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