Five Months Later, or: Oops, I Did It Again

Let's play pretend for a minute. 

Let's pretend that, immediately upon finishing my last blog entry, I was whisked away on an adventure of intrigue and mistaken identity comparable to "North By Northwest." Let's pretend that, during this time, I was accompanied by a band of memorable characters --an exiled pirate king and his genius parrot, a double-agent who forgot which organization she was working for, a narcoleptic ninja-- all of whom helped me clear my name and bring down a sinister organization, hell-bent on world domination from its base on the Moon. Let's pretend that after finishing that adventure, I was abducted by aliens and got amnesia during my daring, impossible escape, and that I have only just remembered who I am.

Let's pretend that this is why I haven't updated my blog in so long. 

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CHAPTER FOUR: IN WHICH TEDDY RUNS OUT OF EXCUSES

So. Let's talk about Ghana, where the weather was hot and the people were cool. 

During my stay, I lived with a family in Accra, who treated me with such hospitality that I felt less like a guest and more like an adopted son. We lived in a walled-in compound that was inhabited by family members and fellow foreign guests, surrounded by coconut, almond, palm nut, lime, mango, and pear trees. There was also a pool, which remained (tauntingly) under renovation during the duration of my stay. They kept me well-fed with enormous portions of a variety of Ghanaian foods: Fufu, red red, gari, banku, groundnut stew, yams, beef, chicken, fish, rice, beans, plantain, and fresh fruit. I also attended church with them: a Charismatic denomination that is raising money to build their own church. The services were a far-cry from those I was used to growing up Roman Catholic --with singing, glossolalia, and instances of being "slain by the spirit" abound-- but the community was always warm and welcoming.

During the week, I volunteered full-time for a school for autistic children, which doubles as an organization that navigates issues of raising autism awareness in Ghana. The commute there and back was three hours total --wake up at 5:30am, home by 4:30pm-- during which I sweat it out in a ramshackle system of mini-buses called "tro-tros." Every day was an adventure on the tro-tro: rides included everything from a sudden flat tire to independent preachers delivering sermons (typically in local languages, although I would often catch some English words, such as "Jesus," "Father," and "REPENT!"). The traffic was bumper-to-bumper bonkers, the leg-room nonexistent, and every breeze a miracle. 

Photo courtesy of Naa O.M.

Anyway, the school is a small building with a handful of rooms and a playground, where I spent many an hour observing the staff and helping out however I could. Since there is still a profound lack of autism awareness in mainstream Ghanaian society (many doctors still don't know what autism is), the staff has their work cut out for them as teachers, carers, and activists. During my time there, we had discussions on how to properly define autism in local languages (such as Twi, Ewe, and Ga), which don't have words for "neurobiological disorder," yet words for "illness" or "madness" aren't appropriate either. They also staged a march towards the end of my time there, complete with pamphlets, live music, balloons, and news coverage (yours truly appeared on two local news channels, according to my host mom!). Finally, they invited me to a conference on autism awareness in Western Africa, where presentations covered a range of issues from the benefits of swimming instruction for autistic youth to strategies for helping autistic adolescents get through puberty. 

Unfortunately, the school's drama and movement therapy coordinator was busy with planning and fund-raising, so the performance side of my project never quite materialized at the school. So, to get my performance fix, I took mbira lessons with a musician working at the University of Ghana. I was recommended to him by a visiting speech therapist from the UK, and spent the last month of my time in Ghana visiting his office three times a week. Our lessons were more akin to jam sessions: he'd give me a new phrase to learn and repeat while riffing on his guitar. We rehearsed under a mango tree outside of his office, interrupted only by the occasional ant, spider, or bird poop that fell on the instrument from time to time. Speaking of instruments, I had a few musical adventures during my time in Ghana: The speech therapist from the UK invited me to a pre-funeral vigil concern for the recently-deceased director of the Pan-African Orchestra. It was about three hours of traditional African music. She also invited me and two other Americans living in the compound (a pair of wonderfully kind students studying abroad) out to a concert featuring a French-African singer, during which bold audience members were welcomed to the stage for impromptu dance-offs. We also went to a jazz club, which was rained out, but not before a set featuring two dueling drummers who gave the thunder a run for its money. 

As far as down-time goes, I spent many an hour (and drank many a gallon of water) in the shade of our compound: reading, writing, milking the most out of the Internet while it lasted (Accra is currently plagued by power outages --The Dumsor-- which can last anywhere from 12 to 48 hours at a time), and chilling with my little host nephews (who love Spiderman and insisted on helping me button up my shirt many, many, many times). Sometimes I hiked to the local Vodafone for their Internet, where I Skyped my friends and family and caught up on "Archer." Otherwise, I made very few excursions during my time in Accra outside of the occassional dinner invite from the American students, or from another American couple living on the compound (who gave me a battery-powered fan and invited the students and I over for a meal on Easter). We all mostly sat out in the compound --guests and hosts alike-- chatting while the sun set and the breeze picked up, watching swarms of bats and the stars come out, and frantically swatting at persistent mosquitos. 

