So I spent spring break in Ghana. I could not have imagined I would go back to that incredible place again so soon. Ghana is a country I love with all my heart. It is beautiful, raw, developing, and so full of life. From the moment I stepped off the plane and smelled the burning, moist African air to the last bite of fried plantain, I savored every moment.
My last trip was when I was 18 and thought I knew everything about the world. At least, everything about myself and how capable I was. Turned out, I was completely wrong about almost everything. My last trip to Ghana was more about self-discovery and opening my eyes than about learning about Ghana. Not to say I didn't learn anything, but I certainly came away with more questions about it, and the world in general, than I began with.
At the beginning of this trip, I decided I wanted to learn more about Ghana. To really look at what the country was like, to get to know people. I feel like for the most part I accomplished that, and more. Walking through the villages and GPSing the houses and stores was like getting a map in my head of what people look at every day. And it made me realize that no matter how much time I spend there, I will never understand what it is like to grow up there, eat-sleep-breathe there every day. I also had reinforced how important it is that the people have control over what is happening in their home town. How strange it must be to have people come in, from another country, traipse around your home, holding up little electronic devices, and then they just walk away. We tried to communicate what we were doing, but often to no avail. But what else is there to do?
Far more this trip I learned to live the beauty of the place. I could go through the list of everything that hit my senses like the African rain hitting the clay, but I could never, ever do justice to the smell of burning Ghanaian trash, the incredible way you can feel the air around you, or the wave of saliva that rises in my mouth every time I think of plantain and groundnuts. If I truly only learned one thing there it is this: people live, I live, everyone lives; and in whatever way that life is lived, sometimes you just have to open up your heart and do nothing but live it. Just be there. Without trying to change anything, without trying to influence anything. Just existing, for a moment, in the world you live in. And that is the only way to really appreciate everything the world is - not what it can, or should, be, but what it is.
