Simultaneous Experiences

There’s always so much to say – what happened in the day, what my thoughts were about the food I ate, who I encountered on the trotro, and the list goes on.

I’m thankfully over a cold I picked up somewhere between Accra and Cape Coast and feeling so much better. My host mom always does so much for me when I’m not feeling my best. This time she made sure to feed me lots of pineapple. I haven’t really talked that much about the physical aspect of being here, so here are a few sentences – it hasn’t been the easiest. I have had two bouts of Travelers’ Diarrhea and then a cold. Perhaps this is too much information to be sharing via the internet but honestly it’s a part of being here and learning how to deal with sickness in another country has its challenges, especially in a developing one. I am hoping to stay sickness free from here on and don’t worry I’ve been taking my malaria medication diligently!

I just finished reading “Sophie’s Choice” by William Styron, which I can’t say was the best book to be reading my first month in Ghana, but it certainly was thought provoking and seemingly connected to being here in Africa. The story is told from the perspective of a young Southern writer who encounters a couple, Nathan, a Jew, and his polish lover, Sophie, while he is living in the north. Most of the story is centered on Sophie’s past, as she is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. One of the quotes I came across that caught my attention was when Stingo was describing how he had been living his life in the U.S. unaware of what was happening, what Sophie was going through in Europe. He said,

“The two orders of simultaneous experience are so different,

so irreconcilable to any common norm of human values,

their coexistence is a paradox”

This quote speaks to the many experiences that are going on right now, for me, for you, and for the stranger in Uganda who is fleeing for his life because of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that is going to be passed. It also speaks to what I was feeling this past weekend in Cape Coast when thinking about the whites going to church above the slave dungeons.

Additionally, one of the reasons why colonialism and the slave trade ended, to the best of my knowledge currently, is because of World War II. While slavery was beginning its end, another people were being put to death. The connections and thoughts about the two are overwhelming.

When I think about all of this, what I am reading, what I am learning in classes here about slavery and development, I try to break it down. To first understand the past history and then the current history, to see the causes and the effects, and to view today what is going on in the world with a critical eye. I feel that I have become desensitized to many things in the news and I’m not quite sure why. To get to the bottom of this I think encompasses dealing with the feelings associated with the quote I have shared. Actually, since being here I haven’t even been keeping up with the world news at all. And I wonder why? Or perhaps, why not?