An Inside Look..

Okay everyone, I'm super excited about this post. As a part of my development studies course I was required to give a group oral presentation

last month and my group's topic was education reform. First, we discussed the history of education in Ghana and how the system has evolved since independence. As some of my readers may know, the 2012 election in Ghana was last week on Friday, December 7th. So, in my presentation we decided to discuss the education policy initiatives of the two major parties here in Ghana, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) so that our fellow classmates would see where education in Ghana was headed. 

I won't say which party I thought had the best policies but the incumbent party, the NDC won the election. It was really great to be here during an election season and experience the political process.

I created a video to show in the presentation that provides an inside look into the school I've been working at this semester along with some commentary about the current status about education from some of the faculty. I apologize for not posting more about my teaching experience but I'm officially done and I'm definitely gonna miss my kids. 

I worked really hard on this video and a friend suggested that I share it with the world. So here it is.

Enjoy! :)

Life Update

So I know that it has been a REALLY long time since my last post. I hope all of my readers can forgive my laziness this past month. A lot has been going on and I guess I never had the patience to sit down and write about it. I can’t even remember the last time I posted pictures on Facebook either smh.

            The same weekend I visited Elmina I also went to Kakum National Park and did the famous canopy walk. For those who don’t know, Kakum is a cool rainforest in Cape Coast and the canopy walk consist of a series of narrow bridges connected through the trees. The bridges are so high that we couldn’t see the ground, but only the trees and the birds around us. The view was amazing. I was really scared on the first one but there were 7 in total and I made it through all of them.

   

One weekend I joined a group of friends and visited Shai Hills. It’s a beautiful resource reverse that used to be the home of the Shai people many years ago. We hiked up to cave Adwuku, which used to be a spot where the Shai people would hide during tribal wars. Forgive me for my lack of knowledge; it’s been so long since I actually took the trip. It was my first real hike and it was a bit scary but I was proud of myself for making it all the way to the top of the cave and back down. Overall it was great and I felt so accomplished. I have pictures but of course a picture is never as good as the real thing. The scenery was amazing. I felt like I was in The Lion King the entire time. I saw a huge ostrich and even fed baboons. By the end I was so happy for the experience.

            Election night I was up until 5:30 am and still managed to make it to class the next morning. The moment Obama won I was so sad that I couldn’t join my fellow Hoyas and storm the White House. Even though I wasn’t home I realized that it was still a unique experience to watch the election surrounded by fellow Americans all the way in Ghana. Soooo…here and now. Classes are officially over, they ended after the first week of November. I have already taken two finals and I have two more left. However, I have absolutely no motivation to study so they might be a struggle haha. My last day of my internship is on Monday, I think I’m actually going to miss my kids a lil bit. I actually made a video as part of a presentation on education reform that features my school. I will try to post it. I’ll officially be done on December 10^th and leaving Ghana to head to London for 5 days on the 18^th. I can’t believe I have less than 3 weeks left in Ghana. My friends and I have really been trying to make each day count, especially since I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to come back. Fun fact: We even got to go out with EL, a famous Ghanaian music artist. Google him. That was really cool.

        

 So tomorrow is officially December. The crazy thing is that it doesn’t even feel like December because it’s hot! Lol. My friends and I have been trying to watch Christmas movies just to get in the holiday spirit (I know have The Preacher’s Wife on my laptop). It will be extremely weird being cold when I leave. I forgot to mention Thanksgiving. The world should know that I had a great Thanksgiving meal that the program provided for us, and yes I ate turkey haha. And I guess now would be a good time to announce that I am officially natural :). I cut my hair before leaving the U.S. and now I feel comfortable enough to wear it out.

            So anyways that’s all the updating I have for now. Going to a P-Square concert tomorrow night and then our official CIEE farewell dinner is on Sunday.                                 

Thanks for readinggg :)

Elmina and Cape Coast: Part II

My Thoughts...

When we approached Elmina I was a little nervous. I was nervous yet anxious at the same time because I was excited to see the castles but I didn’t know how the tours would affect me. We were told that the tours would be deep and we were warned about the possibility of getting very emotional. During the tour I was a little sad but thankful to God. In the dungeons all I could think about was that it could have been me all those years ago, just because of the color of my skin. I can’t even fathom the amount of suffering that so many people went through. The most ironic thing about the castles is that they each contain a church. The Europeans worshiped God right above the slave dungeons, in the midst of all their suffering. I couldn’t believe that a group of people could bluntly inflict harm on another group of people and believe it to be acceptable by God.

After all of the tours we had dinner back at the hotel and then engaged in a reflection session. To me, this was one of the most important parts of the day. We shared our individual thoughts and how we felt about going through the castles, we tried to discern the motivations behind the institution of slavery itself, and lastly, we tried to answer the big question, “Has humanity changed?”

I will give my view on this last question. Part of me wants to say yes because slavery and Jim Crow are over. However, I know in my heart that that’s not true. We’ve made progress as a people but there is still much work to be done. The fact that race has and will probably always be an issue in the United States is not progress. A friend of mine made an interesting comment during reflection. She questioned the theory behind integration. What exactly were we integrating? Are we integrating whites into the black community or blacks into the white communities? It just really made me think about how society has the ability to make us believe in the superiority of one culture over another. Also, the fact that there are still religious and ethnic wars happening around the world tells me that humanity has not changed. However, I do see some potential. I believe that attitudes can be changed and I believe the possibility of peace. But I also know that none of these will be achieved in my lifetime.

The funny thing is that I came to Ghana I expected meet Ghanaians who were angry about slavery, but I haven’t. Slavery is not a serious factor in the life of an average Ghanaian. The fact is that Ghanaians are too worried about meeting their basic needs that they don’t have time to worry about it. They just see slavery as this thing that happened some time in the past. The subject has not been heavily integrated in the education system so children usually don’t learn about it until they’re much older if at all. The structure of culture and norms doesn’t really slavery to be discussed because Ghanaians tend to refrain from topics dealing with sad issues and large-scale human suffering.  Instead of reading a book about slavery they would rather read more empowering and inspirational literature. I don’t blame them. Something that happened over 400 years ago should not be a large negative factor today. African Americans should not constantly be discriminated against and be reminded of a dynamic between blacks and whites that existed centuries ago. Blacks and whites should see each other as equals...but the terrible implications of the slave trade will always be evident in the United States.

Being that slavery happened so many years ago I didn’t feel a direct connection to it at the time we were in the castles and it still hasn’t hit me hard like I thought it would. At first I thought it was bad that I didn’t get emotional, but I don’t have to get emotional just to prove that the experience mattered to me. That day means more to me than I could ever say.

People always talk or joke about going back to Africa, back to their roots. Now I can say that I’ve actually done it and that experience will always be in my heart. I walked into the same dungeons that my ancestors walked in, I watched the sunset over the Atlantic along the same coast that each ship came and went. The sad thing is that I know I’ll never be able to trace my family back to exact country in Africa, to the exact town or village. But that doesn’t matter. All I know is that the color of my skin has a rich African culture and history attached to it and I will forever be proud of that fact.