July 25, 2012- Day 20

Today at the farm we went on an adventure through the woods.  We found a little wooden gate attached to a tree in order to swing open and shut.  Behind the door was a very secluded little pathway, all covered in trees with big leaves and overgrowth of plants everywhere.  It was almost like I discovered "The Secret Garden" in real life.  We continued on the path and suddenly found ourselves up on the top of a hill.  Suddenly, the whole world opened up in front of us.  There were hills and valleys and mountains surrounding us, yet from a distance.  It was breathtaking.  I’m in love with nature, and Africa is a whole new world full of it!

After this, we went back to the farm and picked up sticks from out of the garden for a while.  Then we dug up about seven beds for plants to grow in.  This work was getting frustrating because often things on the farm are done the quick way and not the long term most efficient way.  And the people who own the farm won't let us fix that.  They tell us to stop and just do it quickly and messily.  But we can’t change the world in 4 weeks so we just do what we are told.  

At the farm, Drew is the favorite.  There is a dance here called the Azonto dance.  It is very popular right now and he can do this dance.  One day he did it for them and they all clapped and laughed and now call him Azonto man every day.  I feel kind of left out because they never really talk to me specifically.  Then today I realized that they don’t know my name.  So I told them my name but they couldn’t really say it (many people have not heard the name Rachel and think that you are saying Richard) so they asked me my Fante name.  Fante names are determined by what day of the week you were born on.  I was born on a Sunday, making my Fante name Esi.  I told them this and Aya got so excited because she was named after a woman who’s name was Esi.  So her name is also Esi even though it is also Aya and her real name is Comfort.  So now we have a special bond and the rest of the day she kept shouting at me “Sister Esi!” and laughing and smiling.  It was so nice to feel like I was a part of the family.  

After a few hours of working we took a break to eat lunch.  While we were eating, Cynthia began to prepare a common dish here known as Red Red.  To start off you have black eyed peas.  Then you separate the good ones from the bad.  You boil those in a pot for one hour.  Then you fry plantains.  Fried plantains are always eaten with Red Red.  When the black eyed peas are done you mix them with a tomato paste and onion tomato sauce.  You stir that all together with coconut oil and let it simmer for a while.  They use coconut oil to cook everything, even frying the plantains which is cool because we got to make coconut oil with a processor the first week that we were here.  I loved watching this whole Red Red process because there was a little fire place that Cynthia was cooking over as I was watching and asking questions, Aya was nursing Monica and they were both chatting in Fante.  It just felt really wonderful and normal to be sitting around in Africa making Red Red with the women.  I love learning from the women here.  They make up such a huge portion of life here in so many ways.  Often households here don’t even have a father because he has gone away to live somewhere else for example to make money in the city.  So every day I have the opportunity to watch and learn about how wonderful these women are and see what they do each day.  

Later in the evening when I got home, I spent the night in Kates room just talking about everything in the world.  She has malaria so I was keeping her company because it can be really terrible to be sick and have absolutely nothing to take your mind off of it.  It was really nice to spend time together.  I hope that when I get home we will stay in touch because she is such a good friend and is so similar to me.

Something tragic has happened here in the past couple of days.  The president of Ghana has died.  He died suddenly after having a strong headache.  He was only 68 years old.  In the cab ride home today we saw many people running and dancing and walking down the road in a big parade.  They were wearing red cloth around their heads and wearing red and black clothing.  There was a brass band and people waving flags.  My sister Francesca told me that this was them mourning his loss and putting their sadness out there.  This is their way of dealing with his death.  Later that night there was a party in the square outside of my house, for the same reason.  There were so many people wearing red and there was very loud music playing.  

So here is the inside story on the presidents death, according to Francesca.  The president was a member of the NDC, the National Democratic Congress. The other political party is the NPP, the New Patriotic Party.  Apparently some weeks ago, a large sum of money had gone missing from the government.  The president was angry and wanted it to be that whoever stole the money could not spend it.  So he was going to do an entire process of changing the serial numbers on the money in order to make the stolen money have no value.  Now, just a few weeks later, he is dead.  Therefore the members of the NDC believe that the members of the NPP killed the president.  The NPP must have stolen the money and now were mad that the president would do something to stop them from being able to spend it, so they killed him.  However, they did not kill him physically. They killed him by calling on evil spirits to harm him; they killed him using voodoo.  This is the generally held belief of the NDC members along with my sister Francesca.  

