A Blessed Day: March 8th, 2013

3.8.13 (or 8.3.13 as Ghanaians write it)

This morning I woke up in a funk. I felt like I was one of those cartoon characters walking around with a thunderstorm cloud over my head. It was one of those days. I wafted through this morning in a haze of badly hidden misery, sweeping, bathing, making my bed up to my host mom’s anal eye’s acceptance, eating a breakfast of porridge, and washing my clothes. After wasting my morning away waiting for plans to come, nothing evolved to a conclusive being. Yet, instead of moping like I am sadly renowned for, I decided to do something about it.

I spent the first month of my time in Ghana utterly freighted of even stepping outside of my gated house. Unable to stand the constant scrutiny of being white in a fringe town of a city in West Africa, I hid myself away.

I am sick of that part of me. The part of me that wallows, hides away from the world. It is a waste of my time and I was in the mood to go. With the song “I Gotta Go” by Robert Earl Keen coursing through my veins, I left my house. Having no idea where I was headed, I marched myself to the tro-tro station. I allowed myself little time for deliberation, for it didn’t matter where I went, I just had to go SOMEWHERE and do SOMETHING.  I ended up playing it safe, taking a Stadium-Junction car. It is the same car I take to school every day but I had never been to the last stop. I always got off at either Unity Oil or Stadium, depending on if I was going straight to school or to training first. Once I alighted from the tro-tro, I ventured off planning to get wonderfully lost, taking in the beauty of Ghana by exploring. In the mood to talk and get out of my head, when a group of people called me over, I decided to come to their beckoning hands and chorus of “Bra” (come).

Deciding to come was a wonderful decision on my part. After the usual pleasantries that come from talking to curious strangers, one of the ladies turned to me informing me that her sister was deaf and inquiring if I could communicate with her. Growing up with a mother who is a Teacher of the Deaf, I know some sign language-not as much as I would like but still, I was overjoyed to use it. The joy on her face when she realized I could speak to her most definitely brought sun beams piercing through my foul mooded cloud. Her exuberance and normalcy in a society not exactly handicap accommodating or accepting dispelled any bad feelings I held onto. After our talk, I walked away thanking God for sending me such a beautiful moment. It is times like this that make me fall even more in love with Ghana and the world in general.

Afi, the Deaf Ghanaian I met that day