My last few hours in Accra were hectic: I rushed out the door after a several-hour long engagement ceremony and saying goodbye to my wonderful, wonderful host family; I had my bag --which I spent hours the night before packing and repacking to fit the carry-on weight limit-- checked in anyway; I had my visa extension challenged by two security guards (after a lengthy process earlier that month, during which I may or may not have been coerced into paying a certain immigration officer an extra couple of cedis, only to have my extension messed up); I lost my luggage reclaim receipt, only to find it stuck to my shoe after some frantic back-tracking; I had my passport given to a stranger by an absent-minded security officer; and I had a long chat with another airport officer about their experience raising their autistic child. In the words of my Watson contact: "It's almost like Ghana had said, 'Okay, I don't think we gave Teddy enough challenges so let's send him off right.'" 

In the end, you could probably look at those last few hours as a sort of microcosm for my time in Ghana: the snafus, failed plans, near-crises, farcical moments, and personal connections in the airport serve as a sort of Rorschach-Test of frustrations and opportunities, out of which I had to forge my own meaning. While my time in Ghana may not have given me the experiences I was looking for, I'm glad it didn't: I'm not sure what experiences I was looking for to begin with, anyway.  

So there you have it: My time in Ghana. 

Let's pretend that it was my best blog post yet. Let's pretend that it was the most fun you've ever had reading anything, ever. Let's pretend that you now feel caught up on my life, despite the fact that I'm writing this two months into my time in South Africa.

Let's pretend it was worth the wait. 

~To Be Procrastinued~

A Very Apologetic Title, or: How Meta is Too Meta?

It had to be done; there was no getting around it. Try as he might, the forces of procrastination could only work their hypnotic spell for so long, and so total avoidance was impossible. Things here were wrapping up with plenty of time to spare for last-minute arrangements, so there was simply no excuse: He had to write it. 

It would be difficult, yes. After all, how do you summarize three months of adventures? But it was necessary, part of a promise he had made. And so Teddy Hoffman --Prince of Procrastination, Evader Extraordinaire-- sat down and began to type . . .

A week later, he remembered that he still had to finish, so he sat down to update his blog. "They've waited this long," he thought, "So I owe them something personal, something that really gets to the core of my experience, something that oh hey look the new season of "Archer" is online."

The next day, he actually began to write. For realsies.

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CHAPTER THREE: IN WHICH TEDDY BREAKS UP WITH INDIA

Dear India, 

You've always been honest with me, so I won't beat around the bush. I owe you that much. This in mind, I hope you'll forgive me if what I'm about to say comes across as blunt, but here it is:

I'm leaving you.

It was never going to be a long-term thing; you and I both knew that. I will always be a "population-of-under-one-million" small-town boy, and I am not in a place in my life where I'm comfortable settling down. It's time for me to move on, for us to go our separate ways. 

But that doesn't mean I won't miss you.

Remember the night we met? I had just gotten out of the airport and was on my way to my contact's house, and I saw an elephant blocking the traffic. It was love at first sight. 

No, not the elephant. You, India. 

Sure, we've had some hiccups along the way: You gave me my fair share of the Delhi Belly Blues; I was unable to meet with the theater group I hoped to meet because the founder was in jail; Your rickshaw drivers and I had our disagreements; My visa application process for your Ghanaian High Commission was a nonsensical rigamarole; The lack of elbow room and deliberate rejection of "right of way" in your metros left me passive-aggressively mumbling to myself (much to the confusion of my fellow passengers).

But we made it work. And we had fun too. 

So let's focus on the good times, the things we'll remember when the pangs of separation fade away in favor for the warmth of nostalgia. 

Am I being wordy, perhaps melodramatic? Of course. 

I double-majored in English and Theater, after all.  

Central to my time in Delhi (the Scarecrow to my Dorothy) was a Grinnell alum who arranged my accommodations, picked me up from the airport, and checked in throughout my time (taking me along on walks, an Italian Thanksgiving dinner, and viewings of American movies) to make sure I was getting along okay. Without the support and guidance of him and his wife, I would have had a very different, less enjoyable experience. 

Thanks to them, I made the acquaintance of my ever-accommodating, always-hospitable hostess and her vigilant domestic staff, who kept me comfortable and well-fed (it is no small testament to their  cooking skills that I enjoyed being a vegetarian these past three months). The staff were always friendly and enthusiastically supported my decision to grow a mustache, and my hostess made sure that I had plans for Christmas and New Years: she swept me out of my room --where I was mournfully listening to a live stream of Minnesota's Christmas radio station-- to a party hosted by her cousin, with good food, good conversation, and good whiskey abound. Likewise, we spent the first hour or so of 2015 in Delhi's ever-jammed traffic coming back from a quiet gathering of her family and friends. She even facilitated my subtitle-less introduction to Bollywood, with the help of friendly whispers to keep me posted on the plot developments. 

