Travis and I collaborated on an essay in an attempt to put into words our overall experience in Ghana this past year. It was an adventure of grand proportions-
In many ways, our life in Ghana has been what we expected –
only simultaneously harder and better. For several months before we arrived, we
prepared based on our expectations of the trials and opportunities that awaited
us. Expectations like this are helpful, but they are also abstract. Experiences
are tangible and specific and, consequently, richer and more complicated.
For example, we expected the kids to be homesick at times,
but when they get homesick it hurts more than we expected…because it is wrapped
in a set of circumstances that bring texture and complexity. The same, however,
is true of good times in Ghana. Expecting great memories and adventures in the
abstract is typically not as good as making and experiencing them in the
moment.
Both highs and lows come at us faster here. Like a pressure
cooker can cook food many times faster, we feel like we had 2 years of highs
and lows crammed into the first 5 months. This intensity of experience seems to
stem from a few factors. For starters, the nature of life in Ghana – even the
relatively luxurious life we lead here (more on this shortly) – brings a wider
range of sensory experiences. In addition to all the new colors, smells, sights
and tastes, life here is distinctly less predictable than our familiar life in
Davis. We’ve each regularly and sometimes privately dealt with real curve balls,
including some REAL curve balls before Christmas.
As another intensifier, the lack of some (many?) of the
comforts and conveniences that typically operate unnoticed in the background of
our lives in Davis can magnify the effect of a small disruption into a major
irritation. Water. Our first couple of months here the water would go off for a
few days at a time, no more than 3-4. It almost brought home life to a halt – having
to haul water from a poly-tank a few hundred yards away seemed a complete waste
of time, and a total pain. Yet, no one in the neighborhood or town seemed
phased. Life continued uninterrupted for everyone around us. We felt chastened.
Now we’ve lived without running water for 14 straight days and, because of
early experiences with water-outage, learned to function quite well – with only
the occasional complaint.
Food prep can take an inordinate amount of our
(western-bred) time. But not just food prep. Food acquisition does not include
driving to a supermarket, filling the cart, loading the car, then driving home.
It does, however, include almost a daily trip to one of the local markets to
purchase fresh produce, eggs, rice, beans, etc. Though the selection is
limited, we’re grateful for the freshness of all we buy; and in a throw-back to
the olden days, because of the frequency of shopping trips we love developing
relationships with our ‘merchants’ – that is something we lack in the west,
where every checker and bagger is a stranger and the experience seems to create
an intimacy deficit in social & community relationships.
Life for us in Ghana is both simple and complicated. Simple
in that we have so much extra time as a family. We eat all three meals together
every day. There is no real night-life or after-school activities so our
evenings are spent w/ neighbor kids playing or as a family. However, it can be particularly complicated
emotionally. Having small disruptions in our routine become major irritations
while being surrounded by far more serious problems can bring feelings of shame
and guilt. These feelings deepen yet further when we choose to pamper ourselves
a bit as a way to “survive”. In the
first several months, in particular, regular trips to the beach were like a
pressure release valve. Moreover, even
the purest desire to help others rarely translates easily into ways to
genuinely help, which leaves us frequently wrestling with age-old dilemmas
about poverty and suffering. All of this contributes to an emotional intensity
that further magnifies both the highs and lows of life in Ghana.
As we hit the home stretch of our stay, we’ve found we are
settled and quite comfortable, for the most part. The kids say it feels like
‘home’, we have incredible friends, we’re making deeply-rooted memories. In
some ways, as a paradox of our first few months, we’re feeling content.
These emotional depths and heights have helped us discover
what we can endure – and then embrace –as a family.
