Fighting Fears

So, I have to confess, amidst the feelings of excitement about flying off to Ghana for a quarter of the year, I have been experiencing my share of anxiety. Of course when people ask if I am feeling nervous or excited about the trip, I respond yes to both. However, in all honesty, lately it has been mostly nervous. But, so as not to risk looking like a wimp I usually do not expand on this sentiment, but keep it to myself.

My biggest fear so far is not the sweltering heat. It is not the risk of getting malaria or some other taxing illness. It isn't my cultural or lingual incompetence. It's not even a fear of sleeping in a strange bed, in a tiny village, in a foreign country. All of these things are enough to singularly make one nervous, but I have experienced them in some degree in Peru or Japan and know that they can be survived and overcome.

My number one biggest fear is maintaining courage and emotional health as I exist in an isolation I have never really known for an extended time period. I am a social person by nature, I love my friends and family and the daily interactions I share with them. This is part of the reason I love anthropology - I am thrilled and fascinated by the bonds that can be forged and perpetuated through human relationships. In Ghana, I will have one American roommate with whom to relate. I am confident I will love the Ghanaians in the village, and will strive to create meaningful relationships with them. However, for my own selfish purposes I will not have constant communication with friends and family who share my culture and context and can comfort me in the ways I am most familiar with. This loss will be compounded by the fact that I live in the year 2012, and have a quite possibly unhealthy dependency on things like my texting and Facebook.

Recently, I was blessed to receive some needed comfort to help assuage my fears to some degree. My friend Lindsay and I were out to dinner and had some time to talk about things. Lindsay recently returned from a Spanish speaking mission to New Mexico, where she spent a lot of her time in El Paso, Texas very near the Mexican-American border. She commented that with my lack of means of communication and with such a culturally immersive experience I was sort of headed into a mini-mission situation. Realizing that Lindsay could probably identify with some of the fears I have about isolation because of her mission, I expressed how nervous I was. She began to describe some of her mission experiences and related that there were times when she was basically forced to her knees because the one person she could turn to was the Savior. She went on to explain that when all of the layers are stripped away - the sources I would usually turn to in a time of need (friends, family, or even other superficial means of escape) - all that is left is God.

After talking to Lindsay, I felt a comfort I had not really felt before. I could almost physically feel my anxiety lessening. I am still pretty scared, but I know that God will not leave me in complete isolation. I am excited for an opportunity that will challenge me, and even my current lifestyle. I hope to grow closer to my Savior, and build a more familiar and reliant relationship with Him while in Ghana.

Medicine

Yesterday I got my immunizations finally, and picked up my typhoid and malaria pills. Throughout the day I was feeling fairly good, except for being abnormally achey. However, by the time I went to bed I felt extremely achey and tired. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with violent chills and feeling extremely cold even when I piled on layers of clothing and blankets. I could not fall asleep and just lay shivering for a long time. I must have finally dozed off, because the next thing I knew I woke up basically sweating and extremely hot. Thus, so far I have had a lovely time facing the yellow fever shot symptoms.

This small burden of feeling sick from the shot just made me think about one more thing that I often take for granted as an American - the fact that our country provides extensive medicine and immunizations that prevent against disease and illness. In the U.S., some might feel bad for themselves when they contract a small cold, while malaria is just as prevalent and common a sickness in Ghana.

These are the types of things that I think make development practices worth it. The point of international development should not be to make a people conform to behave or live just as Americans, but it should be to help provide opportunity and options for things such as advanced medicine that improve quality of life for all humans in general.

I think it would be interesting for me to talk to Lauren and Natalie a little more about their projects. I am very ignorant about medical studies, and my project does not include any medical application. I want to ask them what their research has taught them about third world medical situations, and what may be some appropriate development practices within the field of medicine.

Coming of Age

It is so crazy that I have less than a month left in the States, and then off for a three month residency in Wiamoase, Ghana. Looking back, I am fairly satisfied with the progress I have made thus far. Of course, I could always try a little harder academically, but I do feel a lot more anthropologically capable. This year has been a unique couple of semesters at college. Freshman year I floundered around in generals, hating my science classes, and wondering if I should teach American Literature to high schoolers (good thing future students of mine missed out on that fate - they probably would not have appreciated my burning passion for The Grapes of Wrath, which I would have undoubtedly made required reading), or if I wanted to enter the Humanities, another passion of mine, but one with even less career opportunities than the social sciences seem to offer. It was not until my Freshman Academy mentor asked what I liked, and I likely responded, "to travel," and she told me about her sister in a major where all she did was learn about worldwide cultures.

That pretty much had me sold. I even got through Anth 101 with a certain professor who I wont name out of courtesy (but I will say has a nicely cultivated faux British accent) - this is usually the first ring of fire for potential Anthropology students - the department really should reconsider how the opening course to the major is presented. However, the next obstacle was my theory class. With one dry (and i mean DRY) professor and my first 20-pager due, it's a wonder I continued to feel passionate about anthropology. Finally, after Buonforte taught a linguistics class I had randomly signed up for, I no longer had any lingering doubts. My mind was probably opened more by the two classes I took from him than it had been for my 4 years of high school "education."

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that it all brought me to where I am right now. Studying methodologies and becoming excited as I realize what practical applications await me in the field of ethnography and development. Ghana will be sort of like an anthropological "coming of age" as I attempt to conduct real field work and apply the theory and methodology that has been pounded into my head. Hopefully the Ghanaians will be able to forgive me of my many, many inevitable blunders. I am sure by the time I am through, I will forever be grateful to my new friends for allowing my intrusion as I attempt to learn the ways of the anthropologist.

Zion in All Corners of the Earth

The other day in Twi class, we accumulated gospel vocabulary words, and then put together our testimonies in Twi. It is comforting realizing that we will be attending church in Asamang. I guess for my own selfish reasons, I am just excited that among the culture shock and misunderstandings will be an aspect I can relate to. Not saying that LDS culture is anywhere near the same in Ghana as it is in America; however, foundational elements are the same, such as our belief in a Savior who atoned for mankind and a boy who restored the gospel. There was just something cool about hearing the Savior's titles in Twi, and realizing that church members there have some of the same deep running veins of belief as I do. I cannot wait to learn from the branch in Asamang, and to feel the fellowship of sisterhood and brotherhood the gospel provides, with people who live in an entirely different cultural world than me.

Here is my testimony in Twi:

Me nim sE as0re no yE nokware

Me gyedi sE Jesus Christ ye me odimafo

M'Egya a 0w0 soro te ase

Me de aseda ma onyame sE m'abusua betumi nya bEkyebo bra

Me gyedi sE Thomas S. Monson yE 0k0mhyeni a 0 te ase.

Medaase sE Jesus Christ ab0 af0reE

Me nim As0re no nkyerEkyerE yE nokware esan (as a result of) Homhom kr0nkr0n no.

Ew0 Jesus Christ din mu

Amen