It’s 7:10 in the morning. The sun has shot through my barred windows and the tiny window shade slits. I’ve showered, eaten, and buttoned my collared shirt all the way to the top. My satchel over my shoulder, I checked my carabineer for the third time to make sure I have my three house keys for the various outside gates. Herminia stops me and looks me in the eye with the most sincere smile I’ve seen her have since we met, and says in Spanish, “Have a wonderful first day of classes, Robert, good luck!” I wished her a good day too, and buzzed the outside gate. While walking up the street, I was overcome by a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time, some sense of pride and readiness that I just don’t have when I’m at Pitzer. It took me a while to realize just what the feeling was, but then it became clear: My “mother” wished me a good first day of classes. Simple, concise, but a luxury I haven’t had since I was a teenager. Living with a family again, has really rekindled a lot of emotion and comfort that I haven’t felt while living alone or with a roommate; it’s one of the most wonderful hidden treats that I never knew how to truly explain while casting my left hand out on my Office of Admission tours.
The day before, Sunday, I woke up late. Considering the fact that I had gone to bed at around 9pm the previous evening, waking up at 9am was an incredible amount of sleep for me, and quite late to wake up. I immediately felt guilty; I had told Sam that I would walk over to her house and show her around town before the ICADS lunch at noon, but realized that there was little time to do so. After showering and a cup of tea, my host father Rafael and I found Samantha’s house, and talked to her mom for a little while; Sam wasn’t home, she was told to wait in the park for us. By 11ish, we’d found each other, and still quite guilty, I was determined to make it up to her, so I suggested that she go to lunch at ICADS with us Pitzer folk; in addition, she’d get to see the town a bit and learn the way to walk to school. Thankfully she was happy to do so, and we all took the ~30ish minute walk to the school. One of the interesting differences between here and the US, and indeed in Ghana, is the lack of pedestrian rights and infrastructure. Sidewalks are plagued with “gringo traps” AKA pitfalls or general disheveled concrete. One has to look farrrrrr down the streets in all directions, even at stop signs, for cars, for at best the sign means “Yield to other cars, if you feel like it.”
Unfortunately for Sam and my conscience, once we arrived at ICADS, our director promptly brushed Sam aside and told her that the lunch was a special Pitzer only meal, and that she couldn’t eat with us. So, she walked back with Cora’s host mother. I quickly changed moods, however, with a delicious lunch at an Italian restaurant and conversation with the Pitzer folks. After walking back to Curribadt, Sam rejoined Lauren, Sarah, and I, and we walked all around town, exploring streets and shops. While checking out at the super market (I got some prime new shampoo and ginger), a small, older woman noticed Sarah absentmindedly swaying to the beat of the nearly inaudible dance music playing overhead in the market. In Spanish, she said, “You gringos have no idea how to dance, here, check me out!” She swayed and “danced,” although her age certainly had an effect on her movement. “Hey, come to my house, I’ll give you lessons, we can dance to whatever music you’d like!” she exclaimed. We politely said maybe, and headed outside to meet the rest of the group, but the woman followed and really persisted asking us to dance with her. After a quick check-in in English, we all agreed, and walked a few blocks to her house. She exclaimed with pride, “Here, this is the auto shop…and this door, this is my house!” pointing to a grey sheet metal door. Needless to say, all of us were waiting for the other to exclaim that we had to go. No one peeped, and we all entered the doorway, the woman locking the door behind us. All of us uneasy, she turned on the stereo, and handed us each a heavy CD case, a good 300 CDs in total. For the next hour, the tension dissolved, and Rosario(the older woman) showed everyone how to dance to the different styles of music. It was awkward and silly, especially given the fact that a young man in his mid 30s passed by a few times with small comments and no official introduction.
The following day, Monday the 27th, was the first official day of school. The logistics are unremarkable – introductions of around 15 students from across the country (and one from Kathmandu, Nepal!), a Spanish placement oral exam, and an afternoon of program overviews, safety information, and interactions with the other students. We have three girls named Katie and two-named Sarah, and the schools represented vary from Chapman, University of Michigan, University of Massachusetts, Grinnell, and one student on a gap year, attending Middlebury in the fall.
As the group of Pitzer students and Sam walked back from ICADS together after a somewhat exhausting 8 hours of class, I felt the same eerie feeling that I was just a young schoolboy again. When I was younger, I really did envy the children I’d see in cartoons who exercised a degree of autonomy, walking to and from school with their school books in their backpacks and their mothers cooking dinner when they arrived at home. True, there is a healthy degree of idealization, and the “grass is always greener,” but just like my time in Ghana, I feel like this life outside the US is more simple, a bit more calm, and to me, romantic. We’ll see how, as the workload increases, my idea of walking for almost two hours a day to and from school fights against my naïveté, but for now I’m quite content.
A note on blogging for the next five weeks – the program I’m enrolled in is quite time consuming, and although I’d like to write every night, I’ll most likely only blog on the weekends. In addition, I’ll be heading to Nicaragua for a week the Saturday after next, and will be inaccessible for a little while. Until next time!
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