Seattle, please meet Ghana

Years ago, when Kwame Agyei told people he was from Ghana, they'd say, Uganda?

Or sometimes they would think he'd said Guyana. People don't misunderstand now. Everyone knows about Ghanaian Kofi Annan, who just finished a decade as U.N. secretary-general. Ghana's Black Stars soccer team made it to the second round of the 2006 World Cup.

Agyei's young country is turning 50 in a few days, and Ghanaian immigrants from around the Sound are throwing a party Saturday to celebrate.

It's a good time to get better acquainted with Africa. China and India, emerging powers, are competing with the West for the continent's resources and political support.

The United States military is in the process of setting up a separate Africa Command for the first time.

And immigrants from the continent are coming to the U.S., even filtering out to our corner of the country, in noticeable numbers.

Mostly it's immigrants from East Africa chased here by war and famine.

But theirs isn't the only African diaspora story.

Agyei is a member of the Ghanaian Association of Greater Seattle (GHASEA), which wants people to see that Ghanaians are unique.

I spoke with Agyei and some other local Ghanaians. They all said that the years after independence were full of disappointments.

Because of political turmoil many bright young people like Agyei wound up living abroad.

Now, they say there is new hope. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African colony to become an independent nation. And its current course, with a stable democracy and good potential for economic development, puts it ahead of most of its peers.

Agyei was 5 years old at independence. He came to the U.S. to study mechanical engineering, intending to return to Ghana.

In the early years that was the pattern; people brought their newly acquired skills back to Africa to help develop their country.

But as coups destabilized the nation, Agyei and many others decided to stay away.

Agyei headed west, hoping to land a job at Boeing, but instead found a place with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

Joseph Bervell, the president of GHASEA, went to Canada for graduate school and came here when he got a job designing roadways for the I-405 expansion program. Kojo Fordjour went to school in Pennsylvania 27 years ago. He's an engineer, too, and has been with the Washington state Department of Transportation for 12 years.

King County's demographer says about 330 people identified Ghana as their country of origin in the 2000 census.

That's not many, but they all seem to be ambassadors.

Which is why they invite everyone to their "Championing African Excellence" celebration at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. (Call Bervell for more details, 425-750-1103.) They want us to get to know them and share their dreams for Ghana.

May Ghana recapture the promise of independence.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.