Two sides to every story

I must write this blog entry to correct certain perceptions about Ghana, and the whole of Africa for that matter, before I can delve into some nitty gritty subjects to ensure that I don’t fuel the misconceptions that many possess of Africa. Going straight to the point, I feel like many people have this idea that Africa is a crazy, underdeveloped, unsafe, savage-ridden place. “Africa! HIV/AIDS! Tribal wars! Pirates! Child soldiers!” I blame the media. They never paint the complete picture. You see the commercial on tv concerning some NGO, as a Westerner walks through a littered and impoverished Africa holding a malnourished baby, asking for donations to help sustain the nation; and the national geographic magazines with the artsy fartsy pictures of tribal women with rings around their necks, and odd piercings, holding giant spears. What they don’t show are places like Accra, Ghana. Where there is a huge Holiday Inn right down the street, a Hilton in the making, the paved roads congested with traffic, the giant mall with stores selling items a middle class American wouldn’t even consider buying, the kid in my hostel who drives a bright orange corvette around school, and the gated mansions complete with a guard in front, personal chauffeurs, and maids.

Africa isn’t just one large pathetic war faring, impoverished, ancestor-worshipping, fearful, disease ridden continent. People hear I am in Ghana and they call me crazy. Yeah it’s Africa, but it’s not like I’m living in a hut in some rural village practicing cannibalism with savages. My professors are brilliant, my classmates are hard workers, and my Ghanaian friends are young adults who bob their heads to the beat of Akon and Rihanna. One American girl got sick about a month ago and was going in and out of the hospital. Her mom was extremely worried, so one of the students contacted the mother and explained the situation in full detail in hopes to comfort her. The student explained that the hospital is exactly like one that you would find in America; it is clean, the instruments are sterile, the equipments are advanced, the doctors and nurses are professional, competent and qualified, the care and attention are high quality, etc. O thank goodness, the mother said, I was afraid she was in the middle of nowhere lying in a cot under a tent, with nothing but the dirt on the ground.

We’re not the only ones guilty of ignorance. As you can imagine, many misconceptions exist about America, the Land of the Free. A lot of people I meet here are eager, sometimes desperate to go to America. Even many educated people believe that the moment you step onto American soil, the gates of opportunity are open wide for you. They believe that even the American poor could live as kings in Ghana. They believe that everyone in America owns a cell phone, ipod, and laptop. Some don’t even believe that homelessness exists in America. (Hobos literally sleep next door, outside my apartment in Berkeley!) Of course not all Ghanaians believe in such an easy and heavenly America. Many do realize that you must work very hard to get the top, and that unfavorable issues present themselves such as racism and whatnot. Sometimes I wonder why they even want to come to America. Yeah, there are many luxuries, but unless you are already filthy rich upon arriving, you have to work your butt off. Another point (of many that I’ve collected), is that Americans are independent minded, pull-yourself-up-by the-bootstraps types of people. There isn’t as strong a sense of community in America as there is in Ghana, where people are regarded as family and get along with each other peacefully. There are many amazing qualities Ghana possesses that aren’t easily found in America. But, as my PT and I discussed, many Ghanaians don’t realize it until they actually go to America and experience it for themselves.

Of course stereotypical beliefs of other cultures exist because they hold some truth. The poverty in Ghana are found at your doorstep. Next to the gated mansion with a personal guard, is a row of simple shacks. Next to the newly waxed BMW stuck in traffic is the 20-year-old girl balancing a bin of plantain chips on her head, weaving through the cars making a living. Through the windows of a large comfortable, air-conditioned tour bus, lay straw-roofs and mud huts in the north. Likewise, though poverty, corruption, violence, prostitution and the sort exist in America, there are multi-million dollar houses and the seemingly perfect nuclear families, wealth, fame, and overabundance in the nation as well. It’s important to realize that both dichotomies exist. Too quickly we gather up the biased information we are given and allow them to unrightfully assess and judge particular cultures/communities/parts of the world. Such thinking often plagues us with ethnocentric and belittling thoughts/actions towards others. I can’t say it is entirely our personal fault since we learn a lot of this from what is seen on tv or heard on the radio and the news and such. I guess the best thing for us to do in combating our lopsided views is to simply educate ourselves.