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

3rd Post: What It's All About

I'm not exactly sure how to start this as nothing monumental has happened, today isn't any sort of landmark date and I don't have any strong themes that I'd like to convey. That's not to say that life here at Lotus is stagnant, far from it. In fact, my life seems to be in a constant state of flux.

The challenges I thought I would confront now seem miniature compared to the actual hurdles that I face every day. I don't want to be too specific out of respect for those who run my project but I'm definitely feeling the plight of the idealistic "20's something female college student turned international volunteer". Coming into this experience, I had a vision. I saw myself making an impact (even if it were in the most simple way) on the lives of those I taught and interacted with. I imagined myself giving to a community of those in need and eventually reaping the benefit of knowing that I somehow made a change. Now, if you asked me what exactly it was that I thought I was going to change, well... I probably wouldn't have been able to give you a clear answer but as I've recently learned, I wasn't alone in my idealistic visions.

After coming here and settling into a routine, I quickly began to see that I in fact wasn't (in the words of my good friend Alex) going to "save Africa". I know that is a pathetic realization to come to but look at it this way: one or two people cannot stand up to a thousand years of culture. One of the biggest frustrations I have is dealing with the Ghanaian (and pretty much non-western) practice of corporal punishment. I hate it. In fact, I think that beating kids with sticks is probably the worst form of discipline because it simply encourages the victim to continue the cycle when they get older. It also makes it impossible for any non-Ghanaian teachers/volunteers to discipline children because come on, how can a shout or a command to "sit in the corner" hold any weight to the imminent threat of being lashed across the face with a stick?

And it's not like I can just tell the teacher to stop. Oh hey, do you think you can stop disciplining the kids the only way you know (and the only way it has been done in Ghanaian culture) in favor for my more advanced western methods?

The last thing I want to do is to tell people that they're doing their job wrong. But like I said before, how can you stand up to a cultural tradition in the name of doing what you think is right?

My other frustration resides is the feeling that no matter what I do, most will be forgotten once I leave. Sure, the children might be having a blast coming to school to do epic art projects and practicing silly yoga poses but in all actuality, where is the evidence of the techniques passed on by all the previous volunteers? Why can the kids recite the alphabet but become confused when I ask them to identify the letter "p"? Why do I feel like I'm working from scratch?

I understand that the lack of uniformity and follow through with the lesson plan is due to the sporadic nature of the "volunteer" and I'm not accusing those who came before me as ineffective, but without strong communication and concrete direction, every volunteer who comes after me will feel as in the dark as I did. And this doesn't just go for my project but with the majority of volunteering programs in countries across the globe.

I came to a realization though, after feeling incredibly conflicted about this for weeks. For even though I might not be making much of an impact on the kids, the lessons I learn from this experience are really what it is all about. As selfish as it sounds, my purpose for being here was never (and could never have been) about changing the lives of others but about changing my own.

It's about growth and Ghana.

2nd Post- New Beginnings

Written September 24th

It will be a month today since my departure from home. A month of foreign smells, new faces, countless names to be memorized and a whole new way of life to be lived. It was a month of intense strain and worry but not without the delight of making the small, daily achievements that count for so much when trying to carve a new niche for oneself. I can now say that I know the difference between 90 peswas and 9,000 Cedis (there isn’t one) and I can hand wash and hang dry my clothes like no ones business. I’ve discovered that a single bucket of water is sufficient for a shower (hair washing included) and that when one of my students says “I rinate,” they need to make a visit to the toilet. Routine is quickly setting in and daily life seems to be much more livable now. Speaking of daily life, here’s a brief rundown of a normal weekday for me:

7:30am: wake up

8:00am: actually wake up

8:15am: drag myself to breakfast and dine on bread with peanut butter, pineapple, tea/coffee and sometimes porridge

8:30am: discuss the coming day’s lesson plan with Larissa (the other volunteer)

9:00am: appear in the classroom, round up the kids, read a story and then hold an arts and crafts session

10:00am: have a cup of tea with Larissa while the kids go on break, discuss the plan for the remainder of the day

10:30am: bring in the kids and either take the little ones or the big ones (depending on the whim of the teacher that day) and teach accordingly

12:00pm: lunch for about an hour and discuss with Larissa how exhausted we are

From there on out, I might or might not take a really long nap, go for a Fanta at the corner store with Larissa, make an appearance in town, spend an hour or so on the internet, hang out with the girls at the home, eat dinner, read a book, combat mosquitoes, bathe, try to tame my hair, give myself a tarot reading, edit photos and attempt a number of other mundane tasks that are actually really enjoyable after a while. Routine and repetition is very comforting when trying to survive in a foreign environment.

Concerning the school itself, it’s been quite an adventure to say the least. I came here with absolutely NO formal training or teaching experience and guess what? I’m handed a class and told “here’s the class, now teach them what you know.” I don’t think there’s any other term to describe the state of mind I get into every day besides “survival mode”. I suddenly remember countless childhood songs that I haven’t thought of in years, I can decipher the childrens somewhat muddled English based on intuition and deduction, Hmm, they either want to eat, drink or pee... and the thought of panicking slips from my mind entirely. Panicking is DEFINITELY not an option. It's hard sometimes because though half the time I'm thinking, Wow, how did we pull that off so well?, the rest of the time I'm wondering exactly how much of an impact I'm actually making. Am I really influencing these kids? Am I making a difference? How effective is a time-out when the children are normally used to getting beaten? What does the color "red" really mean to them? It's questions like these that make getting through the day difficult.

