To all of the followers and readers of my blog, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I tahank you all for your continued interest in my life here in Ghana. And I give you my most sincere appreciation for your continuedf love, support, and prayers. They have helped me navigate and push through some of the challenges that I have faced here in Ghana, and they have helped make my first four months in Ghana some of the most rewarding months of my life. For all of my readers, I hope and pray that 2010 is as fruitful as you wish it to be and that God may bless each of you and be with you in all of your endeavors.
I apologize if these last four blog posts are replete with typos, word omissions, or awkward phrases. I have been very busy and was trying to get as many of my thoughts down as possible before I leave Accra for Kumasi, and unfortunately that may have caused me to compromise the neatness and sharpness of some of my writing. Nevertheless, that is no excuse. My inability to update my blog frequently and consistently is a travesty and embarrassing, and I am sorry. I am not promised much access to the internet for the next five months, and I can only realistically expect to have access to an internet cafe about once or twice a month over the next five months. Nevertheless, I promise to update my blog when it is possible, and I will try to continue to add pictures.
Thank you all - family, friends, and loyal supporters - again for your continued interest in my Ghanian adventures. I can never guaranttee eloquence or neatness with my writing. Nevertheless, I think everyone can appreciate my honesty in relaying the ins-and-outs of my time here. I hope this blog is as interesting to read as it is rewarding for me to type. Again, may God bless each one of you, and Happy New Year! Or as they say here in Ghana: "Afenhyia Pa ! ! !"
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Golf, A Love Never Dies!
My time in Accra is fast approaching its end. As I type this post, I have less than twenty-four hours left in this city I have grown to love. Before coming to Ghana I was sent a large packet by World Learning, Princeton's partner organization in Ghana for the Bridge Year, that was to aid in my preparation for my Bridge Year. Inside the packet was a packing list. The packing list included nearly everything you can imagine: mosquito nets, bug spray, all the necessary toiletries, suggestions of the most practical wardrobe, etc.. The list was several pages long. However, despite the breadth of this list, there was one item that was not on there that was an integral part of my life in America, my golf clubs. Me being the golf enthusiast that I am, I went on the internet to see if there were any golf courses in Ghana. Much to my chagrin the results were not very promising. However, there is one golf course in Accra, Achimota Golf Club! At orientation I joked with Yaw, my program director here in Ghana, about how it would be neat to golf in Ghana. However, I never really expected this wish to come to fruition. By signing up for the Bridge Year I had already come to terms with the fact that I would be giving up my sleek steel shafts and flawless titanium heads for a while. I accepted this because I knew that I was not coming to Ghana to play golf.
A few weeks ago I was talking to Cole, one of my cohorts and the only other male on the sojourn with me, and explaining to him how much I missed golf. I missed the freshly cut grass in the morning and the smell of the morning's fresh dew on the ground. I missed the simple things about the game: the sensation that you feel go up your arms when you hit a crisp wedge shot or a three-hundred yard drive; and the adrenaline rush after sinking a fifteen foot left-to-right putt on the eighteenth hole to beat your buddies. Cole sympathized with me, and although he is by no means in love with the game he saw that I am. He could see how much joy golf brings me by the way I was describing my nostalgia, and he wanted to be a part of this fun with me. Being the ingenious man that he is, Cole suggested that we orchestrate a way to play a round of golf one afternoon over the holiday break at the Achimota Golf Club. The prospect excited me; although, I did not get my hopes up because I understand that we are busy people and I did not even bring my golf clubs with me. Nevertheless, the stars aligned, and this past Sunday we were able to make it out to the golf course. Charles, Cole, and I took a tro-tro to Achimota and we alighted at the Golf Club for what would prove to be a most fulfilling and memorable afternoon.
We arrived at the golf club late, around 3:45 PM. We would have liked to arrive earlier; however the weekly five hour church service prevented this from happening. But that was no problem. I was simply happy to be at a golf course. So we paid our greens fees, retreived our set or rental clubs, and set off for the first tee around 4 PM. The sun sets around 6 PM so we were only allotted two hours of daylight to get our golf fixing. And what a fun two hours it was. The first hole is a 175 yard par 3. The teebox is directly below the veranda of the clubhouse, an area which men and ladies can sit and socialize over an ice cool beer following their round of golf. All the eyes on the veranda were on Cole and me. People expected us to be good because we are 'Oburoni.' However, despite the glares and anxious eyes, I did not feel the least but nervous. My excitement and eagerness left me immune to all other emotions for the time being. I asked my caddy for the 8-iron, so he grabbed the classic 'Ping Eye 2' steel beauty and handed it to me. Much to my own surprise, I managed to make contact with my first swing and ended up landing just off of the left fringe of the green. My touched proved to be just as poor and rusty as I expected it to be. So I three-putted, bent over, and picked the ball out of the cup for the first time in over four months, and I was off!
