here comes the sun doo doo doo doo doo

sometimes all it takes is a bouncy ball.

snug

I'm deciding that something is not cliche if it is the first time you yourself have experienced it. Then, it is only a new sensation, perhaps one that many others have known, have written about and adopted certain language for, but it is still new in my body. That said, a few words about taking things for granted.

Inherent to this phenomenon is a lack of awareness of said things. If we took something for granted, we almost paid no notice to it or to the lack of it. Recognizing the object or person or feeling has never been a conscious effort just as we don't pay much attention to the mechanics of driving once we've got a couple hundred miles under our belt. So, it is a startling realization when something goes missing that has always been there.

There have been many wake-up calls in the past six weeks. Perhaps, a thorough documentation will follow in a later post. For now, as I came with the intent to write about my classes, it seems dishonest to ignore the creeping sensation of the week; the absence of security, something less than an absolute certainty in my safety.

I can remember only three distinct times in my life when I've felt anything less than bullet-proof:

There was the summer of the rape in the cemetery. The story that made breaking news in our little town for weeks on end. That  
kept me and Jo inside for the best months of the year. Me, rationalizing the chances of being found at 336. Jo, poised with pots and 
pans to protect herself.

Watching planes crash into towers when I got home from school one day. Just days into sixth grade and I tried to wrap my bubble 
of a mind around the idea that someone somewhere didn't like our country. And that our borders weren't impermeable like I
somehow imagined them to be.

The day we played that inner-city team and I had to guard the big girl.


Of course, there have been flashes of scary Carmen San Diego dreams, getting stuck at the top of roller coasters, and someone walking a little too close behind me in between. But for the most part, my birth into a town facing big issues like traffic at rush hour and people breaking architectural standards, and my matriculation into a school with these mystical blue buttons on every corner which can supposedly morph into policemen, have cemented a permanent sense of safety when it comes to my physical well-being.
So, it was with great trepidation that I walked around my room, trying to fathom what kind of a world I have entered that someone could break into my living space and take something that wasn't theirs. What kind of a place is this where last year's keys to my current room are still floating around? Where they don't have video cameras to show us what happened? Where the law enforcers themselves can be won over with a bribe? Not so puzzling for my program coordinator, the detective, the security guard, or even my Ghanaian friend across the hall. But it blew my little ironclad mind.

Probably an important thing to come to terms with by the age of 20.
The truth that the world is not, in fact, a place in which the very trees were put to protect me. That not everyone is my friend. That not every lock is  impenetrable. A simple fact, yes, but how tightly I cling to my rose-colored spectacles. How frequently I continue inventing alternative narratives that would explain why my laptop is not where I left it. How strongly I refuse to believe I sleep in a room that someone could and would enter without knocking.

And even now, of course, my understanding of what it is to be truly unsafe barely cracks the surface. I have insurance, a brand new lock on the way,  the knowledge that this is only temporary- that I have a beautifully paved and perfect Wysteria Lane to return to.

But still, what a thing to take for granted! The absence of danger. To spend twenty years being safe and thinking that's normal. What a gift it is to grow up in a place where a segment of your mind does not have to be constantly on the defense. It is a privilege that neither Barrington or Evanston reminded me to be thankful for.

On a scale of "one" to "not the end of the world", my computer being gone is at like a 97. In many ways, it is a hidden blessing of sorts. But, I move with a slightly higher level of cautiousness, with delicately hardened brows and perhaps a jumpy quality to my stride that wasn't there before. And perhaps, in some ways I am more a citizen of the real world than I was before. By next week I'm sure I'll have lightened up and before I know it I'll be back in my foam-cornered and bubble-wrapped, safe and secure town where I can skip home alone after midnight. But I will carry with me the knowledge that such skipping is a privilege. And the hope that more and more people can experience this kind of security in all corners of the world. See, I've already got those green glasses back on.

disassociation

In my Gender and Religion class last week, our lecturer, Fatimatu, said something that meant a great deal to me. She is one of three professors who alternate teaching that class, each representing a different faith tradition. Fatimatu is the voice of Islam. As she was explaining the basic tenets of her religion, she paused suddenly. A desperate flush came over her otherwise rigid and reserved face. She pleaded, “Being a Muslim and practicing Islam are very different things. Don’t look at humans to judge my faith. We are human. You cannot learn Islam from Muslims.”

