Practicing patience, church services, and becoming Ghanaian

Unfortunately, I still have not heard anything back from the Yale IRB about my research proposal. At this point, we are stalled. We want to print our posters and keep doing school talks, but I can’t carry out the research part of it until I get approval. Perhaps, like my project in Vietnam, this just needs to go on the back burner for a bit. “All of God’s leaders are prepared on a slow cooker,” stated the visiting pastor at the church I went to last Sunday, with one of my friends from work, so maybe these stalled projects are just part of my leadership development. They have to be prepared on the slow cooker.

I have now attended two church services, each of the last two Sundays. Depending on travel plans, I may or may not have time for more. I also went to a wedding on Saturday, and will likely go to another.

The church services are interesting. Sometimes very confusing, always with powerful messages, and about half of the time I feel a little flummoxed about how to respond to the choruses of “Amen” and “You are blessed” and “Hallelujah”.

I think the people I’ve gone with know that I’m not Christian. I know some of the ladies at work wanted to convert me, so maybe that’s part of the motivation behind inviting me, but I think it’s more that they wanted me to see their communities, the things that are important to them.

The first one I went to was on Father’s Day, and the sermon was about appreciation of fathers. It was difficult to hear, both because the mic was quiet and because the accent was thick, but I remember thinking that what I could hear was well said and an important message. Meghan went with me and we were confused by the number of offerings, and how we all had to proceed one-by-one up to the front… three times! We didn’t have the hymnal or a bible to look at, so we just sat and stood along with everyone else, but otherwise were very uninvolved.

The service I went to this past weekend was much easier to follow. It was also more fun! The first service was at a Methodist church and the more recent one was at a Pentecostal church. I know the basics of Christianity and many of the stories, but I don’t know the distinctions between branches, so it was interesting to compare them.

The Pentecostal service had much more singing and dancing, and the energy generated and shared between the church members was almost palpable. I could see that it was very valuable for generating and strengthening the community connection and the connection they feel to God.

The sermon was on leadership, and the service included a few minutes of bible study with the story of Joseph. I feel like I know the story of Joseph well from hearing the story as a child and from the well known musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The bible study was for the part of the story where Joseph goes from being sold into slavery to elevation within Potiphar’s house and the sermon was about the same. I agreed with a lot of what was said, but every time they said something about needing to have faith in God to be a good leader, I cringed a bit. Serving the people you want to lead, yes, being “prepared on the slow cooker” instead of the “microwave,” yes, but no, I don’t think it’s necessary to be Christian and be blessed by God.  The people were all very nice and welcoming, and asked when I would come back, but I don’t think I’ll have a chance during my remaining three weeks. I promised another Pastor that I would try to go to his church, which is near the house, so if I’m going anywhere other than Eric’s church, it’ll be that other Pastor’s church.

I went to a wedding on Saturday with Eric, who had been invited by a teacher at the school where he’s the headmaster and it was her sister who was getting married. The service was all in Twi, so I didn’t understand much, but fortunately there was a program, and it was in English. We also didn’t stay for the whole thing, because Eric had to get back to his music rehearsal. The part we stayed for was interesting. I’m fairly certain that there were several pictures taken of me just because I’m obruni… and I was the only one there. There were offerings during the service, and while photography from the guests is common in the US, Ghana goes above and beyond, with people getting out of their chairs and getting right in the faces of the bride and groom as they exchange vows and rings and have their first kiss as a married couple. I just hid in the back as much as possible and stood and sat with everyone else. It will be interesting to compare it to the other one that I will likely go to in two weekends’ time, with Adam (my classmate from Yale), who was invited by one of his coworkers.

Exchanging of rings, with all sorts of cameras in their faces.

On Monday, Grace and I went for an outreach clinic to a small community called Ofaakor. They have a tiny one-room clinic where the members of the community can go so that they don’t have to try to get all the way to the Kasoa Health Center, and two of the regular KHC nurses work there (rotating out each month), and the head nurse goes once a week to do check-ups of pregnant women. We learned how to do an exam of a pregnant woman and determine based on where the baby is sitting internally how far along the mother is. We listened to fetal heartbeats through a horn-like apparatus that we placed against the mother’s abdomen and checked for anemia, varicose veins, nipple suitability for suckling, and edema. We felt the craniums of several babies through the mothers’ abdomens and saw one that was breached (but early enough for it to be corrected before delivery).

And then something very unexpected happened.