Everything about the afternoon was cathartic and brought back so many fond memories. I was walking the sweet fairways of God's green earth with my two best friends, Cole and Charles. We sweated under the hot African sun together, reminisced and exchanged stories about our time in Accra together, and laughed at ourselves when we bladed, hooked, and yes, even shanked the occasional 4-iron. The skill may be hard to find; my touch may be nearly all gone at this moment; but the love and bliss I experience on the golf course is still there. I still watch each of my drives with intent and curious eyes to see where they land. And felt just as sweet on Sunday when I sunk a twenty-foot anake of a putt to save par on the eighth hole to save par. Granted, on this afternoon, the putt was to keep me at five over par instead of even par - a score I can hope to challenge again next summer upon returning to the States! The passage of a few months has not caused my love for golf, nor for Arnold Palmers, to subside. Following our round of golf, I treated Cole and Charles to Arnold Palmers. For those of you who do not know. An 'Arnold Palmer' is an historic golfer's drink, and it is made by mixing lemonade and sweet tea - or at least it is sweet tea if you are from the South! This was the first time that Cole's and Charles' taste buds were privelaged enough to receive the deluctably refreshing sensation that an Arnold Palmer gives each man who drinks one. It is encouraging that while I am in a culture very different from my own I can still find joy and stasis playing the game I love. The fairways are just as pretty; the fellowship with my buds is just as rewarding; and the Arnold Palmers are just as sweet...
A few weeks ago I was talking to Cole, one of my cohorts and the only other male on the sojourn with me, and explaining to him how much I missed golf. I missed the freshly cut grass in the morning and the smell of the morning's fresh dew on the ground. I missed the simple things about the game: the sensation that you feel go up your arms when you hit a crisp wedge shot or a three-hundred yard drive; and the adrenaline rush after sinking a fifteen foot left-to-right putt on the eighteenth hole to beat your buddies. Cole sympathized with me, and although he is by no means in love with the game he saw that I am. He could see how much joy golf brings me by the way I was describing my nostalgia, and he wanted to be a part of this fun with me. Being the ingenious man that he is, Cole suggested that we orchestrate a way to play a round of golf one afternoon over the holiday break at the Achimota Golf Club. The prospect excited me; although, I did not get my hopes up because I understand that we are busy people and I did not even bring my golf clubs with me. Nevertheless, the stars aligned, and this past Sunday we were able to make it out to the golf course. Charles, Cole, and I took a tro-tro to Achimota and we alighted at the Golf Club for what would prove to be a most fulfilling and memorable afternoon.
We arrived at the golf club late, around 3:45 PM. We would have liked to arrive earlier; however the weekly five hour church service prevented this from happening. But that was no problem. I was simply happy to be at a golf course. So we paid our greens fees, retreived our set or rental clubs, and set off for the first tee around 4 PM. The sun sets around 6 PM so we were only allotted two hours of daylight to get our golf fixing. And what a fun two hours it was. The first hole is a 175 yard par 3. The teebox is directly below the veranda of the clubhouse, an area which men and ladies can sit and socialize over an ice cool beer following their round of golf. All the eyes on the veranda were on Cole and me. People expected us to be good because we are 'Oburoni.' However, despite the glares and anxious eyes, I did not feel the least but nervous. My excitement and eagerness left me immune to all other emotions for the time being. I asked my caddy for the 8-iron, so he grabbed the classic 'Ping Eye 2' steel beauty and handed it to me. Much to my own surprise, I managed to make contact with my first swing and ended up landing just off of the left fringe of the green. My touched proved to be just as poor and rusty as I expected it to be. So I three-putted, bent over, and picked the ball out of the cup for the first time in over four months, and I was off!
Everything about the afternoon was cathartic and brought back so many fond memories. I was walking the sweet fairways of God's green earth with my two best friends, Cole and Charles. We sweated under the hot African sun together, reminisced and exchanged stories about our time in Accra together, and laughed at ourselves when we bladed, hooked, and yes, even shanked the occasional 4-iron. The skill may be hard to find; my touch may be nearly all gone at this moment; but the love and bliss I experience on the golf course is still there. I still watch each of my drives with intent and curious eyes to see where they land. And felt just as sweet on Sunday when I sunk a twenty-foot anake of a putt to save par on the eighth hole to save par. Granted, on this afternoon, the putt was to keep me at five over par instead of even par - a score I can hope to challenge again next summer upon returning to the States! The passage of a few months has not caused my love for golf, nor for Arnold Palmers, to subside. Following our round of golf, I treated Cole and Charles to Arnold Palmers. For those of you who do not know. An 'Arnold Palmer' is an historic golfer's drink, and it is made by mixing lemonade and sweet tea - or at least it is sweet tea if you are from the South! This was the first time that Cole's and Charles' taste buds were privelaged enough to receive the deluctably refreshing sensation that an Arnold Palmer gives each man who drinks one. It is encouraging that while I am in a culture very different from my own I can still find joy and stasis playing the game I love. The fairways are just as pretty; the fellowship with my buds is just as rewarding; and the Arnold Palmers are just as sweet...
