how to survive.

‘Ay mates! I just finished my amazing stay in South Africa and cannot wait to tell all of you all about it. But I need to finish Ghana first. Since I am falling behind here, I am going to give you the SPARKnotes version of Ghana, keeping all the best parts. So…

My fist night in Ghana. We had just finished eating our fufu and helping to clean up, when Olivia, Elizabeth’s daughter and Benne’s sister, suggested that we go to a local pub. It was a fun place with Ghanaian music and dancing and minimal foreigners (which is a good thing!). But, once we got there, Olivia told us we only had a half an hour before we had to leave. So when that flew by and we were told half of us (of which I was a part of) would be staying in a hostel and the other half at the house (since all of us could not fit at the house), I was a little disappointed. The entire group walked to the hostel and Olivia and Benne left us to take everyone else back to the house. The group of us staying at the hostel decided we wanted to go back to the pub, which was right down the street, for a little bit longer. Don’t worry, mom and dad, it was a group of seven, three of which were large guys over 6’2.’’ We left the hostel and as we made our way back to the pub, ran into some other SAS (Semester at Sea) students.

I am not telling this part of the story because I want to make anyone look bad or get anyone in trouble, I just feel that it is worth telling because I learned a lot from it and it will probably change my outlook for the rest of the voyage. The students we ran into were very drunk. One of them had thrown up multiple times around the bar and the last of the Ghanaian customers were clearing out, out of disgust. His friends were trying to help to just get him outside but were failing miserably because they were doing a better job of laughing, finding the situation hilarious, and eating the ridiculous amounts of hamburgers, french fries and pizza they had ordered from the bar. In the mean time, another member of this motley crew wandered down the street and angrily punched in a store window. He came back to the bar covered in blood, alleging he had “fallen on the ground and his hand landed on a broken bottle.” We learned different when the storeowner appeared 30 seconds behind him, screaming in Ga, a local language, about this “crazy American.”

I didn’t know how to react to this situation and just became numb. I am a reasonable person. And I respect and support people that want to have fun. I like to have fun. Yet, I have never been so embarrassed in my life. I was embarrassed for Americans. My entire life I have heard of stereotypes about Americans being loud, inconsiderate, culturally insensitive, egocentric, piggish, but I have never wanted to believe it and, frankly, have never had a reason to believe it. I have been privileged enough to be surrounded by people who are more or less attuned to how their actions may appear to and effect others. In Ghana, drinking is not a very popular thing, mostly because the average person cannot afford a drink, much less than food, a house, etc. Most likely for the same reason, it is extremely uncommon and improper to be drunk in public.
I was embarrassed for the Semester at Sea program. In the past, people have called Semester at Sea a "booze cruise." Since it became the sponsor university of the ship, University of Virginia has worked hard to erase that reputation, stressing the academic value of traveling the world and opening the eyes of its students to the many great things we can experience in each country. Whether or not you complete buy into everything Semester at Sea preaches to us, it seems nothing short of a waste of time to be spending your time in a Ghanaian hospital because you broke a storefront window out of drunkenness when you are in this amazing, beautiful place.
We are responsible for only our actions, and our actions alone, to a certain extent. Prior to this event, I felt that just being myself, respecting and experiencing the cultures of each place that we go, would be enough to show that Americans and Semester at Sea students are more than just inconsiderate, drunks. But, I can see how a reputation is formed and can also see that maybe it means that I, and those like me, should go a little bit out of our way to correct that reputation by connecting with each culture and people that we encounter in the upmost. I am not positive yet but I think that may be one of the biggest lessons that I will learn on this voyage.

I don’t know how well I stuck to the SPARKnotes version with that one. Oops. I promise to keep it concise with the next one.