She said that voodoo exists in the world but it is most strong and dangerous in Africa.  The only way to stop voodoo is through a lot of prayer because through prayer God will protect you from the evil spirits.  In order to do voodoo you can use any object such as a piece of paper or even a doll and call that persons name, bringing bad spirits into the object in order to harm them.  There is no real way to judge this belief.  Of course it was shocking to me at first to hear that this was the real belief of many well educated political activists as well as maybe half of the nation.  However, this is what you have to expect when you go to other places and want to study their culture.  Regardless, I love studying things like this.  And even if no one killed the president, the people of Ghana are mourning the loss of a wonderful leader who had a great and caring personality.  Many people I have talked to said that they did not eat after hearing of his death.  It is all anyone is talking about right now.  Re-election happens in December but for now the VP takes over office.  

July 24. 2012- Day 19

At work we walked all the way out to the fields and planted plantain trees.  We had to dig holes in the ground and then place the base of a cut off tree back into the ground.  I spent most of the time just realizing that I am in Africa and really enjoying just being in that moment.  I feel that I don’t live in the present moment enough.  Some of my days here I have been waiting for work to be over or thinking about going home or always on to the next thing.  This is the same thing at home.  We all live our lives in a perpetual state of waiting for the future or looking to the past.  We are never truly just living here and now.  It produces a lot of anxiety and makes life very negative because you aren’t really enjoying life, you are just comparing it to what it could be or what it used to be.  I want to make this better. The books I have been reading cover this topic extensively.  I am reading a lot on Buddhist philosophies and about what I just explained above.  So at the farm that day I just kept stopping my mind and really focusing on what I was doing and where I was.  I listened to birds cooing in the distance, felt a slight breeze, looked around at the hills and valleys surrounding me, all covered in trees, green everywhere.  I bent down close to the ground to replant the plantains.  As I was doing this I smelled the soil and really focused on how I was pushing it around the plantain root.  I realized that I was adding to the life in Africa.  I just planted a field full of plantain trees that will grow tall and produce food that will be picked and then eaten in Africa.  I am leaving in a week but these trees will be here for a long time.  This experience was really amazing to me because I was so focused on it.  I was such a part of the earth and the plants and the world in those few hours.  

Later on we all had to go to the ProWorld house for Fante lessons because we do that every Tuesday night.  I actually learned a bunch of things: how to say how are you, I am good, good morning, good evening, and good afternoon.  These three greetings are very important.  You always say them to everyone you meet.  If someone gets into the taxi and it is afternoon you must say good afternoon to them.  It’s really cool.  I like learning the rules of how to exist here and what social norms and expectations exist.  Basically, CULTURE.  It was really awesome to be learning Fante in Ghana. This whole day was just good.  After Fante lessons, ProWorld takes all of the volunteers out to eat at various restaurants each week.  That night we went to a place called One Africa which was a nice place because we got to eat outdoors.  Now that I think of it, most places that we eat are at least slightly outdoors, just with a roof over our heads.  I love it.  Why stay inside when it’s so nice out?  I got Mac and Cheese with vegetables which was delicious.  Tuesdays are always a nice way to get a small taste of home, eating fake American food and talking to American people.  

Overall I’d say that day 19 was one of the good days.  It’s like that here.  Good days, good days, and then one bad day, and then some more good.  

My roommate Kate has malaria.  I feel really bad for her.  She only has a few days left here and has to lay in bed sick the whole time.  I think back home we assume that malaria will kill you if you get it but here it’s kind of like having the flu.  It is definitely dangerous, but if you get the medication, you’ll be better soon.  You just spend a few days vomiting and having diarrhea and feeling terrible.  Then you recover.  A lot of volunteers have gotten it, but mostly those that have stayed longer than 4 weeks.  However, locals do die of malaria for many different reasons.  Often they aren’t cautious enough and just let it slide, not really getting checked for it and not taking the pills.  Or they can’t afford the medication.  It is fairly cheap but some people barely have enough to eat, not to mention extra money for medication.