Giving Back to Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JHS
My Bridge Year began in the last week of August 2009 in Princeton, New Jersey with a one week orientation that was designed to help prepare me for the physical, emotional, and mental challenges of my nine months ahead. During one of the orientation sessions, John Luria, Director of the Bridge Year Program, led a discussion on the psychology of the traveler. He told us what to expect upon arrival. He dubbed it “The Honeymoon Phase.” We would be away from home, free to explore our new surroundings, and free to make our own choices and do as we please with our free time. This newly found freedom and the novelty of a new country were things to welcome. However, following this “honeymoon period,” we could expect to experience what is often called “The Crash.” During this period of time we could our emotions to come back down to earth. We would realize that there are certain things about this new culture that we may come to find difficult to adjust to: the food, the language, the pace of life, etc.. We would realize that we are not on a vacation, and that we will not see our loved ones for a long time. And the thought that turns a fleeting thought of gloominess into a “Crash” is the realization that my discomfort, my uneasiness, and my nostalgia are not temporary. I am here to stay – for nine months at least – and I will not go home for a long while.
I experienced my “crash” a bit late in my stay in Ghana. It happened in early November. However, my crash was not brought about by illness, different foods, a trouble in grasping the local language, or even homesickness. I quickly realized that any illness was to be expected as my body was adapting to new air, new weather, new bacteria, and a new time zone. As far as food, I knew that would be different, and I quickly adapted to eating more yams and cassava. The language I knew would take time and so I did not put an enormous amount of pressure on myself in this area. And homesickness is simply natural, so I did not panic when I began to miss my family and friends. After all, I am Latino. And although I am not one to believe in stereotypes, this one holds true: All Latin boys are mama’s boys. So I was not alarmed when I began to crave sizzling chorizo sausage with homemade tortillas, or when I began to miss the refreshing smell of Clorox that permeates our home after my mom has cleaned the whole house. Rather what caused my “crash” was the self-realization that I was becoming complacent. I was going to work everyday, but I was not fully giving my whole self to the job. I found the apathy of some of the teachers discouraging. And instead of being the change I wished to see, I was quickly becoming a victim of my environment and becoming apathetic myself. Apathetic is a harsh word; I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I just became immune to the idleness around me. I was becoming more and more complacent and thus short-siding my teaching potential and cheating my students. I would grudgingly agree to cover a class for a teacher instead of simply doing the job I was asked to do to the best of my abilities. And I was discouraged because I had been teaching for two months, and had only a month and a half left, and I questioned whether I was making a meaningful contribution on the students and school. Would the students and teachers of Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS remember me after I left?
What was most disheartening, and what really brought about the “crash,” was the fact that all of my negative feelings, my complacency, and my begrudging feelings towards some of the teachers were brought about by myself. I had lost sight of who I was responsible for and who I was affecting; I was responsible for myself, my actions only, and my attitude – positive or negative – was affecting the students I was responsible for teaching. I was not responsible for other teachers, and if I was discouraged in the job I was doing I had only myself to blame. Regrets come about only when we do neither what we ought to do nor what we like. In all honesty, I suppose to call my emotional trough a “crash” would be a bit of a misnomer. Simply because I did not suffer a traumatic experience that spiraled me into a state of depression, and my emotional decline was not sudden. Rather, I had been sliding down a gentle slope of laziness and apathy for a while. My slide did not have any road signs; it was a gradual one. As I stated earlier: I had become the part of my environment that I criticized the most instead of being the change I wished to see. It did not take me long to snap myself out of my state of self-pity. I reflected on how blessed I was to be in Ghana, and how I was fortunate to be given this Bridge Year opportunity. I soon realized that I did not want to look back on my time in Accra and feel as though I could have done more if I had worked a little harder and cared a little more. It is in this spirit that I began to work to fulfill my real mission for being here: to leave Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS better than I found it.
My plan, or goal if you wish to call it that, to accomplish my aforementioned mission was twofold. It was not uncommon for me to have a bit of free time at the end of certain school days if I had finished marking all of my assignments and if I was not scheduled to teach an afternoon class. On such days I could often be found reading at my desk, and I would never read without my pocket-size Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus by my side. On more than a few occasions, various students came up to me and asked me what purpose the small book I periodically looked through served. I would tell them that I prefer reading with a dictionary close by whenever possible so that if I come across a word I do not know I can look it up. I encouraged the students to take a look through the dictionary, and each time one looked through it he or she would then ask me if I could give mine to him or her. My first initiative would be to try to raise enough money to buy each of my students his or her very own Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus. This way each student could have a dictionary that he could call his own, and he could then use the invaluable and necessary tool anytime he pleased in order to improve his English. My second initiative was more geared to aiding the teachers and to creating a more efficient and clean environment conducive to effective teaching and sound learning. To do this I wanted to remove the old, crusty (please excuse the informal language, but this is a fairly accurate description of the boards) chalkboards and install brand-new, dry-erase whiteboards. All of the chalkboards had cracks in them. One – the chalkboard in the form 2 classroom – even had a gaping hole in the middle of it. The teacher would begin writing a sentence on the left-hand side of the board and midway through the sentence would have to jump three feet to the right-hand side of the board and continue writing the same sentence on a different section of the board. Also, teachers and students alike complain each time the board has to be erased as chalk dust fills the air and causes a lot of people to cough. Additionally, the chalk dirties the clothes of the teachers who are using it. I figured whiteboards would be easier to clean, easier to manage, and the writing would appear clearer on them than on the chalkboards.