Mothers in Ghana often (usually?) deliver at home, especially in the community we were in. However, one of the mothers we had examined early in the morning started showing labor signs before she left, so the head nurse (who is also called Grace) said she would deliver the baby at the clinic. Grace the fellow volunteer had said only a few minutes before that she wanted to see a birth, and she didn’t have to wait long. The mother came back in to the exam cubicle and Grace-the-nurse broke her water and told us that she was 5 cm dilated, so they cleaned her up and gave her a makeshift pad/underwear and she walked around for a bit to encourage the labor along. About 30 minutes or an hour later, it was time. She went into the exam cubicle for the last time and nurse Grace set her up with an IV and after a few minutes, volunteer Grace and I were called in. It all seemed to happen so quickly. I was in the room and watched my sister’s birth when I was six years old, but I don’t remember it particularly well. I feel like it did not go that quickly, though. It seemed like the mother pushed once and the head came halfway out, then once more and all of the rest of the baby’s body slipped out, with the actual delivery lasting less than a minute. The umbilical cord was tied off with string because they didn’t have clamps, and we stayed in the room for the delivery of the placenta and while the uterus was massaged to encourage it to contract to prevent profuse bleeding.

We were wondering how long the mother would stay in the room and at the clinic, but while we were still in the exam room with the first mother we heard that another had come in, ready to deliver. From having never delivered any babies at the clinic to two in one day. It was truly an unusual day. Volunteer Grace and I held both of the babies and took pictures with them and with their mothers. I wish I could stay long enough to watch these babies grow, to see them as they progress through the months and years, and then to tell them later that I was there when they first entered the world. It was incredible.

Me with the baby we saw the birth of and Grace holding the baby with the mother (below). 

Tuesday was far less eventful, but we had another school talk, and this time Grace and I were on our own, because Eric was at a conference. Emmanuel, a Ghanaian intern for Cheerful Hearts Foundation, also joined us, but it was basically on me to be the authority in the room, and I think things went very smoothly. Later in the day I got a group of us interns onto two separate trotros and managed to direct our cab driver back to our house when he didn’t know the junction for the general area where we are (we’ve only been in the new house for two weeks), so by the end of the day I was feeling very accomplished and ready to handle anything in Ghana.

I’ve been getting some dresses made by a seamstress that is friends with Douglas, including one with a kente print cloth which is going to be ready first. I’m stoked. Once I have these, I’ll really feel like I belong here… just in time for me to pack up and go home a few weeks later. I can’t believe the time is winding down so soon. I’m excited for the rest of my summer, especially since my dear friends will be getting married, but I’m going to miss Ghana terribly, and I’m seriously thinking about looking for a job out here and coming back after I graduate.

Research struggles

If you've read my posts from early this year, you know my original plan was to be conducting survey-based research in Vietnam this summer. That didn't quite work out, so I found the project in Ghana, but I never gave up on the research idea completely. I just had to find a focus and develop a proposal.

Four weeks in, I finally had a solid idea of what I could do. We've been doing school education about malaria, but we really have no awareness of how effective our campaign is, either for increasing knowledge about malaria or for the larger goal of actually preventing cases about malaria. So, for the past week I've been fleshing out the details of how to go about the project, writing surveys to give (there are three, one before the talk, one a week after, and one six months later), drafting consent forms for parents, students, and school administrators, and gathering all of the necessary information about schools in Kasoa. It's been incredibly busy. In the meantime I've also been at least making an appearance at the hospital every day (although many people noted that I hadn't really been around), giving a few school talks with Grace, and trying to do some sightseeing and visiting friends. I'm exhausted.

But the proposal is just about complete now, and being reviewed by my advisor tonight. If all goes according to plan it will be submitted tomorrow for IRB approval and because it's all survey based and not about a sensitive topic, can hopefully be rushed through approval and I can get started on the actual research component by June 25. There's plenty to do in the meantime, still, like coding all the surveys, getting data entry documents set up, and writing basic code for analysis that I can just import my data into later. And, of course, spending more time at the hospital and continuing with the already scheduled school talks.

Over the weekend we said goodbye to Amanda, and it's weird that she's not with us anymore. We had a little goodbye party for her with cake and grape juice, and she tried to cook for us... but had some struggles with metric system measurements. We went around to a few of the landmarks in Accra on Saturday before we had to say our fond farewells and part ways.

We miss you, Amanda!

Angie and Amanda "Azonto" dancing to Eric's beats

After dropping Amanda at the airport, we went to Osu, the "Las Vegas" of Accra (I'm not convinced) where Meghan, Grace, and I spent the night because we were going to an expat party in the area. We grabbed some food and drinks and lounged about for a while before Eric took off to leave the foreigners to their partying. We told him that next weekend we'll go out on Friday instead so that he doesn't have to leave because he's worried about waking up for church the next morning.

