Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Kira
My favorite parts of the trip so far have probably been seeing the drummers and dancers in Accra. Vollunteering at Martyrs of Uganda Jubillee School (a sister school to sma) and being in Akokoamong, painting the classrooms.
Being with the students at Matyrs was a little overwealming but really fun. I did a lot of different things from teaching classes, playing football (soccer), grading books, and just fooling around with the kids. Everytime I would pull out my camera the kids would rush over to me trying to get in that picture. They didn't really care where the other kids were... so they would be pushing and jumping up to try an get in the shot. I got some pretty funny pictures and vidoes. Every morning when I would come to school a lot of little kids would come running up to me and give me a hug or high five.
All of us were in Akokoamong for 3 days (four nights). We set up our misquito nets/ sleeping pads in one classroom and food went in the other classroom. For our community service we painted 2 classrooms with the alphabet. Kay drew pictures for that letter and Jennifer wrote the name of that thing underneath. Both of the classrooms looked really cool!
We arrived in Cape Coast yesterday after a 13 hour car ride! It was a long day.
Tomorrow we are going to Kakum National park where we are doing a canopy walk. I'm really excited.
We only have five more days! This trip has been really fun and has gone by so fast. I'm excited to head home but at the same time I am definatly going to miss Ghana. I guess that means I will just have to come back again soon. :)
Being with the students at Matyrs was a little overwealming but really fun. I did a lot of different things from teaching classes, playing football (soccer), grading books, and just fooling around with the kids. Everytime I would pull out my camera the kids would rush over to me trying to get in that picture. They didn't really care where the other kids were... so they would be pushing and jumping up to try an get in the shot. I got some pretty funny pictures and vidoes. Every morning when I would come to school a lot of little kids would come running up to me and give me a hug or high five.
All of us were in Akokoamong for 3 days (four nights). We set up our misquito nets/ sleeping pads in one classroom and food went in the other classroom. For our community service we painted 2 classrooms with the alphabet. Kay drew pictures for that letter and Jennifer wrote the name of that thing underneath. Both of the classrooms looked really cool!
We arrived in Cape Coast yesterday after a 13 hour car ride! It was a long day.
Tomorrow we are going to Kakum National park where we are doing a canopy walk. I'm really excited.
We only have five more days! This trip has been really fun and has gone by so fast. I'm excited to head home but at the same time I am definatly going to miss Ghana. I guess that means I will just have to come back again soon. :)
Updates from Jennifer
Below is a piece I wrote at the beginning of our days in Akokoamong, which was by far the best time we've had so far in Ghana. Sleeping on the floor of a classroom, making our own meals and even trying our own African drumming circle around a campfire the last night made this time a unique and powerful experience for everyone. Rural life was very different than city life in Kumasi, and the girls agreed that it was their favorite part so far. All are in good health and we're now in Cape Coast; this afternoon we'll go to Elmina Castle, one of the slave castles. I continue to encourage the girls to blog, but our very limited internet access (made worse by regular power outages) has made it difficult to keep you all up to date. I'm sure all the girls will post reflections after we return, and I'm hopeful that a few more will post in our last five days.
REFLECTIONS ON THE OUTSIDER EXPERIENCE
Katie and I enter the small Catholic church close to the end of Sunday mass and every head turns. Distracted from God and prayer, children and adults alike stare at us, the kids whispering and the women eyeing us with a sort of cool curiosity. Music resounds through the small, humble space, where the paint peels from the walls and people kneel with real reverence and hope, their heads bowed not because of the rules but because they are overcome with prayer. The air feels alive with resonant music and a kind of celebratory devotion I've rarely seen before, except perhaps in Black churches in the U.S. After the service ends, we're asked to come up front, to state our mission in Akokoamong and to introduce ourselves. No one speaks much English here in this rural village, and though obruni have come here before, we are still a curiosity. Our Ghanaian coordinator Wendy translates what we say, and they all cheer--especially when we share our Ghanaian names.
An old woman approaches me after the service ends--she keeps repeating my Ghanaian name, given to me by Sister Cecilia at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School: Adua meaning Monday born, and Nyamekye, meaning gift from God (she found it funny when I said I hoped my own mother would agree with the choice, surprised to hear me discribe myself as a difficult child). The old woman keeps saying something in Twi after my name, but all I can do is shrug and say I don't understand. Then Wendy appears to translate: the old woman has a daughter named Adua Nyamekye, she explains, and she's saying that means I'm her daughter, too. I can feel tears rising; her face is soft and kind, her smile wide. "Madasi," I say, "Thank you." And then I say "Madasi Mama," and everyone applauds and laughs as she embraces me.
