My Experience In Ghana

As I arrived at the airport my eyes started to water with thoughts of the unknown filling my head. I was scared about the possibility of my time in Africa not being good. I thought “What if I don’t get along with my roommates? What if I get homesick? What if I don’t make many friends?”. I said goodbye to my parents and went to find my airplane. After I got on the airplane my nervousness turned back into excitement as my long time dream of going to Africa was finally coming true! I was ready for big adventure, even if it meant leaving behind the people that I know and love.
The plane flights and layovers were long and tiring. I meet up with my roommates Molly and Gina in the D.C. airport and we took the last leg of our flights together. I got more and more excited as time went on, especially once I could see glimpses of Africa through the clouds. Sooner than I could get a grip on the reality that I was going to be in Africa, we arrived. As I was going through customs I did not get a very good first impression of the country. There were pretty paintings on the walls, the air smelled like urine, and there were men dressed in army attire walking around with machine guns. These things made my nervousness return.
As we made our way down to the parking lot area we found the people who had picked us up hold sign that said AHA Program. I was unsure of these men and who they were and if we were safe, but later learned that one of them was the driver and the other is named Sonny who is a great guy that works for AHA. As we followed them to the van we were bombarded by men trying to help us carry out suitcases and get money from us. It was quite overwhelming because we didn’t know who was part of our group and who wasn’t. Eventually we made it to the van and escaped the madness of the airport.
Sonny and the driver took us to the our hotel that we had reservations at. It was a totally beautiful place! I love the tropical plants and the sound of the ocean! We were a little tired and overwhelmed from our travels and the culture change so we spent a good amount of time just relaxing there. I finally I was so glad that the rest of Ghana wasn’t like my first impression of it.
After a whole day of rest a few of my roommates and I went to a part of town called Osu. As soon as the taxi arrived in Osu we were instantly bombarded by baggers and people trying to sell us things, it was quite overwhelming. A very persistent man selling paintings eventually talked me into buying one. Buying the painting way a good way to get him to stop bothering me but I have come across many paintings that are much prettier since then. I think that the locals could tell that we were new foreigners to town, and they tried to take advantage of that. We then went on to find dinner. It took a long time for us to find a restaurant and we were all very hungary and happy when we found a nice looking restaurant. We didn’t know what anything was on the menu so we had the waiter explain to us what everything was. I was amazed by how kind and patient that most the people were that I had come across! I ordered my first authentic Ghanian meal which was Banku and Tilapia with a spicy light soup. It was a fun new experience. I loved the fish but wasn’t sure about the rest of the meal and I didn’t know how to go about eating it without any utensils. When we returned to the hotel we greeted Ada, the last roommate to arrive. Our hotel was very nice. We enjoyed many good meals, a few beers, and my first ever night swim in the ocean while we were there. I was so excited about being in Ghana and was ready to jump more into the culture. I was happy that all my roommates seemed to be cool people and was stoked for the adventures coming my way!
The next day our house was ready to move into. It was much nicer than I was expecting. Each of us have our own bedrooms and bathrooms, we have a kitchen, dining room, and a living room. The house has a tall adobe fence toped with barbwire that wraps around the house and a nice manicured yard. We have security guards that take turns sitting in a little office outside the house 24 hours a day. All the security feels a little excessive but it’s nice to feel safe anyways.
After the first week here we started class. We walk or get a trotro to the Aya Centre for each class. The first week we had a Twi class. Learning the Twi language is very difficult, as any foreign language is. The course was much too short, but it was enough to learn some of the basics. The way people speak this language sounds so good, they sound so graceful with their words, I really wanted to learn it! I planed on practicing Twi with the locals, but haven’t had much motivation to do that because almost everyone speaks english as well.
During that week we learned to ride the trotro. I learned that trotros are usually packed to the brim with people and usually cause perfuse sweating. It was a fun experience, but I was very nervous do it alone! I probably would have been too scared to do it If I didn’t have a cell phone that knew I could use if I got lost. Luckily I never got lost and over that last couple months I have become comfortable with the trotro system and now I even enjoy riding them sometimes.