These people were central to my experience: they enabled me to enjoy my time with you, India

Through their advice, I was able to create new project-related contacts via some hard-core networking. For instance, I had the pleasure of meeting multiple mixed-ability schools, who championed integration on all levels of their institution, offering education for children and hands-on experience for university-level students hoping to become doctors and/or educators. Their warmth and hospitality and hard, hard work was apparent in every visit. One of these schools let me sit in on rehearsals for a play they brought to a conference of schools, where mixed-ability performers preached against the evils of junk food. They even let me write a jingle: 

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and other fruits do too. / And don't forget your veggies! They are also good for you. / So before you eat a burger or a pizza or a cake, / Remember that those junk foods will give you a stomach ache!

Like I said, English and Theater major. 

Another school with a focus on blind women let me run sound-effects for a play they were developing. The piece was written by a blind woman and starred a blind cast, and was brought to two conferences on raising disability awareness and shifting the focus from "disability" towards "possibility." Although my duties involved the not-so-strenuous task of hitting buttons on my iPad, the director insisted on giving me a trophy along with the rest of the cast and crew. 

Photo courtesy of Zaid K. via Facebook

I also had the pleasure of meeting champions in the field of theater education and enabling marginalized demographics: I met a doctor whose dedication to disability rights was central to his campaign for the inclusion of the humanities in the education of medical students; I was invited to a week-long theater festival by a professor at the National School of Drama, where local children composed and performed their own works; I toured a school run by a professional puppeteer, who incorporated puppetry into lessons on body-awareness and self-advocacy; I saw a play and had a picnic with a drama therapist, whose work is aimed at homeless children who are survivors of sex abuse; and I had tea with a director and his wife, who helped me get in touch with most of the above contacts. 

When I wasn't busy navigating the metro and meeting these contacts, we spent our time together strolling through the infinitely walkable Lodhi Garden --"The Largest Garden in Asia"-- with its monuments and stray dogs and surreptitious snoggers in the trees. Or you sat with me in Khan Market: At the cafe where I did my writing (and where I am composing this letter, a recently-emptied coconut my only company), or at the restaurant where I had lunch so often, the staff committed my order to memory. They even rewarded my dedication by giving me a sweater as a gift, remember that?

You also kept me busy by visiting famous monuments like Humayun's Tomb, where I underestimated the amount of time I should spend there; or Iskcon Temple, where some new friends bought me a tome of a biography on Krishna; or Old Delhi, with its used book market and pickpockets and the impossibly long line to get into Red Fort and the ridiculous prices to watch one's shoes outside of the Jama Masjid mosque (all well worth the "Foreigner's Entry Fees"); and The Nizamuddin Darga, with its Sufi devotional singing and wishgranting string. 

From markets to monuments, temples and museums, I've enjoyed all of these places (and have the selfies to prove it).

Oh, and the wedding I was invited to, along the white sand beaches and smoggy sunsets in Goa. Remember that? The panicked shopping for appropriate Indian attire and wild goose chase for kurta buttons? Or when I was swept into the Bollywood-style dance rehearsals shortly after arriving, and declared "an Indian in his past life" due to my enthusiastic participation, and was consequently rechristened by the family as "Teddinder"? Or the Mendhi and all its colors and drumming and dancing? Or the Sangeet, with the dancing and Indian food buffet and open bar and more dancing? Or the Wedding, with the the groom leading a procession of friends and musicians on a white horse, a bonfire on the shore overlooking the sunset during the ceremony, and the afterparty that lasted until the wee small hours of the morning, the DJ declaring that I was "from Mars, man; out of this world!" and "The Superman from Minnesota"?

Photo courtesy of Sophiyaa N. via Facebook

 

Remember how that family later invited me to join them for the quiet celebration of Lohri, treating me to gol gappa, sesame, peanut, and biryani over a bonfire, with singing and good conversation that lasted well into the evening?

 

Yes, we've had some good times, haven't we? You've certainly kept me busy; one could say too busy to update a blog (cough, cough Give me a break, it's been a busy three months cough, cough Well, that, and I have the attention span of a potato cough, cough Man, it is really smoggy cough, cough here today).

I'll miss your confidence and how you wore your heart on your sleeve with pride, never afraid to show me your best and your worst in the same few minutes; and how you appreciated my mustache, a talisman against outrageous rickshaw prices and testament to our time together. In many ways, I think our time together helped me grow too. The transparency, busyness, and rhythm of Delhi forced me to get out of my head and to be present wherever I was; to own my place in this crazy, beautiful city and appreciate it. 

Through the contradictions and inconsistences, funky smells and pushy strangers, we had a great time these past three months and forged them into something unforgettable. Now, slowly but slowly (as is my habit), I am preparing for my next step to Ghana...

Oh, I'm going to be seeing Ghana now. I hope that isn't weird. 

And no, it isn't a rebound. 

Anyway, I hope we can stay close, and next time I'm in the area I'll try and pay a visit, if it's okay with you. 

Platonically yours,

Teddinder

~To Be Procrastinued~