Resurrection

So here it is, my first post in almost two years.

I could start off by stating the obvious--that a lot has changed since my last entry--but as I rack my brain for something meaningful to say, the only things that come to mind are the stresses and anxieties that manifest at present. My life has transformed so much in the past two years that if back then I was given a description of the Kristina today, I would hardly recognize myself. How then, do I fit two years of growth into a single entry? For those of you that know me, you most likely know the gist of how my life has transpired, that I finally got accepted to Berkeley and began working for Planned Parenthood, that my parents moved away from San Jose and that I will be returning to Ghana at the end of May to conduct research for my senior anthropology thesis. The personal growth, on the other hand, might be a little more subtle.

As I read through the last entry, I notice an insecurity in the writing that brings me back to those days of incredible uncertainty. The days when I didn't know whether I even wanted to return to the States--how could I return after finding a pace of life that actually made sense? And yet, just as I seemed to begin to understand myself a little more, I was thrust back into the western world and the superficiality of what so many people seem to busy themselves with. The transition itself was nothing less than debilitating.

After having spent 7 months removed from Western media and current events, the barrage of information that I met every time I walked outside or listened to the radio or watched tv was almost too much to bear. People were more connected than ever which, in all actuality, seemed almost counterintuitive since a normal scene on BART or the bus consisted of nearly every patron wired to an iPod or skimming their thumbs across their smart phones. What ever happened to a little eye contact and possibly a hello?

I felt like a fish out of water, gasping for something that there was just too much of.

Where was the human connection that I had felt every time I passed a Ghanaian on the street? In Ghana, it is considered an offense to avoid eye contact with passersby. There's even a certain way the greeting interaction is supposed to take place:

"How are you?"

"I'm fine, and how are you?"

"I'm fine!"

Simple as that.

So, after about a months worth of abject depression, I finally lifted myself out of helplessness and began to volunteer at the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement organization in Oakland. Acting as an advocate for new refugee families was an unexpectedly cathartic experience since more often than not, I was able to relate to their feelings of culture shock because even though I didn't have as traumatizing a past as most of them did, I was able to empathize with their fear of being in a foreign place and not knowing where life was taking us. By the end of that summer after making countless connections with the clients at the IRC and after finally hearing back from UC Berkeley regarding my acceptance, I began the process of re-immersing myself into academia and thus things finally began to fall into place.

Looking back, I realize that during those traumatic first few months home, I was waiting around for some kind of grand transformation, some kind of affirmation that the life I led in Ghana held some sort of purpose. In my last entry, I reflect:

Coming to Africa, I expected to find that tangible self, the person behind the reflection in the mirror. I wanted to plunge my fingers deep into the murky plasma of my soul, resurface and with a shout, raise the proof of my being to the sun burnt sky. But instead, I simply found another image of myself. A calmer self. A more patient and reflective self. Someone who could be satisfied with a day filled only with a few meals and a long nap. For within all the chaos of West African life, in between the constant scuffle and heady scents of the streets, the calls of “Pure water, pure, pure, pure, pure!” and the raging, unseen heat that causes cement walls to drip with perspiration…there is stillness to be found. A silence that can only be heard when one fully submits to the pull of this cultures vibrancy, to its life force.

Further down, I continue:

I wish I could achieve this level of calm back at home, to be able to give in to the energy and movement that surrounds me and simply be carried. I find that if I fight it--the chaos, a small hairline fracture somewhere in my mind is loosened and all the stress and tension that emanates from my environment quickly seeps in. But here, well, you don't really have a choice. Africa is not for the faint of heart, nor is it a place that bodes well with ones existing insecurities. You either toughen up or go home.

I still have yet to rediscover that familiar stillness yet even so, two years down the road, I feel that I have finally found a purpose. It's just a little ironic that it leads me right back to--yep, you guessed it...Ghana.

-K

5th post: Waiting

Written between December 28, 2008 and January 11, 2009 at Green Turtle Lodge, Akwiida, Takoradi, Ghana and then at Lotus, Accra, Ghana.

12/28 As I sit down to write this, I am struck with the fact that it’s been ages since I’ve put pen to paper. My haggard and inconsistent script looks almost foreign to me and the lack of a ‘backspace’ key makes this task truly daunting. I know, however, as it has always been in the past, that once I lose the self consciousness of not being able to read my own writing and once again feel that refreshing flow of words and syllables, all will be well in the world of Kristina. The one who once dreamed of being a writer.