The first Friday night after our school program started AHA took us out to a club. It was a lot of fun and quite the experience! I realized that night how different the relations and roles of males and females in this culture are. The men are very outgoing and the females are very reserved. The men seem especially outgoing towards us american girls, because they are under the impression that if they marry one of us they will be able to live in America or have more money. When we were dancing I got separated from my group of friends and suddenly there were four men dancing around me, grabbing my arms playing tug-a-war with me. It was insane! I had to push them all away to rejoin my group. It is interesting how women don’t go out to clubs, bars, or parties because when they do so they might seem promiscuous or something. There are always more men than women at these places. I still haven’t figured out how to deal with some of the men here, but ignoring them isn’t too difficult most of the time. I still haven’t gotten used to the extreme differences in gender roles here. The women are expected to do all the womanly chores such as cooking, cleaning, farming, laundry, and childcare. The men are expected to do all the heavy labor and typical male roles. These gender roles exist in America as well, but in a much less extreme way.
The first couple weeks in Ghana felt adventurous, wonderful, and and at times overwhelming. It didn’t take me long for most of my doubts and nervous thoughts about this trip to disappear and for me to feel really happy that I went! It helped a lot that I liked all my roommates and that the people here are so kind and friendly! I liked my first glimpse at African culture very much!
As the following couple weeks went by I started to feel that the remainder of my time in Ghana would go very quickly. My first few weeks were so wonderful and busy that they were over much more quickly than what seemed possible. It took me about three weeks to get over my original sense of being overwhelmed with the drastically new culture. I then started to notice things that didn’t at first. I was told before I came that I would be called “obruni” a lot and I would get really annoyed with it. During the first week or two there was so much new stuff going on that I didn’t even notice anyone call me that. Then this one time I noticed a child calling me by that word and ever since then I have noticed people saying it everywhere I go! It usually doesn’t annoy me but I hear it being said all the time. It isn’t a rare occurrence for people to get very excited to see us obruni, especially children. I am often approached by men when I walk anywhere. Most of the men that approach me want to be friends or start a relationship with me, some give business proposals, others just want money. I have been told many times by complete strangers that they “love me”. Some of these men I have found to be quite annoying, and have had to reject and get rid of each one of them, which is not something that I have enjoyed doing.
It also took me about three weeks to learn how to ignore and deal with people trying to sell me things, taxi drivers honking there, beggars, and men trying to get my number. Dealing with these things didn’t come very easily to me at first because I have never been around them in such great amounts, and the people here tend to be very persistent when they want something. One time a man in his 50s or 60s asked me for my number (what the heck was he thinking?!) some how I managed to strongly and effectively say NO without being totally mean, which I feel is quite the accomplishment! There have been other times in which I have not handled such occasions of saying no so smoothly, because I am not always very good at lying. One time I said “No you can’t have my number, I don’t have a phone.” right after talking on my cell phone, which was not the smoothest rejection! But since then I have started to form effective strategies of both ignoring, rejecting and just being friends with the male population here in Ghana. I have found that the aggressive flirting of the men and the reservedness of the women are just part of the culture here.
My roommates and I have all the same classes and we are the only people in them, which is very different than any classes I have ever had. In some ways it is nice having such small class sizes and it it also nice to be able to ask my roommates if I have any questions about a class. I have learned many things in these classes that I would otherwise not know about Ghana. All of my classes are very interesting, and have helped me know what it would really be like to be a ghanaian.
My classes have taught me some very interesting things about the sociology, government, gender roles, religions, and traditions of people in Ghana. It was great that I learned these things in class because I was then able to discuss the topics with locals and get other perspectives. I had some very interesting conversations with coworkers at my internships about things I have learned in class. When I first was told in class that the people in Ghana believe in witchcraft I was greatly surprised. Growing up in america I haven’t known a single person that believes in witchcraft. Before I came here I thought that it was an instinct belief and if anyone actually believed it that they would probably be insane. I have found by asking around that people actually really do believe that witches are real. When anything goes wrong it is often believed that it happened because a witch made it happen. This is one of the most interesting beliefs that I have come across during my time in Ghana. It is so different than anything that I have come across in america. How people believe it so full heartedly here, and how few people in america believe it shows how much effect that society has on individual’s beliefs. Each person tends to conform to their societies beliefs. To me witchcraft definitely doesn’t exist, but to almost anyone that I have talk to in Ghana says that it absolutely does.
