So here I am on my last day in Ghana and I'm surprisingly bummed about it.
I was just starting to get an appreciation for the place and now off I go. I'm filled with bourgeois self-loathing, too, because I've spent the night in a nice hotel with a bathtub, hot water, and a/c, and which cost me a relative fortune when compared to the average of $5 a night I've been spending for lodging for the rest of my time here. M.D., who came by to enjoy the AC and unrestricted access to CNN, adjudged the place "luxurious," which made me feel like a jerk because it seems pretty basic to me. Then I was washing all my laundry in the tub and he cracked that I'd just doubled the hot water bill of the entire nation of Ghana. A joke, sure, but something to think about. I wonder what he'd say if he knew how much I use back home...
When I think of how he and 95% of the people in West Africa live, I can't help but look at my own lifestyle with a little dismay. It's not that I never knew that people go without things I take for granted, but to see it and live it for a while (showers out of a bucket, for example), it gives a person a whole new sense of perspective. I'm filled with a profound sadness as I turn my back on this place to continue my trip and blow a street vendor's lifetime earnings on five months of self-indulgence.
On a totally unrelated note, I have decided that the reason I've been sick since I got here is not, in fact, a reaction to stress or local germs. I think it's my malaria pills. It's not horrible enough to skip them, but it looks like it'll be a long 5 months of a constant low level of queasiness. On the up side, not being hungry keeps my food budget down, so maybe it's not a bad thing...and maybe when I get back those jeans that "must have shrunk in the wash" will fit again...
I was just starting to get an appreciation for the place and now off I go. I'm filled with bourgeois self-loathing, too, because I've spent the night in a nice hotel with a bathtub, hot water, and a/c, and which cost me a relative fortune when compared to the average of $5 a night I've been spending for lodging for the rest of my time here. M.D., who came by to enjoy the AC and unrestricted access to CNN, adjudged the place "luxurious," which made me feel like a jerk because it seems pretty basic to me. Then I was washing all my laundry in the tub and he cracked that I'd just doubled the hot water bill of the entire nation of Ghana. A joke, sure, but something to think about. I wonder what he'd say if he knew how much I use back home...
When I think of how he and 95% of the people in West Africa live, I can't help but look at my own lifestyle with a little dismay. It's not that I never knew that people go without things I take for granted, but to see it and live it for a while (showers out of a bucket, for example), it gives a person a whole new sense of perspective. I'm filled with a profound sadness as I turn my back on this place to continue my trip and blow a street vendor's lifetime earnings on five months of self-indulgence.
On a totally unrelated note, I have decided that the reason I've been sick since I got here is not, in fact, a reaction to stress or local germs. I think it's my malaria pills. It's not horrible enough to skip them, but it looks like it'll be a long 5 months of a constant low level of queasiness. On the up side, not being hungry keeps my food budget down, so maybe it's not a bad thing...and maybe when I get back those jeans that "must have shrunk in the wash" will fit again...
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