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!
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