I've been thinking about this blog for a while. Not sure what to say. I thought about a bunch of different things-- themes, if you will. Still haven't come up with anything, but, I think, I'm just going to go for it. Otherwise, this blog is going to become incredibly outdated...
The last months, weeks, and day in Ghana were incredible in so many ways, and exhausting and stressful in so many others. The last three market days I went to ended in wet, rainy nightmares, walking through inches of mud in the middle of the night to get home. I packed my days with friends, and it never seemed like enough. I passed out of my sewing apprenticeship and became an official "Madame." I was enstooled as a chief in my community, wrapped in a black and white cloth called "May God Bless You Until We Meet Again."
On my last morning, I stood at the side of road, encompanied by my closest friends. An hour and a half later I was hoisted into a big Benz bus. My bags were thrown up after me. I looked out the window-- at Lucy, Solomon, Hannah, Pigri, and Sofu, taking them in, trying so hard to absorb them into my very being and burn their images onto my retinas. Never wanting to forget anything.
I watched Ofosu pass me by and leave my sight for who knows how long, and then I hid my face in my shirt and cried. The driver turned and asked me why. I said, "Me ku fie." I'm going home.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Monday, June 21, 2010
Whatever the meaning or purpose may be, I’m not sure, but we can figure that out later
The necessary exposition: Scarily enough, two years ago now (scary, because, it’s already been two years) I was writing my undergraduate “capstone,” a thesis of sorts, if you will, about the theatre’s role in forming/ fathoming/ creating a national identity in postcolonial Zambia. This all began long before I knew I was coming to Ghana or Africa, back when joining the Peace Corps was somewhat of a whimsical idea that had popped into my head.
In short, the capstone was comprised of a litany of complications, double standards, and impossibilities, which are inherently part and parcel of an already complicated state of affairs. In writing it, I came off as somewhat of a mediator, piecing each piece together in an attempt to do what, I’m not exactly sure. It’s still a work in progress. Anyway, a reoccurring theme in my research was these drama competitions between national dramatic troupes comprised of ex-pats and Zambians alike, sometimes exclusive, sometimes not. Some were geared towards urban audiences, and others, rural communities. Judges were often brought in from Britain, for whatever reason you might like to derive, to preside over the affairs, and an overarching complaint was that these judges were never able to maintain an unbiased opinion. Traditional Zambian troupes complained that western conceptions of drama were different from their own, and the judges were unable to part from their preconceived notions of how drama should operate on the stage. This point was most poignantly articulated to me when one Zambian troupe member described in an article that the pinnacle of his drama brought the Zambian audience to their knees in fits of laughter, while the British judges sat back, tears brimming in their eyes. I say most poignantly, because I never really understand how. What exactly happened on stage to produce such disparate reactions? I perused the manuscripts for clues and remained in the dark, lingering there through finals and long after I handed in my capstone, received a grade, and graduated—a difference in humor, I probably explained it in my most scholarly and knowing façade. Four months later, I boarded the plane for Accra.
Now, obviously, we can’t talk of Africa in any sort of blanket statement, but I found, through my research, that many parallels could be drawn throughout Africa in regards to this particular topic, which is why I’m going to make the conclusion I’m going to make in about one paragraph. Sorry if I ruined the ending.
So, about a year ago now, I was working at a secondary school here in Ghana with some students who were competing in a drama competition. There were four separate groups, and all of the dramas were to be about family planning—in NGO/ politically correct/ government friendly lingo, that’s all the different modes of contraceptives available in Ghana at this time. The students were thrilled, as any sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old would be, to talk about sex. In all of the dramas some handsome, youthful couple engaged in a sexual innuendo that resulted in pregnancy, however, only in one, did the young girl decide to have an abortion. She ate charcoal—an all too common method of abortion among the youth in rural communities and probably urban too. After finding out she was pregnant, she (we’re speaking of the actress) runs home and ingests the charcoal, sending her into spastic fits, full-heartedly performed, and leaving her on the ground dead. The actress’s audience of peers jumped up from their seats laughing, shouting, clapping, and high-fiving one and other. I sat uneasily in my seat, not wanting to be held responsible by the headmaster for this seemingly tasteless outburst. I searched for his concerned face in the crowd, unable to find it, because such a concerned face didn’t exist. Rather, I found him laughing and clapping along side of the students. I turned to the Ghanaian judges, male and female I should specify to eliminate any elements of misogyny, and they also followed suit. I too began laughing, possibly out of relief, but, I think, even more so because I finally knew what that he had meant.