This month marks the two years since I became afflicted with writers block, its parallel with the beginning of my seizure treatment being no coincidence. Fortunately, I found other ways to release my creativity but my lifelong vision of being a writer was grossly stunted with the onset of the chemicals that would hold my brain hostage for almost two years.

I think back to me at the age of 12, incredibly idealistic with an almost unhealthy optimism. My 6^th grade teacher assigned us the task of envisioning our lives 10 years in the future and then write about the people we imagined ourselves being. I saw myself as a successful fiction writer (already graduated from Stanford, of course) who would go on to study microbiology at Kings College in Cambridge, England—I wanted to cure cancer. Well, ten years passed and I’m sitting on a palm lined beach in West Africa, writing about how I’ve forgotten how to write, re-hydrating myself after the unfortunate incident of food poisoning in the night and trying to figure out what to do with my life.

The flickering lamp casts shadows on the page; my gargantuan black fingers crawl like spiders, waiting to pounce on some tasty verbiage. Waiting to spin some biting new prose. 12/29 But a whole day passes and here I am again, struggling to start this off.

After reading over 20 books during my past four months here in Ghana, I saw my situation a prime condition to start on my own novel. Something to serve as a culmination of my time spent here, for with every book I consume, that old yearning returns, that primeval desire to completely envelope my mind and senses in universes unseen and stories yet untold. But every time I sit and attempt to plot out a new piece, my mind goes blank and I find myself reading the same, solitary sentence over and over again. Almost like being interrupted during a book—your eyes always seem to catch hold of the very same phrase you left at before.

The faces are there. The tragedy, the soft intimate moments, the dark descriptions. All fighting to be released through my fingers and out into existence.

How can one contain so many other people, so many other lives--broken memories from another mind? These characters and their experiences don’t belong to me, they never did. Rather, they exist within me, all waiting for that epic release. For their solidification. Confirmation. –And freedom from a host whose own existence flirts between that of the tangible and the transitory.

Coming to Africa, I expected to find that tangible self, the person behind the reflection in the mirror. I wanted to plunge my fingers deep into the murky plasma of my soul, resurface and with a shout, raise the proof of my being to the sun burnt sky. But instead, I simply found another image of myself. A calmer self. A more patient and reflective self. Someone who could be satisfied with a day filled only with a few meals and a long nap. 1/11 For within all the chaos of West African life, in between the constant scuffle and heady scents of the streets, the calls of “Pure water, pure, pure, pure, pure!” and the raging, unseen heat that causes cement walls to drip with perspiration…there is stillness to be found. A silence that can only be heard when one fully submits to the pull of this cultures vibrancy, to its life force.

What a lesson it was, learning the art of waiting! Life here is full of it. Laying in the dark, praying that the power comes back on so that the creaking fan can once again push about the hot air in the room. Observing my class dwindle in size and hoping that the elections will finally come to an end so that my students will return. Standing around at the corner store for what seems like hours for a tro-tro and then sitting in it for even longer once inside, trailing the city traffic like a leech. Leeches upon leeches. I often wonder where the time goes after realizing that it is dark and I have finally reached my destination—to where did my mind drift off? How is it that a person does not claw out their eyes and tear at their hair with all this damned waiting?! In this land where African time is the norm and one should double any spoken approximation—how long to reach Cape Coast? Oh, not long, not long, maybe two hours? (Actual time to Cape Coast: 4 hours)—a certain type of patience must be cultivated. The kind of reassuring patience that insists that one is not waiting in vain. The tro-tro will eventually come. Maybe not in the next hour or the rest of the day, but it will come. The power will return at some point. The elections will end in due time (at this point, they finally have). It’s all a matter of finding that stillness and submitting to it completely.

I most often confront it while I’m riding the public transportation here; tro-tros have a way with making a person introspective, even when they least expect it. First, you clamber on, careful not to ram your head against the top of the sliding door or get your clothes caught in the hinges of the foldaway aisle seats. You push to the back, preferably to the window where you can stick your head out the side of the car for the majority of the journey (most tro-tros don’t have working AC, or even speedometers for that matter). As you wait for the seats to fill—tro-tros don’t leave until every seat is taken—you rest your elbow half way out the window and begin to lose yourself and your thoughts in the chaos going on around you:

“Plantain, plantain, NICE plantain!” Women walk by balancing whole laundry baskets of plantain chips on top of their heads.

