Seeing is Believing

I’ve been back from my adventures in West Africa for just over a week now.  I keep saying that this “culture shock” thing keeps getting easier each time I take one of these trips.  Considering I talk to my students about culture shock all the time, it always comes as a surprise when I still experience it.  And I guess in some sense it does actually get easier, but in others, I find it harder and harder to cope.  I’m less jarred by the transition from the shiny, sanitized, orderly United States of America to the dusty, noisy, unruly ways of the developing world.  I'm already prepared for the noises and the smells and the tastes.  I know what I want to do as soon as I land and I have a list of things and places and people I want to see before I leave (just like a visit home).  I'm ready for the "Africa Time" and the waiting and the endless marriage proposals.  I can recognize phrases in local languages and navigate the borders with a confidence you only get from experience.  So in this sense, yeah, the culture shock is “easier” because I’ve done it more.  I know what to expect.  In fact, I’ve come to anticipate it—to enjoy the mere chaos of it all. 

But because of this I see more.  On my first trip to Ghana I was so overwhelmed with what I was seeing—thatched roofs and mud huts and half-naked children running around—that I could barely understand these things.  I couldn't recognize the details and the defining characteristics of each of these villages.  I didn’t notice the subtle differences in the tribal scars on men’ and women’s faces.  I didn’t notice the road signs and the names of towns as we went in and out of them.  I wasn’t paying attention to the commerce—this village sells tomatoes, that one sells fish, etc.  But this time around I almost felt overwhelmed by all the pieces I was seeing. I’m not spending so much of my energy just trying to see everything.  I'm now working on processing it.  Which is way harder, for the record. 

But it also gets harder to leave.  Coming back to the United States pretty much just makes me angry.  Standing in the Kotoka airport (in Ghana) before departure, I actually considered getting out of line.  I thought up approximately one hundred and one reasons why I couldn’t go back just yet.   I was already beginning to craft the email in my head to my office explaining what happened (see there was this goat...and a flat tire…and an unexpected funeral party…and a marriage) and why I was going to need a few more hundred dollars wired to me.  Knowing this was absurd and that I already had appointments on my calendar back in Baltimore, I continued to stand in the longest line ever, feeling sorry for myself.

There are always a lot of Americans in Ghana.  I guess Ghana has become a fairly easy place to navigate, being all Anglophonic and politically stable and democratic and what not, and the missionaries come in by the boatload (although I’m not sure there are many people left to convert).  Standing in this bulging, unruly queue, I hear a familiar sound behind me.  American accents.  I turn to the small group of Americans who were looking around Kotoka for signs on what to do—because airports in developing countries have hundred of unspoken rules and approximately three signs, and those are usually in another language, despite being English speaking and politically stable and democratic and what not. 

This group behind me is southern (I'm guessing Texas or maybe Alabama, based on the tone) and I’m also guessing, based on their monogrammed backpacks, gold cross necklaces, and rolling floral suitcases, that they’ve been here charged with God’s work.  And I'm not hating on the work these good people do (or did), but at some point you get tired of congratulating people on their "hard work" when you don't see a place as desperate anymore.  It's like when people do mission work in Baltimore.  I get it.  I just don't necessarily like it. 

I’m usually dead on with these American spottings—the random Peace Corps volunteer, the best-of-intentions-missionary, the curious professors, the overly-zealous ex-pats, etc., each time becoming more and more conscious of my growing irritation towards the “American” in “Africa” (kindly ignoring that I, too, am American).  This is sometimes easy to forget when you’ve convinced yourself you aren't really American.