In order to support my efforts, in late November I sent out letters soliciting the help of my family, friends, and the Charlotte Princeton Alumni network. I did not want to burden anyone, so I only sought out people who had made it known to me that they wanted to contribute to aiding the teachers and students I am serving and working alongside with here in Ghana. Each group of people showed incredible generosity, selflessness, and benevolence by making significant contributions to my efforts. The donations were enough to pay for ninety Oxford Mini Dictionaries & Thesauruses – enough to give to each of my students and to each teacher – and to cover the cost for acquiring the materials to build and install one ‘4 x 12’ whiteboard in each classroom (three whiteboards total). To build the whiteboards we bought three ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood, Formica (the glossy, white surface that you actually write one), lots of carpenters glue (a few liters), blocks and nails to mount the boards into the wall permanently, and plastic border to make the boards aesthetically appealing. Contributions also went towards buying the teachers a bountiful amount of dry-erase markers and erasers so they do not have to worry about buying those on their own. My host father, a professional carpenter, and I all worked together to build and install the whiteboards into each of the classrooms. I hope to upload some pictures of the construction and installation process; they would include pictures of the old chalkboards, the bare classroom walls (after we tore down the chalkboards), and the newly installed whiteboards.
It is not good that I came to a point where I was embarrassed of the effort, or lack there of, that I was putting into my work here in Ghana. I acknowledge that any feelings or questions I may have regarding the “difference or impact” I am making on the people I am serving are unfounded. And they are in large part rooted in an ego-oriented, misguided perception of my work, which is wrong. My work is meaningful, and I am only to be ashamed if I do not give each job my best effort. And I now recognize, and in the blog post below will talk about, that when I become complacent and give less than my best I am not only shortchanging myself. I am cheating more people. My time is not simply my own, and I cannot simply do with it as I please. And that is what I want to devote the next post to: Let’s talk about “Time”…
I experienced my “crash” a bit late in my stay in Ghana. It happened in early November. However, my crash was not brought about by illness, different foods, a trouble in grasping the local language, or even homesickness. I quickly realized that any illness was to be expected as my body was adapting to new air, new weather, new bacteria, and a new time zone. As far as food, I knew that would be different, and I quickly adapted to eating more yams and cassava. The language I knew would take time and so I did not put an enormous amount of pressure on myself in this area. And homesickness is simply natural, so I did not panic when I began to miss my family and friends. After all, I am Latino. And although I am not one to believe in stereotypes, this one holds true: All Latin boys are mama’s boys. So I was not alarmed when I began to crave sizzling chorizo sausage with homemade tortillas, or when I began to miss the refreshing smell of Clorox that permeates our home after my mom has cleaned the whole house. Rather what caused my “crash” was the self-realization that I was becoming complacent. I was going to work everyday, but I was not fully giving my whole self to the job. I found the apathy of some of the teachers discouraging. And instead of being the change I wished to see, I was quickly becoming a victim of my environment and becoming apathetic myself. Apathetic is a harsh word; I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I just became immune to the idleness around me. I was becoming more and more complacent and thus short-siding my teaching potential and cheating my students. I would grudgingly agree to cover a class for a teacher instead of simply doing the job I was asked to do to the best of my abilities. And I was discouraged because I had been teaching for two months, and had only a month and a half left, and I questioned whether I was making a meaningful contribution on the students and school. Would the students and teachers of Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS remember me after I left?
What was most disheartening, and what really brought about the “crash,” was the fact that all of my negative feelings, my complacency, and my begrudging feelings towards some of the teachers were brought about by myself. I had lost sight of who I was responsible for and who I was affecting; I was responsible for myself, my actions only, and my attitude – positive or negative – was affecting the students I was responsible for teaching. I was not responsible for other teachers, and if I was discouraged in the job I was doing I had only myself to blame. Regrets come about only when we do neither what we ought to do nor what we like. In all honesty, I suppose to call my emotional trough a “crash” would be a bit of a misnomer. Simply because I did not suffer a traumatic experience that spiraled me into a state of depression, and my emotional decline was not sudden. Rather, I had been sliding down a gentle slope of laziness and apathy for a while. My slide did not have any road signs; it was a gradual one. As I stated earlier: I had become the part of my environment that I criticized the most instead of being the change I wished to see. It did not take me long to snap myself out of my state of self-pity. I reflected on how blessed I was to be in Ghana, and how I was fortunate to be given this Bridge Year opportunity. I soon realized that I did not want to look back on my time in Accra and feel as though I could have done more if I had worked a little harder and cared a little more. It is in this spirit that I began to work to fulfill my real mission for being here: to leave Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS better than I found it.
