Ghana! A Travel Journal of Ghana and West Africa

Some days it really hits me, the gulf that divides me from everyone here. Its easy to forget, as your joking with them, laughing with them or having a beer with them after a long day, that you share histories so wildly different as to make you wonder how you ended up sitting at the same table enjoying a cold Star beer in the middle of Ghana.

Other times it smacks you in the face leaving you reeling and wondering how you can possibly bridge the gap. Take, for example, my IT class. During the PowerPoint section the class learned how to add sound effects to the slide transitions. One student added a machine gun sound which, when blasted through the computer speakers, caused everyone in the room to duck wildly in such a knee jerk response that it could only have been instilled in them the hard way. One moment I'm joking around with the teacher, Alfred, about the finer points of Brittney Spears’ figure and the next moment he's ducking from the ghosts in his past while I'm left counting my blessings that my first thought on hearing it is that the speakers have too much treble.

Or how about the micro-loan lady. Working on a salary of $17US a month she has to feed herself, her family, and several orphaned children she takes in. Then, because providence thought she had it too well, she comes down with not just malaria, no- that wouldn’t be enough, but typhoid fever as well. Already malnourished she now has to find money for treatment while still looking after her burgeoning family.

I can’t pretend to understand how they must feel. I have an escape; I’m leaving in another 2 weeks, but for them this is life not some summer project.

# posted by Matthew @ 7/15/2006 09:44:00 AM