A person is not a palm tree, that s/he should be self-complete

Last night we had our first meeting of  (most of) Yo Ghana's Portland-Area teachers.  Eight local educators and three board members/volunteers got together.  And it dawned on me again--before, during, and after the meeting--that Yo Ghana! is primarily about relationships.

In our living room was Jane, who three years ago decided to take a chance on an organization that was little more than a vague idea.  Now she is offering advice and encouragement to teachers contemplating sharing letters with Ghana classrooms.  And Julia who despite putting in twelve-hour days jumped in with unmatched enthusiasm with her second graders a few months ago.  And Brando who talked with me about education and development in Ghana for two hours straight when we first met a year ago and has been devoting himself to Yo Ghana! ever since.  And Essan who is going to school and working two jobs to support himself and his family back in Ghana but is always there when we need to work out an issue with the Ghana school he was once headmaster of or when a teacher calls on him.

I am accustomed to approaching non-profit work as a series of tedious tasks to be performed so that some greater good will eventually result.  Yo Ghana! is prompting me to re-think that assumption.  Last night one of the teachers asked about the role of development in our work.  Brando replied that if we took care of relationships, of learning about and caring for each other, the development would take care of itself.

"A person is not a palm-tree, that s/he should be self-complete."  Akan maxim.

Teju Cole

Teju Cole's profile rose considerably a couple of years ago when he was one of the main critics of the "Kony 2012" youtube video.  In a series of tweets widely re-published, he criticized the "White Savior Industrial Complex" that the viral video expressed, the widely shared belief that Africa is a blank slate on which western humanitiarians can self-actualize and sentimentalize without much consulting the people they are purporting to help, let alone examining their own motives or privileges.  Cole is part of a growing number of African intellectuals living in the U.S. contesting our stereotypes about the continent.

I'm well into Cole's 2011 novel, Open City, in which an Nigerian-born protagonist records his impressions of New York City.  Part of what makes the novel so intriguing is its relative lack of concern with race and ethnicity.  To be sure, race matters to Cole's protagonist.  But he seems more deeply concerned with birds, music, architecture, and other features of urban life.

Cole's cosmopolitanism is, in and of itself, a critique of the notion that the U.S. and Africa are completely different from each other.

"Captain Phillips" and Crazy Africans with Guns

I watched the film "Captain Phillips" with a certain amount of hope.  The trailer suggested that the film would feature some empathy between the white American (played by Mr. All-American Tom Hanks) and the Somali pirate who took him captive for several days.  Alas, it was not to be.

"Captain Phillips" is merely the latest in a long installment of recent Hollywood Films depicting young African men as unhinged maniacs waving around semi-automatic weapons.  In fact in some respects "Captain Phillips" represents a step back from "Blood Diamond," which featured a noble if crudely rendered black African protagonist among blood-crazed Africans.  Of course the deeper problem with these films is that they aren't about African men at all; the black men are just props for the journeys of white men (Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Hanks).

Kaiser Matsumunyane is a film maker interested in redressing this imbalance.  He is proposing to do a documentary of the surviving Somali pirate who held Phillips captive: Abduwale Abdukhad Muse.  Matsumunyane's film would explore aspects of the episode and of piracy more generally that western media seldom addresses: that Muse may have only been sixteen when captured; that the pirates were shot and killed while trying to surrender; footage of his mother addressing his determination to help his younger siblings; the role of the West in devastating the Somali fishing industry.

None of this will necessarily exculpate Muse.  But it is essential that white Americans, especially, begin looking at Africa through new lenses, that we learn fuller and more complex stories than those featuring crazy Africans with guns.

But we may wait a long time to see the "Smiling Pirate."  The fund-raising website stalled with the total raised to support the film at $886.

The Smiling Pirate Trailer.

Why Writing Letters to Ghana Appeals to Struggling Students

The (all volunteer) staff at Yo Ghana! have been somewhat surprised that the schools in the U.S. most interested in working with us tend to be those with students who are struggling in some respects and who often come from families living below the poverty line.

Having done a fair bit of tutoring with struggling students over the past decade, I of course have some theories as to why this is the case.  Children whose families are struggling with poverty often feel as if they have no sense of agency, that they live in a world that is beyond their control--and beyond the control of their parents.  They may also be reluctant to show vulnerability, as that is likely just to bring more pain.  It often feels unsafe to hope or to care, much better to adopt a "cool pose."

Sharing letters with a pen pal in Ghana offers a way out of this.  First of all, many Ghanaian students are also struggling with living apart from one or both parents.  Most have far fewer material resources than their counterparts in the U.S.  In fact Ghanaian students are often stunned to learn that students in the U.S. routinely fail to take advantage of reading the many books most are surrounded by.  So the Ghana students commonly model determination and optimism in the face of adversity, a point of view in which school is deemed to be a prized opportunity, not some sort of refined torture.

Ghanaian students also tend to be more earnest and less guarded than their American counterparts are.  West Africa, to be sure, is changing fast, becoming more urban and saturated with media.  But it still a part of the world in which most people reside in a dense network of interpersonal relationships in which a "cool pose" is not necessary.  They therefore offer American students a venue in which it is safe to be vulnerable and to care.