It’s getting hard to find time to journal anymore.  I am always doing something and when I’m not I want to enjoy the culture here as much as possible.  I want to get as many experiences as I can, not just write about experiences.  I feel like there are so many little things that I want to mention here though that by the end of the day so much has happened that I can’t even remember them all.  Like the fact that on the morning of day 19 we tried to get a taxi for such a long time and the drivers were trying to screw us over cause we are white and they think they can take advantage of us.  It’s really frustrating.  They lie to us sometimes and raise the prices just to see what they can get away with because we’re just dumb tourists.  It can be stressful because you have to argue with them and tell them that you're not just a stupid Obruni (white person). Then when we finally got a taxi, we stopped on the side of the road to pick some people up.  We ended up putting 12 people in one taxi: the driver, 2 in the front seat, 4 in the back, and 5 in the trunk.  It was seriously just a car trunk, so they were just sitting in it and standing on the back of the car, holding on for a good 5 miles.  It was so funny and ridiculous and crazy.  These are normal things you experience in Ghana.  It’s a good time.  

(Day 18)

On this day we went to a school in Foso.  Pastor Sam’s brother is the Head Master of the school. Pastor Sam is in charge of many schools across the area in which he directs leadership programs for the teachers, helping them to become better at their work.  They are even made a connection with a program in the UK that has teacher conferences that sometimes these teachers get the opportunity to go to.  I feel that Pastor Sam is so involved in many different areas of this place, helping in as many ways as possible.  We were driving down the road and he randomly started laughing and smiling.  He said, “Helping all of these people makes me so happy.” It’s just so amazing to see someone who was from Ghana, had the opportunity to leave, get his doctorate in counseling psychology and then decided to come back and devote every moment of his life to helping as many people as possible.  He really is doing an incredible thing here.  I feel that I don’t even know half of what he does because every day I learn something new about how far his program reaches.  

At the school, we went around to each classroom and were introduced to the children.  They were all perfectly behaved, standing up when we walked in, sitting down when told. It was odd to see such well behaved children.  Later Pastor Sam told us that having white people come to visit the schools makes a very big impact.  Often seeing that a white person has traveled to visit them, inspires them to work harder in order to maybe be able to go somewhere in the world when they get older.  I did not realize how much of an impact is made just by seeing our faces there.  It was very powerful to know that just my presence could make hopefully even a slight change.  After this we traveled to a few other schools.  At one in particular, it seemed as though the children had never seen a white person up close before.  They attacked us like celebrities.  They were swarming around us, reaching and fighting just to be able to get close enough to touch us.  Drew told me later that they were even stroking his leg hair.  It was overwhelming in a good way.  The kids were so cute and I wanted to make them all happy so I stayed for a while just reaching my hands out to each of them.  Some things make me want to cry here and this is one of them.  I am just a human being but to them I am a celebrity.  They will go home and say “I have touched a white person today.”  I feel good and bad about this.  It is amazing to be a positive image to others.  However, it is very distressing to realize how esteemed white people are and how loved America is from a distance idealized perspective.  I live there and I don’t find it to be so good.  I don’t see the positive aspects of white people over others.  I see greed and selfishness.  I see people living only for their own happiness and well-being. But like I have said before, even the small amount of money that my family has is riches to the people in these villages.

Ever since getting here, I have been wishing that my family was here with me.  My parents would love it here.  They would cry and want to stay here forever in order to help as much as possible and become close with the people here.  

Later in the day, we went to a plantation.  A man from Mississippi came to Ghana about 10 years ago and met a Ghanaian woman here.  They got married and bought a large piece of farm land from her family.  He had a lot of money so they re-did the entire thing and now it is all fenced in, the grass is all mowed down (a rare sight here), and there are rows of orange trees, papaya trees and other plants. He also decided to try and grow plants that are not native to this region such as broccoli, beets, star fruit, black eyed pees, sweet potatoes, and he even has a grape vine.  It was all very cool to see.  It didn’t look like anything that other farms here look like.  Normally these trees are all grown in the middle of an untamed jungle like region with every other weed and tree and vine in the way.  Pastor Sam was very impressed because he saw it as a future opportunity.  If he could turn the farm we were working on in Dwenase into something this well organized, that would be an amazing success.  They also had a guest house with very big wooden beds and a real kitchen with a table and everything.  It was a very nice place and it is always amazing to meet new people with different life stories, all adding to my knowledge of the world.  Everyone I meet has something new to tell me about life.  It’s amazing.

This was a very long day of meeting many new people that Pastor Sam was acquainted with. He told us that he likes to introduce us to as many people as possible and tell them of our work on the farm and how well we are doing because white people working on the farm is a good promoter of farm work and makes people want to do it more. They often see it as very menial work that they do not want to have to do, but having us come all the way from America to do it, makes it seem much more vital.

