You Do You.

Hannah,

    One of the new volunteers is from Purdue!  We only have one mutual friend but he looks familiar.  Said he came into Vienna a lot, so I’m sure that’s why I felt like I knew him.  He just looks like hes from Purdue, the Midwest, home.

I meant to call you this week.  I decided that it was just one of those days that I needed to talk to my best girlfriend and I was going to switch out the Mom talk time with Hannah talk time, but then I clean ran out of credit.  So!  Next week, promise, you are the first on the list.

Today is my first day bout of food poisoning.  I was so stupid Hannah, how could I have been so stupid?

I was invited to this fancy lunch with some VP of our implementer, flown in from DC to see our project.  And all the other white people were sure to throw out their ice, but I cracked open my coke, poured it over the ice and didn’t think about it.  One, I like to think that even though I run my tap water through a filter, I feel like the filter isn’t 100 percent and you know, I’ve been here over a year and surely I am immune to anything in the treated water.  Two, in all my time over here, I have never been served ice and honestly didn’t think about it until it was too late and I wasn’t about to waste Coke.  And too, it could have been the fact that I ordered the salad.  THE SALAD.  Everyone knows that’s a dumb decision.  All I know is, I saw the words Greek, salad and feta and I was like, yep!  That’s for me.

I knew things weren’t right today when I woke up and downed a jar of Gatorade off the bat.  I mean, it’s hot season and I’m always a little dehydrated/nauseous/not 100 percent, but I’ve never been that out of it.

You know in the movies when people have the flu or hangovers and they’re heads are in the toilet and you just think, ick, why is your face so near that TOILET?  That’s how I feel.  You know that exhaustion that makes you lie face first on a public restroom floor, happy to just be able to put your head down?  I’m there.

I cried for my mother. 

There is a group of 20 New Jersey kids here for the week. 

This is an area I should tell you about, how PC’s react to other white people.  The fact is, we don’t.  I never realized this until I visited Vince down in Kumasi and he said it was so weird how I reacted to other white people I saw on the street.  You kinda look at them, then avoid and them.  Mostly because I can tell immediately if they are anyone I want to talk to, and honestly, if I don’t know you, if you’re not PC, I don’t want to talk to you. Here is a list of the white people types you see in Ghana.

1.          You’re a Northern European girl here “volunteering” i.e hanging with rastas.  No interest in talking to you.
2.          You are here for the week on missions.  No interest in talking to you.
3.          You are here as an AID/Embassy worker.  No interest in talking to you.  Some PC’s like to use these people for good food, a nice bed, I don’t.
4.          You are here on vacation. 
5.          You are here to make money.  Mining, road construction, oil, staple crops or other, my opinion, you do you, keep it legal.
6.         You are here on study abroad.  This is rare, but more common in the south.  These kids are doing their thing and I’m gonna do mine.  We don’t have much to say to each other.

So Sunday at church, where normally I am the only White, I was one of many.  Despite being a little curious about them, my plan was to get out of church ASAP.  But then I was pulled over and introduced and invited to dinner the following week to talk to the kids about what I do.

I worried a little about this.  Mostly because I avoid mission trips, especially youth missions abroad.  I never exactly understood it, and honestly it always appeared more selfish and miseducated than anything else.  I never understood going to a needy country and building a school.  I mean, why wouldn’t you employ a local to build it?  Someone who, I don’t know, has built a school before.  I’ve never built a school, therefore I feel a little silly travel thousands of miles to do something that is not my specialty, and that honestly, someone else could do better.

And are they gonna put teachers in that school??  Are you gonna build teachers quarters where teachers are going to want to come and live and teach?  Because if you’re in the Bush, you’re gonna be hard pressed to get a city person teaching there.

Oh you brought toffee?  That’s brilliant, kids are gonna love that, but then what?  What did you bring that will last them?  That will honestly better their life?  What did you really come to do?  In talking to other PCV’s it comes down to, what is your purpose?? 