I am doing two internships during my time in Ghana. One is at The Beacon House Orphanage and one at the Alpha Medical Centre. I work at the orphanage about seven hours a week and the clinic about eight hours a week. The Beacon House is a very nice orphanage that helps children from 1 to 13 years old. Most of the orphans have been physically abused and many have diseases or disabilities. I am happy to help improve the lives of these children! When I am at the orphanage I help by teaching the children and just giving them some much needed attention. I am working on helping my sister-in-law’s friend in america adopt one of the children from the Beacon House. I really hope that the adoption goes through, I know the little girl would have a better life growing up with parents. Seeing all the orphans growing up without parents really breaks my heart so I have been trying to do anything I can to help them.
I’m also very happy to work at the clinic. At the clinic I am the assistant to the head nurse. The hospital is very different than the hospitals in America. I work in the section of the hospital that deals with babies, new mothers, and pregnant women. I have been given duties of record keeping and figuring out if there are any problems with the babies or mothers that need further attention. I was given these duties before I even really knew what was going on and before I really knew the system or what was going on. I have much more responsibility than I would be giving at an america considering my lack of training. Usually I don’t have much trouble doing my duties but sometimes I have trouble communicating with patients or I am unsure how to cure a medical problem and all the nurses are too busy to ask, which is frustrating. I have noticed that the hospital lacks sanitation, organization and proper training. I believe that the hospital won’t ever have these things until Ghana becomes more industrialized and the hospital has more money. I do what I can to help out when I am there and I hope that what I learn from my experiences there will help advance me to my goal of becoming a nurse.
My internships, class and excursions have keep me pretty busy. I find that it is nice to be busy. Walking around town and taking the trotro is a lot of fun to me. I have made most of my friends here while traveling to or from work or school. I like walking a lot, but some days it has just been to hot and I have had to take a taxi.
It took me awhile to get accustomed to Ghana’s weather. When we arrived it was the middle of Ghana’s rainy season, which is nothing like the winters that I am accustomed to. It didn’t rain very often but when it did each time it was in extreme amounts, the biggest rain drops that I have ever seen! The temperature is usually hot and Accra is always very humid. When I first got here I though it was much too hot but as time pasted I got accustomed to the weather, but just as after I got accustomed to it the weather got hotter. The heat has been getting worse and worse, to the point that I don’t like spending much time outside during the day. It was especially hot when I went up to Tamale for the mid-semester break, where it got so hot that I felt miserable doing anything that didn’t involve the swimming pool. It has been cloudy here in Accra more often than it has been sunny, but often the sun usually breaks through eventually. I am the tannest that I have ever been. It will be fun to go home and be the darkest of all my friends and family. The locals here tend to laugh at me when I wear sunglasses, and they say that it’s hardly sunny at all, but it is to me!
Doing laundry by hand is quite the chore and I avoid doing it for long as possible. No one has washers here because they are expensive and use too much water. I dread doing laundry by hand and tend to put off doing it for as long as possible. The first few times I did laundry it took me a really long time but with practice I have improved my technics and have become more efficient. I am looking forward to going home to the luxury washing machines.
The house is very nice but we have some serious bug problems. There are little ants everywhere. If food is left unattended for ten minutes, I guarantee that there will be a thick trail of little black specks crawling onto to a plate fully covered by the little insects. There have also been many cockroaches in our house. The first few times they appeared we all panicked and made a big deal out of it. As they have continued to enter our house time after time it has become less of a ordeal. I am extremely grateful that they haven’t been in my bathroom the whole time! We have also had many mosquitos, lizards, poisonous spiders, and other little creatures living with us. The bugs are not as big as I had expected them to be, but there sure are a lot of them here in Ghana.
The dollar to cedi exchange rate is really good so I have not had to worry very much about money since I got here. Most things here are pretty cheap, especially the street food and things at the market. I like bargaining, it will be strange when I go back to America where almost everything has a fixed price and is really expensive.
I have found that almost everything that could possibly be different in Ghanian culture compared to American culture is indeed different. There is no way that anyone will ever be able to experience Ghana without being here. I have been trying to explain my experience to my friends and family at home, but the truth is that I have failed. Everything is different here, there is no way to truly capture it all in words or pictures. Some of the differences between here and America include the way people greet each other and the way they shake hands, the food, the way people eat, the weather, the gender roles, the sewer system, the laws, the politics, the way people drive, the way people talk, the clothing, the beliefs, traditions... everything. Being here has been an incredible experience. It has taught me a lot and has opened my eyes to so many new things. I am so fortunate and grateful that I have been adapt to spend the last four months in Ghana, a place so different from my home.