Another thing that is good about going places with the Reverend is that he always informs us of things about Ghana that we would not know otherwise.  He gives us an inside look into what happens under the surface and all of the things that need to be corrected.  He was explaining to us that the governmental system of taxation is done very badly.  The taxes are completely equal for the poorest person and for the richest person.  You could make 20 cedis a month or 2,000 cedis a month and still have the same money taken from you.  This leads to an excess in crime because people become beyond the point of desperate.  All of this is very bad.  Sometimes I feel so frustrated about politics and systems of government.  When I was at home I couldn’t wrap my head around our issues, and here I can not wrap my head around their issues either.  It is all too much to even begin to analyze because everywhere it seems that people are just taking random action, not planned or thought out or for the best interest.  It seems like there are no professionals.  Presidents and leaders are supposed to be like a father taking care of their children, wanting the best interest for the family and each member of the family.  But I just don’t see that happening anywhere except for in places like Scandinavia.  It’s so complex and I am sure people talk about this kind of thing for hours and years so I will just leave it at that.  

Another random tidbit- So I didn’t realize at first that although ProWorld picked us up from the airport upon arrival, that they expect us to find our own way back on a tro-tro (which is like a public bus/van transport).  This is pretty stressful because it’s a lot of planning and Accra is 3 hours away.  But, Pastor Sam has a son who is going to the U.S. in a few weeks to visit some schools and see how he likes it there.  It just so happens that he is flying out the same day as me and on the same flight to Boston.  The chances of that are ridiculous.  I can’t believe it.  So now I am getting a ride with them to Accra on that day that I have to leave.  All problems solved.  It’s amazing the coincidences that happen around me and to me.  I feel blessed.  

July 23, 2012- Day 18

It is hard to journal in here every day because some days are bad or good regardless of your location on the planet. I feel that if I am having a bad day, it wont convey my true experience of it because sometimes as people we just feel things despite our incredible surroundings. I know that today was amazing in so many ways but I can’t feel it. So I will write tomorrow about today.

July 22, 2012- Day 17

I have seen some beautiful things. 

The other day when I went to help Kate at the quiz competition, there were maybe a few hundred children from the ages of 11 or 12 to 16.  At the end of the day, when the quiz competition was over, the Principle of the school closed in a prayer.  It was all in Fante but I could hear him say Jesus Christ a lot.  All of the children’s eyes were closed and they were moved by the prayer.  They were really a part of it, believing, and loving Jesus.  One teenager looked like he could have cried because he was so involved in this prayer.

Today, Reverend Sam took us to his church.  This was a Pentecostal church.  It was full of passion and excitement for God and all that God does for them.  They were singing and dancing and crying and praying.  If you have never been to a church service like this, it can be overwhelming, but I have.  My point is that I find it beautiful when people find something in their life that makes them overwhelmingly happy, and then purely, goodly, and passionately, they carry this with them.  It is so beautiful to see people who have something to be happy about.  In the U.S., religion is so complicated, in comparison.  Here people just love God. That’s all.  Nothing about pushing your religion or doing it out of greed or having a secret agenda for power and wealth behind their religion.  This is just pure worship.  Religion here is not religion back home.  

Later in the day we went to a secluded place way in the back of the town of Elmina, through many back roads to a resort/hotel location called Coconut Grove.  We went to sit on the beach and just relax.  The place had a golf course, horse riding, a swimming pool, a reception area with air conditioning and huge ivory sculptures of elephants.  This kind of thing is so ridiculous to see here.  So many white people acting like they’re not in Africa, just lounging around in the pool, drinking, all aspects of a perfect vacation with manicured lawns and everything.  It just looked so wrong to see this and to see people essentially ignoring the poverty that was just around the corner from this secluded oasis.

Sitting on the beach was wonderful though.  I walked through the sand and collected some really soft worn down shells.  I was looking for beach glass but there was none.  The sand was very thick, big pieces instead of a fine powder, but it was really nice sand at the same time.  It was a dark gold color.  The waves were so big and the tide that came up the shore was thick and foamy.  There was a nice breeze and I just sat and read while Kate and Drew tanned.  It was such a nice thing to do.  

When we got home that afternoon, Mama Teiko taught us how to do laundry.  We brought down our filthy, dirt covered clothes and washed them ourselves! First, one person applies a bar of soap to the article of clothing and then rubs the clothing together and against their hand. That was Mama Teiko’s job.  Then the second bucket is the same job just when the clothes are less dirty, which is what I did.  I also had to wring all of the soap out of the clothing.  Then Kate was at the third bucket.  The third bucket had a kind of whitening agent or color sealer that was a dark laundry soap blue color.  She had to scrub it in there, wring it, and then hang it to dry.  It is a very difficult thing to do.  My hands felt raw and tired and I wasn’t even doing it one fourth as well as Mama Teiko.  It was so cool though!