Accra at night

The expat party was an interesting affair - many more older attendees than I was expecting, and less dance-y than I was hoping. We stayed long enough to have awkward conversations with people we weren't remotely interested in and realize that we weren't particularly impressed with the whole thing. I did run into Elizabeth, who I'd met with the UU group on my first night in Ghana and had been meaning to email, so it was good to get a chance to talk to her.

After leaving the expat party we made our way first to a club that had a strict "no flip flops" policy, and then to another that said not to do it but this time was okay. I was starting to get tired and again there was a lack of dancing, so Grace and I didn't stay too long and went back to the hotel after a detour to KFC (the only chain I've seen in every country I've ever visited) and got some late night eats.

The next morning, I met Joseph, the UU guide from the first week, to head back to Odumase and visit the queen mothers and the children again. I'd meant to bring photos of the children from our school visits, but had some difficulties with printing. So when we got there we had about four hours to kill... which I used to coax some adorable children (I think the oldest was 6) to come sit with me and took more photos with them. I guess I'll just have to go back another time :)

My young friends in Odumase

Religion in Ghana

Brief disclaimer: I apologize if I have stated anything inaccurate about particular people in this post. I'm trying only to describe my experiences and perceptions, and I hope I have not accidentally said anything to offend anyone on this somewhat delicate topic. It's also quite long, so kudos if you make it all the way through.

Ghana is a very religious country. To my knowledge, it’s not institutionalized in any way, and officially there is religious freedom, but most people are some variant of Christian. And if they aren’t Christian, they’re probably Muslim.

I am not Christian. In the US, this has never been a cause for alarm for anyone that I know, or at least, any alarm that has been felt has never been expressed to me. My exploration of religious beliefs started a long time ago, is quite convoluted, and is still unfinished. I have trouble articulating exactly what I believe, and no currently defined religions, to my knowledge, exactly match me. But I’ll get into that later.

When I arrived in Ghana, it was with a group of Unitarian Universalists, or UUs. We were visiting children the UU church is financially supporting, their schools, and the Queen Mothers of the Lower Manya Krobo district who oversee much of the day-to-day business of the project. Although we discussed how our work in Ghana related to our values, it had little bearing on us otherwise during that week. The children struggled to pronounce the name and probably did not understand what it meant, just that they were being financially supported. The only people who asked us about our church and our faith were local expats, and the questions were a lot like what I've heard in the US.

This is the “church” (I use quotes both because it does not fall within most peoples’ ideas of churches, but also because many groups of UUs choose not to use that term for their congregations/fellowships/societies/etc) that I grew up in. My family first started attending when I was five or six years old, having heard about it from the parents of one of my classmates. My parents, who had both been raised in Christian households, had not felt the same connection to the Christian faith and became Quakers in their early adult life, and had a Quaker wedding ceremony. When they moved to California, however, whether because of me or because they did not find a fellowship that they liked, or something else (feel free to chime in her, Mom and Dad), they were not active in the Quaker society. But when introduced to Unitarian Universalism, they found that the ideas matched their own and quickly found a spiritual home among the members of the congregation.

As a child, it mattered little to me where I went to church. I didn’t really understand that it was different. I started with a belief in heaven and hell and God the Almighty, but over the years I became skeptical. I remember being shocked when my mom told me her beliefs when I was about six or seven, and effectively described herself as agnostic, with a belief that “God is in all of us” (I remember this part exactly) but I think meaning something similar to what I have come to believe, that there is some sort of energy, or life force, that moves through all people and all things, but is not a separate, omniscient entity.

But let’s come back for a moment to the concepts of Unitarian Universalism, which did not in any way proscribe that I give up a belief in heaven, hell, and God the Almighty, and instead only offered me the opportunity to explore other ideas. The seven core principles, which I was taught repeatedly as a child and have internalized in how I view the world, are given below. These concepts have so become part of who I am that even though I took an approximately 10 year hiatus from the UU church, when I read them again during my recent re-exploration of religion, I was stunned that they matched my feelings so well. As stated on my convenient description card, which I have taken to carrying with me everywhere, they are:

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person	The living tradition we share draws from many sources:
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations	Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations	Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning	Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large	Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all	Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part	Spiritual teaching of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature

Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.

For me personally, the first and last carry the most weight. These two principles best describe the resulting respect that is due to all things because of this life force that I believe moves through all things. These are the ones I focus on in my life, although the rest generally fall into place because of them.