It's not all hopeless though. I think that for every apparent "failure", there are just as many "ah-ha!" moments, the little achievements that I mentioned before. And they happen every day.

~

It’s funny how time has treated me since my flight out of the country. I see “September 24, 2008” and think, Has is really been a month since I left? And yet when I talk to my friends and family at home, they say, Has it really only been a month since you’ve left? It saddens me at times to think that time is passing so much slower for those at home and that my 7 month absence might end up feeling more like a year to some. I know it’s silly but I have this irrational fear that I’m sorely missing out on the lives of my friends and that when I return, things will be so different that none of us will be able to relate or connect with each other on the same level anymore.

Silly, I know.

But then again, how many other people have the opportunity to teach a bunch of awesome kids in AFRICA of all places??

Someone slap me silly now please.

First post!

Akwaaba!

It’s hard to believe that almost two weeks have already gone by since I arrived in Ghana. No longer am I awoken by the 6:30am sweeping outside my door, by the whoops and shouts of the girls getting ready for church and by the packs of stray dogs that seem to turn into howling wolves during the night. Routine is setting in and I am very fast becoming acclimatized to my new home.

~

For those of you who only vaguely know of my trip/move to Ghana, here’s a little introduction:

At the end of April 2008 when I learned that I wouldn’t be attending school for the following year, I decided that I wanted to volunteer abroad and gain some life experience that I might not have gotten otherwise. I wanted to see the world from a non-academic point of view, without the limits of teachers and assignments, without feeling forced to maintain a high grade point average. To be completely honest, I was burned out from school and with no other actual options I went ahead and began researching volunteering programs overseas.

Now why Ghana? Many people have asked. Well, it was as simple as noticing the option on one of the many websites I browsed though and going for it. I originally considered going to India but I felt that the county and culture were too familiar (due to my ancestral ties). I wanted to do something completely out of my element.

It took a month of deliberation but at the beginning of June, I made the final decision to leave the life I’d cultivated in Berkeley and to move to Ghana at the end of August to teach at a pre-school and children’s home. Knowing you only have 2 months left to spend with your family and friends is very sobering and so my summer turned into a flurry of “hanging out” (as we call it here in the States- evidently, people in the UK don’t) and traveling from place to place within California to see all the people I care about. Berkeley, San Francisco ten times over, San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Sonora-I must have made about 20 loops or more around just the San Francisco Bay itself. The rest of my time was spent volunteering at a pre-school in San Francisco where I read stories to the kids and made an attempt to mentally prepare myself to teach while observing how the teachers handled the kids.

Finally, August 16th crept up onto me and I was moving out of Berkeley down to my parent’s in San Jose for a week. It was humbling to say the least, to see my things packed up for a third time. Another reminder that I still hadn’t reached a point in my life where I could finally settle down. The next week was a whirlwind. It seemed as if 15 people had all of a sudden woken up and realized that I was leaving, Kristina, hang out with us before you leave! Complete and utter madness.

But before I knew it, I was on a plane headed for the UK for a quick visit en route to Ghana. England was a blast. Seeing my friends and family there was an interesting and positive buffer in regards to my move, sort of a nice liaison between one home and the next. But there was a lot ahead of me and before getting too caught up in the fun of it all, I was already on another plane headed to the capital city of Accra where I would be living for the next 7 months.

~

I am now sitting on my balcony; most of the view is obstructed save for the tops of the palm and banana trees that dot my neighborhood. I pretend that I am on an exotic beach and that the sound of the wind ruffling the leaves of the palms is really the crashing of the waves. The actual beach (a 30 min walk from here) isn’t clean enough to even walk on but I’ll eventually make the journey to a beach outside the city that I can lounge on for hours and soak in the West African sun. But until the, there is work to be done.

My first two days in Accra were hectic and over-stimulating. Everything was in English, but nobody seemed to understand what I was saying. The currency was a headache (one Ghanaian cedi is worth roughly one US dollar but everyone still speaks in terms of the old denomination so…How much does this cost? Oh, that’s 9,000 cedis. What? It’s 9), the smells were exhausting and the constant yells of hey obruni, what’s your name? started to grate. I’m not a white person! I wanted to yell back. (I later learned that though “obruni” roughly translates as “white woman” it doesn’t refer to a particular ethnicity, just someone who has lighter skin than a native Ghanaian).

My new home is a sanctuary though.

I reside at a girls home called Lotus Children Centre and Nursery School. The center itself is home to ten ‘orphaned’ girls ranging from 3-23 years of age who have either lost their parents or are at the end of a long line of offspring and are no longer within their parents’ capacity to be cared for. The lady who runs the project, Didi Shanta, is a Filipino nun who practices yoga and encourages the children to meditate and stick to a strict vegetarian diet. In return for the boarding and care they receive, all the girls carry out special duties that include cooking, cleaning, laundry and looking after the volunteers who in turn run both the children’s library and pre-school (both located on site).

I was initially really worried about being accepted by the girls (who are very close in age to me). But they soon saw that I didn’t pose any competition and that I was really here to spend time with them and learn about their culture. We now hang out and watch Mexican soap operas together on Friday and Saturday nights. They’re a hilarious bunch and deserve a whole blog entry detailing who they are and how they add to the experience. But there’s so much more to talk about!

Anyways, I’m here, I’m safe and I already have loads of stories but my brain is melting and the connection here is slow. So stay tuned for the next entry, due to come out within a week or so.

Reminder: I am on “Ghana time” which is a lot like “India time” meaning, if something should theoretically take an hour, a day, or a week, just double that time and you’ll have a better estimate.

Nanti ye!