This summer is for my soul.

I�m ready to experience; I�m open and begging for it. Let me see and breath the African spirit let me learn and practice. Let me inherit the wisdom of Africa.

---

Awake to the sound of the roosters.

Sweeping.

Electoral Commission Rd. Ridge-Accra, House No. 2, Gawu Family.

Sweeping.

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�You may call me Miss Kara. I am from America, specifically New York. I will be teaching you English for one month. I will teach in the way of my culture, as though you are American students. This may be difficult to get used to, but I promise we will have a lot of fun and cover all the required material. English is my first language. I know it very well. However, I don�t know your subjects very well, so I expect you to teach me. I am here to help you. I don�t care how smart you are, I want nice, caring students. Please show me your culture, share with me and I�ll share with you.�

They stare. I turn my back and they snicker.

---

I race out of school as fast as I can back to Electoral Commission Rd. Ridge-Accra, House No. 2, Gawu Family. My only place of refuge.

Soft, wet pounding of fufu.

Judith, my mother, queen mother, has an infectious laugh. You see by her smile of relaxed satisfaction how bold and sensible she is.

�Will you take dinner now?�

�Yes, thank you.�

My days are long and exhausting, never have I experienced such heat. Never have I been the center of attention for so long.

Rest? Lie awake for hours in hot anxiety.

---

Awake to the sound of roosters. Sena told me I was laughing in my sleep. I remembered that I was, it was so funny. Maybe I was thinking about mother�s laugh.

Sweeping.

Mother wants my breakfast to be just right. �White people eat these pieces of bread soaked in egg and fried, do you want that?� I have plenty of options from cornflakes with evaporated milk to fresh fruit. The sweetest, most succulent I�ve ever tasted.

Sweeping.

---

All rise upon my presence in the classroom. They make sure the classroom is extra clean for me. The bathroom on my classroom�s floor has an overflowed septic. The smell is unbearable. The students act as if they smell nothing. Is this admirable? I can barely keep my breakfast down.

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Ghanaian greetings are lengthy. It�s considered rude to say hi in passing and not stop and ask about how things are. Always running late, even in Ghana, I didn�t realize how impolite I was being. It�s a good thing that there is no such thing as �being on time� in Ghana.

Patience.

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Shopping: an overwhelming experience. Hawkers chase after me in hopes that I will pay some ridiculous amount for second-hand junk. Very glad to have Sena with me, I tell her what I want and she purchases it for me so I don�t get ripped off.

I�m sorry.

---

I visited the cemetery. The grave-keepers followed me, they told me they didn�t want me to step in the human feces from the homeless that sleep there at night. There was a businessman on his lunch break that came to eat lunch on a loved one�s grave, a popular occurrence, the grave-keepers told me. There is a huge cement slab where the Muslims do their ritual cremations; they told me I just missed one. I could still smell the scent of burned bodies, a new smell to me. A man asked me to take his picture on his mother�s grave. I was obliged.

It pains me.

---

Exhausted. For many, an American dollar is a lot to earn for a day�s work. To see the conditions they accept to gain that small amount every day.

I�m sorry.

Anti-malaria medicine makes it difficult to rest peacefully.

---

Awake. I�m terrified of roosters. They make weird noises and their crow is obnoxiously loud. They have evil eyes and a sinister walk. They want to peck my eyes out.

Sweeping.

This morning I had to sneak past the whipping stick for all the late children. �Pass here, Miss Kara. Quick!�

Sweeping.

Our first exercise is informal letter writing. They are writing to me about anything that is on their mind. They can write about things they want me to know about them, things they want me to cover in class, things they want to know about America or me.

Almost all of them told me I am so fast. My speech, my actions, my thoughts are so hurried. �What do they feed you in America that makes you so fast?�

Patience.

---

Everyone wants to know: how I am getting along? How do I find the food? How do I find the weather? Am I a Christian? Do I have a boyfriend?

My little friend, Perfect. She is an adorable Ewe girl of 4 years old. Her eyes are big and inviting. Her cheeks are pure pudginess. She speaks Ewe. I speak English. At first, she was afraid to touch me. She never saw a white person before. I could tell by her actions, she thought I was beautiful. Hopefully she could tell by mine that I thought the same of her.