Cultural lesson of the day: people here have real skills. They can do extremely hard work and do it very well.  I bought something really cool today for my room back home.  A handcrafted mat made of reeds, that took a long time to make.  Everything here is like this.  Hand made and beautiful.  They are made out of the local resources which is so obvious and amazing yet pretty simple to the people that live here.  At home, nothing is made! No one picks a fruit and makes a carving out of it and sells it to people.  It blows my mind how the people here are all artists to me.  I feel like I’m living in a hippy town full of people who are really chill and make the things they need, make cool sculptures, wear really beautiful homemade clothing, are really self sustainable, and spend all night singing and dancing together.  That is why it is so incredible here: for all of those reasons.  This culture is so amazing!

July 21, 2012- Day 16

I am trying to make money last because I don’t have any more to spend.  I took out a hundred dollars when I got here and haven’t spent all of it yet.  But today I am going shopping to be a tourist and buy some things, so hopefully I wont spend it all….

So we went shopping. And we ran into a bunch of Rasta shops with really cool stuff.  I bought presents for everyone, or at least as many as I could.  I still have to find a few things.  But I loved just looking around and talking to the people who owned the shops.  I wish I had insane amounts of money because some of the art work here is incredible.  Everything is carved by hand and painted and made Batik style.  All hand made! Its so cool and such beautiful art with all of these deep meanings.  This one man had abstract feminist paintings of African women in chains and with snakes coming down around their legs while they were carrying bowls on their heads.  The elephants here are carved out of ebony.  I just can’t handle it!  I want one so badly but even the small ones are too expensive for the size that they are.  I just don’t have the money because of course I want a big one.  

We also went shopping for fabric which was insanely difficult because all of it is so vibrant and beautiful! This day was such a good day though.  We ate at a restaurant named Baobab which is a vegan restaurant and guest house.  A lot of tourists stay there.  I got pancakes with chocolate spread and bananas.  It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever tasted.  I felt like I was in France.  They were like crepes.  So moist in the best way and rolled up chocolate all over and bananas in the middle.  I’m going to make them when I get home, for real.  It was so amazing.  I wish I could bring them home and make you all taste them right now.  And it was also a really nice day because me and Kate and Drew and some other friends were all together just socializing and having such a fun, silly day.  I felt like I was with my friends.  I didn’t feel weird at all, just so happy and comfortable in every way possible.  

Then Kate and I came home and talked for hours about our lives and I just keep realizing here how much I love everyone back home.  I was ranting and raving about how incredible my parents are and how much I love them and how they’re the coolest nicest people that you would always want to hang out with.  And the same about my siblings and my friends and my boyfriend.  Just kept telling her all of the best things.  I am just oozing with love over here.  I can’t wait to see you all and just enjoy the love.  We all need to just sit down and be together.  I don’t want to rush or go anywhere or do anything.  I just want to sit together and look around at the beautiful world that we live in and be so happy, all together.  I just stopped typing for about 5 minutes and looked distantly through my computer screen thinking about all of you and how much I love having you in my life and thinking about the time we are going to spend together.  

Cultural fact of the day: women wear long strands of thin beads around their waste in order to make their shape.  They believe that doing this gives them hips.  They even put beads like this around babies wrists and neck and stomachs to form the shape of their body in those places.  

But for us, it is also really cool to wrap them up a bunch of times around your ankle and wear them like that.  So I got some of those for my friends at school to wear.  And I am going to buy a bunch of them to keep wearing, always keeping Ghana close to me, to remind me of my time here, what I have learned and the wonderful culture and people who live here.

July 20,2012- Day 15

Today is the halfway point.  2 weeks in, 2 weeks left. I feel so happy to be able to experience this. I feel like such a different person.  Not different, just opened up.  I want to live my life with this sense of understanding.  

