The Ashanti flag has three colors; yellow for the gold of the kingdom, black for the color of their people, and green for the rich vegetation and forestry. It is missing a color though, and I don’t know what color it would be, maybe a silver, for humanity. A summer in Ghana, though I wish it was longer. A summer was not enough time for me to see everything I wanted to see, or do everything I wanted to do, but it was more than enough time for me to change in a way I never thought I would. Everyone has moments in their life that define them. Ghana has brought me many of those moments. It has made me come to understand the value of exploration. Not just of the physical world, but of the relationships you create, the boundaries you have set, and the certainties you thought you once knew. The best way for me to outline this is to just share a few anecdotes and examples.
Anecdote I
We had been in Ghana for about a week, maybe more. Enough time to get to know our fellow Farmerline team pretty well. We had stopped to get some food on the way back from one of our field visits. We sat eating. I loved Ghanaian food. The flavor is like something I had never tasted, and the textures of some of the grains were so foreign that every bite left me more and more intrigued. That being said I became full fast and didn’t finish my plate. I was sitting with a group of Ghanaians and one of them asked if he could finish my plate, and then he said this… “a farmer farmed this.” A farmer farmed this. A farmer in Ghana had put in many physical hours to produce the grain and other ingredients that went into the food I was eating. And I had the audacity to push my leftovers aside. I had the audacity to put my few minutes over their many days. I had the audacity to spite their masterpiece. No I did not. TI know how hard these farmers worked. I had seen it. I had even lived it for one day. That one sentence put into perspective so much of what waste truly is in this world. It is a blatant disregard for the energy, time, and effort dedicated to the tangible consumable presented to you . Perhaps it is an unconscious obliviousness, though either way there is a lack of respect for the effort that goes into the products we consume. From that moment forward I tried my hardest, as humanly possible, to eat every last ounce of food, not only on my plate, but everyone’s plate if they did not finish.
Anecdote II
I would walk with Marisa and Ben up our uneven dirt road passing by the same vendors every morning. And every morning, without fail we would be greeted by the same people, with the same expression, a smile. Now every morning I wake in America it takes until about midday before I see my first smile. There are smiles in the early morning on exception, though that is the exception. Back in Ghana we would not just start our day with a smile, but everyone we met who was new would greet us with a hello and a smile. Taxi drivers, pedestrians, and peddlers alike, we were greeted with a smile. Now there is something to be said about that constant exchange. It made me feel acknowledged. It made me feel welcomed. It made me feel loved. And this was from people who were not even of my homeland. Why can’t my people do this? The power of a smile or a hello is a powerful thing. I wonder what kind of moral and social ecology America would have if we followed a similar baseline.
Idea III
The idea of a developing world was created by the capitalist thought leaders as a self-indulgent amplifier which enlarges the image of the “developed” a belittles the “developing” in a purely infrastructural sense. It supposes that those who are “developed” are better, of a higher order of society, with more intelligent thought structures to create a infrastructure of advanced technologies and sciences upon which society is mounted. Indeed by this definition, America, and Europe, and a lot of other places, are developed. Though I think this definition is far too narrow-minded and western-centric. Nations should not be judged purely on their infrastructural capacity. I think that a nation should be valued (if at all) as a sum of its whole, which includes not only infrastructure, but some of the intangibles too, like its culture or its progress, or the obstacles it has had to face. With these parameters in mind I think we would find we have a very different view of what is a developing nation or not. Ghana is so much more than an “African country,” Ghana offers so much more than starving children and broken down buildings. Ghana is home to millions of souls who ancestry and struggle have formed a united spirit which is visible, audible, and palpable. That, to me, is hardly a developing nation, and I know there are so many other nations like Ghana.
I have come to learn that social engagement is best done between two people. There is no message that is served with the most palatable amount of trust and acceptance than one given from one person to another person. Whether it comes to personal relationships, or professional ones, always look for a way to turn any setting into an intimate one on one experience. What this means to me is that it does not matter if you are hanging out with friends, at a large conference, in a one on one meeting, or anywhere in between; there are always opportunities to make someone feel special, and like they are the focus of your whole attention. When this is the case, and once moment has struck which forms a relationship, invaluable doors have been opened which allow for deeper forms of whatever type of relationship you might be in. This is something I realized while in workshops with Farmerline. One of the keys of their success is that they treat each farmer as they would a friend, neighbor, or even part of the family. In the moments that they are taking down information to add to their database, they don’t forget the human who is behind the phone. The most beautiful thing is that it is not forced. It is just the natural way they conduct themselves, and it is a way I would like to emulate.
Looking forward I have already begun to discuss how I might make my mark on the world with other people. One of my longest friends and I have started the process of conceptualizing an idea for a social enterprise. Every week we bounce back and forth between one idea and another, reforming one, or scratching it to start with fragments of our old. During our last Skype session we came to the realization that it is incredibly hard to start a business in a country that neither of you are in. Which made us think that the social enterprise we wanted to make might need to wait until one of us is in one of the African countries we would like to launch in (probably Ghana). One thing I’ve learned from working with Farmerline is that it is important to know your target impact population. If you don’t know them, what they need or want, you can’t serve them. Otherwise you are just like any other non-profit or foreign organization who thinks they know what’s best and is pushing their ideas on people who they have no right or true understanding to do so. If neither of us are where we need to be, and have lived there long enough to at least begin to understand, or invite people to join us who do understand, then there is no point. So we have redirected our focus back to the American market, attempting to solve problems in a fairly business saturated population. We shall see where we end up, but I am confident that we have many skype sessions ahead.
My thoughts about my future are about as scattered as this paper is. I have no concrete ideas. I do have aspirations however, and I do believe that at least some of them will come true. I know that this far life has taken me to where I need to go (or a least have come to believe, where I need to go). I trust in life just as I trust in the people of Ghana. Respect origins, remember everything and everyone came from somewhere. Smile at life, and life will smile back. And never forget that you might not be as developed or as proud, accomplished, or whatever as you think you might be. It is all about perspective. It has always, always been about perspective.
Much peace and love,
Caleb