Well I guess I should update this blog after my 21st birthday and Thanksgiving, not to mention a few weeks of silence on my part. My Independent Study Project is almost done, and I must say researching the movement for Pan-African Unity in the 1950s and 1960s has been a very educational experience. What happened here was remarkable, especially considering the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, was the leader on the more militant side of the Pan-African movement, and was probably the biggest thorn in the side of the US foreign policy hawks. I would love to write more about this, but I'll just try to upload my finalized version to the blog so all can read what happened. All I'll say is I have a much better idea of why the continent that is possibly the richest in natural resources is also arguably the poorest continent in the world, and to tell the reader to look up what happened to Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, so you can see what happens when you start fucking with Westerners' money.
But it's the holiday season and for once I want to talk about the good in the world. Rest assured everyone that I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with a family that has taken a few of us students in and really treated us kindly. Every day or other day we've been going to their house to learn about Africa's true history (for the way we talk about it you'd think it began with colonialism and that Egypt were in the Middle East, not Africa), as well as playing some basketball, something rare in Ghana. This particular family is mostly from New Jersey, and the patriarch who moved the family has come to believe that America is in fact a police state and that all this modern technology and education is doing more harm and programming than we realize. Now there's an entire family here of Americans and Ghanaians, for they also take in local children who are at risk, and they take travelers such as myself and my fellow students periodically to teach us some real history.
So I spent my birthday/Thanksgiving with this family after taking a bus from Accra to Cape Coast in the morning. I had spent the previous night with my homestay family, who have also come to treat me like a part of their family as well. In fact, they gave me an amazing present, which was a traditional Nigerian robe, though I'm not sure if its originally Igbo or Yoruba or both. If Thanksgiving is about being with family and friends and being thankful for what you have, then I missed nothing this year, and for that I am truly grateful. Luckily, I learned when I left for Ghana just how amazing my family and friends are. Those who read my very first blog post might recall my bittersweet declaration that I am doomed to forget what I have in my family and friends and remember it, only to forget it again. But I can honestly say that I have not forgotten it, and this Thanksgiving was only a day to say it out loud. Yet I remember vividly how lucky I am.
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Yes, part of it is that it means my birthday is nearby, but I also love the meaning of Thanksgiving more so than any other holiday, especially the materialist undertones of Christmas. Thanksgiving isn't religious nor patriotic, for neither themes have ever been very attractive to me. It's holiday where you come to appreciate relationships and people, particularly the people close to you who have been there throughout, and you demonstrate that love by eating a shitload of great food and watching sports and napping. I am no believer in fate (though I do believe in meaning), but I almost believe it predestined that I would born around Thanksgiving, and that sometimes my birthday in fact would fall on Thanksgiving. That truly is a privilege.
I'll try to have more on Africa next time, though my mind is already turning towards my return to America after a nice, long break.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Freedom
After traveling the country for over a month and living in the Ashanti Region for four weeks, I have finally returned to Accra, where I left on the journey September 15th. This time around it is unsurprisingly different. I live in a homestay at the University of Ghana, Legon, and have been doing last-minute assignments here on campus. So this time the university isn't my shocking first impressions of Accra, Ghana, West Africa, and Africa, but rather just a rather beautiful university that is a shocking and heavenly escape from Accra's intensity and Ghana's reality.
And I see college students roaming around, studying in the library, smiling and laughing just as I would have if I were studying at Columbia, or if I had been enrolled here the entire semester. I must admit part of me wonders what kind of experience I would have had here in Ghana if I had just been enrolled as a student, which many Americans do (there are a ton of Obrunies here). I wouldn't seen half of the things I've written about, and probably would never have gotten to know the rest of Ghana in depth. It's an interesting thought experiment though, especially after the intensity and visceralness of the past two months.
We arrived here on Tuesday, and until Saturday we have to finish assignments and make arrangements for Independent Study Project time, which goes until December 6th. My ISP will be on Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led the de-colonization movement here in Ghana, the first country in all of Africa to get its independence (the topic is interesting but not my ideal choice. I need this to count for history credit so I can breath the next three semesters at Columbia. If I could I would study drumming and just learn to play for the next month). Sir George Padmore and W.E.B. Du Bois both came here to live here upon invitation by Nkrumah, and I know Du Bois died and is buried here. In fact, I will be doing research at the archives of the Du Bois Center, where he is buried, as well as the Nkrumah Mausoleum, where obviously Nkrumah is buried.
On November 14th I plan to head to Cape Coast to finish my research with the help of my advisor, Rabbi Kohain Palavi. We met with this man a few weeks ago, and he knows a ton about African liberation struggles, Pan-Africanism (he himself is from Mt. Vernon, NY, and told us he went to high school with Denzel Washington), and pretty everything else that's dope about Africa and the Diaspora. I plan to be there for two weeks, by which time I'll hopefully be done with my ISP and I'll spend the rest of the time traveling to various parts of Ghana, hopefully visiting friends I've made in Winneba, Kumasi, and the village Naama. On December 6th I'll be back in Accra to present my final project, and on December 13th it's back to NYC.