I sat in church and counted them.  Added up how much they probably spent on airfare.  30 grand, at least and I thought, who funded this?  Your parents gave you that money?  You raised it?  Okay.  I thought about Singa, the community I went to visit the previous week.  I murky water I saw them drinking.  The well I saw half dug, in a desperate attempt to find water.  I wondered the price of a bore hole, a well, a pipeline from the river.  I thought about my farmers begging for a rice mill.  Not that I would agree with giving a rice mill, but honestly, you want to give?  Give ‘em what they want, oh they’d love you forever.  Instead, you fly over and bring toffee.  So who is it for really?  Is your purpose to better other lives, or is it to better yours?  To make you grateful for what you have.  To make you well traveled, to give you stories to tell and a warm place in your heart for the good that you’ve done.

And so I questioned if I should even go to dinner.  What if I said something offensive?  What if I got on my high horse?  What if I told all the good PC poop stories over dinner?  What if this negative side of AID that I’ve witnessed comes out?  What if all my negative about all the crappy things in this life come out and I’m a terrible guest they just see as sweaty, swollen and sad?

I was in town a couple days and after the fated food poisoning meal, I grabbed a tro tro back home, hoping to make it in time for dinner.  It was the slowest tro tro, I swear.  We stopped everywhere.  The driver only ever went about 15 mph, and we stopped to say hi to his friends and pick things up and drop things off.  The 20 mile ride home took 2 hours.  I was on the window, had forgotten sun screen, and ended up putting a hankie over my head and pretended to be asleep.

That night when I entered the guest house, oh Lord.  It’s a great guest house, theres a big screened in veranda and a big table that can easily seat the 25 of them.  Hannah, there were boxes and BOXES of 1.5 liter pure water, there were envelopes hanging from a wall with each of their names, like mailboxes.  On the table were 20+ water bottles filled with every different color of Gatorade.  There were those giant, clear tubs of assorted nuts that you get from Sam’s club.

“How long are you guys here?” I asked.

“Till Sunday.  Ten days.”

They weren’t refilling the water bottles.  They brought enough water, in bottles, for 20+ people for ten days during hot season.  I was surprised, but again, no judgement, they can do them.

And as nervous and awkward as I thought it was going to be, Hannah, they were the coolest kids I’ve ever met.  So nice and respectful and caring.  Highly organized, they were in teams, there was a dinner shift, a cleaning crew, one kid assigned every night to announce what dinner was, and always one assigned to pray and it was such a nice, caring prayer!

They had so many questions.  I was honest about everything, the dark side of AID, my reservations about giving, even hinted I think at my misgivings about mission trips.  But their leader was so great and kind and patient.  They told me about their work, how they fully believed in teaching men to fish, and how that day they were digging soak away pits.  Soak away pits are a place for urinal run off to go to, so they don’t create a giant pool of festering green sludge.  I was proud of them.  Spirits were high and it was at the very least up lifting…and fun.  And it made me resent PC for not allowing more than one volunteer in a community.

They sent me home with a granola bar and get this, OREO’s!  As much as I denied them, I told them they could gift me everything after they left but I didn’t want anything now, they wouldn’t hear it.  I seriously almost cried.  That might have been the hormones.

As much as I do hope they gift me some Gatorade as they leave, honestly, I don’t want anything else. 

That night, I left their house and walked home with my neighbor Judith.  Judith always takes care of the missions teams.  She makes sure the food it ready and to their liking.  Makes sure they have everything they need and their schedules solid.  It had to be nine o’clock when she was returning home to her family and I knew she would be out of the house by 6 the next morning, earlier if it was staff devotional day.  I felt guilty leaving the house with oreos.  Why did I deserve those?  I didn’t.  Judith WORKS, the woman works hard.  I felt so gross.  But then Judith told me that they brought her the laptop she has been trying to get here from the States, so I think she is happy.

All the PC’s told me to try to get the missionaries left over hair supplies.  And in my first year, I would have.  And given that they probably don’t care to take it back and that none of the Ghanaian women would use it, maybe it’s an okay idea.  Here again, I don’t need it.  I’m doing fine without it.   But it was nice.  Oh man, they were so nice.  But I wouldn’t care if they didn’t give them to me.  I’m happy to just have dinner and talk.

Once again, it reminds me of how much I feel restricted here.  Like I can’t be myself or I’m too tired to be.  I loved talking about myself all night, answering questions, talking about country music.  Saying funny thing, hearing funny things, laughing and meeting new, nice people.  They said they have devotion after dinner most nights and I was welcome to take part.  I would LOVE to take part.

