Sometimes I forget how amazingly lucky I really am. I wanted to go to New York University and so I did. I wanted to wander off into the woods for a few months and so I did. I randomly applied to study abroad in Ghana this semester and so now here I am. But are these happenings really attributable to my character or to my circumstances? I have parents who love me, support my decisions (how many parents would be so enthusiastic about their child going to any African country?), and who have the financial resources to support my adventures. And sometimes I just... well, I wouldn't say I take it for granted, but sometimes I forget how few people have the sort of mobility and opportunities that I have.
You may be wondering why I bring this all up. Well, it's a trend I've been noticing in Ghana. There is such little opportunity here to go places and make a good living. I met a woman named Gift a few weeks ago who has a graduate degree in business (if I remember correctly), but she works in a little stand on the side of the road selling masks that she makes. Everyday, I see so many people selling things, but then I never see anyone buying those things. Then today I went to La Badi Beach and I met a guy named Eric, 19 years old, a really nice, smart guy. We had the usual intro conversation and then he told me about his aspirations to go to America. The first thing I thought to myself was, "Well, it's not THAT great," but the more I talked to him, I understood his and so many others' larger situations here in Ghana.
Eric grew up in Kumasi (about 100 miles north of Accra) and he moved to Accra when his parents moved here. At first, he just asked me what he would need to do in order to get to America. I gave him the very administrative answer. I told him he would need a passport, a visa, money, and plans. He kept telling me that it just wasn't easy for someone in Ghana to travel outside the country. Then he asked me how easy it was to get into the educational system in the US. Eric had just completed secondary school and he was not able to go to a University here. (I found out last semester in a lecture Professor Nyarko, who is from Ghana, that so many Ghanains apply to the University of Ghana every year but they can only take maybe a fourth of all those people. The few other universities in the country are either private which means they cost money or they are similar to UGhana. So Eric is kind of out of luck as far as school here goes). I told him that if he had decent grades that there would be a school in the US that would accept it. After all, there are so many. But then I told him the drawback to all that was that he would need money to go to school. And then he told me (and I have definitely noticed since being here), "I can't make any money here." Later he told me he envied my lifestyle. I didn't really know what he meant at first, but then he elaborated by saying he wishes he didn't have to live with his parents. He wishes he could just hop on a plane and go live in some other place. I think of all the money I seem to just throw away on taxis and food and beer and whatever else, and here's this guy, probably not much different from me - smart, ambitious, ready to explore the world, ready to make something of himself - and he's just not sure he'll ever have the resources to make it happen. And all the meanwhile, millions of kids in America (I used to be one of them) just sit around all day with the doldrums, sick of "normal" (AKA privileged) life.
I thank my lucky stars, my parents, and everyone out there who loves me. If you're reading this right now, that means you have access to the internet. So you can thank your lucky stars as well.
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