A Separate Sky

My theme song for today was Prospekt's March from Coldplay. As we drove through the towns and slums I kept hearing this song in my head. It's taken on new meaning for me. I'll never be able to hear it without all the sounds and smells rushing back to me.

Everyday I view and experience a whole new world. I know we all live under the same sky, but my time here has made me feel occasionally like I am living "on my own in a separate sky", far removed from the sky I am familiar with. I had a new thought occur to me tonight as I once again sat looking out my window. I spent my whole day with Ghanaian people who were happy. I realize now that I came to Ghana with the feeling, and carrying with me an idea that the people living here are trapped in their poverty, in their lives, and in a dead end situation.

I assumed the vast majority of people lived each day with a sense of hopelessness; that they would do anything to get out and away from their situation in Ghana.

I worried about being an intruder in their world, afraid they would feel uncomfortable with me looking at them and seeing their poverty. I am beginning to see a different "sky", one that the Ghanaian people love, not resent.

After our visit with the young women in Manya Krobo, I couldn't get over how happy they seemed. Shouldn't they be sad because of their life situation? Half of them are orphans who have been rescued from living on the streets. But they are happy. When we wave to people on the streets who are sitting in the dirtiest huts, they wave, smile at us........and genuinely seem happy!

Finally, after being here for two weeks, something in my head tonight clicked. I really do find happiness with the people where I expected sadness. My view of a clean American world was my equivalent of a happy world. Trying to see a dirty African world as a place of happiness didn't mesh with my mind. My "sky" was the only one I knew, and surely the one everyone else wanted....until tonight. People on the streets laugh and joke with each other, kids play games just like any other kids do, and people live their life with purpose just the same as anyone else does. Every life brings its own colors to create and show the world.

I'm learning to see the Ghanaian colored sky~~~and it's beautiful.