United States of America

Before I left for Ghana to join the Peace Corps I became disillusioned with living in America for some reason and all I wanted to do was get out and get away from the US for a while. There was no specific reason why I wanted to leave, and it may have been a combination of things. Working at a job I didn’t like, going out and basically doing the same thing every weekend and possibly getting tired of being around the same people/type of people all the time. I just became tired of my life in America and needed a change. I just wanted to get away.

After a month of being in Ghana I realized that running/getting away was not going to solve issues that I had and wanted desperately to come back home. I began to miss the job that I had, going out on the weekends and meeting up with friends and I began to miss the people that I wanted to take a break from.

I recently had a conversation with a person with somewhat of a similar background that I have had. She also immigrated to the United States at the age of 3 and has lived her life in the US since then. We shared our stories of how our parents ended up in the US and how they initially had to cope with living there. Our parents struggled, but from it seemed like both of our parents worked hard in America to get to the place that they are at now.

There are countries in the world today like the European Union that may be doing better than the US in the economic sense, but I am proud to have lived and be a citizen of the United States of America. I don’t know why I never realized it before, but I guess I had to be here in Ghana to realize this. When you ask a Ghanaian why they all want to go to America instead of some place in Europe most of their responses are that they feel that Americans are a lot more open to having people of different races and ethnic backgrounds in their country.

I may not always agree with the current US government policies and how it operates, but I am proud to be an American. I feel like that there is no other places in the world that would and could have afforded my family the opportunities that it has had.

Written on September 4, 2007.

Handicap Fighting

The news on TV here regularly show pretty graphic videos that you would not see on network television in America. I’ve gotten pretty numb to seeing breasts, dead corpses as a result of mob justice, bodies that had been burned alive, and some other pretty gruesome images flash across the screen while watching the news. I thought I had seen it all until I saw a news story about two handicapped men both in wheelchairs getting into a fight in the middle of the street.

Apparently one of the men owed the other one 50,000 cedis (the equivalent of US $5), but the other man said that he didn’t owe the other man anything. They started arguing and then all of a sudden one of the men punches the other one in the face. This video went on for about 2 minutes. Two handicapped men in wheelchairs fist fighting each other… They eventually both fell off their wheelchairs and were rolling on the ground. I know how wrong I am for it, but I actually found it pretty amusing. At the end of the news program they showed the video of the fight again as they were closing the show. Television programs that they play here in Ghana are typically pretty boring, but when I can I always try and catch the news just in case they show more stories like this.

Written on November 12, 2007.

MTV Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life

During certain times of the day they show music videos and random shows from MTV. They call it MTV Base here in Ghana. Lately they have been showing the MTV Diary show with Jay-Z. Apparently Jay-Z is some sort of spokesperson for the United Nations for access to clean water here in Africa. The episode followed Jay-Z around Ghana going to places that the UN is helping to put in boreholes so that people can have access to clean water.

It’s nice to see that some celebrities are using their fame and fortune to do some sort of good where it is really needed.

If you want more info regarding the plight with the water situation here in Africa go to http://think.mtv.com.

Written on June 11, 2007.