What does it all mean??

SO.... I'm in Koforidua now, and I've begun the 'volunteer placement' part of my program at a house called Matthew 25. It's a support house for people living with HIV/AIDS, and it works both with people who have the virus and to raise awareness about it among the general population. One of the ways it does this is by holding a Pre-Valentine program every year. They invite various members of the community and discuss the true meaning of Valentine's Day, the reality of HIV/AIDS and stigmas about the virus, and also have a testimonial from someone living with HIV/AIDS. This year, they have targeted trade specialists and apprentices as their main audience for the event, and, due to budget restraints, have limited the numbers to 25 women and 25 men. The most interesting part I have seen about the program so far (as it has not yet happened and thus I have not actually witnessed the program itself), is the way they register people to come: rather than using more common forms of announcement (newspaper, posters, radio, etc.), 2 of my colleagues and I have spent the last two days walking around Koforidua and surrounding towns personally inviting people to come and registering them on the spot. At first, this might not seem so interesting, but then I think about it in reference to Canada, and I see that it's highly unlikely this type of approach would even work, let alone evoke the eager response it's gotten. Picture just walking down the street, stopping in at various beauty shops, tailoring shops, carpentry shops and manufacturing shops, and saying:
"Hello. We are from Matthew 25 House and are going around to invite people to a Pre-Valentine program, being held at Matthew 25 on February [3rd for men, 4th for women]. We are going to talk about the essence and meaning of Valentine's Day, about HIV/AIDS, and about surrounding stigmas and discrimination. Also, someone living with the virus will give a testimony about the reality of life with HIV/AIDS. The program will be held from 8:30 am to 1:00pm, and we would like you to come."
Keep in mind that we don't know these people, we don't know how they feel or what they believe about HIV/AIDS, and we are asking them to leave their shops (and thus their income) for a whole morning to come and hear why Valentine's Day is not just about sex. Would it fly in Canada? As sad as it may be, my first response is "no". At least, if it did, I highly doubt people would be willing to sign up on the spot and respond with such phrases as "by all means, I WILL be there!"
I don't know the reason for such a difference, and though I do know that there are definitely some misinformed beliefs about the cause and spread of HIV/AIDS among Ghanaian people, I can't help but think that in some ways they are still leaps ahead of my own culture. Perhaps it has just been that in our undying effort to press forth in the name of knowledge, power, and freedom, we have somehow taken giant leaps backwards that have left us ignorant, complacent, and imprisoned in (false) self-satisfaction and instant gratification. I see the differences here. What they mean and why they are are still unknown to me. I can speculate from my point of view, but it is still ignorant in many areas and, as someone from the western world, is likely highly misguided. I think the most frustrating part right now is trying to figure out how to change that (my ignorance). I cannot work for change outside of myself until I have an internal understanding and awareness of what and where that change should be. I realize I may have become a little too abstract in these last thoughts, but I suppose it is a good representation of what my head has been like for these past few months...
I think it might all come back to the question of change. Change is good, right? Well, my answer? As long as it is done responsibly. Change itself is a kind of power. If one can change not out of necessity, it is power. If one can change without acknowledging the effects of that change, it is unearned, unbalanced power. When one country can change by exploiting another, it's not okay. When one country can choose to change for the betterment of the global village, but chooses not to, it's not okay, it's not fair, and it's not responsible.
I see I have gotten a little off topic here, but hopefully my rantings will strike a chord with someone who will decide to become an ambassador for responsible change. As for myself, I feel somewhat incapable of doing anything of real value at this point and in this place. But perhaps, or moreover, hopefully, when my adventure here has ended and I have returned to Canada, and I myself re-read these words, that person will be me. In that case, it will all have been worthwhile.

I send my love and hugs to everyone back home, and anyone else who may happen upon this.

This Year's Resolution...

Alrighty, New Year's Resolution 2009:

To go where I'm meant to be - and everything that that entails:
to be brave enough to walk through the doors that open to me
to discern where it is that I'm being called to go
to let go of the doors that close to me
to be happy when I get there
to be comfortable in the moments when there's nowhere to go

Good.

Yay for travel time!!!

Alright.. so 4 posts in 2 1/2 months.. not bad, not bad!!

SO as the title says we're beginning our travel time portion of the program, and I'm really excited!! Our group has been super ambitious and have decided to go ALL OVER the country and stretch our two weeks to the max!! It's gonna be so much fun!!

Now, time to switch things up...

I have been up and down lately.. good and sad - learning how to cope with the difficulties and trying to really let the amazing moments sink in and anchor themselves in my heart.
It's interesting the things that come up when one is thrust into a new world where nothing at all is familiar or stable...

