After drumming and dancing class every Tuesday and Thursday, my friend David and I (more often than not accompanied by Maurice) would walk out of the gates of the cultural center to a little bar on the side of an adjacent street. The bar at first glance is unassuming and blends into the natural landscape of Kumasi: outdoor seating for about 25 patrons under a green awning with the word “CLUB” inscribed in white on it, with a small interior room with refrigerators, liquor, and the cash register. When David, Maurice and I first started to frequent this bar in week one of our trip, we were looked on as tourists, just swinging through to try some Ghanaian beer and leave without really having any genuine interactions with any of the other patrons or the owners. That changed gradually as we began to come back with some regularity. People started to notice us more. They would give us a nod and a smile and ask how we were. The waitress who served us every Tuesday and Thursday asked us our names. But when the World Cup started, everything changed. Soccer (or football to everyone else in the world outside of the states) has the power to unite people across cultures, bridge language barriers, and bring people together to support a common cause. Like clockwork for the last three weeks of our program, David and I would roll out of class and go straight to our bar and there would always be a game on. We would be met with a broad smile and a handshake from the owner of the establishment, sit down to watch the game, and be served the finest Club by my bride-to-be (story: our waitress – who we learned was the daughter of the owner – wanted my hand in marriage, and many of the times in the last couple weeks we went, the owner would sit next to me as we watched and would engage me in half hour conversations as to why I should marry his daughter). We would yell with the locals over missed calls, celebrate goals, and get in disagreements over who we thought should have won the match. In between matches, David and I would order goat kebabs from a street vendor as we talked with those around us about the next game and who we were rooting for. Long gone were the days of us being tourists sitting alone in the corner by ourselves. We were right in the middle of the action, interacting and having a ball with everyone we met in the name of the beautiful game.

David after his South Korean boys knocked defending champions Germany out of the tournament in the group stage. 

This Wednesday, Dr.Ofori (the man who runs the microbiology lab at KATH) was explaining to me how everything in KATH is manual, specifically focusing on the lab equipment. All of the patient information, updates, test results, doing the testing, everything in KATH is done by the men and women who work there. In this day and age, with technology innovations and artificial intelligence preparing to run the world, this was a shock to me.

I understood that the resource allocations within KATHs budget would allow for certain instruments and not for others. On day one when we were touring the hospital, the hematology lab which is used to save lives every day was estimated to cost around $200,000. Davidson has a lab that estimates a little over $2 million and is sometimes used by professors and almost never by students. This distribution of wealth really forced me to reevaluate the space I was in and the space that I am in Kumasi. It also made me reflect more on the privilege I have to be at Davidson (but that’s for another day).

Back to Wednesday, Dr.Ofori told me that manual labor actually helped many members of KATH. He said it allowed the real science that usually is hidden behind machines to be seen and explored. In the labs, instead of media¹ (used to grow bacteria) being provided as it is in the US, lab technicians must make theirs. He went through the process of making, storing, and using the media. He explained which chemicals KATH uses in the creation portion of the process. They use the brand Oxoid, because it was the chemical that was best equipped to survive in the humid environment (the chemical must resist the need to rehydrate from the air) as well as it was the most inexpensive.

When I was reflecting on my day, it got me thinking on how well KATH allocates its resources and how well the men and women who are employed their work with those allocations. When I was in the Pediatric Emergency Room, I saw oxygen humidifiers². When the doctors ran out of these specific tools, they cut a sterile water bottle and formed it into this instrument. When you look at KATH, it does not seem to be the most sterile environment, but as I have seen in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, it of course has the ability to become one when necessary. For procedures which specifically need a sterile environment, doctors are provided with tools and gowns and other necessities wrapped in sterile packaging and the space is formed into a temporary sterile space. When saying this I understand the want to respond that all things need to be sterile, but that is simply not a sufficient option for the hospital and the resources and funds it has.

So what right, I am not writing this post to talk about KATH as a whole or to try to say it needs more money. I am trying to show people that the doctors at KATH know and can do more in environments that are less resourced than I believe most doctors. In order for the technicians in the lab to prep media they must be able to do calculations. These calculations are not super hard but illustrate that the basics are not lost. With constant prep and ability to handle samples and do the work in the lab, the technicians are learning more and appreciating the science behind the work. They don’t simply throw things into a machine and wait for the results but are present every step of the way. The doctors who are able to work around not having specific tools are going to be/already are more innovative and creative than doctors who have everything they will always need. I am unsure if many doctors could succeed to the level of KATH if they were in the same environment.

