The Other Side of the Sea

I’m warming to Ghana- or should I say, Ghana is warming to me, whether I like it or not, because Ghana grows hotter by the day.

I was born in the Northeast, born and raised just outside of Boston, right on the ocean.  Now I stand on the other side of that ocean, and I’m finding it just a bit disconcerting.  Far from the familiar faces of my tiny town, and the easy grid lines of New York City, I’ve put myself in the interesting position on being abroad for a semester in a place I know absolutely nothing about.

I’ve always had a case of serious wanderlust, whether in my feet or in my head.  I voracious reader ever since I can remember, I used to wander through the library stacks of my small town, devouring everything could get my hands on- language books, poetry, novels, travelogues.  It was all the better if that took my dreams to faraway places. 

Despite my wandering mind, my feet didn’t leave the country until I begged and pleaded with the Rotary Exchange Program to let me into their program.  When they asked me where I wanted to go during my interview, I said anywhere- just as long as you send me.  

They sent me to India to live for a year, and changed my life.  I flew to India thinking I wanted to be an artist of some sort, with no clear direction and a vague inkling of what life after India would be like. But the experience redirected my life, and when I was spit back out into the western world, I had the mother of all identity crises. The next year I shuttled my battered heart between New York and Massachusetts, dreading the packing and unpacking of suitcases, and the inevitable tears as I tried to figure out where home was located.

And when I figured out that all I really wanted was to travel, and document the experience, I realized all the things I loved fell into place: art, culture, language, history, photography, writing.  Now I’m less like a person running and more like someone on the chase.  

I knew, or thought I knew what I was getting into.  I needed a break, cleanly, from my life in New York, which felt like it was getting away from me.  I needed to spend some time honing skills and thinking about when I wanted while existing outside of that constant drive of the city.   And so I find myself in Ghana, feeling as though I’ve stumbled into half a dream.  I have a feeling its going to be an interesting semester.