Standing and waiting and moving up a few feet every 20-30 minutes, I'm growing anxious about leaving Ghana.  I just left my "family" and giant plates of food and 3 beers I didn't have time to finish.  I didn't get enough time with my "big sisters" Christine or Skinny or my "niece" Woewoe.  I'm already thinking of the things I didn't scratch off my list in the eleven days I was there.  I decide to be chatty instead of being depressed.  I casually ask the group, “How long have you been here? Have you loved your visit?”  Inside my head I’m not really listening, and frankly I’m not sure why I even asked because I can’t say that I really particularly cared to know when and where and why this group has been traveling in this place I’ve become almost protective of; ready to attack anyone who dare say they had a miserable time in West Africa.  I learn that the group has been visiting the Volta region of Ghana, and as I suspected, working with a mission group.  One gentleman in particular says, “It’s been great but I’m sure ready to get home!”  His statement is simple enough, and completely innocent, but I translate it to: “Get me the hell out of this uncivilized place!”  I resist the snarling noise that seems to come from inside me, like a rabid dog, and I forcefully smile at him, nodding in a sympathetic way, hoping he can’t sense that I’m struggling to empathize.  And the fact that I completely put words in his mouth that he didn't say (because he probably wouldn't say hell).

And it’s not that I'm upset with these people who have probably been doing really good work.  It's not that I resent the missionaries.  These communities have embraced Christianity with a zealousness that's almost unnerving.  God has done his work in Ghana.  Churches from around the world have built schools and they support hospitals and provide medical care throughout this continent.  But if you really spend some time here, you start to see the gaps.  You start to see the thousands of unfinished projects started by people with good intentions.  You start to see the false hope spread by people with valid passports and multiple entry visas that allow them to travel in and out of these communities, when the going gets tough.  You start to see the loss of tradition at the hand of western dominance.  Which is not to suggest that Africa shouldn't be allowed to have things like potable water, Facebook, and Blackberrys.  This statement is merely to suggest that development and globalization comes at a cost.

So his eagerness to get home leads me to believe that he hasn't seen this place yet.  And I'm not holding that against him.  In fact, I’ve had that feeling standing in this airport.  My body drained from a week-long bout of traveler’s diarrhea and some bizarre stomach bug I can’t seem to shake; my soul shaken from what I’ve seen and felt and heard, desperate for some kind of normalcy, like a McDonalds or a grocery store or a flushing toilet.  But this time, I couldn’t be further from understanding his emotion.  I mean, I love a good flushing toilet, and I could kill a McChicken sandwich right about now, but I’d rather stay, frankly.  I’m sure I can find a chicken later, kill it, clean it, and make it into a sandwich.

When we land in the US, the Americans from the line wave at me in passing, and I can sense that they’re beaming to be back in the shiny, sanitized, orderly United States.  I, on the other hand, am grumbling at the sparkling floors and the big, clean windows and the excessive signs in English (I get it! I can read it!).  The shiny brushed nickel barricades that force everyone to get in neat, orderly lines (whether I like it or not) are making me irritable.  I’m mad at the petulant Customs agents for not smiling ever and for yelling at a group of Ghanaian teenagers who are in the US for the first time (welcome, kids).  I’m irritated that I can probably safely sit down on the toilet seat, because it has probably been cleaned and sanitized, on an orderly schedule, every 2 hours, since it was made functional.  I’m looking at the rotating luggage belt with disdain—what makes YOU so special!?  So what?  You go round and round.  Want a shiny, clean American award? Grumpy.  Like as if I were in DisneyWorld kind of Grumpy. 

I’m feeling cross and tired and missing the sounds of goats and chickens and a sea of languages I don’t understand.  There is no one standing outside of the airport waiting to haggle me.   There is nothing exciting happening.  There is no ocean and no fishermen and no singing and no obnoxiously loud gospel music playing 200 decibels too high.  `Just a lot of boring, expressionless people yelling at their kids to walk faster while they play their handheld video games.  I guess I won't be singing any patriotic songs today.

Each time I take this journey, I get more and more attached.  Each time I become less and less afraid of what makes this place so different.  Each time I push myself a bit further outside of my comfort zone.  And today I’m having one of those moments where I think to myself, I could maybe do this.  Like for real.  Because this airport is freaking bananas.  (Did I mention that bananas are better in West Africa, too?) 

Do you ever have those moments where you’re staring at something, and you’re questioning yourself and God: Is this a sign?  Am I supposed to DO something right now?

Since I’ve been back I’ve been looking around my life wondering, what holds me to this place?  What is it about my job that I love?  What about Baltimore?  My friends?  What would happen if I just took a giant leap?  Not for a lifetime, but maybe a year or two.  What would happen if I actually moved to West Africa?