In short, the capstone was comprised of a litany of complications, double standards, and impossibilities, which are inherently part and parcel of an already complicated state of affairs. In writing it, I came off as somewhat of a mediator, piecing each piece together in an attempt to do what, I’m not exactly sure. It’s still a work in progress. Anyway, a reoccurring theme in my research was these drama competitions between national dramatic troupes comprised of ex-pats and Zambians alike, sometimes exclusive, sometimes not. Some were geared towards urban audiences, and others, rural communities. Judges were often brought in from Britain, for whatever reason you might like to derive, to preside over the affairs, and an overarching complaint was that these judges were never able to maintain an unbiased opinion. Traditional Zambian troupes complained that western conceptions of drama were different from their own, and the judges were unable to part from their preconceived notions of how drama should operate on the stage. This point was most poignantly articulated to me when one Zambian troupe member described in an article that the pinnacle of his drama brought the Zambian audience to their knees in fits of laughter, while the British judges sat back, tears brimming in their eyes. I say most poignantly, because I never really understand how. What exactly happened on stage to produce such disparate reactions? I perused the manuscripts for clues and remained in the dark, lingering there through finals and long after I handed in my capstone, received a grade, and graduated—a difference in humor, I probably explained it in my most scholarly and knowing façade. Four months later, I boarded the plane for Accra.
Now, obviously, we can’t talk of Africa in any sort of blanket statement, but I found, through my research, that many parallels could be drawn throughout Africa in regards to this particular topic, which is why I’m going to make the conclusion I’m going to make in about one paragraph. Sorry if I ruined the ending.
So, about a year ago now, I was working at a secondary school here in Ghana with some students who were competing in a drama competition. There were four separate groups, and all of the dramas were to be about family planning—in NGO/ politically correct/ government friendly lingo, that’s all the different modes of contraceptives available in Ghana at this time. The students were thrilled, as any sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old would be, to talk about sex. In all of the dramas some handsome, youthful couple engaged in a sexual innuendo that resulted in pregnancy, however, only in one, did the young girl decide to have an abortion. She ate charcoal—an all too common method of abortion among the youth in rural communities and probably urban too. After finding out she was pregnant, she (we’re speaking of the actress) runs home and ingests the charcoal, sending her into spastic fits, full-heartedly performed, and leaving her on the ground dead. The actress’s audience of peers jumped up from their seats laughing, shouting, clapping, and high-fiving one and other. I sat uneasily in my seat, not wanting to be held responsible by the headmaster for this seemingly tasteless outburst. I searched for his concerned face in the crowd, unable to find it, because such a concerned face didn’t exist. Rather, I found him laughing and clapping along side of the students. I turned to the Ghanaian judges, male and female I should specify to eliminate any elements of misogyny, and they also followed suit. I too began laughing, possibly out of relief, but, I think, even more so because I finally knew what that he had meant.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Improv, Found Space, Street… Defining Theatre
A blurb I wrote recently...
I was in the kitchen preparing lunch when I heard a cacophony of angry shouting, skin slapping, and one distinct frightened cry, which I knew, from experience, belonged to Gloria. My four year old neighbor, who just weeks ago contracted some sort of respiratory infection, fell into a coma, and woke up paralyzed on the right side of her body. The brain damage seemed severe. A once talkative, rather gregarious girl was reduced to one sound- one sporadic frightened wale that could wake you up in the middle of night, bringing tears of desperation to your eyes.
