Re-evaluating Africa and Becoming Acclimated

Although I have not had the most exciting last couple weeks in terms of being productive and exploring the country, I am starting to feel more at home here in Accra. Of course I am not entirely comfortable with walking around alone and finding my way to and from many areas of the town, but I am beginning to better understand how the people here live and why. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never been here, since many of the realizations I have come to have been only through seeing things with my own eyes. Yet I will say that the history of the slave trade has definitely impacted the way of life in this entire country and the ones surrounding it in ways that I had never known. Learning about slavery in the United States has been a totally different experience than seeing where it began here in Africa, especially since in America we always focused more on slavery in America rather than the slave trade itself. All we knew was that slaves were taken from the west coast of Africa, but we did not delve into why they were traded and how they were so easily captured. I did not know that when the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, Africa pretty much did not exist— it was instead composed of different tribes that were not connected to one another whatsoever. So African chiefs were not ashamed to sell the captured prisoners from other tribes to the European traders that arrived with stronger weapons and different variety of food. There were no African nations; the borders were determined later by the Europeans when they established their presence here and fought for control. Even today, the city of Accra is divided into sections with different tribes who speak totally different languages and have various cultural practices and beliefs. They are only grouped into one city according to foreigners, yet many people here will call themselves Akan or Ewe (two of the main tribes) instead of Ghanaian. National pride is growing, of course, since Ghana achieved its independence, but the majority of its people do not understand the concept of a nation. This is only the surface of much of what I have learned thus far, but I just thought I would share some of it with most of you who I’m sure did not know any of this either. Sometimes I am very disappointed with American education; it is so centered on the U.S. and often fails to expose us to important facts about the rest of the world, especially those it does not consider a threat.

This last weekend many people participated in a homestay with a local Ghanaian family, though I chose not to take part since I was not comfortable with the idea of spending three days with a strange family alone. However, I did discover afterward that some people were placed in groups with small, wealthy families, so it was not a very uncomfortable experience at all. We have another opportunity to do it in November, so I am planning to participate that weekend. But this weekend did not go to waste, since many others who did not do the homestay came over Saturday night and we all cooked a large dinner together. We made pasta alla norma (rigatoni with tomato sauce and roasted eggplant), breadsticks (my mom’s famous recipe), stir-fry noodles with vegetables, french fries, french toast, chocolate chip cookie dough, and an apple pie. Everything was from scratch, of course, and turned out delicious. Someone brought wine as well, so we all (about 10 of us) sat down to eat and chat together for a long time, which was a lot of fun. We have decided to do this at least once a month, and I think are doing it again this coming weekend since everyone will be around and it is the only free weekend for the next few weeks. I’ve never had this many friends that love to cook, even if only a little, so I am ecstatic to have nights like that to look forward to. We have also decided to have a huge Halloween party, but I will keep you updated on that as it gets closer.

I want to mention once again how much I love my new friends here. I love that there is always someone here to talk to or hang out with when I make lunch or just walk into another room. I can find time to be alone, of course, which I did last night when I chose to not attend dinner and instead stay home and make myself something, but I never get lonely. We all have similar interests and can always find a movie to watch or something to chat about, yet we also have our own personal interests and reasons for being here that make us unique. Almost every night a few of us will gather in someone’s room coincidentally and end up talking for awhile or will happen upon each other eating downstairs and join them until a bunch of us are laughing and telling stories all night. It is definitely more difficult to have independent lives here than in New York, since most places we have to go in pairs or groups to be safe and avoid extra attention while the opposite is true in the city. We are not accustomed to having so much extra time either (without internet I might add), so we spend it together since it makes more sense than sitting alone in our rooms doing nothing. Watching movies together has become a normal routine every week, sometimes a few days in a row. But don’t get the impression that we sit around watching movies all the time and don’t find other ways to spend our time more valuably; in fact, we go on outings to the markets fairly often to purchase food, jewelery, fabric, and other souvenirs and do homework and volunteering. Most of us have chosen to volunteer at different organizations, though some are in groups of three or four, and we have only begun to determine our schedules. I think I mentioned before that I will hopefully be going to the Autism Awareness Center every Thursday (and possibly Friday) for the whole day since it would be easier than going for a few hours in between classes on other days. I only have classes Monday through Wednesday, since each one meets only once a week for two to three hours at a time, so I have the whole weekend free to do what I want. I can only volunteer during the week since that is when the children are at the center, but most weekends NYU has something planned for us so I will not get bored.

Anyway, that’s pretty much what has been happening lately; I’ll let you know when something else exciting comes up, but for now I wanted you to know that I am getting myself acclimated to living here and falling into a more comfortable routine.