When I write out the days on here I can not believe I have been here for so long of a time. Day 3 feels like it was a few days ago. It could be day 7 at most in my mind. Time is going so quickly.
For the record, there are many things that go through my mind in the day, many topics that I want to discuss with all of you when I get back but to journal about them all would be so overwhelming. If you would like to talk about anything when I get back, please let me know. I have had a lot of discussions with people that I can not even begin to scratch the surface about in a few pages of a journal.
Today started off with bad bathroom issues. And some yoga. Always a good morning in Ghana. I went downstairs to go to work and Mama Teiko made me sit and wait, telling me that she had sent someone to get me rockies. I didn’t know what rockies were. When they arrived it turned out that they are muffins! Rockies, muffins, both words that make no sense. But these were the best muffins. They were buttery and resembled corn bread. I love rockies! So I walked to the taxi station to meet Drew and we finally had success getting a taxi. The past few days have been rough. You always encounter days where taxi drivers try to make you pay 10 cedis to get to where you're going just because you are American and they hope that you don’t know the real price. Its only 1.50 cedis to get to work. Once the way toward Dwenase, there were three men standing in the road with a big log across, blocking the way. They made the taxi driver pay them in order to get by. Apparently these men were working on the roads, fixing the endless amount of potholes here, and these workers often believe that they deserve money from those driving on the roads. This happens with police men here as well. The police system seems to be very corrupt, my knowledge of which comes from observing them stand on the sides of the roads, pulling taxis over in order to get money from the driver. If you give the police about 5 cedis which is about $2.50, they will let you go. This does not seem like the job of a defender of citizens, or an upholder of the law. Just some more information to digest along with the rockies I had for breakfast.
At work we laid more beds for the plants and raked the sticks out of the field. Then Aya took us on an adventure to find coconuts. I tried to balance one on my head but it is really not easy. Then she chopped open our coconuts with a machete and we drank out of them and ate the coconut residue from the inside. It was so cool! She also showed us a very strange fruit with spikes on the outside. This is called the apple of Ghana. They have other apples here but they call those foreign apples. It is not ripe to eat yet, but in a few days it will be and I am excited to try it. There are many points in the day where we stop working and just spend time sitting around talking and not doing a whole lot, but trying new things, and finding out new things about life in Ghana. I like that they try to expose us to as many random things as possible. Finally Pastor Sam showed up with a feast. It was Drew’s last day so the Reverend bought us each a large piece of chicken (which is really rare and expensive here) and a bunch of jolof rice (rice with spices and peppers in it, usually red) as well as sweet corn in a can. It was so good and filling.
We had a very long talk with Pastor Sam today. I asked him about the belief in voodoo, etc. He told me a lot of things that really opened my eyes to a new view of culture. Culture should be judged sometimes. Not to say that we should look down on the people. However, progress is an important part of life if you want to survive and thrive. Believing in things such as voodoo and spirits merely places a limit on your life. Rather than becoming literate, educating themselves, and finding real answers to their problems, and thus dealing with and solving the problems at hand, culture will often give them an excuse or an answer. This answer has been passed down for generations and continues to limit that culture. If people are dying of a sickness and you blame that sickness on evil spirits, then how will anyone ever learn and find the cure to that sickness and help the people within that society to stay alive? Culture is incredible and very important. So are beliefs, traditions, family stories, etc. However, when these things are getting in the way of you living life to your fullest potential, when is enough enough? Now I understand why people have problems with religions. There is nothing wrong with believing in something. But if your belief gets in the way of your health, or is hindering you, then it is not good. Pastor Sam was telling us that these excuses and cultural explanations are holding back Africa from developing. It’s a tough thing to think about because there is so much history, life, and value behind many of the aspects of these cultures. Culture is the definition of everything that people are. Kate and I talked about this a lot later too. It’s so difficult to decide if you are for or against things like this because you can’t just cut something like culture out. People would not survive without culture. But you also need to progress beyond what you think is best, and find out what actually is best. A lot of things that I have encountered here feel on a similar level of conflict in my mind. There are always so many positives and negatives. For example, the idea of comparing America to Africa. There are so many positives and negatives to both sides. Thinking about the concept of how well people are doing here in Ghana, you see a lot of negativity: children with protruding belly buttons, open sewage running on the sides of the streets, people dying of malaria. But at the same time there is so much that is going on here to make things better. Especially in comparison to a lot of places in Africa, Ghana is doing so well. I can’t stick with one emotion because I go back and forth on both sides for all of these topics. I hope to engage you all in conversations of this kind when I return.
I would like to say that this trip is making me really focus on how amazing the rest of my life is going to be. This is the first step I have taken toward my happiness and success since coming to college. It’s really the big first of things that I have done on my list of things to do in my life. I have so many dreams and aspirations and it has always felt like I had to put everything off for later. Later is NOW! I feel that doing this is making me so motivated and inspired to succeed in all areas and explore all of the interests that I have had for so long. Now I can finally go out and do everything that I only ever used to talk about. I haven’t been this excited to learn French, do yoga, study Buddhist philosophy, paint, go home and learn and read and watch documentaries on every place on earth, learn all about every culture, work with professors on research projects, do my senior thesis, everything sounds amazing at this point. I just want to throw myself head on into so much work and so much involvement. I can’t wait to help in the soup kitchen back in Plattsburgh. I can’t wait to travel to Montreal in the fall on the weekends. Tomorrow I am going to a bookstore in Cape Coast and buying my first French book to read on the flight home! One of my professors at school asked me and a few other students to work along side him in creating an honors seminar about Herbert Marcuse’s philosophies. I emailed him a few days ago and hope that this opportunity really happens. I also want to tutor French in the fall and work in order to start saving money. I’m so happy that this is my mindset because all of last year I felt like I wasn’t doing anything except taking classes and I couldn’t find the inspiration that I need to live. But now its back and it’s in full force. Yesterday I learned the word for pocket in French. It’s “poche.” I didn’t know and now I do. Even this seems exciting to me. Qu’est-ce que tu as dans ta poche? J’ai le monde entier dans ma poche.
No comments:
Post a Comment