            It was as if I could see into her memory, with all the disappointments in a devoted life. Perhaps, when a religious mentor acted out of line, the time she opened the paper and cursed the acts of those who claim to worship the same God, maybe when she herself said an unkind word or refused help- hoping no one had noticed; at least no one who also knew what she believed. In that moment, I felt a strange kinship with this woman. How often have I silently begged my friends to look the other way, to not take all that I do as representative of the God I serve? How often have I felt, frankly embarrassed by Christians in the news and wanted to power of all TVs for fear that people will confuse Christians with Christ?  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that surge of frustration so strongly as I did this weekend.

            We took a trip to Cape Coast where most Africans who were taken as slaves passed through to get to the New World. There are two large castles still standing there, looming over the village. The one I visited, Elmina Castle, is the oldest European building in all of Africa.

            Of course, it was a very sobering experience. The tour took us through the hallways once teeming with unthinkable madness, the Governor’s Quarters where who knows how many women were exploited and abused, and the female dungeon where I swear there remains a faint smell of waste mixed with horror and blood.  We passed through the “point of no return”- a narrow passage that led to the pier where hundreds of thousands were forced aboard the infamous ships- never to see their homeland again.

            As we came into the main courtyard above the dungeons, I stopped short. A sign, “Portuguese Church”, hung on a small brick building. Of course, I knew the Europeans were religious, that it played a large role in colonialism, but certainly not these Europeans. This was a separate endeavor, this slave trade. This was unrelated to their faith. They didn’t have any faith- not these murderers. But sure enough, on the inside wall, above the window that looks out on the Atlantic, above the scuff marks left from pews, right above the dungeons in which hundreds of people were packed, was printed a verse. An excerpt from Psalm 123- “This is the Lord’s resting place”.

            A silent fury rose within me. I tried to thwart my imagination from its inevitable wanderings: images of people worshipping in this room, of praying or teaching or opening Scripture here, of the people downstairs standing numbly as a “righteous” and “all-mighty” God was praised by their persecutors, a few feet overhead.

            How to separate, how to divide, how to detach, how to remove from the canon of “Christian” works the parts that I don’t think belong there. Slavery, the Crusades, Koran- burning, being judgmental, being self-righteous, hypocrisy, my list gets longer as I get older. This church in the middle of a slave castle has stood for 500 years. And it will remain. Giving fuel to the Christopher Hitchens’ of the world. Haunting those who read the same Bible.

            I suppose it isn’t really possible or feasible or fair or good research even to separate a system of beliefs from its believers. We judge the quality of a university by its graduates. We gauge the effect of political theories by those who implement them. So, I guess it’s unreasonable to ask for a distinction like Fatimatu’s to be made.

            But possibly, a request to widen the scope of examination to include believers beyond those who make the nightly news. Maybe, a challenge to anyone who subscribes to any system to be mindful of what and whom we represent in every great act and each passing conversation. And ultimately, like all experiments involving humans, we allow for error. To remember that we are, in fact, human.  And while that state of being is no excuse for intolerable and disgusting acts, it does raise a distinction between what we do and whose name we do it in.

a night at the theatre

The National Theatre in Accra

It felt so right. In a month of getting-used-to's and sorry-I-didn't-know's and please-can-you-repeat-that-just-one-more-time's, I needed a dose of normalcy. So, we went to the theatre. Why this was the antidote, I'm not sure. I should know by now that the theatre is not a place one should go expecting the habitual. But I was desperate.

Still, it began with the beautifully familiar sequence. Getting dressed up. Buying an over-priced ticket. Peeing before the show. Hiding a snack in your purse. Finding your seats. Reading the program (minus the part where we excitedly hunt for NU grads). Sitting back with anticipation and longing.

The curtain rose to reveal a set barely big enough for my American Girl dolls on a stage the size of Willow's. The actors came out and I gave them a much longer than normal grace period. I gave them almost the entire show. Even the writing, I tried not to judge too quickly. I figured there was surely a cultural gap in the way we use language and maybe it will just take my ears some time to adjust to the cliche, repetitive and preachy dialogue.

Terms of Divorce is the story of a husband and wife trying to settle their divorce with their respective lawyers (who were once married to each other). They are all forced to meet with a marriage counselor who is happily married to an insane woman; thereby demonstrating the power of love to overcome all obstacles.