My plan, or goal if you wish to call it that, to accomplish my aforementioned mission was twofold. It was not uncommon for me to have a bit of free time at the end of certain school days if I had finished marking all of my assignments and if I was not scheduled to teach an afternoon class. On such days I could often be found reading at my desk, and I would never read without my pocket-size Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus by my side. On more than a few occasions, various students came up to me and asked me what purpose the small book I periodically looked through served. I would tell them that I prefer reading with a dictionary close by whenever possible so that if I come across a word I do not know I can look it up. I encouraged the students to take a look through the dictionary, and each time one looked through it he or she would then ask me if I could give mine to him or her. My first initiative would be to try to raise enough money to buy each of my students his or her very own Oxford Mini Dictionary & Thesaurus. This way each student could have a dictionary that he could call his own, and he could then use the invaluable and necessary tool anytime he pleased in order to improve his English. My second initiative was more geared to aiding the teachers and to creating a more efficient and clean environment conducive to effective teaching and sound learning. To do this I wanted to remove the old, crusty (please excuse the informal language, but this is a fairly accurate description of the boards) chalkboards and install brand-new, dry-erase whiteboards. All of the chalkboards had cracks in them. One – the chalkboard in the form 2 classroom – even had a gaping hole in the middle of it. The teacher would begin writing a sentence on the left-hand side of the board and midway through the sentence would have to jump three feet to the right-hand side of the board and continue writing the same sentence on a different section of the board. Also, teachers and students alike complain each time the board has to be erased as chalk dust fills the air and causes a lot of people to cough. Additionally, the chalk dirties the clothes of the teachers who are using it. I figured whiteboards would be easier to clean, easier to manage, and the writing would appear clearer on them than on the chalkboards.
In order to support my efforts, in late November I sent out letters soliciting the help of my family, friends, and the Charlotte Princeton Alumni network. I did not want to burden anyone, so I only sought out people who had made it known to me that they wanted to contribute to aiding the teachers and students I am serving and working alongside with here in Ghana. Each group of people showed incredible generosity, selflessness, and benevolence by making significant contributions to my efforts. The donations were enough to pay for ninety Oxford Mini Dictionaries & Thesauruses – enough to give to each of my students and to each teacher – and to cover the cost for acquiring the materials to build and install one ‘4 x 12’ whiteboard in each classroom (three whiteboards total). To build the whiteboards we bought three ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood, Formica (the glossy, white surface that you actually write one), lots of carpenters glue (a few liters), blocks and nails to mount the boards into the wall permanently, and plastic border to make the boards aesthetically appealing. Contributions also went towards buying the teachers a bountiful amount of dry-erase markers and erasers so they do not have to worry about buying those on their own. My host father, a professional carpenter, and I all worked together to build and install the whiteboards into each of the classrooms. I hope to upload some pictures of the construction and installation process; they would include pictures of the old chalkboards, the bare classroom walls (after we tore down the chalkboards), and the newly installed whiteboards.
It is not good that I came to a point where I was embarrassed of the effort, or lack there of, that I was putting into my work here in Ghana. I acknowledge that any feelings or questions I may have regarding the “difference or impact” I am making on the people I am serving are unfounded. And they are in large part rooted in an ego-oriented, misguided perception of my work, which is wrong. My work is meaningful, and I am only to be ashamed if I do not give each job my best effort. And I now recognize, and in the blog post below will talk about, that when I become complacent and give less than my best I am not only shortchanging myself. I am cheating more people. My time is not simply my own, and I cannot simply do with it as I please. And that is what I want to devote the next post to: Let’s talk about “Time”…
My Time Is Not My Own
Upon committing to deferring matriculation for a year and opting to take a Bridge Year, many people asked me why I made the decision I made. They did not ask me because they necessarily agreed or disagreed with my decision. They simply asked, and I am still asked, because they wanted to know what motivated my decision. The truth is it was a whole host of reasons, and it would be unnecessary and irrelevant to this blog to go into all of them. However, there is one reason that I chose to take a Bridge Year abroad that I want to elaborate on because I feel like it is worth explaining.
I am a notorious procrastinator. If you talk to anyone who knows me well they will attest to this. My parents and brother can attest to it because they have been kept awake by my bedroom light deep into the night because I was up late studying for a test that I had known about for weeks. My high school classmates can attest to it because many of them received phone calls in the middle of the night from me asking for help. And if they ever needed help they never failed to call me. Not because they were confident that I would be able to help them, but because they knew that I would most certainly be up cramming to finish my assignment the night before it was due. Though I have never set foot on a college campus as an enrolled freshman, something I know about entering college is that one enters a drastically different environment (most of the time, unless one went to a boarding school) from the one he was accustomed to in high school. An individual no longer lives at home; he takes less classes; he has more free time and new freedoms. One of the things I feared about going straight into college was that in a new environment I would try to maintain the behaviors I was accustomed to and comfortable with in high school, behaviors and habits that I felt had worked fine for me the previous eighteen years of my existence. This would only be natural: to simply behave the way I have always behaved. However, this Bridge Year has allowed me the time and practice ground to examine my habits and behaviors and refine them to better suit a free, independent lifestyle. And the behavior that I have come to deplore, and must work on the most, is my shameful propensity to procrastinate. More broadly, my whole perception of time and my time-management has changed, and that is the topic of this blog: How Ghana has changed my perception of my time.