Because something happens to me over there that I can’t quite describe.  It’s like the restless part of me settles down and I get downright spiritual.  The “things” I think I need to be happy are challenged and I always find myself opening my heart a bit wider with each person I meet and each experience I have.  And it’s not all peaches and roses and flowering bushes.  Africa is Hell.  I remember.  I get it.  Cities lack infrastructure, governments lack decency, the economy lacks liquidity.  People suffer from hunger and poverty.  HIV/AIDS and other diseases are rampant.  Health education and women's rights are generations behind the West.  But it’s like reminding me that Baltimore’s murder rate is high.  Yeah.  I know.  I heard a gunshot last night.  What of it? 

I guess we'll wait and see where life takes me.  But for now, when I dream, this is what I see:

 

Don't Talk to Strangers

I’m a pretty intuitive person.  Maybe it’s the storyteller in me, but I love to listen to other people’s conversations.  I think it might drive some of my friends nuts that I’m almost always double listening, but I can’t help it.  I take the way a person holds themselves, the way a stranger’s mouth wraps around her words, the silent messages she sends with her eyes, hands, body, and the tales she chooses to tell out-loud and I wrap it all into a story; an existence that I believe I’ve cracked in five minutes or less. 

I guess some people would call this being judgmental.  But trust me, the stories I conjure up aren’t always bad.  Granted, I prefer the ones where I determine someone is having an affair or I overhear bits and pieces of domestic spat and I determine in a matter of moments whose side I’m taking and why.  I’ve probably watched too much television in my lifetime. 

But I also decide lots of wonderful things about people all the time.  Like when I meet someone and I can just tell between the way they hang their laughter at the end of a sentence and the way their eyes light up when they tell a story that I’m going to love them.  Or when an accent touches my heart—a deep, southern accent with long drawn-out vowels and indiscernible consonants.  Reminds me of home.

Perhaps I notice these people because I genuinely like people.  I like the mess they make.  Even when life is riddled with despair and one piece of bad luck after another, people still do incredible things.  Really beautiful, poignant things still happen.  And even when it’s not pretty, it is often funny, instead.

I think it might be why I like kids so much.  Kids are just like adults, minus the learned traits of bitterness, political correctness, and racism.  Have you ever spent much time on a playground?  Have you ever watched the way these little people interact, before they’ve been taught not to like someone for the way they look or before they know its inappropriate to make honest, bold statements like: “You’re fat in your belly” or “Why do you have hairs in your nose?”  Once we’re grown up, we learn to only discuss such matters as fat bellies and nose hairs in doctor’s offices or in closed bedroom doors once we’ve secured the person to whom we’re about to disclose such outrageously controversial information through marriage vows (or the promise of such vows).

It’s wonderful.  Children go around playing whatever game comes to mind, regardless of how absurd, with whomever they find available for the game, making up rules as they go and proudly, boldly declaring statements that have a high chance of being entirely false.  They don’t hold back on what they want—what they like and don’t like and what they actually want to do.  And when proven wrong, they giggle at the irony (even though they can’t define that word just yet).  Or they spontaneously burst into tears, which is perhaps an even more honest response to the shit life hands you.  How many times a day would you love to either a) laugh at something inappropriate until you fall in the floor or b) burst into irrational, big, fat, salty tears over something silly?  I’d average in at about 15 times, most likely.  On a good day.

But people are funny.  I love the way we all layer in on top of each other.  I find it fascinating in places where there are no barriers—no restrictions on the kinds of people that travel to and from a place.  Places like grocery stores, hospitals, train stations, and airports.  At some point, we all gotta use these places.  Everyone from the schizophrenic middle-aged man to the elderly couple to the emo tween.  People from all walks of life uncomfortably settle in with each other, standing in lines or clumps waiting for something to happen.   And this is when the people listening is at an all-time premium.  These spaces make some people so uncomfortable that they’ll say and do ridiculous things, sheerly out of nervous discomfort.