I've almost always been able to blend as a traveler, I've been mistaken for a Spaniard across Latin America, I look like a local in the Middle East, and I take pride in my ability to adapt to the point that I can blend into almost any environment. But Ghana has been a different experience entirely. After a few days of feeling like a zoo animal here, I've given up and tried to embrace my role as the outsider, a serious challenge to my usual style. Ghanaians certainly seem willing to embrace us, to accept and welcome us in spite of how foreign I know we seem to them. Here in Akokoamong, the children follow us everywhere, peering in through classroom doorways to watch us paint alphabet murals for the nursery classrooms, watching our every move. There is always an audience here, almost as though we've traveled to be seen more than to see.
Two weeks ago, Amber and I were invited to a traditional engagement party in the far north, and we were the first whites ever to visit the small village. Part of the groom's entourage, we kept hearing "obruni" during the ceremony, which was essentially an extensive petition for the bride's father's permission--and then hers--to marry. Amber and I both felt like a distraction from the real point of the event; people kept standing up to take photos of us even more than of the bride and groom, one man even snapping
a photo of Amber during the receiving line as he shook her hand. Several people blocked everyone's view of the bride and groom to stand and photograph us. When we asked later, however, my brother Kojo insisted that we were far from a distraction, and were mentioned only because we increased the value of the groom's petition. The groom's spokesman had basically said that the bride was so special that the groom had even brought obruni in his party, and he claimed that our presence brought Obama's blessings for the couple, a very big deal in a society that sees him as a son of Africa and the next great hope of the world.
I guess sticking out has always felt like a bad thing before Africa. Unwilling to be associated with rude American tourists and disapoionting American values, I've tried always to make myself disappear into every new place I visit. Maybe the change in our administration has helped make it easier to admit I'm an American, but part of it has to be the inherently welcoming, communal nature of Ghanaians. This is about being different in a new way; this is Africa, and I'll never be the same for it.
The entire church community of Akokoamong insists on coming to welcome the rest of our group. With 50 men, women and children alongside us, we walk back to the FST/Loretto schoolhouse. With all our students gathered, the community begins to sing a song of welcome and friendship to us. My new Ghanaian mother smiles sweetly at me from the crowd, and still singing, they all file past to shake our hands and welcome us. "Akwaaba," they say, pressing our hands and joining their voices together to make us one of them, still white but no longer outsiders, invited into this simpler life and the warm embrace of Africa. And I do feel welcomed, and I am changed.
REFLECTIONS ON THE OUTSIDER EXPERIENCE
Katie and I enter the small Catholic church close to the end of Sunday mass and every head turns. Distracted from God and prayer, children and adults alike stare at us, the kids whispering and the women eyeing us with a sort of cool curiosity. Music resounds through the small, humble space, where the paint peels from the walls and people kneel with real reverence and hope, their heads bowed not because of the rules but because they are overcome with prayer. The air feels alive with resonant music and a kind of celebratory devotion I've rarely seen before, except perhaps in Black churches in the U.S. After the service ends, we're asked to come up front, to state our mission in Akokoamong and to introduce ourselves. No one speaks much English here in this rural village, and though obruni have come here before, we are still a curiosity. Our Ghanaian coordinator Wendy translates what we say, and they all cheer--especially when we share our Ghanaian names.
An old woman approaches me after the service ends--she keeps repeating my Ghanaian name, given to me by Sister Cecilia at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School: Adua meaning Monday born, and Nyamekye, meaning gift from God (she found it funny when I said I hoped my own mother would agree with the choice, surprised to hear me discribe myself as a difficult child). The old woman keeps saying something in Twi after my name, but all I can do is shrug and say I don't understand. Then Wendy appears to translate: the old woman has a daughter named Adua Nyamekye, she explains, and she's saying that means I'm her daughter, too. I can feel tears rising; her face is soft and kind, her smile wide. "Madasi," I say, "Thank you." And then I say "Madasi Mama," and everyone applauds and laughs as she embraces me.
I've almost always been able to blend as a traveler, I've been mistaken for a Spaniard across Latin America, I look like a local in the Middle East, and I take pride in my ability to adapt to the point that I can blend into almost any environment. But Ghana has been a different experience entirely. After a few days of feeling like a zoo animal here, I've given up and tried to embrace my role as the outsider, a serious challenge to my usual style. Ghanaians certainly seem willing to embrace us, to accept and welcome us in spite of how foreign I know we seem to them. Here in Akokoamong, the children follow us everywhere, peering in through classroom doorways to watch us paint alphabet murals for the nursery classrooms, watching our every move. There is always an audience here, almost as though we've traveled to be seen more than to see.