1. https://microbeonline.com/types-of-bacteriological-culture-medium/
2. https://www.vitalitymedical.com/humidification.html

I am not a huge soccer fan. Wait, let me rephrase that, I do not care about soccer in the slightest. When I came to Ghana, I had no idea that the World Cup was going on and had never actually watched a soccer game. When some people in the group were talking about it, I feigned polite interest but could not contribute to the conversation as my soccer knowledge is less than minimal. I knew that two teams competed by kicking a ball into a net which is guarded by the only player whose title I know, the goalie! So people walked around talking about the games and who’s playing who, and I mostly ignored it. I had no idea that a single sport can act as a unifying interest not only for a country, but also a continent.

When you enter a public space to watch soccer, ie a bar or airport, you can feel the energy and dedication to the sport. The bars are busting with people, rows and rows of chairs with people being forced to sit on chairs set up outside the bar. People from other bars not playing the game push against the railing of another bar to see the game. In the bar, the atmosphere is competitive and relaxed and full of anticipation. There would be a constant chatter of side conversations that would cease once a team got close to the goal. Once this would occur, the extremes would come through; people either yelling to make the goal or desperate for the shooter to miss. This constant fluctuation of emotion would carry on through the game, creating an environment where you get lost in the game.

Some of my best stories and experiences have occurred post game. After one game we watched at a bar, it started to pour rain. Like full on dumping buckets and buckets of water. I run out into the rain and grab a cap. When I attempt to get the price lower, the other girls who were watching the game with me run into the cab. I have no leverage on the cab price now so I get in. All of the windows in the cab were foggy and the driver had to continue to wipe the front windshield in order to see. Then right before we got back, the cab broke down. The car needed gas and the driver got a tank from the back of his car and began running, in the rain, to get gas.

Watching the game at the bar closest to the cultural center! It kinda turned into the spot to watch the games.

The comradery that occurs is not sometime you forget and extends beyond individual experiences. It extends beyond countries borders, unifying the entire continent. Ghana specifically did not make it through the qualifier rounds, but other African teams did. Instead of being bitter that their team was not in the Cup, I saw billboards throughout Ghana emphasizing the importance of cheering for the teams from Africa. A personal anecdote, I have not experienced a international coming together like this before. I do not have sources for this, but I do not believe the US cheers for Mexico in the same sense that Ghana or other African teams cheer for other countries on their continent.

On Moodle, there is an article that discusses this in more scholarly depth. This article is, Introduction–The Ghanaian Reader. 

 

Me: It’s been so long since I’ve been home. Everything looks so different.

Momma: Yes my child. Things are very different now.

Me: I’m glad to be home. I didn’t realize how much I missed home until I came back.

Momma: *smiles* My child, I’ve missed you more than you know. I’m glad to have you back where you belong.

Though Ghana is not my home country, it serves as the imagined homeland for me due to the forced migration of my ancestors from West Africa. This blog post serves as a reflection to my experience at the Cape Coast and Elmina Slave Castles and my overall emotional experience as an African descendant who has returned to the Motherland.

This post is “in everlasting memory of the anguish of our ancestors. May those who died rest in peace. May those who return find their roots. May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity. We, the living, vow to uphold this.”

~ Memorial Stone at Cape Coast and Elmina Slave Castles

 

“Lord, please be with me”.

This line was the one thing continuously going through my mind during the Cape Coast Slave Castle tour. Perhaps the same request made by my ancestors when they were being enslaved and stripped of their humanity. It is something about being in the same physical space my ancestors were in that caused me to experience every emotion at once. I was angry, bitter, frightened, and saddened. Words cannot fully explain my emotions listening to the things my ancestors endured for weeks or months leading up to their journey to America.

Although the Cape Coast Slave Castle tour created moments where I was confused and seeking answers concerning my purpose in the world, it was the Elmina Slave Castle tour that allowed me to experience moments of clarity. Moments of clarity that confirmed all my efforts and desires to cultivate a better world. I could let the history of slavery and the present-day occurrence of racism deter me or I could like them be the fuel to my fire. The fire that will positively impact society and create radical change.  Traveling to various national sites like the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and the W.E.B. Dubois Centre has put me in the mindset of striving to be an influential leader like they were. My only goal in life is affect the world for the better by creating effective policies that help people socially, politically, and financially. My studies in Africana and Sociology have prepared me to be able to critically assess my trip in Ghana and I will use my cultural connections to physical spaces like the slave castles to aid me in my journey.

Thank you, Ghana, for being location to my life-changing experiences!