Upon reaching Nana’s house, I greet Nana, Serwaa, Clara, Ama, and anyone else who is rummaging about. Usually, Nick has not yet risen, but perhaps Aria is getting ready for school, and Kathleen may be helping Clara make breakfast. I set the table, put the water on the electric kettle for tea or instant coffee, make sure I have everything I need for the day. After eating my breakfast of browned porridge, sugar bread, and fried egg, I take a bike and head off to school. Unfortunately, the ride to school is almost entirely uphill. Huffing and puffing and sweating, I stop at the little village before Senchi to say to hi to some of the people doing chores or lounging on benches outside their houses. Then I reluctantly push my overheated body up the last hill to Senchi and finally to the JHS building, where I stop, throw down my bag, and begin to fan myself with any loose paper or book I can find. I am usually one of the first teachers to arrive, so I observe the students as they clean the compound and chat casually with them.

“Okyere Darko,” I call to one of the students in form one. “Did you do your science homework last night?” “Yes, sir,” he replies respectfully. “Was it hard?” I ask. “No, sir.”

At 8:00, after assembly, the kids go into class. I don’t teach until 12:25, so I sit down to prepare the next day’s lesson. Once I finish that, I open the book I am currently reading, The Brothers Karamasov, and immerse myself in it. This is difficult, though, because almost as soon as I start, I am interrupted by the arrival of the Pre-Voc teacher. She very recently had a baby, who she is carrying on her back, and the presence of this beautiful child causes a stir amongst the teachers in the teacher workroom.

“Akwasiii,” a teacher drawls to the baby, carrying him over to me, “come and greet your father.” Turning to me, she jokes, “Kwame, this is your son; he likes oburoni’s very much.” I laugh and carry on reading, giving some mild, evasive response. When the students have break, I go into the form one class to talk to the kids. I am wearing a button down shirt with the very top button undone. Seeing this, one boy points to my small bit of exposed chest.

“Sir, how can I get some of this?” he asks, referring to my chest hair. “It is so beautiful.” All I can do is laugh in reply and tell him, “It will come.” He must be only 12 or 13.

I teach during one of the last periods of the day, so when I have finished, there are only a few minutes left before closing. At 2:00, the bell is rung for closing assembly, and the kids come together to say a closing prayer and hear announcements from the teachers or headmaster. The students are at last dismissed, and, collecting my things to leave, I say goodbye to the teachers. Hopping on my bike, I see a boy who also stays in Oguaa walking home. I ride up next to him and tell him to sit on the rear rack of the bike. He gladly accepts this ride in the searing Sub-Saharan sun, and we head home. The ride back, which is mostly downhill, is much easier and faster. I hardly have to work going down the hills, and the apparent wind cools me off nicely. I let the boy off near his house and walk the bike past the communal well, where many people fetching water greet me, saying “Akwaaba,” or “welcome.” I am indeed glad for the shade of the trees, but I am still sweating miserably by the time I reach Nana’s house. Clara has started preparing the food for us; while I am no expert on Ghanaian cooking, I can still help out by cutting tomatoes or onions, grinding pepper, boiling yam, or just…setting the table. Once everyone gets back from school, we sit down to eat and discuss our days. Often the conversations are similar, but there are still many new thoughts, observations, and funny/upsetting/interesting experiences to share.

Once we finish eating, it’s time to do some clean-up. A couple of us will wash dishes, someone will sweep up, and another will ensure that the food is stored properly. After all this is finished, it is usually around 4:30. I have many options as to what I can do at this point. Sometimes I go for a run, sometimes I read, sometimes I mark assignments. I may go home to relax for a while, and my host sister Ama is always there. I f she isn’t doing chores, she is studying Maths or Scince or English—she is in form one—so I may help her out with that. When evening comes, I return to Nana’s for the last time of the day to eat a light meal, maybe left-overs with some fruit. After that I say goodnight to everyone and head home. I brush my teeth, floss—you know, the usual—and set my obnoxious alarm for 5:30. I finally sink down on my foam mattress, cursing the heat and soaking the mattress in sweat. At last, I drift off to sleep, enjoying a sleep of Mefloquine-induced dreams that is only disturbed by roosters crowing, my alarm, and the inevitable sounds of a newly-dawning day.