I walked to the window to get a view of the commotion. I saw a group of about four women from another part of town with cutlasses and picks in hand. They were struggling on Gloria’s left arm, while Gloria’s mother was struggling back on the right. Gloria, being tosses and turned in the middle, shouting out of the left corner of her mouth, is broken free from her mother, and the women carry her to the side of the house where I now see a large hole that they previously dug. The women dangle Gloria over the hole, as her grandfather sprints to her rescue. Gloria’s mother’s attention is now diverted to the yams boiling over on the fire. As she tends to lunch, the grandfather frees Gloria from the grasps of the women and steals her away to the safety of her room. Outstretching his limbs into an “X,” he blockades the door. By this time, I’ve left my kitchen and am standing in front of the house with a number of other spectators. The women beat the grandfather, shouting at them to allow them access to the child. One scrappy woman, succeeds in entering the room, but becomes blockaded inside, Gloria in hand. Gloria’s mother continues to stir the pot.
I turn to my landlord and say, “They are fighting,” fishing for some sort of explanation.
He replies, “Yes. Gloria’s sickness is too much. She is alive, but she wants to die. That is why she is not getting better. So, the women have come to bury her. “
Speechless for a moment, mulling over exactly what he’s telling me, “So, does the mother want them to bury her?”
“No.” I begin wondering why she then seems more preoccupied with pounding fufuo, than with her daughter who is in the process of being buried alive.
Gloria’s grandfather is yelling at the women to go home and leave the girl alone. I see a smile creasing the corner of her mother’s mouth when she sees me watching. She laughs my name under her breath, which isn’t all that atypical, but I still wonder why.
Things seem to die down. Spectators begin resuming to their homes. It seems Gloria will not face her death today, but I’m still standing there. Leaving, to me, just doesn’t feel appropriate. Standing beside me, my friend lets out a sigh and a brief chuckle of amused satisfaction.
He turns to me, “Uh hoo. I don’t know how to say it…They were playing. They were making a play. That is our tradition. This is what we do when someone is sick like that.”
It was staged. The grandfather had requested these women from another clan to come and do what they could not—to “bury” Gloria. Maybe to scare the sickness out of her—to instill the fear and reality of death in a girl who seems to have given up on life.
Many scholars contend there is no historical theatrical tradition in Africa that predates the western tradition. What theatre that does exist now is assumed a result of westernization or colonialism.
When describing pan-African culture, however, an anthropologist can hardly overlook the inherent theatrics. How can two such truths co-exist? Personally, I would contend that they cannot, but it truly depends on what you allow harbor under your umbrella of “theatre.” I prefer to maintain a rather larger, all-encompassing, perhaps multi-printed, umbrella myself. But, I guess, using an umbrella in African rains (with the exception of North Africa, which isn’t generally characterized with monstrous rains) would be like swimming in raincoat, anyhow. Why? And, who cares?
Anyway, aponche is a goat…
I was in the kitchen preparing lunch when I heard a cacophony of angry shouting, skin slapping, and one distinct frightened cry, which I knew, from experience, belonged to Gloria. My four year old neighbor, who just weeks ago contracted some sort of respiratory infection, fell into a coma, and woke up paralyzed on the right side of her body. The brain damage seemed severe. A once talkative, rather gregarious girl was reduced to one sound- one sporadic frightened wale that could wake you up in the middle of night, bringing tears of desperation to your eyes.
I walked to the window to get a view of the commotion. I saw a group of about four women from another part of town with cutlasses and picks in hand. They were struggling on Gloria’s left arm, while Gloria’s mother was struggling back on the right. Gloria, being tosses and turned in the middle, shouting out of the left corner of her mouth, is broken free from her mother, and the women carry her to the side of the house where I now see a large hole that they previously dug. The women dangle Gloria over the hole, as her grandfather sprints to her rescue. Gloria’s mother’s attention is now diverted to the yams boiling over on the fire. As she tends to lunch, the grandfather frees Gloria from the grasps of the women and steals her away to the safety of her room. Outstretching his limbs into an “X,” he blockades the door. By this time, I’ve left my kitchen and am standing in front of the house with a number of other spectators. The women beat the grandfather, shouting at them to allow them access to the child. One scrappy woman, succeeds in entering the room, but becomes blockaded inside, Gloria in hand. Gloria’s mother continues to stir the pot.
