‘Married to Africa,” a review

When journalist Gregg Zachary first introduced his Nigerian fiancée, Chizo Okon, to this elderly Jewish mother, she said: “Why can’t you marry Maya Angelou?” Zachary tried to change the subject by telling her he’d enjoyed reading Angelou’s memoir of her time living in Ghana in the late 1950s and early 1960s, “All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes.” (A footnote: when Angelou lived in Ghana, she was married to South African political activist, Vusumzi Make.)

Zachary added that, anyway, Maya Angelou wasn’t looking for a husband. Which led his mother to try again: “Why not marry Halle Berry?” She eventually gave up: “There are so many talented, successful black women in the world and you have to marry a women who works in a zoo? In Africa?”

Earlier, while still living in Ghana, Zachary and Okon visited Okon’s family in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. There his future father-in-law asks Gregg about his first marriage: “We know you Americans enjoy killing people. How can I be sure you are not bringing her to America for your old wife to kill her?”

This is how it goes in “Married to Africa: A Love Story,” Zachary’s humorous and very personal memoir of his courtship, eventual marriage (after a protracted immigration process) and their new home in Berkeley, California.

Zachary, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who now teaches journalism at Stanford University), moved to Accra, the Ghanaian capital, in 2001 to write a mystery novel set in “an exotic West African city.” The novel never materialized. Instead Gregg met Chizo, a local zookeeper.

He, refreshingly, avoids the usual narrative adopted by non-Africans when writing about the continent—Zachary has no big idea about what’s wrong with the continent or how to save its people—and the book does not follow a conventional narrative. Instead, it is a series of mostly light-hearted and comical incidents of their life together. Most of the time, it all ends well. Gregg’s mother (who moved from Long Island to Florida) eventually comes around, so does his wife’s father (although their suspicion about his ex-wife’s motives remain, partly because the newlyweds share a property with Zachary’s ex-wife. This also makes for some good stories, which I won’t give way here.)

Zachary presents his wife as a real person with all her contradictions—for example, she thinks God is white (“I got the idea on my own”) and tries to bribe an official to get a driver’s license.

Not everything ends well or everybody is as accepting of the couple’s union. There are incidents of open racism against Chizo. In San Luis Obispo, a college town in California, a hotel clerk almost turns them away until Zachary arrives and announces that his wife is with him. Later the police think his wife had broken into the house and, earlier, in Ghana, the non-religious Zachary has a run-in with some visiting Hasidic Jews who deride him for spending too much time with the “schvartzah.”

I found the book an easy read and liked it predictably (if you know me) for one other reason: the centrality of music in Zachary’s life. The inscription on the opening page, quotes the American musicologist Louis Sarno: “I was drawn to the heart of Africa by a song.” Zachary is a big fan of (the late) Igbo guitarist Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, “… whose highlife music was a kind of soundtrack to our love affair.”  The book opens with a description of Osadebe’’s music being played at their wedding (Zachary’s favorite album is “Kedu. Greetings from America.”)

They drive around with a bag of music cassettes they collected from all over West African travels with them in their car. This music creates “… a West African music station that only exists in our private world.”  In the bag are music by Daddy Lumba (especially his song “Dangerous”), Brenda Fassie (“The Lord is my Shepherd,” “Sum’ bulala”), Felix Liberty (“Mandela”), as well as Oumou Sangare, Kojo Antwi, the Oriental Brothers, Papa Shee, Franco, Tabu Ley, Toumani Diabate, Commander Obey, and, of course, Fela. These gets incorporated into the rhythm of Zachary’s writing.