As I have already written, although all of us Bridge Year Students stay in the same village, we teach at different village schools, and I am privileged enough to teach in Senchi, a village about 25 minutes’ walk from Oguaa, at the District Assembly Junior High School. JHS consists of three “forms,” or grades, with English, Twi, Maths, and Science taught as the core subjects along with French, Religious and Moral Education, Information Computer Technology, and Pre-Vocational Skills, among others. I currently teach science at the form one and form two levels, and so I teach a total of six one-hour classes each week. The rest of my time at school is spent preparing lessons, correcting assignments or tests, talking with students or teachers, helping with PE, or just reading a bit. Officially, the enrollment of the school is 118 pupils, which means that, depending on the day and the form I am teaching, there are between 35 and 45 kids in class. They can get rowdy and difficult to calm down at times, but I usually acquire the assistance of the science teachers—the ones actually hired to do the job—to help me out in class, not only in calming down the students, but in helping to explain concepts as well.

The whole of the JHS is a rectangular, five room building: three equal classrooms for each of the forms, as well as another room of equal size serving as the teacher workroom, and a smaller room used as the headmaster’s office that has storage space. Although the town of Senchi has power lines, the school is not connected to electricity.

Now that I’ve given a general description of the school, I can move on to my perceptions of my work. As I have said, I teach six lessons a week; one each on Monday and Tuesday, two on Wednesday and Thursday, and none on Friday, although we have PE on Fridays. I’m not sure if this seems like a lot of teaching, but…it’s really not. Except for Wednesdays and Thursdays, I feel like I have a lot of downtime, during which I feel very unproductive. It is true that I occupy that time with the things I have already mentioned, but I certainly feel at times that it isn’t very useful and that I should be doing something better with my time. That said, it would certainly be possible for me to take on another class, help another teacher with his or her classes, or otherwise take the initiative, and really, I should do that. It is a trumpet screaming at me, “Carpe diem! Take every opportunity! Give your fullest!” etc., and yet I can make myself deaf to the clarion call. “You still have time,” I tell myself, “You owe it to yourself to not rush into this, to take time and get comfortable. Besides, life can be a challenge for you here; no one will blame you for not doing more, you’re already doing a lot.” And yes,  there is some truth in all these justifications; but isn’t that always the struggle? There is always something more I can be doing, always someone else I should be helping, and yet this desire conflicts with my own desire for comfort, my own needs and wants, which, albeit selfish, make a compelling argument. I have been contemplating this especially over the past few weeks; that is, I have been thinking about what it means to serve, what it means to give of oneself, and what constitutes my share of giving: am I required to sacrifice myself entirely, to please all others before myself? or is there a balance between what I give and what I can retain for myself? And, if so, where is that balance? There are lots of ideas, lots of ideas floating around, in and out of my head and heart, and it’s hard to make sense of them. But the fact remains that I am here now, and I am living and teaching and thinking now, and sometimes it is very necessary to forget all these lofty thoughts and just live. So, while I haven’t resolved these questions in my mind, I suppose I feel that I don’t have to quite yet.

