Leaving Ghana and "How It Was"

Somehow, leaving Ghana was less painful than anticipated. I was ready for my next chapter. I left knowing I will return some day, and Ghana will be waiting with welcoming arms. 

Leaving the Ghanaians I had grown close to however, well, that was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do. I was bursting into sporadic fits of tears the entire week before my departure. Sometimes a mere glance from a Ghanaian friend - a stranger, even - would cause me terrible distress. I sobbed the entire second half of the last drumming and dance performance of the cultural group that had become my brothers and sisters. If that wasn't theatric enough, I left the performance early - ran up the stage's steps (dramatically, the only exit), past the Cape Coast Slave Castle and into the night, raw as an open wound.

What saddened me most was the idea that every relationship I made in Ghana would never again be as I know it now. When I return to Ghana we will all have changed. I'm not opposed to change, but the concept of "how it was" is sacred to me. Leaving my Ghanaian community was like waking up too soon from a good dream. You have the mental power, the imagination to finish it however you want, but you would rather find the happy ending by returning to the dream. You go back to sleep and try to continue the good dream, but you can't. 

"How it was" has reshaped me, and now it will be only a memory.

After completing my work in Ghana in September 2011, I finished my 14-month adventure in Cape Coast with the annual "Oguaa Fetu Afahye," or Cape Coast Festival.

Before I left Ghana I learned the organization I worked for was planning to open a site in Cape Town, South Africa. I offered to help set up the site, knowing that I would be visiting the country anyway. So, in September and October I spent a weekend in Johannesburg, a week in Durban, a week around Mbabane, Swaziland (and was stranded there because of the public transportation drivers' riots), and four weeks in Cape Town.

In Cape Town I was contracted by my former employer to meet with local businesses to lay the foundation for the new nongovernmental organization office. I met with over one dozen community partners and set up the projects, accommodation and excursions. The site officially opens in January 2012. It was such a cool experience to network and search for potential business partners in Cape Town and hear about what these innovative enterprises do.

I fell in love with Cape Town, Durban and South Africa's complicated social and political history. Swaziland was also a fascinating country with interesting political history, being the last absolute monarchy in the southern hemisphere. I would love to return some day and spend more time there.

Update:  I actually did end up returning to Swaziland two months after this post. I was hired by a responsible tourism company and lived and worked there for about one year. 

Summer of Silence

This is the first summer I can remember that has left me more stressed, more anxious and more exhausted than before it started. Our site has led and accommodated between 20 and 50 volunteers each month from May through August, including four study abroad group programs. With the Project Coordinator Intern's angelic assistance, I have managed all individual volunteer and intern projects and group projects – the miscommunications, the questions, the complaints and the positive feedback from the local project partners, volunteers, interns and faculty leaders. I also approved funding applications and distributed the funds for all these projects (5 projects in May, 12 in June, 17 in July; 9 in August). It was a lot of administrative work and a lot more of putting out fires.

Of the 10 country sites our international nongovernmental organization operates within, the Ghana site was expected to have the most action this summer. After a few months of the Ghana Site Director nagging the President about getting more help on-site, our request was granted in May. Our site grew from four full-time staff members (two local, two foreign) to also include a local temporary Project Coordinator Intern (May-September), a foreign Program Advisor from our marketing department (May-July) and a foreign Volunteer Coordinator (one-year contract). At the end of June, two managers from different departments in our U.S. headquarters office visited for two weeks. It was the first occasion anyone in a managerial position came to our site since it opened in July 2009, a long absence even if the staff hadn’t been stifling complaints about the way things were being managed on-site.

Since mid-May at least once per week there have been personal and professional conflicts among the staff that have resulted in shouting matches, tears and even premeditated public shaming in front of community partners. Somehow I always found myself in the middle, mediating. I’ve been tempted to add to my job description in my resume, "mitigated temper tantrums, nervous breakdowns and verbal attacks between parties."

My blog has been quiet this summer. I assure readers it is not out of laziness. It is because I am tired.

I am emotionally depleted from the 15-hour work days and being on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, approving a volunteer’s ideas for her project money donation at 8 p.m. on a Friday night, being called by a host mother at 10:15 p.m. asking if her “daughter” was at our volunteer house because she hadn’t come home yet and then being woken up at 6:50 a.m. the next morning to a volunteer’s call about a question regarding her host family. It is the nature of the job, yes, but that on top of being the site's unofficial peace-keeper? For project partners, volunteers and staff too? My exhaustion stems from always needing to be available, practical, approachable for others (customers and colleagues) even outside of the regular 8 to 5 work hours. It is one of my personal and professional strengths, but these days and in this particular environment it is wearing me down.

I am also tired because I have so many things to say – about how disheartening it is that young people all over the world come to "the country Africa" to Make A Difference and then get frustrated when they learn that they can’t make a difference in two weeks or even two months because their definition of "help" is different than Ghanaians' definition. (Not all, but most volunteers have this viewpoint - especially the summer batches.) I have more to say about how I don’t like how difficult it is for me to find joy in being a foreigner, always standing out. About how even though I feel safe in Ghana, two lost souls with a gun, a machete and a craving for power shook my core in early June. I hate that I jump and look around when I hear people running now.

A more deep-seeded reason for my silence is because I love Ghana, her people and her culture, and I'm immensely grateful for the experiences I’ve been given. My silence is because I don’t feel like my attitude reflects these feelings right now. I've hardened, I've become jaded and cynical (realistically optimistic?). I don't like it. I hope it doesn't last.

My work contract was from July 2010 to July 2011. In April, before summer bombarded, I made the decision to stay onboard through August 2011 to help with the busy season. After my initial shock of being home in a land of infinite excess and waste and unnatural lights and vanity and refined sugar aromas and mammoth-sized cars and Walmart and who knows what else will toss me off my rocker, I hope I will find peace in the aftermath of this summer.