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?