readers will also understand the complex relationships Africa in general, and West Africa in particular, has within its own frontiers and with the western world. The Geuleui’s Dynasty is a novel whose themes display the wonders, paradoxes, and contradictions of how groups labeled as noncivilized collide with groups who see themselves as civilized. Another underlining theme in this book is my hope that my readers will understand that the so-called truth is not absolute. The truth is a fluid concept that is shaped through each of our cultural lenses.

Sincerely,

N’Dolo

CHAPTER ONE

O ne of the undeniable connections I have with the African side of my family is my last and first name: Geuleui Dji Jr. I didn’t get a chance to know my parents because they died when I was just a few-weeks-old baby. My grandmother, a Caucasian lady, raised me. From what my grandmother told me, my father, an African American from Ivory Coast, West Africa, met my mother while he was a studying in Ame rica.

My mother was also a mixed child; my grandfather was also from Ivory Coast, West Africa, and my grandmother was Caucasian from the States. They both met while my grandfather was in the States for business purposes. As soon as my grandparents got married, my grandmother moved to Ivory Coast, West Africa, with her new husband and, soon after, gave birth to my mother, her only child. When my mother was in high school and in her teen years, my grandfather passed away; that’s when my grandmother moved back to the States with my mother.

As an orphan child growing up in America and being raised by a white grandmother, my connection with my African origin was a small statuette made in antique wood. My grandmother told me that it was the statuette of a mask regarded as a god in my African side of the family.

As far as I can remember, the statuette has always been part of my life. As a child, while my friends played with cartons feature dolls, I was playing with the statuette. Even when I was as young as three to five years old, I was fascinated by the fact that I had in my hands a "god’ to play with. I still remember how, as a child, I used to beg the statuette to use its divine power to bring my parents back to life just for a few seconds so I could at least see them for the first time. My childish logic thought that as a god, the statuette I was playing with could accomplish miracles only a god could.

Now that I’m an adult, I realize that playing with the statuette was also a way for the little boy I was to get closer to my late father. Every night I went to bed with the statuette by my side dreaming that my father was serenading me like my grandmother did to help me sleep. Although I grew up in a very healthy and secure home due to the love my grandmother showered me with, the sad truth is that as a child, I was never fully happy because I did not get to know my birth parents.

I grew up not puzzled by my mother or missing her like it was the case with my father. As far as I can remember, I grew up not only surrounded by my mother’s pictures all over our home; moreover, my grandmother had told me hundreds of times, stories regarding my late mother’s short life over and over, so in a way, it felt like I knew my mother growing up. By the time I turned five years old, I knew what were my late mother’s favorite foods, movies, etc. Being surrounded by my grandmother and other maternal relatives’ love lessened missing my mother.

My father, on the other hand, was another story. The only pictures of my father that I had were the wedding pictures he took with my mother—nothing else, not even any paternal family member picture. To make things worse, my grandmother rarely spoke of him. She only did at my insistence; even so, for some reasons that were unknown of me, she was very reluctant to answer questions I asked her about my father. Not knowing anything about my father and his relatives made me silently wonder if my African relatives cared about me like my mother’s side of the family did.

Every time I questioned my grandmother about my father or his relatives, she nicely but firmly ordered me to stop my questions and always stated all that mattered was the fact that she was there for me. Although I did not agree with my grandmother’s viewpoint, I have never argued with her because I loved her too much to hurt her feelings. Growing up, I believed that my grandmother’s overprotective way was a sign of her insecurity; she believed that if I got in touch with my father’s relatives, they were going to take me away from her, so I stopped questioning her about my father or my African relatives until I graduated from college and moved away from home.

I was twenty-five years old when I graduated from college as a journalist in 1992 and finally moved out of my grandmother’s house. Graduate school kept me from obsessing about my late father sand his relatives. My curiosity and obsession resume after college, but this time I was an investigative journalist. Away from my grandmother’s obstructive ways and on my own, I started to be confronted by my childhood demons, and this time even stronger, my curiosity about my father and relatives resurfaced; I did not want to hurt my grandmother, but my need to find out about my late father became urgent. The question I couldn’t stop asking myself was, How do I go about finding about my father and his relatives without my grandmother knowing about it?

As a mixed race raised by a white grandmother, I have never fit in American society, and my profession, more than ever, pointed that out to me. The TV station I worked for in Washington, DC, hired me because I was well-spoken—in other words, I did not have the black accent and I’m very light-skinned. My white TV bosses were very pleased about the way I carried myself and spoke English; trying to fit in made me feel like a Negro who learned very well his master’s way of speaking and living. At the same time most black people were making fun of me because of the soft way I speak and did not hesitate to label me as a sellout!

Not fitting in as either white or black pushed me even stronger to find out about my father as a way for me to deal with my identity crisis. I needed to get closure about who I was, and finding out about my father helped me do exactly that. I wanted to come to terms with my identity crisis through learning who my father was. However I knew from past experiences not to open up to my grandmother, who retired from her gynecologist practice two years after I graduated from college. I was itching to ask her questions such as, Why I have never heard from my father’s side of the family? Or Why does my grandmother get so tense every time I bring up the subject of my father or his relatives? What is the big mystery?

Although I strongly faced an identity crisis, I couldn’t help that my investigative journalistic instincts also kicked in; I was thrilled about investigating my own story. As a man who grew up without knowing almost nothing about his father, undertaking this action was painful and exciting, and I was anxious at the same time. First I decided to focus my investigation by searching my grandmother’s house. To start with, I took two weeks off from work to visit my grandmother in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My grandmother, who