I have been trying to find the words to put down to update everyone on my trip to Ghana, Africa. Every time I begin to type what’s on my mind, I get distracted or lost in thought. I’ve been back for a full week now, which has allowed me ample time to sit and dwell on my experience there.
For the sake of coherent writing, I will break the week up based on experiences, rather than providing a play-by-play of the week.
I want to start with the flight from Amsterdam to Accra. Prior to this was just travel as usual, except for the delay in San Francisco as my professor and I had to explain that we could get a visa upon arrival in Accra… but by now you should all be aware of the whole visa/passport debacle, so I’m not going to get into that ordeal.
I’m a fairly quiet traveler. This may come as a shock to most, considering I usually have a word or so to say in a regular setting. But from the moment I leave home to the moment I return, I like peace, quiet, and silence for most of the travel. I take on the role of observer as I like to observe and soak in the surroundings, mentally capturing every experience I can. The passenger sitting next to me on the plane did not quite understand that headphones in meant I was in my zone. I don’t recall his name, but he was asking me if Ghana was my destination or if it was a layover for me. I informed him that I was going to be in Ghana for a week, to which opened the space for dialogue. He was a Ghanaian, who is working toward his Masters at the University of Washington (I don’t quite recall what he was studying, again, I wasn’t fully out of my “zone”). We ended up in this conversation about my reason for going to Ghana, to which he encouraged me that I was doing great work and that the people of Ghana would trust me immediately. I remember thinking that “trust” was a weird word to use, but I let it just linger as part of the conversation rather than a focal point. We then got into a conversation about homelessness and American politics (my favorite topic *insert hefty eye roll here*). After the conversation ended, I went back to watching Aquaman and really didn’t have much interaction with this gentleman again.
Landing in Accra the expected happened: I stuck out like a sore thumb. Not so much in the airport, as there were people of various shades roaming about, but I knew immediately that I was definitely white. And that’s sort of what I want to focus on. Obviously, I’ve been white my whole life, but I’ve never thought about it other than to poke fun about how easily I burn, or how the only “tan” I get is turning red, etc. In America, I never have to think about my lack of pigment and very rarely have I been in a situation where I’m that much of a minority that I stand out in that manner. Even the situations where I was a minority, it was always on a smaller scale – minority in the room, minority in the class, etc., not “minority in the country.” I knew I would stick out like a sore thumb, but I didn’t know how that would make me feel overall. I expected it, I’m not as naïve as some may think I am. In fact, I think some of the kids from 2017 might call me “woke,” but here we were. I didn’t sit there thinking like, “oh my gosh, people are staring at me because I’m white…” instead my mind went to thinking less about me, and more about my home country and how people of color and non-white people are treated back home.
Here I was the sore thumb standing in an airport waiting for a lost piece of luggage that never came (it arrived a day or so later) and I had local people greeting me, smiling at me, talking to me, etc. Sure, there were stares, but not once did I feel like I didn’t belong. We can do better, America. We know this. But we need to do better. We need to be better. It made me go back to that word, “trust,” and how as Americans we’re so quick to distrust people – especially people who are “different” than us. If we could take a page out of the book of Ghana and look at everyone saying, “Akwaaba” (Welcome!), then perhaps we would have less people feeling ostracized and beaten down in our community and we’d have more people feeling like they belong.
