An Africa Day

So when I created this blog, I told you that I would share some West Africa Wins Again stories and I have failed at doing that so far. But, lucky for you, today has plenty of great examples.

1) The cultural mishap.
We have a relative visiting the house right now who is doing political campaigning to run for a parliamentary seat. He is always meeting with important men on the front porch talking about politics. So this morning I needed to go outside to ask my host sister a question and I had to go through their little meeting to get to her. I didn't want to disturb them so I quickly went through, looking at the ground. When I got through I realized they were yelling at me! "Why didn't you greet us? You should always greet people!" So I proceeded to try to greet all of them. So much for not interrupting their meeting. West Africa Wins Again.

2) The normal chore.
Today is Saturday which is clothes washing day. I'm continuing to get better at handwashing though my host sister always takes pity on me and helps. This morning the water was actually working and so we went to get water from the pipe, but it was brown. Not good for washing clothes. And then when we finished washing, the clotheslines already had clothes on them so there wasn't enough room for everything. And then it rained in the middle of the day and all the clothes got wet again. And now they are inside and are still very wet. And I have nowhere to hang them up. So much for dry clothes. Even my sheets and pillowcase are wet. West Africa Wins Again.

3) Africa time.
I was supposed to meet with my drum teacher at 11 today to make up for a missed lesson (because people don't go anywhere or do anything when it is raining here). However, it was 12 and he still wasn't here. I had given up hope and eaten lunch and was ready to go on with my day. And then he showed up at 12:15. I told him I figured he wasn't coming and all he did was remind me that we work on Africa time. West Africa Wins Again.

4) The shower.
I never have luck with showering here. I know I am lucky to even have a shower instead of just a bucket bath, but I don't think people who wash their hair regularly were ever meant to rely on bucket baths. I sure don't know how to clean mine with just a bucket of water. Anyway, the water seems to enjoy not coming through the pipes quite often. So whenever this happens, I just shrug it off and decide to wait to shower the next day. Sometimes this happens for too many days. Today I was definitely due for a shower. I got in, quickly realizing that my shower was soaking wet and hanging on the clothesline outside. Great. And then, while I was trying to wash shampoo out of my hair, the water decided to turn

off. With my hair not even remotely clean and no towel, it was a really successful shower. And I couldn't even get a brush through my hair afterwards. I'm hoping the water comes back on before church tomorrow... West Africa Wins Again.

Don't worry, even though West Africa tried to bother me today, I still managed to have a great day. Probably because I'm learning to find joy in smaller things now. Doesn't necessarily make for good stories, but does make for better days!

If I were rich...

Money. It is always the thing everyone needs more of. And the thing that, apparently, Americans have endless quantities of. But today I had a rather surprising conversation about money with my 12-year old host brother. He was saying how I would make a lot of money in a few years because I had good education. And I was trying to explain how the work I wanted to do would not make me rich even though I had a good education but that it was worth it anyway. And he understood. But then he started talking about what he would do if he were rich.

He said "If I were rich, I would only take what I need and then give the rest of it away so that I could help others." And I said that was great. And he told me how important it is to give cheerfully and willingly because then it will both bless you and the other person. And he said that he would not give away the money itself but buy stuff with it. And I cut in on him saying "Oh, that's great. Like you would buy certain items or food and give it to people who can't afford them." But he said, "No. No, I would buy a corn mill and then let everybody use it for free so that they could grind their maize into flour without having to pay for it." Wow. If only we thought like this more often. Instead of giving money or things, he said he would give something sustainable, something that could assist so many people. 

Words of wisdom from a small boy. 

On Praying For A Broken Heart

God has been showing me how to love these people. He is gradually giving me new eyes to see with. And as I am beginning to see these people more like Christ sees them, he is breaking my heart for them.  And I pray that it will remain broken. Because I do not want to become numb.

As I have shared before, I have realized how some people, such as my 12-year old host brother, tend to think they are less than Americans. They think they are not capable of doing many things that Americans can do. And they practically adore any white person, especially Americans. I have found this difficult to handle because, I want to be appropriate and accept the honors they grant me, but I also feel sad and embarrassed that they find me so important. Although I understand that I come from a position of power and cannot get away from that, I wish that people could understand that I am just as human as them. But people here really do think that white people are a higher form of human as evidenced by certain questions I've been asked or things that people have told me:

Do white people lie?

Do white people get angry?

All white people are rich.

White people are more intelligent.

We think white people are spies, because why else would they choose to come to a place like this?

