My Religion

I had a quiet Sunday afternoon in my house while the Gomashies were at church. I played a game with one of my neighbors and her kids in the sand. I read under the mango tree, and snapped photos of some of the children playing with a balloon I'd given them.

It was here, more than four years ago, that I had the turbulent realization I no longer wanted to practice Catholicism. In that sense, I suppose it would be accurate to say I lost my religion in Ghana.

It is also accurate to say that I renewed my faith here.

The change in my personal belief system, while difficult, never felt like a loss of faith to me. In contrast, although many of the external practices were falling away, my sense of connection to God and the world around me was becoming more and more real.

Even when I was still practicing a formal religion, I have never been comfortable in Ghanaian churches. The uninhibited, long-winded and noisy worship style that is so common here only seems to unsettle me. The harrowing experience of speeding through the Ghanaian countryside in a tro, on the other hand, never fails to instill me with an unspeakable awe at its wild beauty - and I am always reminded to say a word of gratitude for this place and its people.

Today, I did not sing any hymns or listen to a sermon or sit in front of an altar.
Today, my church had sand and rustling coconut palms and lizards darting up the walls.
And I found God in my neighbor's obvious joy and love for her children, even as she confessed to me that she is upset because she is three months pregnant and doesn't know how she can provide for another baby. I saw God in my host brothers, Samson and Sylva, when I scolded them for grabbing a struggling baby bird, only to find out they were trying to put it back in its nest. I saw God in four-year-old Catherine, who recently learned I am a source of kisses, and clambers into my lap and mashes her little face into mine every time she sees me. I felt God when I took my chilly bucket bath underneath the wide open African night sky.

Ghana reminds me daily to be grateful for the smallest of things, from the simple joy of eating a mango to one-year-old Richmond finally deciding today that he isn't scared of me anymore. It reminds me to be conscious of my decisions and the effect they have on the people around me. It reminids me to ask for help, to say thank you, and to say I'm sorry - both privately and to others.

Nothing about my day was religious. But it was sacred.

Husband Collecting

Typical (and factual) tales of being a yevu woman in Aflao.
I leave SISCO and start walking to the roadside to catch a taxi to the beach. A man I don't know immediately takes hold of my arm.

Him: I want to marry you.
Me: Good for you.
Him: You don't want to marry me?
Me: I don't even know you.
Him: So? I want to marry you and you can take me to your place.
Me: You don't know me either.
Him: Yes I do; you stay with my uncle.
Me: Just because you know something about me...
Him: So, will you marry me?
Me: I'll see you around.

I arrive at the beach and go to the bar to get a beer.

Me: Good afternoon, are you open?
Bartender: Oh beautiful woman!
Me: Thanks, are you open?
Bartender: Yes, yes. Very beautiful woman!
Me: Do you have Club?
Bartender: I want to marry you! ...What? Oh, yes.
Me: Great, I'll take one.
Bartender: What do you say? Will you marry me?
Me: How much does it cost?
Bartender: I own this place. We can run it together. Four cedis.
Me: Uh-huh, I'll just be over there then.

Having successfully drank my beer without acquiring any more husbands, I get into a taxi to go home.

Me: Awakorme, please.
Driver: Hey! I want to marry you; you go take me to your place!
Me: Sounds good. Be ready August 4th.

Privileged

I dated a guy during college who told me once that he does not think he is privileged.
I stood in front of this heterosexual, white, American male in the process of completing his university education, and just gaped.

I think a lot about privilege when I am in Ghana.
The obvious comes to mind: I grew up in a spacious suburban home with two parents who read and sang to me, gave me a private school education, and saved for my college education before I even had a name. People have asked me for as long as I can remember what I want to be when I grow up, and I have always known that the answer was only dependent on the conclusion of my own judgment.
I have had everything I needed and many of things I wanted my entire life.

But there are other types of privilege.

In this dusty, hot, often uncomfortable environment, I find myself feeling fortunate even over the smallest things. Sleeping in a room with a fan - which only happens when I visit Karina and the others in Dzodze - as one example. Enjoying a quiet cup of instant coffee with condensed milk before my busy day starts and I have to start fielding the inevitable attention I attract simply walking down the street. A piece of ripe mango.
It's easier for me to maintain a mindset of gratitude, to feel rich in even the smallest things, on this side of the ocean.