Up to now, I haven’t talked about what it is actually like to teach in a Ghanaian village school. Well, to begin with, it is wrought with challenges, more so because I am a foreigner, but even for the Ghanaians working here. The school day starts officially at 7:45 with the morning assembly, when students gather in the rear of the school to say an opening prayer, the national anthem, and to hear any announcements for the day. The day really begins earlier for the students, though, who are expected—machetes and brooms in hand—to arrive early and clean the school compound. At 8:00, classes begin. Now, the policy of The Ghana Education Service (GES) is that classes be taught in a mix of the local language of the region (Asante Twi in the Asante Region) and English, the official language of Ghana. As students get older, there should be more English used, until by form three of JHS, classes should be taught entirely in English. In form one, for example, teachers are supposed to use about 70% English and 30% Twi. The main problem with this, however, is that the students’ English is simply not advanced enough to understand a class that is taught mostly in English. Their textbooks are entirely in English, but only a select few students can comprehend what they are reading in such books. The reasons for this difficulty are complex; teachers themselves, while having good English, do not really use it with the students outside of class, and, because the students struggle to understand English in class, teachers end up using Twi to help them grasp concepts. This is a problem because these students don’t have much opportunity to practice and learn English outside of school. At home, most of their parents can’t or don’t speak English, and everyone is speaking Twi all the time. As a result, English proficiency is extremely difficult to acquire, which is why I admire the students who do speak English well all the more.

My Twi is not spectacular; I can’t get by around town, buying things and making small talk, but there is no way I could teach exclusively in Twi, especially in a subject like science. In addition, I am not supposed to be doing that: all the teachers are supposed to be using English anyway! I have certainly seen that when the kids are taught things in Twi, they understand them. They are not at all incapable; they are smart, eager kids who have a million factors hindering their education and only a handful helping it. Despite this, even if they learn and understand something in Twi, they cannot translate it into English—they can’t express themselves in the language of the colonizers. If asked a question in English, they may be able to answer in Twi, but often they can’t understand written directions or questions. This is a huge problem because all of their examinations are in English, including the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE), taken at the end of Form three, which essentially decide whether or not these kids can continue their educations. Further, we are in a rural area of Ghana. It is not so impoverished as you may think; nevertheless, it is not a wealthy area, and so many resources are lacking. As I have mentioned, there is no electricity in the school, which of course means no computers or electronic lab equipment or teaching equipment; there is no library like I had at Branford High School; no guidance counselors, no student internship offices, no auditorium, no music room, no art wing. I can’t say that any of this was unexpected, but it does demonstrate the massive disparity between the education these kids are receiving and the one I received or that residents of more affluent sections of Ghana have access to. Hmm, differences…I suppose that’s why I came to Ghana.

The portrait I have painted here may be somewhat bleak; while it is often upsetting and difficult to see this injustice, the system is certainly not without its merits, and there are many dedicated to trying to improve it. Many teachers and headmasters are dedicated to their schools, and the GES has a lot of policies in place designed to ensure that teachers and schools are doing their jobs appropriately. I think those policies are helping. Also, there are many success stories that boost my morale and confidence. Despite the difficulties, many students perform very well on the BECE and get into good high schools and, later on, good universities in Ghana. Just the other day, walking home from Senchi, I bumped into a boy in Senior High School (the level after JHS) who was on vacation and back home in Oguaa to help out with his father’s farm. Talking with him, I learned that he had gone through the Oguaa school system, scored a seven on his BECE—the top score is a six, the lowest a 45—and is now going to a perfectly decent Senior High School. He told me that he wants to study government at the University of Ghana at Legon in Accra so that he can become a lawyer. And he can do that, I know he can, provided that he works hard enough. It’s stories like this and the knowledge that students can succeed that gives me hope.

I am not sure where my place is in all of this. I don’t know where can best apply my talents, knowledge, and observations. I doubt that it is in the actual teaching of these students because, while I am not incompetent or detrimental to their education, I am certainly not improving it by leaps and bounds. This experience has allowed me, however, to witness the system, see its strengths and its flaws, its successes and failures. It will take a lot more time, dedication, and reflection to best apply myself. Although I am not sure what I will do, again, I think it is not yet the time to figure all that out. I have to continue to observe, continue to live my life here, continue to strive to understand. That’s why I’m here; I think that’s why a lot of us are here. At any rate, I have to go prepare a lesson for school tomorrow; I’ll be teaching diffusion and osmosis to the form two’s. Until next time, my friends.

I must apologize for my long silence. I can use the excuse that we were in a remote area with limited internet access–which is true–but it doesn’t really matter now. After a heartbreaking departure from Oguaa, we have arrived in Kumase and hit the ground running. I live right by a cafe now, so I hope to blog about my time here soon. For now, though, I will post two blogs that I wrote while in Oguaa. I hope that suffices for now.

