Rereading Ama Ata Aidoo in the Rain

I first read 'Changes' by Ama Ata Aidoo when I was 18, cramming for my literature exam under a flickering bulb in my dorm. I understood the plot—a woman navigating love and career in modern Ghana—but I didn't feel it. I was too young, too impatient.

This year, at 27, I picked it up again during a rainy weekend. I had nowhere to go, just the sound of water drumming on the roof and a cup of warm Milo. And this time, the book hit me like a wave.

Esi, the protagonist, makes choices that once seemed confusing. Now, I saw the quiet desperation in them, the way she tried to hold onto pieces of herself in a world that wanted her to shrink. When she sits alone in her new apartment, listening to the silence, I felt my throat tighten.

I underlined passages I had ignored before. One line about loneliness being 'a very expensive habit' made me put the book down and stare at the wall for ten minutes. I thought about my own choices—the relationships I'd let go, the solitude I sometimes romanticized.

Reading it felt like catching up with an old friend who now understands you better. The words hadn't changed. I had.

I finished the book as the rain stopped. The air outside smelled fresh, washed clean. I felt a strange gratitude—for Aidoo's words, for the rain, for the years that had passed between the first reading and this one. Some books wait for you to grow into them.

#studentsupport #joyofafrica

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Hoeft Sarai @saraihoeft4473

Wow, this really hit me. I had a similar experience with 'We Should All Be Feminists' by Chimamanda — read it in uni for a class and rolled my eyes at some parts. Then picked it up last year and was like... oh. I get it now. That line about loneliness being expensive is haunting me just reading this. Milo on a rainy day hits different too, man. Thanks for sharing this.
12 days ago

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