I turn to my landlord and say, “They are fighting,” fishing for some sort of explanation.
He replies, “Yes. Gloria’s sickness is too much. She is alive, but she wants to die. That is why she is not getting better. So, the women have come to bury her. “
Speechless for a moment, mulling over exactly what he’s telling me, “So, does the mother want them to bury her?”
“No.” I begin wondering why she then seems more preoccupied with pounding fufuo, than with her daughter who is in the process of being buried alive.
Gloria’s grandfather is yelling at the women to go home and leave the girl alone. I see a smile creasing the corner of her mother’s mouth when she sees me watching. She laughs my name under her breath, which isn’t all that atypical, but I still wonder why.
Things seem to die down. Spectators begin resuming to their homes. It seems Gloria will not face her death today, but I’m still standing there. Leaving, to me, just doesn’t feel appropriate. Standing beside me, my friend lets out a sigh and a brief chuckle of amused satisfaction.
He turns to me, “Uh hoo. I don’t know how to say it…They were playing. They were making a play. That is our tradition. This is what we do when someone is sick like that.”
It was staged. The grandfather had requested these women from another clan to come and do what they could not—to “bury” Gloria. Maybe to scare the sickness out of her—to instill the fear and reality of death in a girl who seems to have given up on life.
Many scholars contend there is no historical theatrical tradition in Africa that predates the western tradition. What theatre that does exist now is assumed a result of westernization or colonialism.
When describing pan-African culture, however, an anthropologist can hardly overlook the inherent theatrics. How can two such truths co-exist? Personally, I would contend that they cannot, but it truly depends on what you allow harbor under your umbrella of “theatre.” I prefer to maintain a rather larger, all-encompassing, perhaps multi-printed, umbrella myself. But, I guess, using an umbrella in African rains (with the exception of North Africa, which isn’t generally characterized with monstrous rains) would be like swimming in raincoat, anyhow. Why? And, who cares?
Anyway, aponche is a goat…
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Happy St. Patty's Day!
Like a broken record, I will say, it's been far too long since my last post. I hope everyone's new year is continuing on smoothly. This is probably the last acceptable time for me to refer to it as a new year, though it may already be inappropriate. I think blog posting sometime forces a moral or lesson to be learned. And, apparently, I don't have any morals and/or lessons to impart upon my audience. I mean, obviously, I'm learning new things yada yada, but I don't know that they are all that entertaining for you visual pleasure. I was reading a Peace Corps memoir the other day, and the author wrote, "Africa was everything I never knew before, until I got to know it." I feel that's fitting and rather axiomatic, though I'm just going to use it in reference to myself and Ghana, in this case. I kind of wish I would have said it myself. It's true. 20 months ago, Ghana was enigmatic, convoluted being, with whom my relationship with was very dispersive. And now, it's just like any other place, think, or relationship. I could be anywhere, and I'm here. It's a home. Maybe not my biological, hereditorial (is that a word?) home, but it's a home that is mine, nonetheless.
Work is good. Busy. Life is also good. There's a new baby in my life. Babies are my new past-time. Her name is Gladys, and she never cries and always laughs. Unless she's hungry, but she isn't even hungry all that much. I'd probably steal her if I was at all ready to have a baby full-time in life. But for now, I'm sticking to part-time. Part, part-time even. Anyway, I love her.
Bismark, who is the most faithful and consistent baby in my life, is a complete and utter riot these days. He's even becoming too cool to have me around him and his friends sometimes. I thought my novelty may have had a little more longevity, given my disparate-ness/melatonin levels. But, alas.