Example 1: Journal entry on December 10th, 2008...

I feel fragile, but hard. I feel like the days and time are senseless, and I don't want to feel and hear and engage. Yet every tiny thing - the wind brushing past my arm, the tickle of my hair, the surprising heat of the sun - cuts so deeply into my emotions... I feel it so much, so deep, so innocent and so honest. I blank and block out the world I hate and love in this senseless tug-of-war that no one side will ever actually win, and I love and hate the numbness I find there. When will this end? Why must I feel EVERYTHING - from the mundane to the magnificent - so deeply? I don't feel like singing. I can't remember a time when I didn't feel like singing for so long. And the brief peace that comes when it's forced is barely worth the breath I painstakingly push from my lungs to produce it. Everything is so far away, and yet so present. Sometimes I feel like talking, but before I've even opened my mouth my brows have furrowed in response to the frustration of knowing that I'll never be able to find the words. I feel like crying, but not from full wells. From dried up places that harbour only dust and faint breezes of what once was - and from this dryness the tears simply cannot come. I want to be handled - to feel that security of a small, sunlit room where I can be open and broken for days and no one questions me or barrels forward without me. And yet I don't want to be touched, for the fear that the dryness would swell, and the sudden overflow would become an uncontrollable downpour no matter what my surroundings. And I fear the lack of safety in that. I fear so much. It is what holds me back and makes my heart heavy.
For as much as I cannot remember it, I miss my childhood. I miss the innocence. The world as my front yard and ballet class and summer and winter clothes, late night slurpee-runs with dad and pink ghetto blasters, self-choreographed dances and silly mushroom cuts - before it became old, complicated, weathered by sadness. I want it back. With every fibre of my being I want it back. Perhaps this is why I cling to the few memories I have - to the dreams I had back then and the people I shared them with and who allowed me to entertain them without the slightest caution of that they may not come to fruition - those people as I thought they were back then, who have somehow changed, though really, were always this way. I want that time back. I feel like I've been robbed of it: it's been snatched away, stealthily, in the darkest hour of the morning, just before the sun breaks and shadows begin to fade.
I am not quite found in the juxtaposition of everything that's made me who I am and who I've decided I will be yet. The balance is more of a see-saw, with one side rising at one moment, the other the next. Perhaps this feeling of being lost is really more the feeling of not being guided. Where does that come from? Faith? God? Me? Is it more an intuition, or just the culmination of random events that blows leaves over one path, exposing another, or throws a rock in the middle of a stream, forcing the water to carve another gully through previously unbroken soil?
I'm tired. So much energy just to sit and think. I can see what it will be like when I no longer need to spend such energy simply organizing my thoughts, but the bridge to that place is yet unconstructed, the roads yet unpaved. Do I build them alone? Am I even capable? Would I be asking these questions if I was? Would I be asking them if I wasn't?

Since then I have noticed a bit of a shift, though I am still not "found". I have only noticed that I have stopped spinning. I am still. Not planted, or firm. Just not spinning.

I am still. And it's surprising. And nice.

Yes!!!! I'm still alive!!!!!

So..

Well, I'm back in Accra right now, as our group is just on our way to Nkawkaw for our retreat with Father Paul... which I am really looking forward to!

I've completed the first half of my village stay, and although it's been challenging at times, it's been really awesome too. My mother's name is Christiana and my father's name is Samuel, and I have 6 brothers and 2 sisters: Joseph ("Amati" - 20), Jacob (19), James (17), Margaret ("Amaki" - 14), Peter (12), Ezekiel (7), Joshua (5) and Monica (3 this Christmas). I have a room that I share with my sister (Amaki) and another girl from the village (Lani), a hole in the ground for a toilet, and a bath house that's really just three-and-a-half walls with a broken concrete floor.. and it's actually pretty great! I'm definitely becoming a big fan of this whole bathing outside thing. We eat banku every night, and it's amazing!! Amaki makes the best banku I've ever tasted, and my mom makes a different stew or soup every night.. and she's an excellent cook. I did get quite sick after my first few days there, but it was because of something called 'saltpetre' that they put in the soup.. I went to the hospital and then spent some time recovering at Dinah's, so needless to say, they don't make that soup for me anymore! I went farming with my mother and Amaki this past weekend (picking peppers), and the farm itself was about a half-hour walk away. It was the first time I've ever had sweat dripping off of my face!! I was so tired by the time we came home, and though I stayed until all the peppers had been picked, we were only there for about an hour.. maybe two at the most - and I'm still sore! (..I'm such a baby!!)

