A Comparison

I had this great, well thought out, long and detailed blog post written up that described my village experience and then I forgot my flash drive at the hotel. Needless to say, it's coming. Until then, a cliff notes version.

Life in Ghana has changed drastically in the last three weeks. Going from the city to the middle of nowhere was an experience that I needed and that taught me important lessons, whether they were through positive or negative experiences.

Given the novel that I am going to post shortly after this, I will focus in on only one piece of village life: the children. The children absolutely adored us, so much so that they were often the one thing we were trying to escape from, if not the men. They wanted to watch us sit and read, listen to music, talk or even sleep. We felt like we were in a zoo, and it was often the most uncomfortable feeling especially when it was 24/7 for two weeks.

When I look at the children right before me, I think immediately of their bloated stomachs and limited futures. The many malnourished village children go to the local school through Primary 6 (the equivalent of 6th grade), then are forced to travel to the neighboring village for continued education. Many of them don't even make it to P6, instead they are asked by their families to stay home and help on the farm. It's a sad story, and one that seems to be on a never-ending cycle.

But then I take a step back, and think about the children I have met in America. Before leaving for Ghana I traveled to Chicago on the bus, and sitting behind me was a small, five year old black boy who was obsessed with the pictures on my Kindle. He had his head poked around my seat for hours, talking my ear off, telling me about all the cars that he owned and how we would get off the bus soon and he would drive us the rest of the way to Chicago. Throughout the entire trip his mother kept shouting at him:

"Sit your ass down!"

"She don't want to talk to you!"

"Shut the f*** up!"

"Listen to what I'm f***ing telling you!"

She took several smoke breaks and left him in the bus alone, and spent most of the bus ride on the phone, telling her friends to ditch her kids with her mother because they were "going out to the clubs." It was hard for me not to pass judgment, but I'll be honest and say I don't know the whole story.

The past tells us that this child raised in poor Chicago may not have many chances in life to go far. He may wind up completing high school, getting a job, trying to support himself. He may go to college, get a scholarship and move to DC. Who knows. But watching this child, and comparing him to the children in Ghana made me realize that I think the Ghanaian village children are better off.

There's a theory in Africa that you can always go back to your roots. It doesn't matter where you are in life, you have an obligation to your family. You can see that daily in Ghanaian life. Everyone will talk about their family, usually they are living with them in some form, and more often than not they are in the same city at the least. No matter what, the children that I met can always go home and can always find love. Can the same be said for the individualist culture of the States?

This a broad analysis, and it may not be based in any fact. But after seeing that little boy in Chicago, and seeing these African children running around the village in flip-flops and torn clothes, I felt happier for them than I felt walking away from that bus.