Love,

Cole

Currently, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Kumase, a city about 250 kilometers away from my former home of Accra. Kumase is not, though, our current home. Rather, we are staying in Ogua, a small village that is about 90 minutes away by public transportation. It is shocking to realize that on Monday, we will have lived in Ogua for three weeks and will have been teaching for just as long–it seems like only a few days have past and that we are still very new in this environment. In this post, it would be impossible for me to go into all the challenges I have already faced both with village life and with teaching, but they will certainly be the topics of several others.

After leaving Accra on January 6, we arrived in Kumase for a brief orientation. Leaving Accra was at once easy and difficult: easy because the anticipation of a new experience which I had been eagerly awaiting spurred me on, but difficult because I had come to thoroughly enjoy life with my host family. The source of this enjoyment, in retrospect, was a hard-earned feeling of comfort. I had learned how to get around relatively flawlessly, I had grown accustomed to the food, the dust, the heat, and I had made solid friends with members of my host family and those I worked with. Especially now, again confronted with the need to adapt and be hyper-observant all the time, I miss old red-dust Adenta and the Amponsah family. When I think about the significance of this, I am pleased with my performance. I think I have done very well to become semi-comfortable and happy; and, at the same time, I see the necessity of changing our circumstances again. This is only nine months of my life, and I didn’t come here to seek comfort. I came to be challenged, to question and be questioned, to learn and to serve. I came to see if I could become comfortable: now I have seen I have, and it is time now to do it all again. Reflecting on all I have learned and done in the first half of the program, I am incredibly excited for the incredible journey that will be this second half.

After four nights in Kumase, we headed off to Ogua, and the following day we began teaching. We all gather three times a day at the chief’s house, which serves as a central location for eating meals, discussing everything, tutoring village children, and as the location where both Aria and Nick sleep. I sleep in a house a mere two minutes’ walk away, and Kathleen and Jessica stay in houses that are closer still. After breakfast each morning, we head off to our separate schools for our teaching assignments. Aria teachers in Ogua, the same village that we stay in, but the rest of us teach in villages less than a half hour walk away. I myself ride my bike each morning to teach at the Senchi District Assembly Junior High School. JHS in Ghana consists of three forms (or grades) that are equivalent to sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in the U.S. The ages of the students probably falls between 11 and 16, and I have been charged with the task of teaching science to forms one and two. Again, I will blog in more detail about all of this later; for now, I would just like to give a brief account of what we have been up to.

That is the general gist of our lives right now and for the next two-and-a-half months. This school term ends on April 15, at which point we will probably spend some time in Kumase and then in Tamale in the north of Ghana. That time, while not physically far off, is still very distant for me mentally; I have to focus as much as possible on my work and life in Ogua while I have the chance. In brief, we are happy, healthy, and awed by almost everything we see: and that’s the way it should be.

Now, every day when I walk through the outer gate of our house on my way back from work, Enthios springs to his feet and darts out to meet me about halfway to the door of the house. There, he proceeds to promptly sit and offer me his right palm for a friendly handshake. This I take with my left, alternating between scratching the back of his head and under his chin with my right. This may continue for a couple of minutes until I make a motion as if I am about to stop, at which time he turns and bolts to the porch, where he lies down right between me and the front door. This is to signal to me that he would like me to scratch his belly, a request to which I often acquiesce. However, because I want to make it seem more special to him and not something to take for granted, I do not give in every time. On these instances, he turns his head, still lying down with his feet in the air, and looks at me expectantly, hopefully, while I pass through the door into a realm forbidden to him.