“Fan Ice, Fan Ice. Four thousand!” The ice cream man passes by, pushing his cart of ice cream, pressing his bicycle horn every few seconds… HONK HONK!

“Tigo, tig, tig, tig, tigo!” A small woman peers into the door, her vest draped in phone credit papers.

Dozens and dozens of sellers pass by the waiting tro-tro, calling out the names of their wares and their prices. PK gum! Nice PK! or Meeeeat pies! Seven thousand! You kindly shake your head when a seller addresses you directly (or you might suddenly change your mind and hand over 40 peswas for a large bag of plantain chips…) and soon notice that the tro-tro is waiting for only one more person. Men and women are fanning themselves and some are leaning their heads against their arms on the seats in front of them. You do the same and study your feet, covered in a film of red dust. It smells of woodsmoke and sweat (probably yours) and you manage to taste the saltiness of your arm when you turn your head to the other side to avoid staring at the woman openly breastfeeding her child right beside you. Western shame. Suddenly, the tro-tro lurches forward and you’re jolted to a sitting position. You’re on your way.

At this point, the sounds of the station diminish and you’re left with the deafening shouts of politicians on the radio (not in English but in Twi) and the snorting, rumbling groans of the engine. Sometimes, Mate, bus stop! You finally settle into your seat and keep your eyes on the road, all the colors and shades of dark and light melting into a warm blur. And then everything is quiet.

I wish I could achieve this level of calm back at home, to be able to give in to the energy and movement that surrounds me and simply be carried. I find that if I fight it--the chaos, a small hairline fracture somewhere in my mind is loosened and all the stress and tension that emanates from my environment quickly seeps in. But here, well, you don't really have a choice. Africa is not for the faint of heart, nor is it a place that bodes well with ones existing insecurities. You either toughen up or go home. That simple. But what a place to find strength!

I guess I'll close this with the statement I've found myself most commonly uttering these days (both to myself and to others)...we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens when I finally get the courage to open up and empty out the novel that's stuck in my brain. We'll see what happens in the coming month and a half that I have yet to live here in Ghana. And we'll see what happens when I come home and find myself face to face with myself, finally, for the first time in years.

All my love,
Kristina

4th Post: Catching Up

So I must apologize for my laziness (note the 20 day gap) and for leaving some people hanging at my last entry.

I am actually doing very well.

Most of the frustrations I expressed in the previous post have subsided and I have begun to accept my way of life here. Many changes will soon be upon me however. First of all, my volunteering partner and good friend Larissa will be heading back to Sydney on November 12 and so I will find myself teaching without another volunteer until at least January. This prospect makes me a little nervous but I think it will only intensify my experience here--force me to focus more on the teaching aspect and whatnot. Second, my other good friend and traveling buddy Emily (who teaches at another school) will soon be leaving not long after Larissa so if I don't make some more friends soon, my social life looks as if it might subside a little! That's not to say that I haven't made more friends--simply put, Larissa and Emily have been my confidants. I'm really going to miss them.

Another upcoming event is my week long trip to Togo and Benin! I'll be leaving this coming Saturday with my friend Tom (ok, I lied, I do have a social life) and we will make our way east through Ghana into Togo and then to Benin. I'm really excited at the idea of visiting some other African countries (I didn't really consider traveling around the continent) and even more so at the prospect of trying to pull some French out of my brain (both countries are french speaking). Luckily, Tom is french so I guess I don't have to worry too much about remembering the few bits of french I learned in high school. We'll see how I do!

Anyways, the weather here is only getting hotter as the dry season approaches and I can't help but think that maybe I'm actually losing tolerance to the heat (it just LEACHES the energy out of you!). I mean, shouldn't it be getting colder?? You know, like winter time? Christmas? I have to say though, it's definitely nice not having to worry about bringing a jacket with me everywhere!

Hm... anyways, there's not much more to be said other than that I still have yet to embark on ANY of my planned projects (including additions to this blog) and that I should probably stop taking so many naps. Like I said, the heat just knocks me out!

Hope all is well with everyone at their respective homes.

Love,
Kristina