Things are completely different now that I'm no longer traveling with 14 other students under a completely structured itinerary. It's amazing to roam about with freedom here in Legon, and really be a college student again. I'm looking forward to doing research on Nkrumah, who it appears was overthrown simply because the CIA didn't like the prospects of an independent, intelligent, socialistic Africa (and if you think that's bad, look up what happened to Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, now known as the Congo). I spent much of my teenage years learning what the CIA did to Latin America, and now I've repeated the process for Africa.
People in America look at Africa's disparate poverty and underdevelopment, just like they look at Latin America's gross inequality, and wonder what happened. Did we just develop too fast and left the rest of the (colored) world behind? Sadly, many people seem to think that's exactly what happened, not understanding that it was our own shadow government, the undemocratically appointed national security institutions, that has actively sought to de-stabilize and disrupt the regions of the world seeking to rid itself of the yolk of colonialism and now neocolonialism. It makes me sad that a country founded on principles of freedom behaves like this. I guess it was always about freedom for certain people though. And what's scary is that this is only what we know 30 or 40 years after the fact. The CIA and other institutions go in to a country like a hitman, and the documents are classified for 30 years or so, or until they are obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, all in the name of "national security." Of course, why Ghana was a threat to the national security of the ol' Red, White, and Blue remains a mystery to me. For those Columbians interested in going into politics, maybe you could tell me some day?
And I see college students roaming around, studying in the library, smiling and laughing just as I would have if I were studying at Columbia, or if I had been enrolled here the entire semester. I must admit part of me wonders what kind of experience I would have had here in Ghana if I had just been enrolled as a student, which many Americans do (there are a ton of Obrunies here). I wouldn't seen half of the things I've written about, and probably would never have gotten to know the rest of Ghana in depth. It's an interesting thought experiment though, especially after the intensity and visceralness of the past two months.
We arrived here on Tuesday, and until Saturday we have to finish assignments and make arrangements for Independent Study Project time, which goes until December 6th. My ISP will be on Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led the de-colonization movement here in Ghana, the first country in all of Africa to get its independence (the topic is interesting but not my ideal choice. I need this to count for history credit so I can breath the next three semesters at Columbia. If I could I would study drumming and just learn to play for the next month). Sir George Padmore and W.E.B. Du Bois both came here to live here upon invitation by Nkrumah, and I know Du Bois died and is buried here. In fact, I will be doing research at the archives of the Du Bois Center, where he is buried, as well as the Nkrumah Mausoleum, where obviously Nkrumah is buried.
On November 14th I plan to head to Cape Coast to finish my research with the help of my advisor, Rabbi Kohain Palavi. We met with this man a few weeks ago, and he knows a ton about African liberation struggles, Pan-Africanism (he himself is from Mt. Vernon, NY, and told us he went to high school with Denzel Washington), and pretty everything else that's dope about Africa and the Diaspora. I plan to be there for two weeks, by which time I'll hopefully be done with my ISP and I'll spend the rest of the time traveling to various parts of Ghana, hopefully visiting friends I've made in Winneba, Kumasi, and the village Naama. On December 6th I'll be back in Accra to present my final project, and on December 13th it's back to NYC.
Things are completely different now that I'm no longer traveling with 14 other students under a completely structured itinerary. It's amazing to roam about with freedom here in Legon, and really be a college student again. I'm looking forward to doing research on Nkrumah, who it appears was overthrown simply because the CIA didn't like the prospects of an independent, intelligent, socialistic Africa (and if you think that's bad, look up what happened to Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, now known as the Congo). I spent much of my teenage years learning what the CIA did to Latin America, and now I've repeated the process for Africa.
People in America look at Africa's disparate poverty and underdevelopment, just like they look at Latin America's gross inequality, and wonder what happened. Did we just develop too fast and left the rest of the (colored) world behind? Sadly, many people seem to think that's exactly what happened, not understanding that it was our own shadow government, the undemocratically appointed national security institutions, that has actively sought to de-stabilize and disrupt the regions of the world seeking to rid itself of the yolk of colonialism and now neocolonialism. It makes me sad that a country founded on principles of freedom behaves like this. I guess it was always about freedom for certain people though. And what's scary is that this is only what we know 30 or 40 years after the fact. The CIA and other institutions go in to a country like a hitman, and the documents are classified for 30 years or so, or until they are obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, all in the name of "national security." Of course, why Ghana was a threat to the national security of the ol' Red, White, and Blue remains a mystery to me. For those Columbians interested in going into politics, maybe you could tell me some day?
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