Enough about babies you don't know. I saw a snake yesterday. A VERY prodigious snake. It was longer than me, and, if it was alive, it definately could have consumed me. So I'm told, this type of snake likes to move rather surreptiously, hiding in trees and then POUNCING on its predator, strangling it do death and then eating it. Make me not want to go to farm anytime soon.
I'm studying some new vocab in prepartion for the GREs, in case you wondering what all these awkward words were about. They're not my real vocabulary. Just my fake GRE-prep vocab, so you can ignore them and I'm sure the condition will go away on its on post-examination in June. I'm still a little stumped on the significance of quaff, however. "To drink deeply." When and how should I use that? And what exactly do they mean by drinking deeeeply. It sounds a little vampiresque to me, which doesn't entirely make me feel comfortable with the word nor its relevance to my post-graduate education...
I still miss you.
Love, Cyn
Work is good. Busy. Life is also good. There's a new baby in my life. Babies are my new past-time. Her name is Gladys, and she never cries and always laughs. Unless she's hungry, but she isn't even hungry all that much. I'd probably steal her if I was at all ready to have a baby full-time in life. But for now, I'm sticking to part-time. Part, part-time even. Anyway, I love her.
Bismark, who is the most faithful and consistent baby in my life, is a complete and utter riot these days. He's even becoming too cool to have me around him and his friends sometimes. I thought my novelty may have had a little more longevity, given my disparate-ness/melatonin levels. But, alas.
Enough about babies you don't know. I saw a snake yesterday. A VERY prodigious snake. It was longer than me, and, if it was alive, it definately could have consumed me. So I'm told, this type of snake likes to move rather surreptiously, hiding in trees and then POUNCING on its predator, strangling it do death and then eating it. Make me not want to go to farm anytime soon.
I'm studying some new vocab in prepartion for the GREs, in case you wondering what all these awkward words were about. They're not my real vocabulary. Just my fake GRE-prep vocab, so you can ignore them and I'm sure the condition will go away on its on post-examination in June. I'm still a little stumped on the significance of quaff, however. "To drink deeply." When and how should I use that? And what exactly do they mean by drinking deeeeply. It sounds a little vampiresque to me, which doesn't entirely make me feel comfortable with the word nor its relevance to my post-graduate education...
I still miss you.
Love, Cyn
Sunday, January 10, 2010
“No matter how long you keep a stick in water, it will never become a fish…”
I’ve sufficiently passed the half-way point now. Eleven more months. I recently took a vacation with my family. We took a cruise through part of the Mediterranean, visiting Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, and Greece with significant layovers in Morocco, which have afforded me the opportunity to write this blog.
I hadn’t left Ghana for fourteen months, and while I wasn’t going home, I was definitely entering a culture much more akin to my own. It was shocking—pleasantly shocking, I guess. I took the longest steam hot showers after I walked around in the bitter cold all day bundles in my coat, scarf, and occasionally gloves. I ate myself sick everyday on fresh vegetables, apples, grapes, cheese, olives, pizza, dark meat, light meat, fish, ice cream, cookies, cake, coffee, you name it. I wore make-up and fixed my hair every morning, and they remained un-phased all day in my new climate. I spoke in English all of the time (or, at least, on the boat) and with an abandon, fostered by the knowledge that I was being fully understood. I ate with my right hand and my left hand. I didn’t greet everyone I passed. I went to the movies.
It was shocking, but, I think, more shocking was how quickly the shock wore off—how quickly I nestled into my comfort zone and thrived there. I feel like I’ve changed so much in the past year. My perspective on many things (development, international relations, foreign aid, global responsibilities, life generalities…) has been radically changed and re-changed. Many of my ways of changed, but most of my ways have stayed just the same. I still love corny movies, pedicures, getting my hair cut, shopping, and new toothbrushes, among other things. I still dislike tours, souvenir stores, and bargaining, also, among other things. I still feel at home with my family.
I’m still me.
Except for one thing. For those of you who don’t know…I’ve now been alive for 24 YEARS. : )
I wish you all cheerful holidays and inspiring new years. And all of my love.