While on most days I stop to give Enthios the affection I feel he is due, there are days when I am just too tired, hot, sweaty, or in too great a hurry to pet him. If, for example, I had a long day at work, an unsatisfactory lunch, and am sweating through my clothes from the heat of the sun, I may be in too sultry and uncomfortable a mood to stop. His reaction to this is to desperately jump at me to get my attention. Alternatively, he may lie down directly in front of me and roll around to try to block my path; indeed, I have almost accidentally stepped on him several times. At such times, I am too self-absorbed to stop and perform a function that, while requiring minimal time and effort from me, would make this animal ecstatic. In fact, it is just selfish of me not to take that small time out of my day to please him. Truly, if my return to the house is delayed five or ten minutes, it will not negatively affect me or anyone else, and it is even likely that I would feel good about having spent some time with “man’s best friend.”

The lesson I have learned from Enthios is not one of cultural values, although through him I have seen some differences in the way animals are perceived and treated. Rather, it is one akin to the maxim “stop and smell the roses.” It is easy for me to get so caught up in my daily activities, my moodiness, or my physical discomfort that I neglect simple things that will provide joy, whether it is to me, to other human beings, or to Enthios. I come from a culture where busyness is associated with success, where never having a free moment is a sign of a well-rounded and competent individual. What I am starting to realize, however, is that that is not always the case. Often, I just use my industry to escape from dealing with my actual feelings. It seems to me that happiness or success or whatever you want to call it is best achieved through a balance in which it is essential to take time to stop and pet Enthios before entering the house. I think it really is true that we have to take time to appreciate the simple pleasures in life, for if we can appreciate the simple things, it will be so much easier for us to be happy. “Oh simple things: where have you gone?”

On the first day, straight off the van en route to the hotel, we took part in a pottery workshop taught by some highly skilled craftswomen in an Ewe village. With uncanny ease and precision, the women created in mere moments pots that appeared almost machine crafted. Needless to say, our efforts were not quite so serenely perfect, but with their aid we all came away with a few pieces of useful pottery.

The following day, we witnessed more skilled craftsmanship in the form of a Kente weaving exposition. Kente is a type of cloth that is distinguished by bright patterns and the way in which it is woven in long, 10 inch wide strips. It is a traditional Ghanaian craft, of which there are two well-established varieties: Ewe Kente and Asante Kente. Starting from the first step of coiling brightly colored cloth on a sequence of spools, we saw the entire process of producing Ewe Kente firsthand.

Eventually, we got to try our hands at the Kente loom, which saw several awkward moments as we struggled to coordinate all of our hands and feet at once into a smooth rhythm to create a pattern in the cloth.We were able to catch this rhythm after a few passes, although we were not nearly as smooth or fast as the expert weavers who were teaching us.

Scattered throughout our visit were drumming and dancing sessions. I had originally wanted to write a separate blog post about the music and dance and my perceptions of it, and perhaps I still will, but I will at least give a description of them here. The traditional dance of the Ewe people is known as Abadja; we have had some previous instruction in it before, but it was on this trip that we really cam into our own with the dance. It can be described somewhat as an opening and closing of the chest or as a “popping” of the shoulders.

It is danced at nearly every Ewe social function, from funerals to weddings to parties, and even on our visit to a traditional shrine we had to get up and get ourselves moving.

The music to accompany this dance is produced entirely by percussion instruments, most importantly a bell that carries a simple beat above the din of the rest of the instruments for the dancers to focus on. A couple of times, we were lucky enough to be beckoned over to the band to play rattles, small drums, or the bell. The complexity of the rhythms and the demanding movements of the dance made it difficult for us to feel that we had really mastered the dance; however, there is no doubt that we improved tremendously over the course of this trip and acquired some level of proficiency in the dance.

On this six day excursion, we were certainly exposed to much traditional Ewe culture through participation in these workshops. There was another aspect of the trip, though, that I found equally enjoyable if not equally culturally relevant. I am referring to the amazing natural beauty that we witnessed during this trip. The Volta Region contains mountains, rivers, waterfalls, a massive lake, and coast, making it abundant in natural beauty. Besides driving through large, inspirational tracts of grassland and forest in our air-conditioned van, we did get to experience some of Volta’s nature directly. On Monday, November 30, we roused ourselves early from an insufficiently long slumber to hike up Afadjato, the tallest mountain in Ghana. Although that sounds extremely impressive, the mountain is only 885 meters high, which is not an incredible elevation to speak of. Despite this, the trail was extremely steep, so that the hike was similar to climbing up large stairs for 45 minutes. When we reached the summit, exhausted, red, and panting but brimming with awe, we absorbed the fantastic view. It was an inspiring moment that did not have as much to do with existing in Ghana as it did existing on the earth where such natural, unspoiled beauty is possible. After receiving mild sunburns (well, at least I did), we hiked back down for a nice lunch and relaxation period.