Two weeks ago, Amber and I were invited to a traditional engagement party in the far north, and we were the first whites ever to visit the small village. Part of the groom's entourage, we kept hearing "obruni" during the ceremony, which was essentially an extensive petition for the bride's father's permission--and then hers--to marry. Amber and I both felt like a distraction from the real point of the event; people kept standing up to take photos of us even more than of the bride and groom, one man even snapping
a photo of Amber during the receiving line as he shook her hand. Several people blocked everyone's view of the bride and groom to stand and photograph us. When we asked later, however, my brother Kojo insisted that we were far from a distraction, and were mentioned only because we increased the value of the groom's petition. The groom's spokesman had basically said that the bride was so special that the groom had even brought obruni in his party, and he claimed that our presence brought Obama's blessings for the couple, a very big deal in a society that sees him as a son of Africa and the next great hope of the world.I guess sticking out has always felt like a bad thing before Africa. Unwilling to be associated with rude American tourists and disapoionting American values, I've tried always to make myself disappear into every new place I visit. Maybe the change in our administration has helped make it easier to admit I'm an American, but part of it has to be the inherently welcoming, communal nature of Ghanaians. This is about being different in a new way; this is Africa, and I'll never be the same for it.
The entire church community of Akokoamong insists on coming to welcome the rest of our group. With 50 men, women and children alongside us, we walk back to the FST/Loretto schoolhouse. With all our students gathered, the community begins to sing a song of welcome and friendship to us. My new Ghanaian mother smiles sweetly at me from the crowd, and still singing, they all file past to shake our hands and welcome us. "Akwaaba," they say, pressing our hands and joining their voices together to make us one of them, still white but no longer outsiders, invited into this simpler life and the warm embrace of Africa. And I do feel welcomed, and I am changed.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Kay Again
Hello again! It's been quite a while since anything was posted, so I figured I'd write. We have concluded the last of our homestay in Kumasi with hesitant farewells and a feeling of incompleteness. The family stays were so brief in the course of things, and it seemed like we were all just getting settled when we have to move again. But good things always come in lumpy packages- many of us are now nurturing along hopes of returning to Ghana, or of bringing our Ghanaian families to the United States to visit. I, myself, am hoping to get my host brother to the U.S. to attend graduate school at CSU.
The homestay experience has not been an easy one- but it has been more valuable than any other kind of travel I have ever done. I think that the whole group has benefitted immensely from the experience, and I know that we all have a much more realistic and 'down home' understanding of Ghana now. You simply cannot get to know a culture without forcing yourself to become a part of it; to live as the citizens of that culture live. For two weeks we have lived as Ghanaians, with Ghanaians, and in doing so we have begun to understand the true pulse of Ghana.
Although it is a sad thing to leave those who we have come to care about, I know that everyone is also excited to explore new horizons, and that staying with the families here has prepared us well for what adventures may await.
As has been commented often on the trip, I do not think any of us will have a very clear understanding of how the experience has impacted us until we return home. For me, I simply feel the swelling of my entire being filling with new knowledge, new life, new perspectives. What those things actually end up meaning is still to be written. Travel is like writing a textbook, but not actually reading the writings until you have had the book for some time. When the students on this trip finally begin discovering the revelations from this experience it will surely be an amazing thing. I know I can't wait to understand everything.
We're off to Akokoamong (sp?) today. Four nights and three days working on the new school.
That's all for now!
-Kay
The homestay experience has not been an easy one- but it has been more valuable than any other kind of travel I have ever done. I think that the whole group has benefitted immensely from the experience, and I know that we all have a much more realistic and 'down home' understanding of Ghana now. You simply cannot get to know a culture without forcing yourself to become a part of it; to live as the citizens of that culture live. For two weeks we have lived as Ghanaians, with Ghanaians, and in doing so we have begun to understand the true pulse of Ghana.
Although it is a sad thing to leave those who we have come to care about, I know that everyone is also excited to explore new horizons, and that staying with the families here has prepared us well for what adventures may await.
As has been commented often on the trip, I do not think any of us will have a very clear understanding of how the experience has impacted us until we return home. For me, I simply feel the swelling of my entire being filling with new knowledge, new life, new perspectives. What those things actually end up meaning is still to be written. Travel is like writing a textbook, but not actually reading the writings until you have had the book for some time. When the students on this trip finally begin discovering the revelations from this experience it will surely be an amazing thing. I know I can't wait to understand everything.
We're off to Akokoamong (sp?) today. Four nights and three days working on the new school.
That's all for now!
-Kay
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