My 10 new year resolutions…
1. Stop hating hand-washing jeans
2. Stop saving all of the hard clothes to wash for the very end (i.e. the jeans)
3. Find away to get less dusty in the dry season
4. Stop wiping my dirty hands on my clean clothes—bad, bad habit
5. Floss more—gross, right?
6. Take the GREs
7. Apply to grad school…and decide if I want to go…
8. Sew better
9. Start getting my ideas for a non-profit off the ground
10. Never forget I’m not here to prove anything to anyone—not even myself—and, by “here,” I don’t mean Ghana
Number 1 new year resolution for next year…
1. Spend 100x more time with my family and friends in the U.S….I’ve never stopped missing you. You still make my life.
I hadn’t left Ghana for fourteen months, and while I wasn’t going home, I was definitely entering a culture much more akin to my own. It was shocking—pleasantly shocking, I guess. I took the longest steam hot showers after I walked around in the bitter cold all day bundles in my coat, scarf, and occasionally gloves. I ate myself sick everyday on fresh vegetables, apples, grapes, cheese, olives, pizza, dark meat, light meat, fish, ice cream, cookies, cake, coffee, you name it. I wore make-up and fixed my hair every morning, and they remained un-phased all day in my new climate. I spoke in English all of the time (or, at least, on the boat) and with an abandon, fostered by the knowledge that I was being fully understood. I ate with my right hand and my left hand. I didn’t greet everyone I passed. I went to the movies.
It was shocking, but, I think, more shocking was how quickly the shock wore off—how quickly I nestled into my comfort zone and thrived there. I feel like I’ve changed so much in the past year. My perspective on many things (development, international relations, foreign aid, global responsibilities, life generalities…) has been radically changed and re-changed. Many of my ways of changed, but most of my ways have stayed just the same. I still love corny movies, pedicures, getting my hair cut, shopping, and new toothbrushes, among other things. I still dislike tours, souvenir stores, and bargaining, also, among other things. I still feel at home with my family.
I’m still me.
Except for one thing. For those of you who don’t know…I’ve now been alive for 24 YEARS. : )
I wish you all cheerful holidays and inspiring new years. And all of my love.
My 10 new year resolutions…
1. Stop hating hand-washing jeans
2. Stop saving all of the hard clothes to wash for the very end (i.e. the jeans)
3. Find away to get less dusty in the dry season
4. Stop wiping my dirty hands on my clean clothes—bad, bad habit
5. Floss more—gross, right?
6. Take the GREs
7. Apply to grad school…and decide if I want to go…
8. Sew better
9. Start getting my ideas for a non-profit off the ground
10. Never forget I’m not here to prove anything to anyone—not even myself—and, by “here,” I don’t mean Ghana
Number 1 new year resolution for next year…
1. Spend 100x more time with my family and friends in the U.S….I’ve never stopped missing you. You still make my life.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sleepless Night
So, once again, it’s been far too long since my last blog post. And, I don’t really have anything prepared, so I’ve decided to pull one of my recent journal entries…a somehow censored journal entry, of course. Anyway, here it is:
Listening to my I-pod sends me into a sensory overloaded walk down memory lane. Music always does that to me. Even more so in Ghana. I get glimpses of what sometimes feels like a former life-- sitting in a coffee shop, watching a movie or football game, sitting at the dinner table with friends, sipping wine after a good meal. I want so badly for that life to feel like this life.-- simply a continuation in a different location. I don’t want to feel disjointed. I want the transition to be seamless. That seems like the appropriate way-- the politically correct way. People are people anywhere you are, right? So, why should the discrepancies in my lifestyle seem so jarring some days? Why can’t I imagine living in the U.S. anymore? Why does my home seem unfamiliar-- unknown? Why is that realization horrifying to me? What have I done in coming here? What have I done to myself and to those I live with?