The following day we visited the beach at Aflao, a town on the border of Ghana and Togo. I took a stroll along the water, impressed by the size of the waves and purity of the water. As I walked back to join my companions, I saw an interesting sight. Looking about 100 meters to sea, I saw a large fishing boat with about 20 men on board. Suddenly, all of the men grabbed a bucket and hurled themselves into the water. Stunned, I just stood and watched as these extremely fit men swam to the beach, supported by their buoyant buckets and body surfing the sizable waves. When they reached the shore, one of them beckoned to me to come join him in the water. When I declined, he asked, “What’s wrong? Can’t you swim?” The only response I could give was, “Not like that I can’t.” I love the ocean and have spent a good deal of time in and around it, but from the look of the current and the waves, I doubted my own abilities to withstand being drawn under and out to sea. In a way, the power of this Ocean, which is technically the same as the one I live next to in the United States, is like so many things I experience in Ghana: they are partly familiar, but they differ in a way that is as awe-inspiring and immeasurable. Walking away from the cool ocean breeze, I was tremendously thankful for my current situation, the people I was with, and the experiences I was having.

The next day, we returned to Accra; I, for one, am refreshed and eager to face the following months. The excursion was a welcome respite from the relative chaos of city life and work; however, it wasn’t just a vacation; it has enriched my visit to Ghana and my appreciation of the visit. It truly was an unforgettable experience.

Riding in a tro-tro provides a great opportunity to buy snacks and junk-food and generally increase my caloric intake. As I ride to work, the abundance of plantain chip, yoghurt, Fanmilk, and doughnut sellers astonishes me. I try not to partake of these foods too much because I am honestly not that hungry between my very large meals and also because I can’t imagine they are very good for me. However, I sometimes allow myself a FanIce,FanYogo, or the occasional “Bofrut,” which is a delicious fried doughnut served with peanuts. Buying on-the-go from street sellers is a really fun and convenient experience that I will surely miss when I return home to my realm of static shopping.

For lunch, I usually have something small, either fried yam with chili pepper sauce or grilled plantain with peanuts. My most significant meal of the day undoubtedly occurs at dinner, which I often help to prepare with my host brother or other family members. I am now a veritable expert at frying plantain:

And I have started to help out with more complicated dishes like this stew, which is one of my absolute favorite foods here:

Some of the foods that are “most Ghanaian” are fufu, banku, and kenkey, although there are many, many other traditional dishes. However, these are all somewhat similar, and I will provide a quick guide on how to eat banku. Banku is made from corn flour and some kasava flour and is constantly stirred while cooked on a high heat. Banku looks very similar to kenkey and fufu, and it is eaten in the same manner. Thus, if you can eat banku, you can eat them all.

Step 1: Look at your meal. That’s the banku on the right and the okro stew on the left.

Step 2: Take a piece of the banku and form a small cup shape. Make sure to use the right hand.

Step 3: Dip the banku into the stew, scoopingup as little or as much as would like.

Step 4: Enjoy! It is helpful (and customary) to swallow banku, fufu, and kenkey without chewing.

So there you have it: a sampling of the foods I commonly eat and enjoy, as well as a basic guide in “how to eat like a Ghanaian.” I can’t really say that I eat like a Ghanaian, though; I am much less efficient and expedient. Despite this, I am trying my best. I have to go now–I think I’m a little late for dinner.