It wasn't long before I had a hunch that both couples would somehow reconcile their differences.

It was long (about an hour into the show) before it decided to become a musical. Complete with angels breaking onto the stage in costumes and hoods a little too evocative of the KKK for me to pay attention to their big number, "My Redeemer Lives".

Then came the commercials. During the "scene changes" (the chair moved), we diverted our attention to two side projectors. At each interlude, the same phone commercial played. Took me out of it a little- I'm not gonna lie.

But then I was jerked back into the compelling two-hours-too-long saga which finally concluded in an epic monologue where the protagonist explained to us, Bible in hand, why no one should ever "bury love alive". Then a painting fell off the wall on the set. In a flash of improvisational genius, the actor walked over to the painting, looked at it, shook his head, and threw it offstage.

I was so ready to love this show. I wanted to come home and write all about Ghanaian theatre and how much they understand that we don't. And of course, this one playsical is not representative of all theatre here. Not even close. But by all yardsticks I have ever been taught to measure with, this show was not just not good. It was the stereotypical bad production you see in movies that are trying to be funny. I really don't like to write things off as bad, but 'twas. Bad. 

BUT, the people loved it! It was truly the most engaged audience I have ever been a part of.  They rattled off popular sayings along with the actors, cheered and booed as the action progressed and sang along with all the songs. The woman next to me was weeping when the angels came out! The girl who shared a cab back with me went on and on about what a wonderful playwright and director that man is and how much she enjoys his work.

This unanimous response really made me second-guess myself. Have I become so critical that I am left out of such an experience? And what does it matter what I think about this show if the people it was meant for share such a singular and profound response? Who do we do theatre for anyway?

I took a class at school last spring that dealt with these kinds of artistic exchanges between cultures. As we studied various examples, I became frustrated that people expressed difficulty entering into artistic traditions so different from their own. I wanted art to be a kind of universal language. Yet, my experience at the National Theatre puts me in the shoes of those I was so quick to condemn last spring. I wonder, had there been a higher level of professionalism, could I have at least appreciated that which didn't resonate strongly in me? But I have seen a lot of low-budget shows in my life, and the good ones still possess a level of earnestness and truth that was absent in "Divorce". Plus, we found out in an uncomfortable talk-back with the writer/director, that this show cost $78,000! That goes a long way here. It was with sunken-in and saddened eyes that Mr. White pleaded with the upper class audience, "In other places, I hear that shows can run for three years without being broken. Please, help us to go for a few weeks at least." The ticket cost 25 Ghana cedis. My friend pointed out that if you make minimum wage here, (GHC 2 a day), it would be two weeks before you could afford a ticket assuming you hadn't spent money on food or other necessities. In the U.S., a Broadway rush ticket costs $25. If you work minimum wage for a day, you can go see a show. It's still a luxury, but not at the same level. So, Mr. James Ebo White begged "corporate Ghana", as he referred to them, to continue supporting his shows. And to help their messages and themes to infiltrate society down to those who couldn't afford a ticket. 

And so, theatre fills a distinctly different role here. And I wonder if my idea of good and bad in art even applies outside of the U.S. Because I know that show would have been laughed at in Chicago, but I don't think The Clean House would have done so well in Accra. Yet, if we throw up our hands and chalk it up to "cultural differences", won't our art just grow farther and farther apart?

I have often said that I hope to bring my faith into the secular world of theatre someday without any idea what that might look like. This show presented one method. It was well-received in a culture that is not only predominantly Christian, but shares an outward expression of their faith unlike any I have seen at home.  So, is the American alternative just to tone it down? I'm not sure. 

What has always fascinated me about collaboration in theatre is that people with different world views come together to create one world on stage, that can be experienced by people with their own unique perspectives. That unpredictable and delicate process allowed for my bizarre experience at the National Theatre. And it also made way for the experience of the girl next to me in the cab. Who was so touched by the story that she was heading home to remind her loved one how much he meant to her. 

aforosiari

It means ascending and descending. In reference to the hike that killed us all, though no one would admit it. The path literally went straight down and straight up and straight down and straight up until we got there. It was one of those hikes where you are so busy trying not to wipe out, doing split-second strategizing about which rock to land on and which branch to grab, so consumed in the steps that when you finally pause and pick your head up the view actually takes your breath away.  I think I’ve been living like this for awhile so I’m accustomed to the focus that such a path demands.

