Community: I NEED IT.
So, instead of griping (learned that word in 7th grade!), I will go and find it. First ping pong table I come across, someone is goin' down!
Maybe it is "Shirls'" fault that I even use that word, but at this point, I realize the truth of her words even more. Last year I wrote that it had taken 4 months from the time I arrived in country to realize that I needed to find some sort of outlet. That was when a friend of mine started taking me out, the times my family travelled down to the capital. At the 6-month mark, I supposed that I should start finding or creating some networks in the local area, here around Nkwanta. Well, this is the 8
th month.
I am trying to find my way into the mainstream young adult culture, but feel instead like I have found myself in a tributary leading to some large, ambiguous pot. I know who I am, mind you, just not where I would be going should I join the twenty-somethings in this town. Maybe I am timid in part, because I do not know how to engage people, given my own hesitation coupled with the obvious barriers that exist. Part, too, is due to the avenues through which I have been trying to connect to others.
I have come to find out that the youth leaders here are not connected. Period. I have found three. Finding others, even as I here that there are roughly 45 congregations in the area, is like catching up with a longtime friend after an extended absence, for hours on end; it is a laudable management of time, but you feel the effort you have expended afterward, nonetheless. I will have to do more grunt work, as it were, than I once thought. I have not done much grunt work, really. I was just hoping against hope (Is that the saying? Why would anyone want to do such a thing??) that I could develop a network easily and move here and there within a relatively short time.
What do I wanna do? Develop genuine relationships, so that I can chill with a group of people at a local _anything_. Work comes as part of the territory but, though I am passionate about what I am doing here, I am still feeling imbalanced overall. I just want to be able to recharge somewhere where peers (plural, mind you) know me, and I them. That is not too much to ask; I know that much. Is it too much to find, though?
This feels more stream-of-consciousness than usual. Thanks for putting up with it, if indeed you have.
One last, unrelated truth: Nigeria won the CAF African Cup of Nations. Not Ghana, but I suppose it will have to do.
And Pope Benedict XVI has resigned; the first time a pope has done so in 717 years. He will now have time to read books and pray, according to some news sources. As per others, he intends to join a convent. Thoughts on a pope from Latin America? How about Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana?
I am through now. Live in Love.
