That’s how it feels when friends ask:
How was Africa?
I know that they’re curious, they care, and they remember where I was. And I have so much to say!
The thing is though, most of the time friends ask in the few minute before a class starts, or while we’re both walking home from a late night meeting, or at a party over loud music and flip cup cheering. So the best I can do, when asked to mentally jerk back three months and some 8,000 miles to my time in Ghana, is to spit out one of three soundbytes:
It was so much fun!
Amazing, challenging, different than I expected.
I felt really white for the first time, more aware of my skin than I ever have before.
‘How was Africa’ - is there better way to put that question? my friend Monisha asks. Maybe, but I understand why it comes out that way. I just wish I had a better answer.
All too often, all of Africa gets represented as either bloody, poor or starving. And all of that is true. But so much more is true, so much more emerges as true from just one 5-month stint in one city in one country in one region of Africa.
So even if I already answered your “How was Africa?” query once, give me a second chance. Let me try answering your question again.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
My Grandma Must Be Dancing
At least, after listening to her and her friends plot subversive meetings against the conservative El Salvadoran government, I imagine she must be celebrating the end of 20 years of conservative party rule.
El Salvador held its presidential election yesterday.
The two major parties were ARENA and FMLN. ARENA is the right-wing party, which has been in power for the last 4 terms, is associated with the death squads from the 1980s, and was heavily backed by the US during the Cold War. FMLN is the left-wing party, which has been associated with guerrilla movements until a 1992 peace deal, and was originally formed by Marxist rebels.
The FLMN won by a margin of 2.6%.
I don’t know much about politics in El Salvador, but from what I’ve picked up, I’m hopeful about what a new leader and a new party might be able to do.
And, I’m excited to talk to my grandma.
El Salvador held its presidential election yesterday.
The two major parties were ARENA and FMLN. ARENA is the right-wing party, which has been in power for the last 4 terms, is associated with the death squads from the 1980s, and was heavily backed by the US during the Cold War. FMLN is the left-wing party, which has been associated with guerrilla movements until a 1992 peace deal, and was originally formed by Marxist rebels.
The FLMN won by a margin of 2.6%.
I don’t know much about politics in El Salvador, but from what I’ve picked up, I’m hopeful about what a new leader and a new party might be able to do.
And, I’m excited to talk to my grandma.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Three Cups of Tea
At least, that’s what I ordered.
It had become a morning ritual that Annemieke, Rebecca and I would get breakfast together (egg sandwiches and tea) at a one-woman stand on campus. This particular morning, I ordered for all of us: “Three teas for here, please.”
A little while later, the lady brought over my cup to the table. I spooned out my tea bag. The other two cups didn’t come, so my friends re-ordered. My tea kept getting darker and more and more bitter tasting. I idly swirled my spoon in the ceramic cup – only to hit upon another tea bag! Aha – the bitter culprit. I spooned it out.
We kept talking.
Until finally - a mouthful of pure bitterness shocked me into realizing that the unimaginable was happening. There was another tea bag!
And then it hit me: I had ordered “three teas."
Ghana 1. Obruni, 0.
It had become a morning ritual that Annemieke, Rebecca and I would get breakfast together (egg sandwiches and tea) at a one-woman stand on campus. This particular morning, I ordered for all of us: “Three teas for here, please.”
A little while later, the lady brought over my cup to the table. I spooned out my tea bag. The other two cups didn’t come, so my friends re-ordered. My tea kept getting darker and more and more bitter tasting. I idly swirled my spoon in the ceramic cup – only to hit upon another tea bag! Aha – the bitter culprit. I spooned it out.
We kept talking.
Until finally - a mouthful of pure bitterness shocked me into realizing that the unimaginable was happening. There was another tea bag!
And then it hit me: I had ordered “three teas."
Ghana 1. Obruni, 0.
Just a Normal Day at the Mall – in Africa
There’s this mall here in Ghana, most people call it ‘Shoprite’ after the big WalMart-esque store that dominates one side of it. A lot international kids see it as a bizarre space, a little piece of America falsely transplanted on African soil, either an oasis of luxury or a sad symbol of globalization. But it’s here. A real space in a real part of Ghana where real Ghanaians work, walk through, and shop.
The presence of this mall begs the question: which is more authentic – the mall that sells Puma bathing suits, cell phones and Nutella, or the stalls that sell the traditional drums, koras and tantabens that most Ghanaians don’t know how to play?
Bet you can guess what I'd say.
The presence of this mall begs the question: which is more authentic – the mall that sells Puma bathing suits, cell phones and Nutella, or the stalls that sell the traditional drums, koras and tantabens that most Ghanaians don’t know how to play?
Bet you can guess what I'd say.
Blogging Is Like Poetry
Good poetry, at least.
In my Poetry for the People class, we have to workshop a new poem every week in group of 6-8 fellow student-turned-poets. For the first few weeks, I wrote about broad abstract themes: why I’m beautiful, what it’s like to be afraid of losing someone you love, etc. What I was writing was my truth, but it came out like fluffy bullshit, and what’s worse - no one really got it.
Finally my student-teacher gave us the golden key to writing good poems:
Show a complete dramatic event.
Basically, tell a story. No one wants to read another tired poem rhyming democracy with hypocrisy or segregation with liberation. Even when the message is true. We want to hear stories. We want to hang onto each detail of the kind of story that I might giggle over with a friend over scrambled egg brunch, or write down in my red cloth-bound journal to reread years later. This blog will be my attempt to share those stories.
In my Poetry for the People class, we have to workshop a new poem every week in group of 6-8 fellow student-turned-poets. For the first few weeks, I wrote about broad abstract themes: why I’m beautiful, what it’s like to be afraid of losing someone you love, etc. What I was writing was my truth, but it came out like fluffy bullshit, and what’s worse - no one really got it.
Finally my student-teacher gave us the golden key to writing good poems:
Show a complete dramatic event.
Basically, tell a story. No one wants to read another tired poem rhyming democracy with hypocrisy or segregation with liberation. Even when the message is true. We want to hear stories. We want to hang onto each detail of the kind of story that I might giggle over with a friend over scrambled egg brunch, or write down in my red cloth-bound journal to reread years later. This blog will be my attempt to share those stories.
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