I've definitely had my bout with homesickness, and for a few days - and especially around the time I was sick - all I wanted to do was come home. But a phone call home and a letter written through tears really helped. In fact, just this past weekend I had my first "I'm really gonna miss this place" feeling. I will miss the business of Junction, fetching water, cooking with my mom and Amaki (which I do every night - I'm still trying to perfect the banku, but it's going well!), and just the general way of life. It's all so different.. as much getting used to as it takes, it's pretty great once you let it in and soak it up.

I had this really great moment with Amaki on Sunday, and I want to share it with everyone who reads this. As a white person in Ghana, I am constantly called out to and referred to as "baffoono" (or braffoono or blaffoono - I'm not really too sure) - which means 'white man', and on Sunday as Amaki and I were walking past the school close to my house, some older schoolchildren started calling it out, and for the first time Amaki turned to me and said "Don't mind them.. you are NOT 'baffono'. You have a name - you are Abusaki. You are NOT baffono." It was really great.

Anyway, there are likely a gajillion other things I probably wanted to say and am totally forgetting in this moment, but it's been a while and I'm running out of time. I hate to go. I've realized that writing to home somehow makes me feel closer to it, and I like that. As much as I'm loving it here, I think about home often and wonder how it's going there. I miss everyone, and I hope all is well.

Take care over there, and know that I continue to carry all of you with me.

1 week...

So, one week ago today I left my home country of Canada and ventured into a completely foreign Ghanaian adventure... AAGGHHHHH!!! Who knows what I was thinking???!?!?!

It's been pretty good so far.. EXTREMELY hot (at least for me) and definitely different. I do, more often than not, wonder what the heck I am doing here, but then I just take a deep breath, remember my goals, and decide to press on through. I haven't felt too frustrated so far, only worried... worried about village stays and how tough it's actually going to be. No running water and no electricity will definitely take some getting used to.. (though I did hand wash my clothes today and I am getting pretty good at the whole bucket bath..) Two of my biggest struggles so far are the food and the heat. It's not that the food is bad, it's just a lot of fish and tomatoes.. two things that are really not very high on my 'like' list. And the heat is really quite overwhelming for me, and I knew it would be a challenge - coming from Saskatchewan summers that I barely handle. Right now, minus 45 degrees is sounding pretty good! I have no idea what the actual temperature has been, but the sun is so strong and it's so humid ALL THE TIME that it's pretty overwhelming. I've already been burnt well enough that my nose is peeling, although I am lathering on the aloe vera - by the way Blair, I brought your aloe vera... didn't think you'd need it over the winter.. thanks!! - and I keep bathing in the suncreen every morning. The only good thing about my burn (which is already a nice tan, may I add..) is that the only reason I burnt was because we spent a day at the beach and I played in the ocean.. and it was phenominal!!

We are now out of Accra (the capital city) and in Bedeku, staying with Dinah, a lawyer who's kind of a One World veteran. We started our Dangme (pronounced Deng-bay) language lessons yesterday, and I'm really enjoying it. I love talking with the kids and getting them to teach me how to say different things and having them laugh at me when I say them wrong! I've become friends with a little girl named Abigail and she taught me a lot of really useful words and phrases, so I taught her how to 'pound it', and we've pretty much been buds ever since!

Despite the miniscule challenges I've faced so far, I think I am enjoying it, though I do miss home often, and I do wrestle with the question of whether or not I can actually do this. I can feel all the love everyone from home is sending me, and I send it back ten-fold... I am thinking of you all very often! I have already met some really wonderful people here and they remind me so much of the incredible friends and family I have back home... I'm beginning to realize just how lucky I am to have all of the most amazing people concentrated in my life... it overwhelms me sometimes, and I definitely thank God for it everyday.

I suppose that's all for now... please let me know how life is back home, one way or another, and know that you are all here with me. Welcome, Mo ye!!!

Hello All!!

Well... I made it!!! We got in last night to a very hot and humid Accra.. and it's been a bit of a whirlwind so far. My day has been made up sightseeing, walking, riding in tro-tros, and having mini-meltdowns! But i'm sure i'll get over it eventually.. or least i hope so!We only lost one bag, which is good, and it wasn't any of the girls packs.. it was a care package sent back from a past one worlder. :( Katie and I walked through the Kwame Nkrumah National Park today, and that was nice. It's been a bit overwhelming in the short time we've been here.. but I"m still here!Anyway, it's gotta be short today as I don't have very much time.I hope all's well with everyone happens upon this, and I'm probably misssing you a ton!!