And so today I realized that even my host father, who is a bible translator and has worked with several different Americans for many years, still thinks that white people are better. Today I tried to explain to him some of my discomfort with feeling like people thought more of me than I deserved. He didn't understand because, I realized, he thinks we do deserve the attention because we are white. As he has told me before, Ghanaians think most highly of Americans, then Europeans, and then, lower down on the list, are the Chinese. I told him that it would be easier for me if I knew that people were just honoring me because I am a guest, a visitor, that if I knew that a Chinese guest would be treated the same way. He explained that they give honor to white people because they were their colonial masters. I tried to show how this was not a good thing that the Europeans did. And he understood, but said that nevertheless, our culture is better, more worthy of praise. He explained that God made us black and white so that we could clearly see the difference. He made them eat fufu and us eat other food so that we would know we were different. And I said that yes we are different but it is good. God has given us different cultures because he values our diversity.

I presented my argument, my passion, my heart. My plea that he would see God's love for diversity. That deep inside we are no different. We all lie. We all get angry. We all get jealous. We all have sin. And we have all been forgiven and offered redemption. I tried to explain how each culture is also equal. Each has its good and bad parts. Each needs redemption. Each will be redeemed. That God wanted there to be diversity. I said how God knows meets us where we are. That he can't expect us to understand him through a foreign way. That he wants to be incarnate in your culture. That we need each other to gain a more complete picture of God. That I came here because I really believed that there were things I could learn from Akyode Christians. And that I am learning. He listened. But responded that yes, surely we are all equal as people in a spiritual sense. But materially, culturally, we are not equal. We are behind and trying to reach the good point that your culture is it. My heart broke. I realized that even though he understands that his music is good for worshipping God and that using my music doesn't make sense, he doesn't believe it for the rest of the aspects of his culture. I hope and pray that if anything is accomplished during my time here, it will be that I will be able to give dignity to their culture. And that they will accept it. That they will begin to see more fully the love God has for them as Akyode people and they will find the passion to make let Jesus into their culture and start his redemptive work instead of waiting for the day when they will be like Americans. 

So I pray that God will keep my heart broken until they discover their worth as Akyode Christians.

"Heal my heart and make it clean.

Open up my eyes to the things unseen.

Show me how to love like You have loved me.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours.

Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause.

As I walk from earth into eternity."

-from Hosanna by Hillsong

Obruni Life

I am a white person, as I am constantly reminded when children chant “obruni, obruni!” at me (or sometimes they try out their English and chant “white man, white man” – too bad I am a woman. Haha). As much as I may try to learn how to live and behave like a Ghanaian, I am always going to be an obruni. Here are some stories to illustrate:

The first thing that I noticed was that everywhere that I went, people offered me a chair. It drove me crazy because I was tired of sitting all the time and wanted to stand, or walk around. However, I also realized that there was probably a reason why people were so concerned with me always sitting. I asked my host father why people always told me to sit and he said that people feel tired for me when I am standing. So now I have learned to accept the chair more often, accept the honor of it, and accept that my sitting will put others at ease. But, I also know how to say “I will not sit” in Gikyode now! Mankyena!

People still have a hard time believing that I eat Ghanaian food. This always surprises me since I have been here nearly a month now. Of course I eat Ghanaian food! Yet they still say “You actually know how to eat fufu!” I reply yes and they laugh. And then they say “And you like it?!” And I say yes and they laugh some more.

People like to laugh at me. I’ve learned that they laugh because it is ridiculous to see an obruni try to act like a Ghanaian, not because I am doing things wrong. I just seem to be able to provide endless entertainment to Ghanaians just by doing the normal things they do everyday.

Sometimes I try to go down to the river with my host siblings to get water. My host sister can carry a huge amount of water in the pot on her head. They gave me a small bucket and filled it halfway. It was still too heavy. Haha. Unfortunately, the bucket was see-through so everybody enjoyed pointing out and laughing that my bucket was only partially full while I was walking back to the house! However, even if I could carry as much water as my sister, they would laugh because I am a white person trying to act like them. But they also love that I am trying. They all greet me and remember me and laugh and it is good.

This same thing happens if I try to:

1. Help with cooking (this also brings marriage proposals)

2. Do any type of manual labor

3. Wash my clothes (this also brings marriage proposals)

4. Ride on a motorbike (though I admit that I looked ridiculous enough to laugh at)

But people don't seem to laugh at me if I wear Ghanaian clothing. I'm considering this to be a good thing. 

HNGR. That's what this is called isn't it?

As we learn before we leave, our HNGR internships are just life. And I have been living here in Nkwanta for two weeks. And I have stories to share soon, some funny, some sad, and some are just interesting. But yesterday I got to thinking about what HNGR stands for, Human Needs and Global Resources, and I started thinking about what that means to me in this context so far. So here are my thoughts:

It is hard to explain human needs and global resources here sometimes. When I think of poverty in Africa, I think of not having enough money to feel yourself and your children. I think of people dying from diseases that could be easily prevented. I think of war and political corruption and all the pictures you see in the news. Children with bloated stomachs from starvation. Civil Wars. AIDS Statistics.

