Take the Pain, Ignite It

I haven’t written for awhile because I frankly haven’t known how to write what I feel. I can honestly say that these past couple of weeks have been hard for me because of homesickness, but it’s been a different kind of homesickness than what I felt when I first came here. My first week in Ghana was really rough. My homesickness was potent hatred and resentment of being away from home. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I would be here for three months. That quickly died, although lately my homesickness feelings have been more of an underlying longing, and this feeling of defeat in finding something familiar. That’s the funny thing about homesickness. I don’t have to be missing something specific. It’s just this weird settling into your environment and realizing that you’re not going to get that cold glass of milk or brownie you crave, and the only things reminding you of home is your clothing that says BYU on it and the expired box of Chips Ahoy that you bought in the market. Listening to music sometimes makes me nostalgic, but there is this separation of what the music meant to me before and what it develops for me now. It’s hard to explain, homesickness. I feel like homesickness was some sort of raging demon inside me when I came to Ghana, roaring and lashing out in fear at every experience I had. It was alarming trying to adapt to a new country, and in some ways, it felt like defeat in order to adapt. My homesickness was "tangled too tight and too long to fight."

But now I see that adapting wasn’t defeat at all. Adapting has not only brought me peace of mind, but it has become a source of joy and confidence. All I want is to have new experiences to adapt to, because now I thrive off of adapting. It’s only been two months that I’ve been here, but I feel so much love for myself and for the people I meet. I love how everyone is so welcoming and loving to me. I love how people will come greet me, putting their arm around me, kissing my cheek, teaching me phrases in Fante. I feel loved when villagers I’ve met only a handful of times will affectionately brush my hair out of my face when it’s windy or rainy. I love when people teach me new Fante, because it gives me a sense of bonding with them. I love having new Fante phrases turning in my head and tongue until I have the opportunity to use it. Sometimes I have forgotten how it is said, and in my eagerness to speak it, I trip over the phrase and butcher it past recognition. I get laughs most of the time in response. Sometimes I feel embarrassed, but more often than not, I glow under the light-hearted laughter. People love that I am trying to learn, and they love teaching me. Because of this, I always try to at least greet people in Fante, and if I don’t understand, I say “Mentasse” and then “Me pa wƆ kyew sido” (please repeat). People like that I at least try, and when I dive for my pen and paper to furiously scribble the phrase before I forget it, they guide me with the spelling. Lately when people call me Obruni on the street, I’ve been responding “WofrƐm Obruni” (my name is not Obruni). I get good laughs in return and good ice breakers for conversation. It also lets me have my sass incorporated into Fante, so that’s a bonus….but it’s the little things like these that make all the difference for me. It lets me feel a sort of kinship, despite our different colors and cultures.

I remember seeing a huge group of missionaries on the plane I took from JFK to Accra. I sometimes see missionaries buying food in the market, and some sister missionaries even chatted with me on the street a while ago. I remember I once felt sadness for those missionaries, wondering how on earth they could cope with the idea of staying here for two years and I felt secretly grateful that I only had to endure three months. But now….I envy them. Three months is hardly any time at all. It isn’t nearly enough time for me to learn as much Fante as I want. Three months is hardly any time to develop solid relationships, so the people I have met and grown to love will see me go and will forget about me in time. My work with the schools, the children, with HEPENS, and with the villages will be left in a few scribbled notes and excel documents that incoming interns may not even look at.  My wonderful coworkers and friends, Jonah, John, Nicholas and Eva…how I will miss them and their friendship. How I love to make them laugh. How I will ache to be just another Obruni intern that comes and goes, like the rest of them before me. Eva will perhaps be getting married next year, and I regret so much that I will not see her on her wedding day, that I will not be there to dance the traditional dances rejoicing her union with her husband. It makes me feel immense gratitude for the most perfect and beautiful opportunity of coming here, and it makes me feel deep hurt for the reality of my ever coming back

My auntie and I were standing outside tonight after work, watching storm clouds roll in. We do that often, just standing outside watching the world pass by. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just enjoy each other’s company. Tonight while we were outside, a little boy near our house dropped his sack of tomatoes. I got tomato juice all over my hands when I went to help him pick them up. When I turned back to the house to go wash my hands, I was surprised to see my auntie with a bucket of water she had prepared for me while my back was turned. She ran the water over my hands as I told her, “WƆ ye mu yie” (You are very kind). She laughed and said “medasse” (thank you), and then said something else in Fante while handing me a towel to dry my hands. I didn’t think twice on it, but she all of a sudden burst out laughing, and I had to inquire. She said,

“I talked to you like you were Ghanaian, I said Fante words to you thinking you understand.”

I laughed and said, “Auntie, you forgot I was Obruni!”

 We shared a good laugh at that. I felt so much love for her then. Deep down, I also felt a little twinge of sadness, wishing I could be a real person she could converse with instead of in our casual conversations in broken English.

But perhaps knowing that my time here is short is what’s making this such an amazing experience for me. I have learned to love all that I experience, because I know I won’t have the chance to decide if I love it or hate it later. The tro-tro rides where I think I’m meeting my death, the battles with my germiphobia, the awkward moments when I stare blankly at someone speaking Fante to me, the taxi drivers trying to cheat me, the smell of sewage running in open drains outside my work, the constant stream of sweat dripping down my face and back, the hundreds of bugs biting my butt when I go to the bathroom, the unreliable electricity, the hot sun prompting cancer growth on my skin….I love it all. I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it. And I will miss it when I'm gone.