A part of Ghanaian culture that I have come to love and appreciate is the laid-back nature of people. People, for the most part, are very relaxed. There are not too many high-strung individuals, and it is not often that you will find someone growing overly worked up over an inconvenience or quagmire. In an earlier blog post I talked a bit about the collective, brotherly nature of Ghanaian society, and this holds true in leisure. People enjoy relaxing and having a good time with the people they love the most. For example, I can step out my front door in East Legon, Accra and will never have any trouble finding a game or Rummy to join. There are always men sitting in front of their houses either playing cards, chatting, or listening to the radio, and they welcome a companion to join them in their leisure. This is to be admired. However, too much of most things are usually not good, and the laid-back attitude and indulgence in leisure is no different. People are sometime easygoing to a fault. The free-spirit lifestyle that most people choose to live by can often lead to over-indulgence in leisure. Sometimes people are even idle and seemingly basic, menial tasks may take hours or days to get done depending on the job. Many people joke about “African Time.” “African Time” is the name people, locals included, use refer to Africans’ propensity to always be running late. I have found it nearly impossible to schedule meetings in Ghana. Most Ghanaians cannot give you a set time of their arrival, much less suggest a time when a meeting should commence.
For example, last week I wanted to meet a Ghanaian friend of mine, George, for dinner. I suggested 7:00 PM on Tuesday. He said, “Of course Nick. That’s fine. 7:00, 7:30 sounds good to me.” I knew that when he said that he was hinting to me that there was a slim chance he would meet me at 7:00 PM, and there was a good chance that he would arrive after 7:30 PM – likely closer to 8:00 PM. Here is another example…In America, when one receives a wedding invitation that says, “The wedding ceremony will commence at 6:30 PM on Saturday evening” he can be sure that if he shows up at 7:00 PM the Church doors will most likely be closed, he will have to embarrassingly walk into the chapel and sit down (likely a conspicuous spectacle), and he will have missed the start of the wedding. However, in Ghana it is different. My host auntie and host sister attended a wedding three Sundays ago. The wedding was scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM. The bride did not show up until 12:30 PM! And the guests and attendees had to wait and sing hymnals to pass the time as they waited two and a half hours for the bride to show up to her own wedding.
Here is one last example. In the previous blog (above) I talked about the donation, building, and installation of the whiteboards in the school I teach at. However, I did not mention the debacle that nearly thwarted all of our efforts. I bought the three ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood a week and a half before we actually installed the boards. We kept the three pieces of plywood just outside the side door of our house. We figured this would be fine because we live in a compound. The area is gated and an eight and a half foot cement wall encompasses the whole compound. This is a fairly common setup in Ghana, and such compounds are rarely robbed. However, the night before we were set to install the whiteboards was different. I woke up to check and make sure that we had all of the necessary tools and supplies to build the whiteboards before we loaded the truck to meet the headmaster at the school at 8:30 AM on the morning of December 21, 2009. However, the boards were gone and were nowhere to be found. Mr. Kodji, the headmaster, was scheduled to meet us at the school because he had keys to each of the classrooms so that we could enter each classroom and install the whiteboards. We had to call him and ask him if we could meet later because Charles (my host father) and I had to go to town to buy three new ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood before we could meet the Mr. Kodji at the school. I asked Charles what time he thought we would be finished making our necessary rounds so that I could give the headmaster a new time to meet us at the school. Charles told me to not give him a time and to tell him that we would call him when we were ready. I could not believe this. It was the holidays and I wanted to be considerate of Mr. Kodji’s time and not leave him waiting around for us to call him when he could be taking care of other responsibilities of his. Charles did not seem to mind, and interestingly enough neither did Mr. Kodji when I called to tell him to wait for us to call him before he went to the school. That is just the way things run in Ghana. To me it is at times frustrating, but I have learned to become more patient, understanding, and respectful of other people’s time. Just to finish the anecdote, we did end up calling Mr. Kodji eventually that day. However, by the time we went to town and returned, it was too late to meet him so we ended up meeti8ng the next day. Nevertheless, setbacks aside, we installed the boards the next day.
These are three classic examples of time trials (no hyphen) in Africa. So what has this taught me? It has taught me to be selfless, practical, wise, and understanding with my time. I have been a procrastinator all of my life, but I am determined to change this cancerous habit. I used to justify my procrastination by saying that, “My time is my own.” My mom would always implore me to use my time wisely. I would always tell her to not worry and that I would get my work done before the deadline so she should not worry. This was always true, but as I reflect I realize that it was a poor way of justifying my behavior. I would tell her that I wanted to enjoy my free time, so instead of taking advantage of my free time to get my work done ahead to time so I would not have to procrastinate I would relax and be idle. This would leave me cramming at the last minute to get my work done, and I often lost hours of sleep because of it. However, I was okay with this. Because I viewed my time as just that, MINE. So I could do with it as I pleased so long as I did get my responsibilities done in the end, and on time. After seeing how time is valued here in Ghana, and after genuine reflection and critique of my own time management, I now realize how selfish this perception is.