This past semester, I took a class on Asian religions and ecology. In the public health school, the potential role of religious organizations for promoting healthy behavior had come up in several classes, I was feeling a need to explore religion again, and whether because I grew up in the UU tradition or because I grew up in the eco-hippie dense San Francisco bay area or a combination of both, I was also feeling a need to tie it all in to ecology and ways of preserving our environment. After spending last summer in Vietnam and seeing the complete lack of care for the environment that is pervasive in the community there, and at the time I chose my classes still planning to go back, I was particularly intrigued by the fact that the class was about Asian religions. I’d also felt most closely connected with the Asian religions that I’d learned about in my younger years, and wanted to learn more.

The class, and the concepts I learned from each religion, forced me to think a lot about my own beliefs. I reconsidered the Christian idea of God. I contemplated Hindu deities, the Buddha, and the Dao. Each time we came to a new religion I thought “Aha! Now this is what I’ve believed all along!” until I got to the next and that more closely matched. That was true until the very last – Daoism – which came right after Confucianism. I think I’m some mesh of the two, so maybe China is where I would find the most people like me. The idea of the Dao is that which cannot be named but moves through all things and provides the impetus for the development of consciousness in humans. It is something akin to God, although it is not ascribed any awareness. It simply is. “He who names the Dao does not know the Dao.” I agree with many of the teachings in the classical and infamous text, the Dao de jing (Tao te ching, etc.), which speak of caution, simplicity, and kindness.

From Confucianism I draw the beliefs in the importance of education and careful thought, that striving for learning leads to better understanding and powerful, stable elevation within society. To be sure, there are other ways to get to the top, but the ways of Confucian benevolence will get you to a stable point of power, one that will not suddenly crumble. Develop loyalty and all will want to follow; use force and when the opportunity arises, all will turn against you. But my favorite Confucian text is called the Western Inscription. It was hung on the western wall of the scholar Zhang Zai as a reminder of the things to follow in life. I have abridged it to focus on the parts that have the most impact on me, and I have been meaning to paint it onto a canvas and hang it on the western wall of my own room in New Haven. This is my edited version:

Heaven is my Father

and Earth is my Mother,

and even such small creatures as we

find intimate shelter in their embrace.

Therefore that which fills the universe

I regard as my own body,

and that which directs the universe

I consider as my own nature.

All people are my brothers and sisters,

and all things are my companions.

Honoring those who are advanced in years

is to treat the elderly as elderly should be treated.

To be kind to the orphaned and weak

is to treat the young as the young should be treated.

All persons in the world who are tired, crippled, sick,

or who are brotherless, childless, widows or widowers

are my own siblings who have become helpless

and have none to whom they can appeal.

To care for them at such times

is the practice of a good child.

Wealth, honor, blessings and benefits

are meant for the enrichment of my life;

while poverty, humble status, worries and sorrows

are meant to help me find fulfillment.

In life I follow and serve Heaven and Earth;

In death I will be at peace.

I’ve sort of glossed over it up to this point, but growing up UU meant that I was introduced to all of the major world religions. On Sunday mornings, while other little children were taught bible stories exclusively and our parents listened to sermons about doing good in the world, my peers and I were taught the basics of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. We visited other places of worship as a part of this exploration – the fourth UU principle given above – and were left to determine for ourselves what we thought the truth of life was. I’ve never felt shortchanged, but I never really firmly established beliefs. I think I just looked at it as unknowable. This past semester, during my re-exploration, I found certain texts that I agreed with, but came to similar conclusions.

But that’s not a sufficient for Ghana. Once I was on my own, people started asking me questions about my religion.

In a country where just about everyone believes in God, if you say you don’t, you need to be able to explain yourself. I’m not very good at it. People express a concern for my soul, and try to convince me that God exists by asking who created me, where I came from. I’ve taken to politely turning the question around and asking where God came from and stating simply that the idea of an omniscient creator does not make sense to me.

I’ve been asked what I think when I see people praying, singing hymns, reading the bible. My honest answer, which I have said, is that I think if it is important to the person doing it, then it is important to do. And I don’t rule out the possibility of an omniscient deity, it just doesn’t quite fit with my own perception of the world. I could be wrong. The other thing I tell people is that for me it doesn’t matter – I live my life under the same principles, practicing generosity when I can and kindness toward others; I am practically incapable of lying (which is somewhat problematic when people ask me about my relationship status, but that’s a story for another post) and I see theft of any sort as wrong. I think I live very morally, regardless of whose definition is used, and I cannot believe in the existence of a judgmental deity so strict that living as a good person but failing to have faith would prevent me from whatever eternal salvation may exist. I believe compassion and the way we treat others is of paramount importance, and not just for the potential eventual judgment day. Cultivating that attitude within oneself leads to honest and true relationships with other people that are based on trust and integrity and not easily broken, and our lives are completely dependent on how we interact with others. Judgment does not only come from the almighty but from all around us.