Recently I’ve spent some time in airports and hospitals, and each time I’ve been struck by this same idea.  We’ve created all these spaces in our lives where we’re surrounded by the people who make us feel most comfortable.  We choose where we live, where we eat, where we work, where we go to the bar or out dancing.  It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll consciously choose a place for any of these activities that makes us uncomfortable—unless your yogi has told you to do it as a part of some bizarre meditative practice. 

So when we get into these spaces where we didn’t choose our company, some people flip out.  Some people carefully mask it with fake smiles and short, artificial small talk.  Some people I think are truly immune; unmoved by such shifts, perhaps because they’ve spent too much time in spaces like this, or perhaps because they simply don’t care.  But others are visibly uncomfortable.  Looking around the room casting glares and judgments, holding nothing back from their cold stares.

Coming back from Charlotte several weeks ago, I was standing in baggage claim in the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, I was up to my usual shenanigans.  Traveling alone is perhaps the best opportunity for listening to other people’s conversations.  I’m not distracted by trying to listen to the conversation I’m actually in—I can just listen, unabashedly, to others.

The baggage claim is taking a very long time.  I steal a quick glance around the room.

The couple I sat next to was returning from a vacation in the Caribbean.  They couldn’t stop touching each other.  They were older and so in love.  It was so nice to see an older couple like this clearly still loving life and confident that they’d made all the right choices along the way (even though I’m sure they didn’t always feel right at the time). 

A young girl in her early twenties, far too over-dressed for flying, was on her way home to see someone for the first time in a while.  Maybe from college?  Maybe she ran away to join the circus and was trying to return, looking freshly dressed, so that they’d all say, “You look amazing!  The circus did wonders for you!”  She fidgeted in her high heels and kept looking at her cell phone.  Perhaps wishing someone would call her.

There was a newlywed couple, so young and so J.Crew pretty.  They were fidgeting with their backpacks, practically just unloaded from last semester before being filled up for their honeymoon, nervously touching their new rings.  You could almost sense the fear they had about coming back home and giving this “just married” thing a go. 

An older, upper-class couple stood uncomfortably towards the back, hoping no one would look at them or worse, touch them.   They had their matching monogrammed totes between their legs and she clutched onto her Coach satchel like it was rare water in the Sahara.

A young man stood eagerly by the belt, unashamed to have his self-help-genre book How to Win Friends and Influence People tucked under his arm.  He rocked back and forth on his practical, black loafers.  I was pegging him as a young store manager of some corporate chain with aspirations of getting an MBA and being a CEO.   

The unfit mother of three fed her kids a happy meal, her loud, whining kids who needed anything but high-fructose corn syrup, salt, and fatty fried food.  She loudly asked them to shut-up when they started crying and the older, upper-class couple physically turned their bodies away while shaking their heads quite visibly.

A kind, middle-aged woman stood near me.  We chatted about how long it was taking and how miserable it is to fly these days.  She had a soft face and a sweet voice.  I assumed she was a nurse or maybe a teacher.  Or maybe the really nice administrative assistant at an attorney’s office.  No ring.  I’m guessing no kids.

This.  This right here.  Is just a five minute wait at a baggage claim.  Such a small part of a day but with hundreds of interactions, unspoken words, and physical exchanges.  So much to learn about the world around us in just five minutes with strangers.

I laugh inside because I think how many times a day we navigate spaces like this.  And how we teach our children to become indifferent.  To be cautious of strangers and to stay alert.  To place our monogrammed totes between our knees and hold onto our purses with death grip.  How we teach that it's rude to eavesdrop and to stare.  How we teach not to point or laugh.  Or to be honest with the things we really think.


I laugh, uncomfortably, because our purpose in these messages isn't evil.  We want to teach our children about compassion and acceptance and how not to be cruel, but unintentionally we teach another kind of cruelty.  By creating rules for unruly spaces.

Landing

Sometimes you just can’t sleep. Sometimes you feel things you just can’t explain. Sometimes you are so overtaken by emotions that you can’t quite pinpoint why you’re feeling so uncomfortable in your own skin. You find your eyes are welling up with tears at the simplest thing; crying for no real good reason.

I’m having one of those days today. Today I woke up feeling like I wasn’t supposed to be here today; like I should be somewhere else.