And my personal favorite type of privilege: The incredible opportunity I have to work with all the people this non-profit endeavor has brought to me. SSF is growing; in our upcoming election we have enough candidates to potentially put our Board of Directors at it's full capacity of five members, and to put the Advisory Council from it's current 6 members to 10 filled seats out of the possible 20. Not that the number in itself is indicative of anything. What's amazing about it though is that all the people seeking active seats in our foundation are impressive and likable and talented in so many ways.
Even as I slowly (slowly) learn to have confidence in the gifts I myself have to offer our organization, I am no less impressed by those of my teammates. They are experts in education, business, technology, fundraising, law, medicine, and dreaming big. The fact that I have ended up as their spokesperson constantly amazes me.

Few people have the opportunity to work with and learn from such a diverse group in a collaborative effort like this. I have had the chance to grow through my relationships with them in ways that might never have happened otherwise.
At the end of each day, when I again have the opportunity to take the rare quiet moment to myself, that is a source of privilege that continues to stand out.

Home Again

I will be getting on a plane tonight for my third trip back to Ghana in five years.
Five years already since this wild journey started!

I'm going back now with a brand new B.A., instead of as a recent high school graduate. I'm in my twenties now instead of my teens - something I appreciate as that seems to carry just that much more weight in the world. I've learned a new language, held three jobs and found yet another city to call home since I first stepped on a plane to Africa.
I will become a first-time aunt right about when I get back from this trip. And soon after that, fall will find me moving to Spain for a six-month job as an au pair before I mosey on to grad school.

Ghana has changed a lot since 2010 too, which I'm about to discover for myself. As an example, the dramatic changes in the exchange rate - a point of concern despite being increasingly in my favor - mean I won't know the prices for anything anymore. I have always found Ghana exciting as a place that is evolving so rapidly, and the comfort of returning to my other home always comes hand-in-hand with reorienting myself to what I've missed in the last two years.

Now that we're at the two year mark since the start of Students of Success Foundation, we'll be doing some major overhauls. Time to read through our Constitution again, decide needs revision, hold our first elections, etc. etc.
It's going to be a busy month on the other side of the ocean!

Ever Wonder How Joan’s Dad Felt....?

People, especially ones with children of their own, frequently tell me how shocked they are that my parents allowed me to move to Africa as a recent high school graduate - not to mention that they helped me start the school and sent me back two years later to create the foundation. While most parents were struggling to cope with their children going to college out of state, mine were researching antimalarial drugs.
I'm sure I will never fully appreciate the depth of that sacrifice until I am a parent myself.
With his dual role as a parent and as a founding Advisory Council member with SSF, I asked my dad, Thomas Niemann, to share a little about his experience of my adventures in Ghana.
As he often does, my dad's response surprised me. But read for yourself...

That would be of Arc.

Imagine how the 15th  Century conversation begins, “Hey Dad, I've had this vision with St. Michael the Archangel. I’m supposed to lead the king’s troops to victory. And don’t worry that  I’m only 17 years old. I got this.”

Flash forward to the 21st Century. Your precious baby girl, who was supposed to spend a relatively innocuous “gap year” in Kentucky, now tells you she is fulfilling a lifelong dream and “calling” by going to Africa instead.
Like many dads, I have an over-active sense of protectionism. Like Joan’s dad most certainly had, I had a laundry list of items of why this was a “bad” idea.

You’re too young.

You’ll be with strangers.

Who will watch out for you?

You have no experience with leading troops into battle - oops, I mean, teaching orphans in a foreign country...

But your daughter is this remarkable, incredibly articulate, stubborn and amazing young woman.
She has her fears and worries, but also the conviction of a crusader. She is resolute in doing what she knows with all of her heart is what she has been called to do. So I did what any father would do when faced with the insurmountable will of his extraordinary daughter, backed by the faith of a similarly extraordinary mother, I got out of the way before I got steamrolled; and hit my knees.

