The hard reality

Just yahoo chatted with a sfriend about all of this and her advice is to be calm and hang in there. But here's a bit of what's up these days...

How do we know that what we do is the right thing? How do we really live ethically?

I'm homesick - both in the way that a 10-year-old who goes to their first slumber party is and the way that a 29-year old woman who is doing her best to find her place in the world is. Missing the familar and at the same time trying to find what is right.

There is no denying that the situation in Ghana is quite different from that in Canada. The need can be overwhelming, the poverty levels extraordinary. Everything from literacy to basic food, shelter, and clothing are in need. Health clinics, educational supports, familial supports.... the list is, obviously, long.

Anyone who has read or studied anything about Africa knows this already. You don't have to have a PhD in African Studies to know this. I don't say this to be a pessimist or whatever; this is part of life here.

At the same time, there is enormous need in Canada. My work over the past years - with refugees, with migrants, with people at the drop-in and income tax clinic, with community development and in social advocacy all prove this to me over and over again. There is still so much to do in Canada. And, Canada is my home.

So I am torn.

We've been here, admittedly, not very long. I've come a long way to adapting to the new culture although there is still much to learn. Still, so much is uncertain. Will there be paid work? If not, how long is it feasible for us to stay? I am willing to volunteer but still need to find a good place to volunteer as well as am unsure how long I can volunteer for before we need to go back to Canada.

Also, I feel like I've travelled before but somehow this is different. Before, when I was younger, I didn't feel a hankering to build my own home, start my own family. With Chris now and after our three very good years in Toronto together, I find myself craving a life together in Canada, a regular home, children of our own. This too is calling me home. And it is a new feeling.

How long do we commit to being in Ghana? It's so hard to say. Initially I had thought that a year would be good - to familiarize ourselves with life here, to get involved, to understand the culture. But a year was predicated upon finding work. If we don't find good work, then how long?

I blogged earlier about our living situation and that we are now in a family where we have a good deal of space to come and go as we please. Having been there now, though, I find the politics of our hosts disturbing and the treatment of the boy who lives with them painful. He is just 10 years old and has been taken in by them because there are 9 children in his family and his parents can't support them all. Somehow he is related to our hosts. But he is, for lack of a better word, their slave and I ache when, at 10 at night, he is washing the last of the pots and pans, when at 5 in the morning, he is already sweeping the entire house. I never see him play, I never see him with other children, and I rarely see him smile. I find it too depressing to live there much longer.

But then where do we go? How do we find a place that we may only stay in for a few months? How do I commit to a landlord when I don't even know myself in the least how long we will be here? Is it worth making a financial commitment to buy a bed, some chairs, pots and pans when we may well be leaving in some months time because we don't have paid work? But in the meantime, can I emotionally stomach living in the same house much longer?

So it is that I'm torn. I want to come back to Canada to start a family, do good work there, be near my own family and new extended family, be close to old friends. In a weird way, and this is something that I honestly hadn't expected, this travel makes me, for the first time, feel like I begin to understand where home is. The last three years in Toronto, although we were sometimes crazy busy, were also a time when I began to feel like an adult, had chances to be involved in some really interesting work projects, and felt like I was able to realize many of my own dreams and goals.

At the same time, I am in Ghana. There is so much to do here and so much to learn. Already I feel like I've learned much and have had to challenge my own understandings of Ghana and of Africa. I don't want to pack it in early cause in many ways we haven't even given life here a chance. Still, I am feeling too overwhelmed to make the enormous effort required. It's a long and very arduous road.

My friend said I shouldn't worry about trying to answer all of the shoulds in my life. Living life means being responsive to my own needs and my own requirements. While I agree, there is a part of me that won't take that so easily. Part of the work is also challenging myself and not just being content to satisfy my own needs. It's also about finding something bigger to be involved in. Sometimes, I am finding, it is harder than you even think.

I worry that I have to save face with friends and family who seem to think there is something extra special or great about Chris and me for making this trip. I don't want to let anyone down. So, in a way, this is my own admission that it is really, really hard and I'm having a rough time. I honestly don't know what the right thing is to do. Should we stay or should we go back to Canada? Am I being sefish or am I being realistic? Or am I being naive to think that anything I have to contribute in this place will make a positive difference?

I miss winter and I miss what is familiar as well. That is the little girl who wants the comfort of what she knows and people she trusts and loves. Sometimes, like early in the morning, that part of me hurts the worst. That's when my heart aches and I cry on Chris' shoulder. I am thankful that he is here and such a good support. I hope I can be the same for him.

There it is, my version of my hard reality.