Always Coming Back Home

It has been a while since I’ve written anything.  I started a few times, but the words wouldn’t quite flow like they did before.  I think that’s just part of writing.  There are times when you can’t express what’s going on inside the ol’ noggin for whatever reason.  These last couple of weeks have been strange I’d say.  My thoughts have been all over the place.  I lost the focus I had.  I’ve been drifting away from Ghana slowly back to my life at home.  Whatever home means at this point.  I wonder how it will be to re-acclimate myself to everything that I used to take for granted.  All of the things that were always so constant, usually, and everyday they slipped by me completely unnoticed.  I know some of them will stand out now and I look forward to this new perspective.  Although recently my mind has been filled with thoughts of home, it hasn’t been so overwhelming as to prevent me from continuing to live here in Ghana in the now.  It’s ironic because just at the point when I am preparing to leave I finally have a decent understanding on how to navigate this culture and this place.  More than anything I feel torn.  Torn between the incredible freedom of living thousands of miles away from a life that has a past and expectations and a memory of how things were before.  In Ghana I’ve only existed for a handful of months; there is a type of freedom in that that I will never be able to obtain at home.  I’m realizing now how incredible it has been to completely remove myself from the drone of American culture; that ceaseless subliminal murmur of pure ridiculousness.  And it is so much easier to recognize just how ridiculous the popular culture is when you’ve been detoxed from it.  There are moments when I can’t imagine leaving and saying goodbye to everything that I have come to love and appreciate.  I’ve had a good run I guess…I think we all have. 

 

This afternoon I was sitting with my knees against my chest perched on the balcony of Blake’s hall looking at sun scorched lawn that was a deep green when we first arrived.  Actually, it was the lawn that a group of us tossed a Frisbee around on during the first evening of our stay at the University of Ghana campus.  We were all just getting to know each other and possibly beginning to understand ourselves in this strange environment.  Here I was now cooking pancakes with Blake and Ian and trying unsuccessfully to stop pouring sweat.  Seriously though, it was like my skin was leaking.  Anyways, it was nice to think about what amazing people I’ve met and what great and genuine friends I’ve made.  I’ve had the opportunity to saturate myself with new things, new places, new people, new challenges, new ideas, and everything else.  I think that sometimes Ghanaians are a bit confused as to why I would choose to come and live and go to school here.  A lot of times people ask, “couldn’t you just have gone to school at home?”  I hate hearing that question.  It is such a discounting question, but it is the reality of the perception.  Why would I leave a life of luxury and mindless comfort for a place that is, well, not that.  It’s a very interesting question and you have to be careful on how you choose your answer.  I can easily understand how this experience could be contested as simply another example of the Western World ‘exoticizing’ the global south.  Like any other challenge that we embark upon simply to test our own ability and resolve.  The truth is that as real as Ghana has been for me it’s is not my complete reality.  I have a plane ticket home I have my out.  That alone fundamentally sets me apart.  What does that make me then?