This week I helped student with science fair project, we
made a solar oven, and it was awesome.
I made bread in a crock pot, twice.
This week was a big leap forward in my personal progress in
Ghana.
I was walking with Miriam my science fair student through
the bush on the way to the road. I asked
her if she was nervous about this science camp, it is for the whole region. She said “Yes. I am going to be the only one there. I will not know anyone. I will not have friends.”
“Miriam. You have to
get over that. You just gotta stick your
hand out and smile and talk to people like they’ve been your friends for a long
time.” And I thought about it and it all
felt very close to home.
I said “Miriam, when I was in university, where I went t
church, if there was ever a new person at church, my friends would push me
toward the new person. Always. That was my job, to talk to the new person
because I was not shy and I talk to everyone like they are my friend. But you know?
Then I came to Ghana *shakes head* and everything changed. It is not easy to talk to people. I am shy and when people greet me I say ‘Na,
na, na’ very quiet, like a small child.”
She laughed at my quiet impression.
“I am shy here. But I am not
usually shy; you have to have confidence Miriam. You have a very good project and people are
going to love it and they will come to you and ask you to make them cakes.”
Miriam is 13. Last
time I met her, we were on the same tro-tro (bus) coming home. As I walked with her on this same bush path
to our homes, she was carrying two large bags of liquor sachets. Her Mom sells the alcohol and sent Miriam to
town (20 miles away) by herself to buy all this alcohol and bring it home. Mom has since stopped selling alcohol because
the men were taking it and never paying.
But all this really made a shift in my brain and behavior. All through Pre Service training, you try to
soak up all the information you can from current volunteers, and you come to
site thinking you have an okay idea of what to expect. This is normal. That is culture. This is how Ghanaians are. And you know what? Forget it.
I feel like I’ve been doing what people told me to do. Greet everyone. Speak in Ghanaians English. Blah blah blah. And while all these things could be great
advice. At some point, you gotta do
you. And I feel like by being this
person who does all they are told and hits marks and follows rules, and
forgetting themselves and their personality…its kinda cheating the Ghanaians.
I haven’t really socialized with them. I do what is required and socially acceptable
and then I race back to my house to be alone reading a book with no pants
on. Because being someone else, someone
who tries so desperately to belong and to follow the rules of “this culture” is
exhausting. How about, I do me, and then
the Ghanaians get to see how Americans really are.
And you know what?
They dig it. Last week I came to
church at 10:30 which is when the sermon usually starts, after like two hours
of praise/worship/break dance time. But
no one told me they were starting earlier now, and right when I walked in and
sat down, they dismissed. I was
delighted with my luck. Later some kids
yelled at me while I was in my garden, they said “Sista Alyssa, you were late
to church today.” They laughed and I
yelled back “Yes, well, I try to time my coming to church with when I think the
sermon will start.” And they laughed
harder, I think they were a little shocked at my honesty.
Or when I do not want to sit in my neighbors house watching “TV
Joshua” who is healing a woman possessed by the devil and addicted to eating ice
cubes. And they say “You do not have
television, don’t you want to stay and watch?
What will you do in your house?”
“Ahhhhhhh, nothing.
But I want to go.” Honest. Done.
Easy.
I also think people can tell I am being fake and I think it
has harmed relationships. And I do not
think speaking in Ghanaian English helps me.
Not at Kings Village. I think
people know I am speaking to them differently and I do not think they like
it. So I’m stopping. I’m going to talk to them normal.
I just need to do me.
People react to that well and it is so much easier to make friends and
real relationships. I just feel like
being loud again. For the last ten
months, I’ve been so…well behaved. I’m not
loud, I do not yell at people, I do not burst laugh, I don’t make fun of
people, I do not even tell people they are wrong. Like when an Ashanti man who thinks he is so
smart misidentifies corn. I do not
correct. I nod, I let it go. And that’s fine! Look at how mature I’ve become.
This observant, quiet person…I don’t know. Its fine to be that way but it feels so…sad
and exhausting and kinda like my personality and soul are being kept in America
while I’m over here being culturally appropriate and trying to blend into the
back and not be noticed.
Well I’m done, call it regression. I call it progress. Somehow, being yourself feels like a lesson I
should have learned by now.