So if you know Joan’s story, with a borrowed set of armor, she marched off to join the king’s army in Orleans, France. Katherine, with a full complement of vaccinations and bug repellent treated clothing, flew off to Accra, Ghana. As history tells us, Joan faced many obstacles and naysayers following her dream. So too did Katherine, but like Joan, she persevered in the face of heart-wrenching tragedies and organizational politics. And like Joan, she carried the day.
With a courageous heart and undefeatable spirit, both of these remarkable women achieved what they were called upon to do, and the world is a better place because they believed and would not be deterred.

And like the father of any remarkable child, daughter or son, we stand in awe of what our progeny can accomplish in spite of our limited abilities to grasp how they can accomplish the inconceivable.
And when it is all said and done we breathe a very proud sigh of relief. We thank God that Katherine’s story had a much happier ending than Joan’s. But like Joan’s father, we’re also eternally grateful for having been allowed the inestimable honor of being their father; and we share with pride the abundant crop of new gray hair the experience has brought us....

History Lesson

I was sitting in my Sociology of Minority Groups class today, only half listening while my professor rambled on about global population changes throughout history. In passing, she mentioned that the first slaves to arrive in America were a group of West Africans brought in a Dutch ship.
And suddenly she had my full attention.

I had a startling realization that it is extremely likely I have stood in the very same cell where those people were held before making that horrific journey.

Elmina, in Cape Coast, is the largest and oldest slave fort in West Africa, the center of the slave trade for the Dutch for decades.
And I've been there.
I've been in the prisoner cells. Listened to the story from the other side of history.

Suddenly the world seemed like a much smaller place. It was shocking for history to become so immediately and unexpectedly real for me with just that one offhand comment. I may have learned about slavery since grade school... even visited the slave forts themselves... but oddly, it had never seemed more real to me than it did in that moment. Perhaps it took the two coming together for me to realize how interconnected our lives can be. To know with sudden clarity that history isn't just names and dates, but the stories of real flesh and blood humans who lived and breathed in places where I too have lived and breathed.
I felt a genuine sorrow for them. Not an abstract reaction like history lessons might normally generate, but a true sadness, as if I'd known them. I also felt gratitude, that I have been fortunate enough to have these life experiences that give me this perspective. I do not take for granted that the things I have seen and touched and tasted have allowed me to personally identify with so many varied situations.

Sometimes things aren't as far away or as irrelevant as we might like to think they are.  

Serenity or Courage?

I received an email from a man who has spent a significant amount of time as a volunteer teacher in Ghana, particularly in the Volta region. He applauded our good work, but he challenged our ability to eliminate the use of corporal punishment in foundation schools. He argued that caning is too ingrained into Ghanaian culture; a mindset that is too hard to fight. 

I work at a group home for adults with developmental disabilities, a job I typically enjoy. However we encountered a difficult situation this week that has no clear solution. Doing the right thing will mean doing the hard thing, and that will still not guarantee a successful outcome.

These two situations have prompted a lot of reflection for me over the past few days. They remind me of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Maybe it bothers me that it's called the Serenity Prayer.

How often is our first reflex to shrug and say, "That's just the way it is"? Why are we so often content to believe we have no capacity to implement change? What if we taught ourselves to ask for courage first, and serenity only as a last resort?
I personally believe there are very few things in life we actually don't have any ability to change. I also believe most problems are bigger than what we could tackle by ourselves, but there's no cosmic rule that says you can't fight something unless you can fight it alone.

Getting rid of corporal punishment in Ghanaian schools is going to be a long, uphill battle. Perhaps it's a battle that all of us with SSF aren't going to be able to win by ourselves. Maybe the best we'll ever be able to do is chip away at this problem, and it will be someone else down the line who finally breaks through.
My dilemma at work is most definitely a problem that will outlive my time as an employee there. My impact will only be a ripple in a solution that should be a tidal wave. I'm going to make that ripple anyway.

There are so many things I want to help change; problems I don't have any intention of developing a sense of peace about. 
I'm going to need a different prayer, I think.