Tuesday, June 1, 2010

I will always be Obruni

Dear Ghana,

While our time together may have seemed long given that most students only spend about 3 months learning from you, it still hurts to say goodbye. I’ve never been good at this part, letting go of something while it still gives me such happiness, but I am working hard to convince myself that everything has its time and place and currently is the time to exit this place. Maybe you can rely on a little of the patience you taught me so well and wait for my happy return; your prodigal American daughter, always leaving my family just when they start getting used to having me around. There is no doubt that I realized how fortunate I was to travel and live with you, even before my arrival, but everyday I appreciate you more and more. As an outsider to your circle of friends, there were times that were more than awkward, everything from how to “properly” eat fufu with my hand (the original s-p-o-o-n) to how to pee in those just-slanted-concrete enclosures you try to pass off as bathroom facilities without… well, let’s just say “making a mess.” A little humility is easy to come by after a few weeks of hanging out with you. Slow to judge but quick to aid in my exploration of new things, I will always be a work in progress no matter how long we travel together. I don’t want to minimize all that you have taught me, but it seems that after so long and so many lessons learned (especially those learned the hard way), they have just become as much a part of me as everything. Something so simple as the importance of a greeting to the unimportance of worry, they all have worked their way into my system, just like the stomach worms you gave me more times than my parents would enjoy hearing about.

Over the last few days, as my departure has been finalized, the “I’ll miss you” ‘s have become almost unbearable. I don’t like the phrase, to be honest, but have to acknowledge that there are times when it needs to be said. So, allow me to tell you, exactly and acutely, some of the things I will miss about you. I will miss the way you call “Craw, craw, thirt-seven, craw, craw,” from the tro-tros flying down Liberation Ave. I’ll miss eating kenkey with plantains which you think is weird but still like that I like it. I’ll miss when you talk to a stranger with the same openness you would speak to family. I’ll miss your PolyTank-bucket showers and my feet always being dusty. I’ll miss speaking Twi and using the strange Ghanaian accent I have acquired.

My time with you has left a deposit on my soul and for as much as I have felt a part of your community, welcomed and loved, you have also taught me the value of home and recognizing where you came from. It is not for the struggle of finding my comfortable place with you for the past 12 months that I say this, but rather for the recognition that there are also these experiences and adventures to be had closer to the family and friends I left 7,000 miles away. I have looked for excuses to stay but now see that yours cannot currently be my home but, as for the future, it is in god’s hands, as you are so fond of saying. No matter where I am, though; regardless of what comes and goes, I will always be obruni.

2 comments:

dncnqn said...

I enjoyed reading this letter to Ghana and friends again, months later

Blake said...

thanks very much... who is this?