After the surprising success of our conflict resolution workshop, another intern and I decided we would like to organize some similar kind of advocacy program on the topic of sanitation in Agbogbloshie. During the course of our research, we came across some information regarding e-waste in the slum. What we learned is that Agbogbloshie is one of the largest e-waste dump sites in the world–so large, in fact, that ABC news wrote a lengthy article featuring the area and its sanitation woes. The problem, in a nutshell, is that developed countries like the U.S. and those in the European Union have loads and loads of old electronics that they need to dispose of. The easiest way to do this is to ship it off to another country under the guise of “second hand goods.” The reality is that most of these items, which consist largely of old computers and televisions, cannot easily be re-used. Their ultimate fate rests in the hands of scrap dealers, who chip away at the hard drives and melt down the wires for the scrap metal within, processes which releases highly toxic pollutants into the environment. This activity is the livelihood of many residents of Agbogbloshie, who either do not realize how harmful it is to health or just have no other option.

After reading about the scale of this problem, we decided to make the e-waste issue a focus of a major advocacy program. We wrote a bunch of letters, drafted a budget and a proposal, and came up with various ideas for it–and yet we haven’t acted on it. There were a few reasons for this; first, my partner had to travel for a couple of weeks at the height of our zeal and interest in the project. With her gone, I put the project on hiatus as I worked on some other things. When she got back, we had a few other projects to work on–a newsletter for SISS, an advocacy handbook, and a fundraising strategy to name most of them–and so we didn’t talk much about our program. Moreover, we were, and still are, at somewhat of a loss at how to proceed. I have solicited lots of ideas from friends, coworkers, family members, etc., but I am still very unsure what the best avenues are to take. There are many confounding factors that complicated the issue tremendously–political, economic, and otherwise–and the problem seems to have such a global scale that the thought of tackling it is daunting. Despite this, now that these other projects are coming to a close, we have decided to push forward with the program. I have nearly two more months which I can devote solely to this if I so need or chose to; I am interested to see how far we can go with it.

I will provide here a brief overview of what we have tentatively planned for this program. I entreat you all to provide suggestions and feedback; all the idea and help I can get are valuable, and I would really appreciate hearing about what you think. We believe a multi-pronged approach is best. Part of our program will therefore be educational–we hope to get speakers and health experts to give talks on the health problems associated with scrapping e-waste in some of the local churches and mosques, as well as any other venues we can get in the area. Additionally, we have been working on designing some posters to put around the slum depicting an e-waste scrapper suffering from the smoke of a burning computer. Another part of this program will be political advocacy. That is, we will write to members of parliament, ministers, etc. within Ghana as well as those politicians in the countries who are exporting the e-waste. We also feel that public awareness is important in this issue, so we hope to get some airtime on the radio and on TV as well as space in newspapers to run some ads explaining the problems and how to properly dispose of electronics (if that’s really even an option). Finally, we will network with other organizations that have been working with this issue–some international and some Ghanaian–to see what they have been doing and if they have any resources to provide or suggestions to make. This is all a learning process, really; I have little to no experience in any of these areas, so I have no idea how effective these things will be. Again, I would appreciate your feedback, and I will, of course, update everyone when big developments occur.

Thanks kindly,

Cole

Adenta has an almost tropical feel, with palm and coconut trees edging over the walls surrounding peoples’ property. This may not be a spectacular photo, but this is typical Adenta. The reddish-brown, dusty earth cushions my steps as I trek through the heat to my house. I enter through our gate, and I am inevitably sweating through my clothes as I greet Enthios, the trusty guard-dog:

Fun fact: those two big trees in the front yard are mango trees; the Amponsah’s also have two more in the backyard. Essentially, this means that I will be in constant bliss come December, when mangoes are in season.

