Blanc, la mystere

(photos pending functional internet)
I have always thought that I am here to learn, so that later I may teach. The nature of my placement—short, probing, and with a very able partner NGO—made me very aware from the start that the majority of the impact from my stay in Ghana will likely spring from how my experiences here are leveraged in Canada. With this in mind, I began my sweat through the savanna asking questions, taking photos, and chronicling everything I could about the lives of those around me, justifying as I went that things were different where I come from, and I would like those at home to understand. It has taken me six weeks and innumerable conversations to realize the hubris and backwardness of my attitude towards my learning here, and it flooded into my vision at the quiet, embarrassed question of a child politely asking, “Why are your legs different colours than your arms?”
After explaining the concept of sun damage to skin, and laughing at the gasps of shock when I revealed my considerable Birkenstock tan, I realized what I had been doing for weeks: instead of absorbing their way of life alone, I had also been sharing my own. Instead of downloading, I had been exchanging. And in that process, I had been learning much, much more than I would have if engaged in a solely one-sided process.
Westerners are truly a strange breed in a place like Ghana, coming from all over the world for short stints of busy, alienating and culture-shocked time. Just as so many people in Canada believe through exposure that the face of Africa is that of the World Vision child, many people in Ghana believe that the face of the West is an equivalent of Donald Trump in a safari hat. At transit stations, it is assumed I am going to tourist-driven National Parks in Damongo; everywhere I go, people ask me for my water, money, clothes and jewelery, because it is assumed I can just go and get some more. These requests increase when I mention I am working in development—in Ghana, “development work” is a highly-paying profession, the equivalent of being a banker or an accountant in Toronto. The dichotomy between what many Ghanaians think they know about Westerners and what they actually DO know is a mirror image of what Westerners think they know about Ghanaians.
It's not much.
I was met with disbelief and laughter when I talked about Canadians eating soup with a spoon, and no solid mass of grain to compliment it; when I talked about snow 5 months of the year, and temperatures of -25ºC; when I mentioned that it cost a lot of money to get to Ghana, but I am not being paid for my work here, and may have trouble paying my rent next year. I have been met with anger at children passing on the street who swear that I promised them a soccer ball gthe last time I was in Ghana, and frustration from Mamprusis when they mistake my name, because "all you whites look the same". I have been met with wonder that in Canada there are no legal and few social sanctions against Mulatto children or registered landed immigrants; that women own houses equally with their husbands, have full autonomy within a marriage and receive alimony payments in divorce; that there are people in Canada who suffer from poverty, and live in the dangerous streets without assistance from the government.
I had come to Ghana prepared to be a sponge, when I should have come prepared as an emissary. For every fact, attitude and truth that I don't know or understand about Ghanaians, they have an equally gaping void of understanding about me—and more questions than I have time to answer in my short months here. In every one of their queries stands an attitude, and every conversation about my life and country yields an insight into theirs. All learning is an exchange, and their steps towards understanding me yield ways in which I can understand them. The foreign, the White, and the places they come from seem to be a mysterious, mythical paradise to escape to and an easy way to reach happiness for the many, many Ghanaians that ask me “How can I get to Canada?”. Perhaps with learning, with exchange, they will slow their search for a way out of their wonderful country, and discover the opportunities and potential for greatness that brought me to it.