Here in Nkwanta, people do not have it easy. But there is not an AIDS epidemic here. You do not see orphans everywhere. Most families are eating enough. Children do not have distended bellies. The political climate is generally peaceful. People have never experienced the horrors of a civil war. People lives in houses with good roofs and electricity. They have ways of getting around besides just their feet.

So, with just hearing that, it is possible to say that things are good here. But as it becomes more and more apparent, Ghana and America are like two different worlds and this can make it difficult to explain one place to the other.

My family is well-off in Nkwanta. They have a house with 3 bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a small kitchen, and even a bathroom and a shower. They have concrete floors, electricity, and ceiling fans. They have a tv and satellite. They have sturdy furniture to use. They have a water pipe to get water from inside and outside the house (although this water is not necessarily “clean”).

My family has a car which is a bit of a luxury here (then you don’t get so dusty riding in dry season or wet riding in rainy season). They eat three meals a day and get adequate protein. They can afford to buy some filtered water to drink. They currently have health insurance.

However, the electricity continually fails. The water pipes continually break or get blocked. The water sources are not safe. The meat they eat would be snubbed by most Americans.

The roads are so horrifically bad that the car continually breaks down and the family struggles to pay to fix it. You must pray that your farm does well so you have enough yams to eat. My family can only afford filtered water for the father and I. The children drink unclean water and sometimes they get sick. And sometimes they do not have health insurance to bring them to the hospital for treatment. The hospital which only has two doctors and fairly low standards of sanitation.

I see the women working outside. All day. They work and work to sell things to make money. And then they work and work to make each meal. When they are sitting, it only means that there are no customers. And I look at them working, working, working and it seems joyless to sit next to that hot fire boiling some yams. Then pounding some yams. Etc. And I wonder “What do they think about their life? Do they feel fulfilled? If they could dare to think of a different life, what would they want? Where would they live and what job would they have? Or do they like this way of living but just wish that it were easier to give their children better food and more opportunities? I don’t know.

And the men. They put immense pressure on themselves to be able to fully provide for their family. No help wanted. It would be shameful to have your wife help pay for the food. And so you work. You work with whatever job you get, whichever one pays the best. There is not rooms for dreams of doing work that you really love or doing fun activities that do not lead to money. And I realize that my major is teaching me to play an instrument that I will never make much money off of. I am playing because it is fulfilling. Because I love it. Because we have room in our culture for an appreciation of art for arts sake. And if you did get a dream job here, the dream job was one that has a big salary. And you probably had to pay a lot of money to get the education for that dream job, like to become a doctor. And then you left. You left Ghana because you could. Because you could make more money in America and that was more important than keeping your traditional ways here, than staying close to your extended family.

So things are not easy here. Money makes a mess of things. We need it and it is hard to get. And so your life suffers. And there is need for development. Something that nobody in Nkwanta can really do anything about. You must wait. Wait for the economy to gain strength. For politicians to one day see the needs of the masses and do something about it. Because, until that point, most of these needs will remain unmet.

So how does a Ghanaian feel when a white man comes to his town, to his Ghana? They seem to have a sort of reverence for America. America and Ghana share some ties and Ghana sees America as their goal. They want to have an economy like ours. Development like ours. And they think that all white people are rich. The thought of a poor white man is just ridiculous. And the thought of non-whites in America is also ridiculous. Don’t people turn white when they go there for awhile? For them white is not just a racial identity but also a status, a way of living. That is why someone who lives like a white man should, by all means, become a white man.

So I am struggling when my host brother tells me that it is hard for him to believe that there is a poor white man. So I show him pictures of homeless white men and I explain what their life is like. He tells me that he does not believe that there are people of color, people like him, living in America so I show him pictures and statistics. But it is still so hard for him to process. What is missing in our education systems?

And then he tells me that he does not believe that there are African men who can do some of the things that white men do. It is just not possible. He points to my computer. He says, that was made by white men. And so I try to show him how anyone with the right training could make this. I tell him that we are different colors but have the same inherent abilities. That right now neither of us know how to make a computer, but both of us could possibly do it. And so I work to find information about influential black men to show him that they can accomplish things too. Important things. Things that they figured out before white men. I make him promise that he will try to think differently. That if he tells himself that it is not possible, that that is only putting himself down. And I see that possibly one of the worst problems here is a lack of information. Information that affirms the lives of all people, the abilities of all people. And then I also remember that this cannot change completely unless people are given opportunity. My host brother is smart. He could do many things but does not have the opportunities. And neither does anyone else around here. How is he supposed to think that he can do anything substantial if nobody else around him is able to? But the white men are. How do we change this?