A couple kids came up asking questions after, very interested in the PC.  They are so…passionate about God and service.  Yet to be phased by all the, well to put it literally, shit. 

This week too brought the new installment of PCV’s fresh off the boat, talkative and ready to hit the ground running.

I’m jealous of them and their…excitement.

I’m annoyed by them and their…naivety.

The only question worth mentioning during dinner was when I was asked if I ever thought about missions.   My answer?  The truth, no, I have never felt called into missions.  Why do I feel like contemporary religion puts less… "call" into missions than I do?  I feel like to be a “missionary” your heart has to be in that 100 percent.  That’s one of those things you can’t go into because you have nothing better to do.  Its something that you have to know without a doubt that God wants you to do.  That’s a really serious thing to me. 

I felt like bringing up how I feel about converting the Muslims in the area to Christians.  It’s not that I’m against people finding Jesus, I am happy to hear that people are!  Truly.  I guess wanting people to be true to themselves and their culture and wanting them to “do them” makes me a bad Christian if it means them staying Muslim? 

The truth is I question it all.  I think Christianity offers an out for women oppressed by the Muslim faith and their husbands that interpret it as they will.  I think Christianity offers women a voice, a place, equality and a sort of freedom and respect.

I want people to find Jesus, is it wrong to want to them to want Him for other reasons?  What about the idea that people choose Christianity because it is the White Man’s God?  And maybe our God will bless them as He has blessed us?  More than their God has blessed them?  It’s all the same God.  I know.  And   I don’t know that that is a thing that people do, but when I put myself in their shoes, it makes sense.  And when you think about all these white people coming to give you things, and send your kids to school?  I see where it could be a tempting or easy transition, in individual or community.

What if they come to the Christian church for the social aspect?  Or for the electric fans?  Or the fancy decorations and sound system.  Or because they like to dance around with their girlfriends.  Or they like being told how much there is a God that loves them and will take care of them.  Maybe they are told that at mosque too, but from what I understand they go to mosque and pray, but they pray in a language they don’t understand.  They don’t even know what they are saying, but they follow along.

I’ve rarely heard salvation preached, or seen any kind of, I can’t even remember the word it’s been so long, communion, that’s is.  Church is singing, dancing, feeling good, some healing, some screaming, some good words and done.  It all comes down to if you believe you can repeat some words and be saved, if you can lose salvation, if you can be talked into joining our group by someone who knows something you don’t.

Where is the good and where is the bad?  And what’s the other option?  Not letting people know about Jesus?

I just don’t know.  Maybe I should figure out what I know and where I stand and stand up for God and my beliefs, and yet, no.  This is their culture, this is how they do things and they are happy in it, and I’m going to let them be happy, because who am I to do otherwise.

What do I deem a worthy reason to come to this faith?  A call?  A true heart.  Maybe even sheer curiosity.

Church is a theatrical show I would rather not take part in.  When I think about extending a third year, the idea of being away from my kind of worship stops me.  I thought I could get over this, see God in everything, in every faith and person and to some extent I can, but I don’t know if its enough.

Ghana feels like one big country trying to be the first world but holding on to the fact that they still want to poop in the Bush.  You can’t have both.  Ghana, you have to come around. You have to stop putting such emphasis on appearance and wealth and status and put first things first.

You have to learn that the point of giving and tithe is NOT just to receive more in return.  You have to give to bless, not just to be blessed, despite what you are told in church.

I’d like to see what Ghana can do if all the first world just left them alone.  But then where would the AID industry that we’ve created go?  Americans would be out of jobs.  Billions of dollars used elsewhere.

Bringing all this to a point and a close, the NJ team restored my faith in youth group mission trips, those kids are doing it right.  And they did more in a week than I did in a year.  It was great to be around them and painful at the same time.  I was restored and broken down.  Just seeing them gave me hope, hope of home and relationships and opportunities that wait there.  But this is my time to be here.

I’ve jumped around in these last few pages, sorry about that.  Seems I couldn’t find a place to stop and one thing leads to another.  I’ll leave you here.  I need more Gatorade anyway. 

Haven’t heard anything about March Madness, heard Duke got beat and Louisville meets UK sometime. 

Enjoy the season, spring is the best.

AB