I can’t help but feel like my heart is burning a bit, missing Africa.

A journal entry from January, 2005:

After a grueling plane ride, we land. It’s like any other landing—they give the same speech, some protocol—I could be in New York, London, or Los Angeles. It’s not until I step outside that I realize: Shit, this is Africa. Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana.

The heat immediately seeps into my skin, an abrupt change from the cold, artificial air my body had gotten used to for the last ten hours. I breathe in the air. I smell the faint scent of burning and a strong smell of earth; a smell I’ve come to love and know as Ghana. Sometimes it seems like the earth itself is sweating from the heat; a sweet, dark odor seeping from the pores of the red clay. It wraps around you quickly and quietly.

After stepping onto the tarmac, we walk a short distance to the terminal—a large concrete building. The building has been painted, Akwaaba, “welcome”. Just inside the doorway, people rest on mats in the hallway. Flying for this many hours always confuses my body; I have no idea what time it is or how long these people have been waiting for our flight to arrive. There seem to be people lingering everywhere. The airport is a good place to wait. Outside the front doors, people stand in large groups waiting to see who arrives. Families gather in anticipation; young, hopeful men stand around in hopes that someone will hire them to transport luggage or drive a taxi.

But indoors, the air seems stagnant and hot. There are bags stacked everywhere. A barely rotating luggage belt clanks around awkwardly, as bags pour in through the open hole that leads directly outside. Large metal carts rapidly move around and fill up by locals and Ghanaian-Americans who seem to know exactly what to do. There are very few signs and even less machines—no computers, no digitized screens, no moving walkways. If this weren't my third time here, I'd be lost. In America, this would be chaos. Here, it seems strangely under control. Calm, even.

The first time I came here, I didn’t know what to expect. I stepped off those steps, felt that heat hit my skin for the first time, and walked into the unknown—a whirlwind month of my early college years. I spent three weeks wandering West Africa with my eyes wide open, trying my damndest to absorb everything in sight. I attempted, feebly, to process what I was hearing and feeling with every ounce of myself. To look at everything with as many lenses as I had the capacity—to do my best to simply participate and observe.

I’ve learned, over the years, just how hard this is to do—to simply blend into the background, participate and observe. I was naïve to think it would be so easy, that I could just show up in West Africa and not be seen by everyone as a white, American obroni college student. Besides, our western brains are highly skilled to pick out imperfections. We’re well-trained in cynicism, sarcasm, and despair. It has taken me many years to begin to quiet those thoughts—to push them to the side—so that I can truly hear the music. So that I can really dance. So that I can be okay with darkness.

And here I am back again, landing in this beautiful land and preparing myself for a new adventure—a new learning curve. I’m so happy to be back. As soon as the dusty smoky heat hits my nostrils I can feel it. That it that changed my life two years ago. That it that has left me dumbfounded, heartbroken, and filled to the brim with curiosity, joy, and light. That it that has made everyone I know who doesn’t know Africa hate me for loving this place so much.

We’re met on the other end of the terminal by my dear friend Christine. I can hear her laughter as soon as I come through customs. She cries out with joy, as if in pain, and releases the most excruciatingly beautiful smile that no one could possibly stay upset or angry in her presence. The hug that follows this grin is even more joyful and suddenly the hours and hours on an airplane are non-existent. The heat is beginning to set into my bones and I’m so excited to be here—to be home. She squeezes me tight and says, “Welcome home, junior sister”, and lets out an outrageous cackle that lets me know she sincerely means it. I feel like I can’t contain my words; I ramble in circles asking how everyone is doing, checking in on her love life, her family’s health, etc.

There is a distinct feeling I get when I travel to a place that feels like home. Everywhere I walk, I hear the local greeting: “You are welcome.” This time, I feel that in the deepest of places.

Praying for Pink

I’m surrounded by noises that are rough and abrasive. I’m flying home from my grandmother’s funeral. I’ve spent the weekend listening to soft words. I've heard pieces of scripture read in soothing, quiet tones. We’ve shared stories and memories quietly with each other; gently acknowledging the way our eyes get wet in the corners when we think of her. We've been trying to be safe zones for each other, protecting one another from the outside. There has been a hushed silence forcibly placed on our lives this weekend without us asking for it—just an assumption that we couldn’t handle the noise that life makes all on its own. A correct assumption, I might add.