The fact is: My time is not my own. Or at least, it does not solely belong to me. In fact, no man can, in the most literal sense of the word, ‘own’ time. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it in his novel The Screwtape Letters: “The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.” This convicted me when I read it. No man tells the sun when to rise, or when to set. No man can give another man more time on this earth than he is already destined to have. And no man can manipulate time to suit his own schedule. The clock will always move at a rate of sixty seconds per minute. And the future is a place reached by everyone at the rate of twenty-four hours in a day, seven days a week, and three hundred and sixty-five days a year, no matter who you are. And because we are only given a finite number of time on this earth as a ‘pure gift,’ we should cherish it and make the most of each second. This sense of entitlement that my time is MINE is selfish and is rooted in unfounded pride. Because if I am honest, if we are all honest with ourselves, my time is not my own, and neither is my body, or my soul. It is a gift that is to be used prudently to carry out the work it was sent to carry out, and to glorify the One who gave me them as ‘pure gifts.’
I talked about my “Crash” that was precipitated by a sense of complacency. I became complacent because I grew very comfortable with the Ghanaian lifestyle and my life here. I persuaded myself that the future – or at least my time here – was going to be agreeable so I did not need to worry about the future or what to do with my time. I later realized how self-absorbed this is. And this is one of the thoughts that motivated me in putting together the initiatives to help Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS. As I have said before, I do feel morally obligated to give back because I am so blessed. I have a responsibility to make the most of the finite amount of time I have been given. I should spend my life giving myself patiently and generously to each moment for the good of posterity. There is something to be admired in the easygoing spirit of Ghanaians. And leisure and relaxation are healthy, even necessary, in leading a sane and fulfilling existence – but only to a point. I am starting to find out what works best for me, and everyone is different. We all manage our time differently, and different people do marvelously for themselves by managing their time in the way that works best for them. I have learned that the key is to find what works best for me and to stay true to that. I am not perfect, and I will continue to struggle with time management. My time is not my own. And I can rest my head in peace at night if I can look back on the prior day and say that I pulled all I could out of each second – each ‘pure gift’ – I was given.
I am a notorious procrastinator. If you talk to anyone who knows me well they will attest to this. My parents and brother can attest to it because they have been kept awake by my bedroom light deep into the night because I was up late studying for a test that I had known about for weeks. My high school classmates can attest to it because many of them received phone calls in the middle of the night from me asking for help. And if they ever needed help they never failed to call me. Not because they were confident that I would be able to help them, but because they knew that I would most certainly be up cramming to finish my assignment the night before it was due. Though I have never set foot on a college campus as an enrolled freshman, something I know about entering college is that one enters a drastically different environment (most of the time, unless one went to a boarding school) from the one he was accustomed to in high school. An individual no longer lives at home; he takes less classes; he has more free time and new freedoms. One of the things I feared about going straight into college was that in a new environment I would try to maintain the behaviors I was accustomed to and comfortable with in high school, behaviors and habits that I felt had worked fine for me the previous eighteen years of my existence. This would only be natural: to simply behave the way I have always behaved. However, this Bridge Year has allowed me the time and practice ground to examine my habits and behaviors and refine them to better suit a free, independent lifestyle. And the behavior that I have come to deplore, and must work on the most, is my shameful propensity to procrastinate. More broadly, my whole perception of time and my time-management has changed, and that is the topic of this blog: How Ghana has changed my perception of my time.
A part of Ghanaian culture that I have come to love and appreciate is the laid-back nature of people. People, for the most part, are very relaxed. There are not too many high-strung individuals, and it is not often that you will find someone growing overly worked up over an inconvenience or quagmire. In an earlier blog post I talked a bit about the collective, brotherly nature of Ghanaian society, and this holds true in leisure. People enjoy relaxing and having a good time with the people they love the most. For example, I can step out my front door in East Legon, Accra and will never have any trouble finding a game or Rummy to join. There are always men sitting in front of their houses either playing cards, chatting, or listening to the radio, and they welcome a companion to join them in their leisure. This is to be admired. However, too much of most things are usually not good, and the laid-back attitude and indulgence in leisure is no different. People are sometime easygoing to a fault. The free-spirit lifestyle that most people choose to live by can often lead to over-indulgence in leisure. Sometimes people are even idle and seemingly basic, menial tasks may take hours or days to get done depending on the job. Many people joke about “African Time.” “African Time” is the name people, locals included, use refer to Africans’ propensity to always be running late. I have found it nearly impossible to schedule meetings in Ghana. Most Ghanaians cannot give you a set time of their arrival, much less suggest a time when a meeting should commence.
For example, last week I wanted to meet a Ghanaian friend of mine, George, for dinner. I suggested 7:00 PM on Tuesday. He said, “Of course Nick. That’s fine. 7:00, 7:30 sounds good to me.” I knew that when he said that he was hinting to me that there was a slim chance he would meet me at 7:00 PM, and there was a good chance that he would arrive after 7:30 PM – likely closer to 8:00 PM. Here is another example…In America, when one receives a wedding invitation that says, “The wedding ceremony will commence at 6:30 PM on Saturday evening” he can be sure that if he shows up at 7:00 PM the Church doors will most likely be closed, he will have to embarrassingly walk into the chapel and sit down (likely a conspicuous spectacle), and he will have missed the start of the wedding. However, in Ghana it is different. My host auntie and host sister attended a wedding three Sundays ago. The wedding was scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM. The bride did not show up until 12:30 PM! And the guests and attendees had to wait and sing hymnals to pass the time as they waited two and a half hours for the bride to show up to her own wedding.
