“When you hear the word Africa, what do you see in your mind?”

The other day I had the opportunity to talk to the Creative Writing Club at my old middle school in Wauwatosa, WI about my trip to Ghana, particularly about writing this blog. The very first thing we did, however, was write a short answer to the title question.

I don’t think it’s too much of a generalization to say that what many Americans (pre-Ghana me included) would first see is something like this:

Or this:

Or this:

And of course (let's be honest with ourselves) this:

After they had written their answers individually, we went around the room and the kids said a word or phrase that summarized what each had written.

Here's what they came up with:

I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I have awful handwriting.

I was impressed with the variety of ideas that the students had, and I especially loved the word "colorful" because it is so spot on. Although I didn't see these until after the end of my presentation, I found the individual responses to the prompts even more interesting, as there were several ideas there that the kids didn't mention.

Some of the kids just wrote lists and others made up more descriptive stories. The lists had similar themes: different animals, musical instruments and dancing, huts and tribes, vegetation, colors and patterns, and heat. Some clearly drew inspiration almost entirely from the props that I set up (I had hung up the Ghanaian flag and one student mentioned specifically the colors yellow, green, red and black) and some had pretty short lists, such as "bugs, grass." 

One student in particular did have a thorough list which included (among other things I've already mentioned): safari, jeep, war, hunting, Lion King, poverty, art, slavery, and fire. Another's list included "no people," and one student simply wrote "I see a savanna with poor African children." 

There were two stories that I found particularly interesting to read, as the authors both wrote them with the perspective of a kid living in Africa. The stories also both had to do with walking long distances to get water, and one started with: “Life is hard, living in Africa..." 

One of my favorite responses included this: "When I hear the word 'Africa,' I think of beauty."

Like I said, though, I didn't read those until we collected the responses at the end of the meaning. After the poster, I told the kids that one of the greatest things I learned in Ghana was that I actually knew very little about Africa. I then started my presentation by saying that there have been three very common questions that I've gotten since returning home.

First was "Where did you sleep/live?"I told them I lived in the capital city and slept in a dorm on a bed with a mosquito net.

I lived in Accra, a city with over 1.658 million people according to the 2000 census.

A view from inside the courtyard in my dorm. 

My room! Pardon the mess.

The second: "What did you eat?" Some people (cough my mom cough) assumed I would be starving. I actually loved a lot of the local food there, but my diet staples were really fruit, fried yams and egg sandwiches which were available right outside my dorm. For the record, you can really get any foods there that you're looking for, from Pringles to sodas to ice cream. Some imported things, like cheese or blueberries, were expensive, but they were there, too.

Me with Rita, a girl who sold fruit with her mom right outside my dorm.

A typical meal like this one of rice, eggs, and lettuce costs less than $2.

And of course, "What animals did you see?" Besides the tons of lizards everywhere, including occasional ones in my room, there wasn't that much wildlife that I saw regularly. I saw crocodiles, ostriches and monkeys while traveling, though, and there was also a professor on campus who always had his pet monkey leashed to a tree outside his house.

Lizard on a backpack. 

Me with a crocodile. I had lunch once at a place where the attraction was taking
pictures with trained crocodiles. Showing this to my mom before coming home was a mistake.

For the next part of the presentation, I talked a bit about colonialism and its affect on modern Africa. I knew nothing about colonialism at that age, so I wanted to explain why Ghanaians spoke English and how one single country could have hundreds of local languages, too.

Then I talked about some of the fun details of living in Ghana, like getting clothes custom made for a quarter of what you would pay for them in the U.S., buying things on the street that people carried on their heads, visiting small villages, touring cocoa farms (Ghana is a leading world exporter or cocoa), and of course GGYN!

A local seamstress, Gloria, and her helpers. Dresses here were less than $15 and
 that was a bit on the expensive end.

My friends and I spent one weekend in a village that took nearly three hours to hike to.

Large chocolate companies (Hersheys, etc.) apparently all use at least some cocoa
 from Ghana, which is still dried out by leaving it under palm leaves for a few days.

A girl selling sugar cane. People would sell you things through your car window
when you were waiting at a stoplight. I miss that already.

When I talked about blogging, the kids got a second prompt: "After hearing about what it’s like to live in Ghana, imagine that you are studying abroad there yourself. Think of what surprised you the most in the presentation, then write a blog post for your friends and family to read describing how that specific thing changed your ideas about Africa."


For their final assignment, many said they were surprised by the cities and people speaking English. Several kids wrote about getting clothes custom made, and a few focused on the animals. They all did find at least something surprising, and many wrote about realizing the incompleteness of stereotypes.


One student said: "I was so surprised how big the city was and that it was more than just huts and grasslands. There still was some poverty however, but the overall outcome of the trip really showed me the beauty of Africa."


Another wrote: "It's hard to imagine that Africa is such a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people and beautiful smiles. All I've heard was that it was a struggling country that has problems of poverty and wars. But I realized its a gem. It doesn't matter if there might be poverty and violence, but it's the people who count. Their smiles gleaming, eyes shining, and their arms outstretched."


Needless to say, I was really happy and touched that these kids were so interested, listened so well, and had such open minds. They asked a lot of great questions and clearly put their hearts into what they wrote. 


And although I may have been rambling a bit, I promise there's a reason why I wanted to include this post in this blog that has so far been exclusively about GGYN. Well, while I was in Ghana, one of the toughest things for me to realize was not how wrong our stereotypes of Africa often are, but that my Ghanaian friends were very aware that the world saw Africa in this way. 


Obviously poverty and violence are huge problems in Africa that must be addressed, but there's so much more that definitely gets overlooked as a result. For one thing, I think we often tend to see "Africa" as one ethnic group in itself, which of course it is not. Also, political and economic development in countries like Ghana is usually overshadowed by the instability and rural poverty that we are so used to hearing about. 

 I think one of the greatest problems in Africa is esteem and self-esteem on a global level. Yes, Ghana struggles with poverty, corruption, etc., but even in the poor parts of Accra that I witnessed there was always such an effort to fill the area with joy, whether that be through music, murals, or even simple friendliness. It broke my heart when people (Ghanaians included) asked me why I would leave the U.S. to live in Africa for a few months, or if I couldn't wait to go back home.

GGYN is the perfect example of the joy and beauty even in poverty that led me to love Ghana so much. Additionally, I think that one of its greatest strengths is that the founder comes from the very conditions that the school is trying to eradicate. GGYN grew up out of the community, so even though it relies on foreign funding and volunteers, it serves as an example to its students that they themselves can help change the problems in their neighborhood, even with very little.

I had the most incredible experience in Ghana that showed me a part of the world that I knew so little about, and I hope everyone has a chance to take such an eye-opening trip. It taught me a lot about the area of course, but even more significantly, it taught me so much about my own life as a part of this world. I can't even begin to tell you how lucky I feel to have had it.