Boti Falls only garnered half a page in our guidebooks so my friends and I were unsure as to what exactly the weekend would look like. But we were eager to do some exploring and this forest preserve with its mountains, waterfalls and palm tree with three trunks sounded just right. We were quite chatty as we began the hike (downhill, a deceiving beginning).  But as we began to realize where we were, all talk (even of our three favorite topics: food, bowel movements, and what things would be like when we got home) ceased. The tour guide led us into a naturally formed cave that stretches four stories tall. He told us that many people used to live in this cave but now only six families remain.

We journeyed on and up to the “umbrella rock” with a gorgeous panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and waterfalls. From there we could see the rest of the cave and the little village that was left of it. For as far as I could see in every direction there was just uninhabited land, hundreds of trees sticking up off the mountains like spiky hair on a seventh-grade boy’s head. I will never again refer to any part of Illinois as the middle of nowhere.  Because now I have been there.

In that moment, as I sat on the umbrella rock staring off at the cave families I experienced a profound sense of loss that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was an emotion far from sympathy but not quite envy, perfectly captured in an excerpt from the book I’m reading:

I suffer torments of dissatisfaction and incompletion because of my inability to

enter those areas of life my way of living, education, sex, politics, class bar me

from. It is the malady some of the best people of this time; some can stand the

pressure of it; others crack under it; it is a new sensibility, a half-conscious

attempt towards a new imaginative comprehension. (Doris Lessing, The Golden

Notebook)

I can never know what that is like! That glimpse of a way of life, a mindset, a community so diametrically opposed to every fiber of my being taunted me as I squinted at the cave.  I cannot imagine waking up every morning in the same place, being surrounded by the same six families silhouetted against those lush mountains, knowing that that every day forever will look very much the same.

I recognize my tendency to romanticize that which I know so little about (this has always been a bad habit of mine- hence my obsession with orphans), however I could not help it that day.  I also recognize our society’s tendency to categorize the abroad experience as a sort of cleansing; a purifying in a “simpler” society. Therefore I’ve been trying to stand a mile away from those condescending and arrogant words.  But as it much as it pains me to admit, there seemed a beautifully distilled form of existence in that place. Whether or not it was actually there, the idea is intriguing. And, on that September 11^th day, coming of age in a place with nowhere to go and not much to do and no need for anything outside the mountain ring sounded glorious.  And cruelly and completely unattainable.

            Sometimes, the privilege to be whatever I want to be when I grow up seems quite limiting. Because it means I actually have to be something. Knowing what I know of the world beyond that circle in the mountains, I could never stay there. Of course, I’m not complaining. Being free to choose is the best gift there is, but it doesn’t mean all the choices are available. And a life in the cave with six families forever is certainly not.

pals speak twi

Pictured from left to right, top row: Cristiana, Harry Potter, Shimonica, Fransisca
Front row: Buzz Lightyear, Tia, Mr. Flexible, Gretchen, Kiki, Esmerelda

Some time ago, I was walking up to my room and I passed a young girl in the hall. We exchanged smiles. About ten minutes later I'm sitting in my room, and there is a knock at my door. The same girl stood there and told me frankly, "I would like to be your friend." Being in the market for friends, I accepted the offer.

Cristiana stops by almost every day. Her mom is a cleaning lady in our building. Sometimes she brings her sister Fransisca. At 9 and 13, they remind me a great deal of me and Jo.  They don't speak a ton of English, but we can usually understand each other. Sometimes we sing songs or they play with my make-up, but I've really been running out of ways to entertain them. Until yesterday. When I remembered the ten little people hiding at the bottom of my suitcase. The pals! The pals had not really settled in yet to our new home and I knew this would be the perfect opportunity.

And so, I introduced the girls to Shimonica (their favorite) and Tia (her mom). I explained how Harry liked Shimonica but she was creeped out because he was always casting spells. I showed them Kiki and Esmerelda; sisters just like them. I explained that Buzz Lightyear was the chaperone for the trip but really just a big goofball. They liked Mr. Flexible and I explained how my old basketball teammates cut off his arms on the way to a tournament. I told them about Arabella who had always wanted to come to Africa but got lost at a sorority formal. I'm not sure how much of the backstories translated, but I think they got the gist.