Suddenly I’m sitting in an airport, surrounded by people who can’t sense that the dark circles under my eyes are there because I haven’t sleep well in weeks. They don’t know that I’ve cried more in the last month than I have in the last year. They can’t tell from looking at me that last night I found myself so overwhelmingly sad, I had to excuse myself from a family dinner to run warm water through my fingers. That I had to sit down on the closed lid of a restaurant toilet to hold my face in my hands and take deep breaths.

There are children running around, with the happiness only children can have in an airport, and an anxious teenager behind me is chattering nonstop about her week at the beach. A woman across from me sloppily shoves food into her mouth—noisily chewing this disgusting thing an airport calls a sandwich. She drips food all over the seat she barely fits in. A man runs his wheeled luggage over my foot. He doesn’t apologize. And I can’t be upset with these strangers—these insensitive, disgusting, obnoxious strangers—because after all, I’m not walking around with a sign on my chest that says fragile. The experience is grinding and I can’t help but feel oppressed, attacked, and singled out.

The airport messages are blaring above my head, reminding everyone to limit their luggage, to queue up quickly and efficiently, and to follow the millions of rules that are now placed on all of us, surely, for our greater safety. There is a symphony of noise coming from behind the ticketing desk; clicking and beeping and the obnoxious noises coming from walkie-talkies. I feel like the people who work here have no regard for how noisy they make this space—how frequently their messages are repeated and overlapped with others. There are machines backing up. Loud people scream into cell phones. And I’m just looking for a quiet corner to sit in and write. I just want to release all the millions of things I’m thinking about right now. But I feel tongue-tied sitting here alone. I feel like I’m in such a strange space—this zone of grieving, sadness, and overall relief.

Finally, there is a break in the noise. A plane boards to Atlanta. For the time being, it appears the slobs, the anxious teens, and the insensitive owners of wheeled suitcases have boarded their plane to their final destinations. There is a soft silence that falls over this end of the airport. A wash of relief. A chance to breathe. Temporary, but necessary.

Four hours ago I sat in a quiet cemetery, thinking quietly to myself how peaceful this place is; an expansive cemetery covered in old live oaks. Moss hangs tenderly in the air. Despite the overwhelming sadness of this space, I’m astounded by how beautiful it is. As we sit through the short and tender graveside ceremony, I look forward at the small metal box that holds my grandmother’s ashes. I desperately want to open the box, let her breath in the humid Florida air. I’m feeling stifled thinking about an eternity spent in a small metal box. I want her ashes to float in the air—for her body to be here with us. I want her to be released, not held. I want her to laugh and share and cry together. I want to smell her—to feel her skin; to hug her soft frame. And I know that I’m being irrational—that what’s left in that small, metal box is basic biology. It’s the ashes of bones and cells and proteins. Her spirit has left us and gone forward. But I’m not sure how this space will feel without her. I’m not sure how long this sadness will linger.

Two weeks ago when I came to say goodbye to her, I knew death was around the corner. I saw him creep in with silent feet. I watched him slow her breathing and curl her toes. I listened, as she fought him entering her heart. He shut her eyes and turned off her memory, for good. But he did us all a favor—he stopped her pain. He ended her suffering. He closed her book. He wrote the final page. He took her home. And I can’t hate him for this. She was ready. She was tired.

But right now I’m sick to my stomach. I’m exhausted. I’m annoyed. I’m sad. I’m grieving. And I’m stuck in an airport—surrounded by all the things I hate most about America. I’m hoping that getting home and breathing deep makes this week easier. I’m hoping that all the people in my life can respect my need for quiet, my desperate hunger for gentleness. I’m hoping for relief. I’m praying for serenity and grace. On my first trip to Ghana, one of the people traveling with us asked the group, "I wonder what color the sand will be?" Another girl on the program thoughtfully responded: "I don't know but I'm praying for pink." This is what I'm doing right now. I'm sitting on a beach of gross, dirty, cold sand and I'm praying for pink.