I shuffle into the house, peel off my saturated garments, and sit down on the edge of my bed to reflect on the day:

When my host brother Akwasi returns from work, I help him to prepare dinner. Usually, his mother has already prepared a delectable stew, so all we have to do is heat it. We also cook rice and cook some yam or plantain to accompany it:

Then, we happily sit down to the delicious meal, which is made even more enjoyable due to my massive appetite:

On weekends when we aren’t traveling through World Learning, I go to the internet cafe, run some errands, relax with my host family, or do my laundry. I am fortunate enough to have a machine that does the washing for me. All that remains is to rinse the clothes, wring them out, and hang them up on the line to dry:

Alternatively, I may help my host mother pound fufu for lunch. Fufu is a doughy ball formed by pounding the hell out of raw kasava and plantain. A very large mortar and pestle are used:

Finally, to close the day, I may just relax on my porch journaling, reading, listening to the radio, or just reflecting:

I am truly blessed to be in such an amazing country with such incredible people. My host family is very supportive and wonderful; each day brings new experiences and insights. I couldn’t be happier with my current living situation. Yɛda Onyame ase.

However, even if at times I become frustrated by the added attention I garner and wish to pass by inconspicuously, I am still grateful that this attention is not, for the most part, negative. Shouts of “oburoni!” and”white man!” are not derogatory; rather, the summoner likes how I look, appreciates that I have come to learn about his country, and wants me to feel accepted. The other day I was stopped by a man as I was walking to the internet cafe. After I responded to his English greeting in Twi, he was really excited that I could speak some Twi despite the serious limitations I have conversing in the language. He gave me his phone number and told me to call him so that we could speak Twi and he could help me with it. This kind of encounter is commonplace; people sincerely (I believe) wish to help me, and they appreciate my efforts no matter how awkward or confused. Although they can make me more aware of the fact that I am a foreigner, I recognize that these encounters are good opportunities for me to learn about the culture, practice my Twi, and potentially make friends.

An interesting development, or I suppose a lack thereof, is that the frequency of such encounters has not decreased since I have been here. I haven’t decided if this is good or bad, but I am just trying to make the best of it and appreciate that I have so many opportunities to converse with people. I believe that this is because there is no way for people to know that I have been here for a while and am relatively Ghana savvy based on my appearance alone. I look just like any other oburoni, inept and dumbstruck with everything I see. As I do talk more with people and use more Twi, though, they see that I am genuinely enthusiastic about experiencing their culture. I have gotten countless offers to visit a person’s house or to go eat fufu or banku with them. I am very flattered and grateful after such positive encounters; still, I am cognizant of the fact that I would not receive nearly as much attention if I was back home.

One thing that I like about these interactions is that stereotypes generally play a small role in them. What I mean is that although Ghanaians sometimes have preconceptions concerning oburoni and, specifically, people from the United States, these prejudgments do not dominate the course of conversation. Ghanaians seem to be more interested in my studies, my work, my health, my family, and and my personal beliefs, than in imposing their beliefs on me. Even in very political conversations, I have not felt that my opinion is judged a certain way because I am from the U.S. I am, of course, immutably linked to the U.S., but most people I have conversed with have recognized that I am not responsible for all of America’s policies and actions and that I do not necessarily agree with all of them. There have been those tough encounters, where I have been told “you have the atomic bomb and we don’t” or “you come over and exploit our resources,” but those are very infrequent. I do think that they have a place, though, because they help me to understand some of the perceptions that the rest of the world has about the U.S. and they challenge my views and beliefs. The best way to be learn about your own beliefs, I have found, is to have to explain them to someone who finds them illogical or even incorrect.

Being different is something that I will have to learn to accept being in Africa. I cannot change how I look, and I can never truly blend in. As difficult as it can be, however, I can take some consolation in knowing that the constant attention I receive offers great potential for learning about society, learning Twi, and just having fun. And, since I have no control over the fact that I stick out like a rose in a field of clover, I may as well make the best of it. So, for the walk home the cafe, I’ll make it a personal goal to greet at least five Ghanaians–in Twi. Here we go.

P.S. I would like to take this opportunity to state publicly that the simile “sweating like a pregnant fish” is not a display of my creativity, as much as I wish it was. It is in fact an invention of the lovely Clara Nsiah, one of our wonderful program directors. But don’t ask me where she came up with that–I have no idea.