Written by intern Christine Chen.
As I sit in the airport, awaiting my flight back to Dallas, I have a lot left to reflect on. My shoes are stained a dull red from Ghanaian dirt; a final packet of groundnuts (translation: peanuts) rests in my pocket; a couple Ghanaian bills and some loose pesewas jangle in my wallet. These are small physical reminders of all the intangible memories that have filled these last five weeks.
Our internship ended earlier than expected: many universities had begun pulling students out of West Africa as a safety precaution against the growing Ebola outbreak (that, thankfully, still has not reached Ghana), and we learned on Thursday that we would be following suit. Though we were reluctant to leave, the five weeks that we did spend in Ghana have been unforgettable to say the least.
This last week, we had the chance to visit the Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Reserve, a pristine swath of forest that boasts soaring trees and beautiful butterflies. Then, during the week we finished up our final few orphanages, some several hours from Kumasi. At some of the homes, seeing how sparse and at times contradictory the kids’ files are opened my eyes to the challenges that face reunification efforts. At the same time, I think I can speak for all of us when I say how much I’ve come to cherish the time we spend with the kids and how incredibly humbling those moments are. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
In addition to being a part of the Kaeme team, I’ve also been working on an independent project. I received a grant from the Stanford Storytelling Project to create an audio documentary, which will be centered on the issues surrounding orphan care in Ghana. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to people involved with orphan care reform, including the social workers on our team as well as foster mothers, orphanage directors, and non-profit leaders, and those conversations have taught me so much.
I’ve also brought my recording equipment to the orphanages; the mic was a huge hit with the kids. They recorded themselves singing, rapping, and interviewing each other. I distinctly remember when Richmond, a sixteen-year old boy at an orphanage we went to in Sunyani, took his turn on the mic. He stood up and addressed his next words to us Kaeme interns:
“Just want to express my sincere gratitude to you people…we just met you today but you have made us happy, very much, so it will be very sad when you are leaving but we know we will meet one day again. We can say that we love you people, we really appreciate your kindness, you play with us, you made us feel happy so we thank you very much, we thank you.”
Those words stuck with me. They were so eloquently delivered, so perceptively acute. We’ve seen kids who have suffered through so much. But hearing these words, and then later hearing Richmond and the others tell us about their aspirations to be doctors and lawyers and football stars, and knowing how dedicated our team is and how much progress we’ve made so far, gives me hope that our efforts will form the stepping stone for bringing about meaningful reform.
Over time, my shoes will be scrubbed clean and return to their normal white; those little groundnuts will be consumed and discarded; the cedis and pesewas will be taken out and replaced with American dollar bills. But while those reminders will be gone, Ghana will not have left me.
So I will end with one last me-da-ase—that is, the Twi phrase for “thank you.” Thank you to Ghana, to Kaeme, and to the incredible people on our team who made this trip so worthwhile. These are memories and lessons I will not forget.