I had some reading to finish before class, so I let them sit in silence for awhile, worried they weren't catching on. But it wasn't long before they started murmuring at a familiar level as they the pals began to chat. I must admit it caught me a bit off guard to hear Thumbelina speaking a language I didn't know she knew. The sisters bent over the pals intently, lining them up just like I used to.  It is beautiful to know that the pals can transcend cultural and language barriers. I'm glad they could bring another pair of sisters joy. And it's good for the pals too; Stitch really needed to get out of his comfort zone and Shrek's realizing how much he takes for granted in the comfort of Flower Hill. They send their love and a request for Jo to send more pals in the mail.

dogobom

Finally! A few hours out of the city and there they are. The stretches of open land I have dreamt about all year, last winter's journal filled with images of meadows, of the infamous green pastures in which I might lie down, miles and miles of nothing that make it possible to actually truly finally be alone, that make me feel that there is something in this world still undiscovered, land without boxes or buildings or buses or boys or anything broken just basking boldly with nowhere to be. The image my clustered soul has longed for this year.

But we don't have time to get lost in the fields. The bus pulls off the road onto a path I didn't know was a road and we jiggle along until we reach Dogobom.  We have barely pulled in and the bus is surrounded by kids, all jumping up and down, waving and singing.  After a brief introduction in which we are welcomed by the chief, they lead us to the main water source for the village. In Dogobom, they bathe, cook and drink from a small pond no bigger than the  one our neighbors recently installed in my backyard at home. The water is the color of bark, of coffee beans, of my hair.  As we are being led around the pond, two young girls come with pails atop their heads to fetch the water for the day not knowing whether or not it will make them sick, will make anyone in their family sick, just getting water because not getting water is worse, I suppose. Meanwhile, our program leader is passing out ice cold water bottles for those of us who have come to build the water purifiers. The irony makes me uncomfortable.

So, we get to work. It feels good to get my hands dirty. It feels right. To be doing something, to be allowed to help. Not with my words or my mind or my gifts, just my body. Just another pair of hands and feet.  As if I can somehow sweat off where I'm from and what I represent. As if in cleaning the rocks, perhaps I can cleanse myself of this guilt I've been carrying over where I was born. Maybe I can carry heavy buckets and feel the cliche yet ever present burden of my ancestors and the weight of the history that got us here. If I dig deep enough for sand, I might also find the pieces and particles that have have formed this great gap. And so, we sweat, clean, carry and dig. Mostly in silence. Waiting for the permission or the justification that will never come.

It seems to me to be an ingenious system- this filter. It is relatively inexpensive, using easily accessible materials, requiring only lots and lots of manual labor. The process involves cleaning large amounts of sand, gravel and larger rocks to be put into containers. These materials do the work of filtering out the bacteria and other germs as the water moves through the big plastic barrels. By the time the pond water has been sifted down through the sand and the rocks it is somehow 98% pure. It comes out of the spicket on the side of the barrel, blue and translucent; the way water is supposed to look.

We pause only for lunch and a post-lunch jam session, in which the women and girls from the village teach us their favorite dance. I appreciate their obvious determination not to laugh at our efforts. Dance is as much a part of daily life here as cleaning or sleeping. A young girl bounces over to me, sensing my need for instruction, and she starts popping and locking like she does it for a living. Girl could move. I try to follow her but she's too advanced. Her mom comes over, laughing and shows me step by step.   I am struck by the power of dance to instantly bring us together, so that for a moment we move in synchronicity, like we are a team, like we've been doing this all our lives. Because if we share this response to rhythm, if we are all hearing this song, then surely we share more than we think. We must. We danced and I tried to picture mom and her friends breaking it down after feeding us lunch on the deck. Again, I am uncomfortable. The drumming slowed to a stop and the task at hand drew me back to my side of the chasm as I resumed the cleaning of rocks.

Finally. We finished. With great pride, I snapped a picture of the finished filter my group had completed. But my pride washed away as my camera zoomed out on the dirty classroom in which the filter was placed next to a few broken desks, in the school with no textbooks or computers or where do the teachers come from anyway, in the village far from hospitals or grocery stores surrounded only by the pastures in my journal. Tomorrow morning the little girl I danced with will wake up and maybe she'll have water, but she'll still be wearing the same shirt. She'll still have that scary rash on her arm and there still won't be much to eat.


We haven't done anything, my sweaty hands said to my muddy feet as we drove back through the open fields and Mr. Gyasi came by with cold bottles of water.