Some days, when students or friends I’ve lived and worked with for a year now ask me for money, food, t-shirts, whatever I happen to be holding in my hand at any given moment, I wonder if I’ve done more harm in being here than good. I wonder if I’ve set people up for failure just by my very presence. As if I’ve led people to believe that all that is good comes from outside, and that they’ll never make it without aid from elsewhere. That I’m here to give something to them that they would be incapable of achieving on their own.
The thing that keeps me here is the prospect of reaching some different realization at the end of the two years-- that there must be some reason I signed on for that long. I don’t like to back out on my commitments. That and the realization that whether I stay or go really makes no difference in this regard. The damage and/or good has alredy been done. It began when Peace Corps began. The ramifications, whatever they may be, have already begun to unfold, and they’re permanent and far bigger than me and anything I may do or say. Of course, there’s always acting out of principle--but, well, I guess I’m still trying to figure out just what that principle is, and I fear making a snap judgment. Acting out of principle has become far more moot to me since moving here. I remember the exhilaration I used to get in college when I could feel myself really wrapping my mind around a theory or character-- like I was really grasping some fundamental principle of life that would change the way I lived and my small sphere of influence in the world. But, here, the world and all of it’s principles and theories span beyond even the peripheral vision of my mind. It’s so grandiose that I can spend long afternoons and sleepless nights just gawking at the prospects of it without ever making any headway on my own opinions or principles. The options and potential outcomes are infinite. I guess people always say that, but now I really know why, because that’s all the reason and principle I can concoct. At least at this moment. Maybe at the end of next year I’ll feel differently, but it seems unlikely.
More than daunting, it’s scary. I see some many errors and irreconcilable problems in development and international relations, and I don’t know if I’m suppoed to find a solution or simply admit the inevitability of it all and find a way to live and work within that. That sounds dismal, and I don’t mean it too. But, I guess, it is a bit sobering-- I think it has to be. Some things are just like that, and we’re kidding ourselves if we think there are any simple solutions for such a complicated global climate in which we find ourselves. And I think we also kid ourselves if we believe we should just try to save whoever we can save. Send to school whoever we can send. Buy a bicycle or a house or a library for whoever we can-- helping one is better than helping none. I don’t think I believe that anymore. It seems that helping one merely fosters co-dependence-- not only in regard to that one person, but to everyone else who sees that one “being helped” and decides to wait for their help to arrive. Maybe that one you send to school or feed will becomes Ghana’s next president. But do we just say that so we can sleep at night knowing we’ve “done something?” I’ve fed someone, I’ve clothed someone, and I’m not sleeping because it doesn’t feel right. It’s not enough. It’s not even an attempt, but simply a flippant gesture in false acknowledgement of a fundamental problem. A band-aid over an un-clotted flesh wound that’s turning into a staf infection, which so many Peace Corps volunteers have come to know and, of which, are now able to identify the initial symptoms. And for what? To write about it in our journals, and when we’re old we’ll tell our children and grandchildren about it, and we’ll sleep well knowing we’ve truly “lived” and “played our part.” It’s not that simple-- not that small.
But, you know, I can say all of this, and I still don’t know any more than the next person what to do about it. How exactly do you change an institution that has now engrained itself into a global demeanor and manner of living? Please, I would love even conjecture…I need more than my own…
Sometimes I wonder how I’ll incapsulate this entire experience in my mind at the end of next year-- A time when I ate more starch than I previously though consumable in one’s lifetime, and they called me Pigri. That’s all I’ve got so far…
I love living here, but I think maybe it’s selfish when the implications of my being here are far heavier that just having a good time or easing my conscience…
Listening to my I-pod sends me into a sensory overloaded walk down memory lane. Music always does that to me. Even more so in Ghana. I get glimpses of what sometimes feels like a former life-- sitting in a coffee shop, watching a movie or football game, sitting at the dinner table with friends, sipping wine after a good meal. I want so badly for that life to feel like this life.-- simply a continuation in a different location. I don’t want to feel disjointed. I want the transition to be seamless. That seems like the appropriate way-- the politically correct way. People are people anywhere you are, right? So, why should the discrepancies in my lifestyle seem so jarring some days? Why can’t I imagine living in the U.S. anymore? Why does my home seem unfamiliar-- unknown? Why is that realization horrifying to me? What have I done in coming here? What have I done to myself and to those I live with?