Another 4-year-old girl, Odali. She is half Russian, half Ghanaian. She lives at Electoral Commission Road, Ridge-Accra, House No. 4. She is witty and filled with spunk. She was over-confident because she spoke English in her household. Other children made fun of Odali because she wasn�t African black; they teased her calling her white. She wanted to be African black, but didn�t deny the special treatment. She resented me for being white and acted as my better.

I�m sorry.

Cool off. Rain, the most calming times.

---

So exhausted by now I have no choice but to fall into a deep sleep. I�m sure the rain helped. It stormed. The thunder was so loud and near that it sounded as though it was scolding, yelling straight from the heavens. �You�ve got to listen to the heavens, you got to try to understand, their movement is as small as it is grand.�

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Awake to the roosters in the village, louder, closer. They�re right outside my walls of packed mud.

Sweeping.

To think there�s a whole continent of this beauty. Lush, boasting trees and busy, but quaint streets. African women carrying things, huge amounts of things, on their heads and babies strapped on their lower back with a shawl. Their beautiful accents that draw forth a humbling way of stating things.

More sweeping.

Funerals in Ghana are very popular events. Numerous ones are held every weekend. There are daily announcements listing the names of the deceased on all 3 of the Ghanaian channels. I danced to the piercingly loud overplayed popular songs with others dressed in dark red and black. I danced the bobobo to the traditional drums; it would�ve been rude for me to decline.

Everyday I eat fried fish, whole, still with its head, scales, and bones. But I crave the day we have kenkey, pounded fermented corn. Being a vegetarian drastically limits what I can take. I look for waakye, a type of rice, jolof with egg, rice with egg, and red red, red beans, plantains and fish.

How can I turn away the poor? How can I deny a girl clinging to my arm, apparently hunger stricken? I figure if I give her money, everyone else will want too.

I�m sorry. It pains me.

---

Sena Victoria Akosua Gawu, my sister, my best friend. She is much wiser than her years. She�s not scared of me; she never was. She doesn�t tolerate others being scared either. She�s very forceful; she�ll never take a first offer. Instead, she declines in such a nice, yet powerful way. She is my equal; she would have it no other way.

It�s a humbling experience to be the minority. I am secretly excited to see white people, I�m curious, but I don�t let it show. They are merely tourists; they wouldn�t dare ride the tro-tros or venture out of their resorts. They wouldn�t dare step into Circle or walk around the heart of Jamestown. They wouldn�t think twice to understand this culture.

Will you be my friend? I have to be everyone�s friend. There is no time for myself. I get the same questions, same looks, and same intentions from most everyone. I want to be taken seriously, for who I am. Do you want to be my friend because you care and you think that me, myself, I am interesting? Or can you only see the white of my skin glowing?

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Accra Nightlife, to be experienced by all. I frequented a very local, run-down hip-hop club called Old Timer�s. I danced for hours, fueled by akpeteshie, the local gin. I made many friends there. They said they�ve never seen a white woman dance like that before. I told them it�s because I�m from New York.

Passed out from exhaustion. All I can do is dream of being one with them in their culture. I can only observe and participate, but I am determined to be a Ghanaian.

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Sat straight up with the sound of the roosters. I could smell the food being prepared for my departure celebration.

Sweeping.

I�m going to miss my students. There showed me such hospitality and kindness.

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My usual path to school: walk to the end of ridge road, cross the parkway, walk through the Museum of Ghana, passed the Canteen, bead vendors and internet caf�; cut through the little field with the two guards, cross the parkway to greet my welcoming students. I traveled it for the last time today to say goodbye.

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Returned home via a friend�s house for another goodbye. I keep telling them that I will be back very soon, I wish I could, I want to.

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Mother cooked enough for the entire compound. The entire Gawu family and many friends were there to eat all my favorite Ghanaian dishes with me. We exchanged presents and hurried to the airport.

I�m not good at goodbyes. Hugs, kisses. I couldn�t possibly explain how grateful I was to have had the opportunity of being a part of their family. I look forward to it again soon.