Initial Ghana Reaction

So I’ve got to admit, up until now I’ve kind of been writing into the dark. I assumed my readership rested somewhere around 4.5 (four regular readers, one sometimes reader) so to find out there are so many more of you out there is a bit of a shock. I am going to ensure that this knowledge doesn’t affect my voice and I don’t think it will although I may pay more attention to my grammar and vocabulary… I know I’ve been slacking on the adjectives a lot and using “awesome” and “amazing” all encompassingly which is the sign of a bad writer so I will work on that as well (but don’t judge me if I use those words too often… sometime they’re the only way to describe the world!). Really though, it’s weird to find out so many people read your writing. I may just pretend I’m still writing into the dark because censorship kills the truth.

Anyway, I’m back from my Ghanaian homestay. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced in my entire life. So many of our experiences we consider “unique” because they’re so exciting and intense and life changing and we don’t realize that so many before and after us have had and will have the same moments, revelations, even conversations. That being said I believe I have experienced something that over 99.9% of the people living in industrialized nations will never experience… and that is the way the rest of the world, the ones we only know from textbooks and natural disasters and the 6:00 news, live.

I am not sure if I’ll be able to do a full article on my time in Senase right now because I’m still trying to figure it out myself. In conditions dirtier, poorer and more rustic than most of us will ever experience in passing I witnessed more community, love and happiness than I have ever and probably will ever see in a group of people. After traveling over ten hours to get to the Senase village we pulled in around 8pm. Not ten seconds after the bus stopped children of all ages swarmed around it waving, jumping and screaming. As we began to unload the bus the screams, which I thought were at their maximum, became even louder. The majority of the kids were 2-15 but I’m confident no age was missing from our welcome party. The second our bags were down it started, the questions we would hear over and over again the next three days: “What is your name?” “How old are you?” “Flash me!” (take a picture).

Before I continue I want to make it clear just how rustic these conditions are. We were the first white people many of them had ever seen, and sometimes they thought we were celebrities because the only white people they had ever seen were on the tvs in town. There was no plumbing or running water; they showered out of a bucket and had different stages of bathrooms ranging from planks over large holes, small holes in the ground and, in some public places, small closers where people would urinate into drains in the corner. The village is sustainable, meaning they can support themselves from the food they grow, but they have no money coming in so it’s hard to make changes. They do all of their cooking in pots on top of coals outside. Everyone carries everything in baskets on their heads. All of the trash goes into a big pile on one of the edges of the village. During my time there I saw women disposing of trash on top of this huge (like 100 foot long 30 foot tall) mound in sandals, children playing on top of the trash and a dead dog unceremoniously laying in the middle of the hill, though it was later gone and my friend Matt graciously informed of the most likely situation: ones dead pet became some else’s dinner. The children were only fed one meal a day (I’m not sure how often the adults eat) and they not only no tvs, ipods or video games but they also have no toys at all. The only material item I saw any child with was a young girl who had a small plastic pink ring, which she took off and placed on my pinky. Most families have between 5 and 8 kids, which makes for over 2,000 youth in a village of 4,000. The lack of toys causes the children to find other ways to entertain themselves: a lot of soccer (or should I say futbal?), a lot of drumming and a lot of dancing…the six year olds put us to shame without second thought.

I realize I just set up the scene and this is not the time to leave you hanging but I have to go meet my friend Tatiana. We are going to try and find an internet café so I can finally get pictures up for y’all! I promise I’ll finish my writings on Ghana soon because I am anxious to share everything I saw, but I would rather post this now cause it might be a day or two. xoxo