I feel that it is hard to be inspired in life without someone to talk to.  When I begin to communicate with someone about an idea, my mind starts to jump, feel exhilarated and full of life.  Today I went out to lunch with a girl from ProWorld.  We talked about the difference between here and America and how here you are always outdoors and shopping outdoors.  Everything here consists of  locally made and grown goods.  The lifestyle here is just so different.  We were talking about reverse culture shock and how hard it is going to be to go back into a Walmart after this, how huge and insane things are going to look back home.  You adjust very fast to things you are faced with, and to go to another life after this one is going to be just as weird as arriving here in the first place.  We also talked about a lot of issues in developing countries and how back at home we make so many decisions with our purchases, not realizing how much we are supporting a lot of issues in the world just by buying these objects.  We also talked about rape and how a lot of cultures put the shame on the woman for being raped.  It was really cool to share all of these thoughts with someone and discuss the world in depth. 

Later in the night some of my friends were telling me about the fact that clitoral mutilation was just recently outlawed here in Ghana.  I didn’t realize how often it occurred.  I knew of it and knew it happened in some places, but apparently in the northern more tribal regions, this type of ritual is still practiced even today.  I also learned that there are different types and that sometimes they will sew up a woman’s vaginal opening to keep her a virgin, then on her wedding night the man will have to rip through it.  I further learned that this is not necessarily oppressive or wrong because it is so deeply ingrained into the culture that it is carried on and enforced by the elderly women of the village, seen as a rite of passage into the adult world.  Many women don’t mind that it happens.  However, there are still other places where it is forced upon them, and even when it is not, there are a lot of health issues that go along with it.  I just feel so blown away by all of these things.  These are issues that I know about, but going to a place where it could be happening and also having the conflict of cultural relativism staring you in the face makes it so that it is hard to form a solid opinion or really know how to feel about either side.  

This morning we did drumming and dancing lessons as a part of our experience.  It was so cool.  We learned how to drum certain drum beats and then learned to dance a specific dance. I was extremely sweaty and exhausted, but it was such a fun experience.  The stuff they do here is fun.  I love that ProWorld integrates weekend culture classes into the volunteer experience.    

Then I helped Kate with a project she has been working on.  For their volunteer work they have been working at a clinic, and developing a research project as well.  They are doing a survey of teachers, students, and sex workers about sex education and prevalence of teen pregnancy.  So they had a very big quiz competition between 4 different schools, and while this was going on we would take a few of the children out and ask them these questions.  The thing is that the answers were very astonishing.  Many kids had never heard of a condom.  Many 12 and 13 year olds were sexually active.  And some reported abortion methods included crushing up a coke bottle, mixing it with juice, and then drinking it.  This really blew my mind.  12 year old children are actually experiencing this.  The world is such a hard place to live in.  The fear of pregnancy followed by eating glass (pure desperation) to get rid of the baby, all at such a young age, and if you were pregnant that one time, you will probably get pregnant again soon.  I just can’t comprehend the things that people have to deal with in life (all over the world and in the U.S.).  We all act like life is perfect but a lot of the stuff that we experience and go through with your friends, it all seems like we’re too young to be facing these problems.  In high school I had a lot of tough stuff that my friends were facing and it was just so heartbreaking to know how soon our innocence is taken from us and how soon we need to grow up and deal with problems that our parents don’t even know are going on.  This just shows me how strong humans really are.  We have all faced really trying circumstances, and gone through things that will scar us forever, but we are still okay and still function as human beings and get each other through things.  We still smile and laugh and enjoy life.  And that’s one of the most beautiful things about being a human.  It must be really hard to go through some of the things that people have gone through in some African countries, but still they smile and sing and dance.  Even the slaves who were stripped of all humanity, still found it in them to sing and go to church and rejoice in the life that they do have.  Nothing is so bad that we can’t find a way to still enjoy the life we are living now.  There are other things to celebrate and look forward to.  And there is so much right now that we have to enjoy.

But the other side of this is the suffering that has and still does occur in the world; the fact that it is so prevalent in every society.  No society or culture is free of injustice.  And I sometimes feel that there is nothing that can change that.  

Last night I went out to a bar/outdoor beach resort with Kate and some other people.  It was really fun at first just socializing, and then it became really similar to life in the US.  Everyone drunk, me not drunk, sitting on the side watching the drunk people be crazy.  It’s hard to mix the two.  Then a guy from Ghana came up and started talking to me about living life outside of your comfort zone, and doing things without letting your negative brain energy get in the way.  It was a really good talk.  I agree with him but also don’t really know how to conquer that part of myself.  I just don’t get drunk and dance.  I love doing everything else in the world though, everyone knows how easily entertained I am with life and happiness.  It doesn’t feel like something is wrong with me, it feels like I am just in the wrong place at that time. It is funny how life is life, no matter where you are located on the planet.