Here is one last example. In the previous blog (above) I talked about the donation, building, and installation of the whiteboards in the school I teach at. However, I did not mention the debacle that nearly thwarted all of our efforts. I bought the three ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood a week and a half before we actually installed the boards. We kept the three pieces of plywood just outside the side door of our house. We figured this would be fine because we live in a compound. The area is gated and an eight and a half foot cement wall encompasses the whole compound. This is a fairly common setup in Ghana, and such compounds are rarely robbed. However, the night before we were set to install the whiteboards was different. I woke up to check and make sure that we had all of the necessary tools and supplies to build the whiteboards before we loaded the truck to meet the headmaster at the school at 8:30 AM on the morning of December 21, 2009. However, the boards were gone and were nowhere to be found. Mr. Kodji, the headmaster, was scheduled to meet us at the school because he had keys to each of the classrooms so that we could enter each classroom and install the whiteboards. We had to call him and ask him if we could meet later because Charles (my host father) and I had to go to town to buy three new ‘4 x 12’ pieces of ¾ inch thick plywood before we could meet the Mr. Kodji at the school. I asked Charles what time he thought we would be finished making our necessary rounds so that I could give the headmaster a new time to meet us at the school. Charles told me to not give him a time and to tell him that we would call him when we were ready. I could not believe this. It was the holidays and I wanted to be considerate of Mr. Kodji’s time and not leave him waiting around for us to call him when he could be taking care of other responsibilities of his. Charles did not seem to mind, and interestingly enough neither did Mr. Kodji when I called to tell him to wait for us to call him before he went to the school. That is just the way things run in Ghana. To me it is at times frustrating, but I have learned to become more patient, understanding, and respectful of other people’s time. Just to finish the anecdote, we did end up calling Mr. Kodji eventually that day. However, by the time we went to town and returned, it was too late to meet him so we ended up meeti8ng the next day. Nevertheless, setbacks aside, we installed the boards the next day.
These are three classic examples of time trials (no hyphen) in Africa. So what has this taught me? It has taught me to be selfless, practical, wise, and understanding with my time. I have been a procrastinator all of my life, but I am determined to change this cancerous habit. I used to justify my procrastination by saying that, “My time is my own.” My mom would always implore me to use my time wisely. I would always tell her to not worry and that I would get my work done before the deadline so she should not worry. This was always true, but as I reflect I realize that it was a poor way of justifying my behavior. I would tell her that I wanted to enjoy my free time, so instead of taking advantage of my free time to get my work done ahead to time so I would not have to procrastinate I would relax and be idle. This would leave me cramming at the last minute to get my work done, and I often lost hours of sleep because of it. However, I was okay with this. Because I viewed my time as just that, MINE. So I could do with it as I pleased so long as I did get my responsibilities done in the end, and on time. After seeing how time is valued here in Ghana, and after genuine reflection and critique of my own time management, I now realize how selfish this perception is.
The fact is: My time is not my own. Or at least, it does not solely belong to me. In fact, no man can, in the most literal sense of the word, ‘own’ time. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it in his novel The Screwtape Letters: “The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.” This convicted me when I read it. No man tells the sun when to rise, or when to set. No man can give another man more time on this earth than he is already destined to have. And no man can manipulate time to suit his own schedule. The clock will always move at a rate of sixty seconds per minute. And the future is a place reached by everyone at the rate of twenty-four hours in a day, seven days a week, and three hundred and sixty-five days a year, no matter who you are. And because we are only given a finite number of time on this earth as a ‘pure gift,’ we should cherish it and make the most of each second. This sense of entitlement that my time is MINE is selfish and is rooted in unfounded pride. Because if I am honest, if we are all honest with ourselves, my time is not my own, and neither is my body, or my soul. It is a gift that is to be used prudently to carry out the work it was sent to carry out, and to glorify the One who gave me them as ‘pure gifts.’
I talked about my “Crash” that was precipitated by a sense of complacency. I became complacent because I grew very comfortable with the Ghanaian lifestyle and my life here. I persuaded myself that the future – or at least my time here – was going to be agreeable so I did not need to worry about the future or what to do with my time. I later realized how self-absorbed this is. And this is one of the thoughts that motivated me in putting together the initiatives to help Maamobi Prisons No. 1 JSS. As I have said before, I do feel morally obligated to give back because I am so blessed. I have a responsibility to make the most of the finite amount of time I have been given. I should spend my life giving myself patiently and generously to each moment for the good of posterity. There is something to be admired in the easygoing spirit of Ghanaians. And leisure and relaxation are healthy, even necessary, in leading a sane and fulfilling existence – but only to a point. I am starting to find out what works best for me, and everyone is different. We all manage our time differently, and different people do marvelously for themselves by managing their time in the way that works best for them. I have learned that the key is to find what works best for me and to stay true to that. I am not perfect, and I will continue to struggle with time management. My time is not my own. And I can rest my head in peace at night if I can look back on the prior day and say that I pulled all I could out of each second – each ‘pure gift’ – I was given.
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