Some days, when students or friends I’ve lived and worked with for a year now ask me for money, food, t-shirts, whatever I happen to be holding in my hand at any given moment, I wonder if I’ve done more harm in being here than good. I wonder if I’ve set people up for failure just by my very presence. As if I’ve led people to believe that all that is good comes from outside, and that they’ll never make it without aid from elsewhere. That I’m here to give something to them that they would be incapable of achieving on their own.
The thing that keeps me here is the prospect of reaching some different realization at the end of the two years-- that there must be some reason I signed on for that long. I don’t like to back out on my commitments. That and the realization that whether I stay or go really makes no difference in this regard. The damage and/or good has alredy been done. It began when Peace Corps began. The ramifications, whatever they may be, have already begun to unfold, and they’re permanent and far bigger than me and anything I may do or say. Of course, there’s always acting out of principle--but, well, I guess I’m still trying to figure out just what that principle is, and I fear making a snap judgment. Acting out of principle has become far more moot to me since moving here. I remember the exhilaration I used to get in college when I could feel myself really wrapping my mind around a theory or character-- like I was really grasping some fundamental principle of life that would change the way I lived and my small sphere of influence in the world. But, here, the world and all of it’s principles and theories span beyond even the peripheral vision of my mind. It’s so grandiose that I can spend long afternoons and sleepless nights just gawking at the prospects of it without ever making any headway on my own opinions or principles. The options and potential outcomes are infinite. I guess people always say that, but now I really know why, because that’s all the reason and principle I can concoct. At least at this moment. Maybe at the end of next year I’ll feel differently, but it seems unlikely.
More than daunting, it’s scary. I see some many errors and irreconcilable problems in development and international relations, and I don’t know if I’m suppoed to find a solution or simply admit the inevitability of it all and find a way to live and work within that. That sounds dismal, and I don’t mean it too. But, I guess, it is a bit sobering-- I think it has to be. Some things are just like that, and we’re kidding ourselves if we think there are any simple solutions for such a complicated global climate in which we find ourselves. And I think we also kid ourselves if we believe we should just try to save whoever we can save. Send to school whoever we can send. Buy a bicycle or a house or a library for whoever we can-- helping one is better than helping none. I don’t think I believe that anymore. It seems that helping one merely fosters co-dependence-- not only in regard to that one person, but to everyone else who sees that one “being helped” and decides to wait for their help to arrive. Maybe that one you send to school or feed will becomes Ghana’s next president. But do we just say that so we can sleep at night knowing we’ve “done something?” I’ve fed someone, I’ve clothed someone, and I’m not sleeping because it doesn’t feel right. It’s not enough. It’s not even an attempt, but simply a flippant gesture in false acknowledgement of a fundamental problem. A band-aid over an un-clotted flesh wound that’s turning into a staf infection, which so many Peace Corps volunteers have come to know and, of which, are now able to identify the initial symptoms. And for what? To write about it in our journals, and when we’re old we’ll tell our children and grandchildren about it, and we’ll sleep well knowing we’ve truly “lived” and “played our part.” It’s not that simple-- not that small.
But, you know, I can say all of this, and I still don’t know any more than the next person what to do about it. How exactly do you change an institution that has now engrained itself into a global demeanor and manner of living? Please, I would love even conjecture…I need more than my own…
Sometimes I wonder how I’ll incapsulate this entire experience in my mind at the end of next year-- A time when I ate more starch than I previously though consumable in one’s lifetime, and they called me Pigri. That’s all I’ve got so far…
I love living here, but I think maybe it’s selfish when the implications of my being here are far heavier that just having a good time or easing my conscience…
Saturday, August 29, 2009
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