Good Life: The Road to Africa

Wow. Well I just found this video, and if I wasn't excited enough for my adventure in Ghana already.... I feel so blessed to be spending six weeks immersed in a new culture making new friends and learning things I didn't even know were there for me to learn. And hopefully I'll be doing some good as well. At Christmas time I would have never guessed that in five months I would be heading to Africa, but it's happening, and though it's cliched, everything about getting to this point just feels so "meant to be."

My road to Africa seems so RANDOM! But I guess if I had to trace back to when the seeds were planted, it would be the summer of 2010. The summer of 2010 was a toughie. Toughy? (This is why we don't use fake words.) Not fun in many ways. But that not-funness (also not a word) just happened (and by just happened I believe it was "meant to be" aka I was blessed) to coincide with the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Now I've been into the World Cup in the past, but kind of sporadically. I remember one summer when my mom would wake us up early, early in the morning to watch the matches, and we would get so into it. But I also remember other summers where I just didn't pay much attention to it. I do remember watching part of the epic USA-Spain upset in 2009, but I hardly knew who a single player was at the time. I think Carlos Bocanegra and Landon Donovan were the only ones on my radar at the time.

I can't really pinpoint a specific moment that explains why I became so invested in the 2010 Cup, but I was ALL IN. I do remember sitting at the doctor's office either right before the Cup or just as it was starting and reading an article in ESPN Magazine or Sports Illustrated or something. The article was about "The Americans," and I started reading up on the players. I remember clearly reading Tim Howard's profile. "Tim Howard, starting goalkeeper for the USMNT, has Tourette's Syndrome," I read. (After the 2010 Cup I found this interview he did with 60 Minutes that I really like. Note: It's dated. He doesn't play for Manchester United anymore. Everton Blues, baby! And, the caption says Tom Howard, not Tim Howard, which is an OUTRAGE. But whatever.) Anyways, it's hard to describe why this magazine article moved me so much, but I immediately was a fan. It was a really poignant moment for me - what with all the not-funness happening in my life at the time - to read about someone facing such a large hurdle in life and utterly thriving anyways. It actually makes me emotional remembering it. It really was a powerful moment for me. Tim Howard became, and remains, one of my greatest inspirations (I mean just look at the top of my blog) ;).

So I became enthralled (again, Tim Howard wasn't the only reason), and I watched faithfully. I'm not going to sugarcoat it - I had NO LIFE that summer. When I say I watched every match, I mean I watched EVERY MATCH. And I would be, and maybe should be embarrassed by that, but it was amazing, and I'm telling you, though it probably doesn't seem like it right now, it all helped lead up to where I am today. So yes, I remember waking up at 6 or 7 am each day and running on the treadmill while I watched a match. I would then go upstairs (I remember sometimes I colored in this giant coloring book - I don't even know....) and continue to watch the matches. Besides the matches, I loved the human interest stories (well duh, I mean the whole Tim Howard thing). But not just the ones about him - the stories about South Africa, about what it meant for that nation to be hosting the World Cup, about the journeys of the other nations. I ate it up. And witnessing that kind of unity both on and off the field I think may have ignited the "spark." I even had the thought, "Maybe I'll go to Africa some day. I think I would really enjoy that." This was very preliminary - by the time I was at school in the fall, I had not forgotten my passion for futbol, but serious consideration of going to Africa was not at the forefront of my mind.

Next step in the journey: Oh! I do have to give a shout-out to the official 2010 World Cup album "Listen Up!" as well. Huge inspiration for me as well. "Sign of a Victory" has been my favorite song ever created since that time (hint hint: blog title). And "One Day," "Hope," "Shosholoza." Man, those really powered me through some tough days. And they make for an excellent workout playlist. (Also, I have to say that Waka Waka was probably my least favorite song on that album and the only one anybody else knew. Sad day.) Ok, but the next step in the journey. So I'm a political science major. I knew I would be coming into college. I just loved it. Everything about it. I happen to be obsessed with America, so that played a big part. But yes, I love the government (have you ever heard that sentence before in the history of ever?). So I have been studying American government and politics since I came to BYU. (Funny enough, looking back at my college career, my favorite course was probably Comparative Politics that I took freshman year, and yet I have been a stone-cold Americanist for most of my college career.)

This started to change (not my love for America, just my emphasis in my major), in the fall of 2012, when I was TAing for a polisci class some students refer to as PlSc 666. Well guess what, TAing it may just have been worse than taking it. But anyways, at the beginning of the lecture the professor just made a casual announcement about an event on campus. We get those kind of announcements all the time. The event was a screening of the PBS documentary "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Well I had never heard of that before, but it sounded interesting enough. After class I looked up the trailer. I was sold.

The event was like the next day or something, and it was a two-night showing. (The documentary is four hours long so it was split up between the two nights - a Wednesday and a Thursday I believe.) *I would just like to take this moment to acknowledge that I am fully aware of how many parentheses I'm using. I don't know why it's happening, but just go with it.* So I tried to get a few people to come with me but everyone was busy so I just went to check it out. THERE ARE NO WORDS. That documentary is so near and dear to my heart, I can't even tell you. Wow. People go through so many hard things. Much of my not-funness from the summer of 2010 had improved significantly by this time, but it certainly wasn't forgotten. And it all hit me like a ton of bricks (though maybe that's a bad analogy because it definitely hit me in a inspirational way): people have hard lives. Life is hard. It is so, so hard. Many of the things discussed in the documentary were things I had never even heard of. The sufferings that occur around the world, there really are just no words. And I found myself in a situation similar, but also obviously different in many ways, from the experience I had in the doctor's office waiting room during the World Cup. I saw all of these amazing women going through their own personal hell and thriving anyways. I was inspired, again.

At the end of both nights of the event, some speakers addressed the audience informally to provide a few thoughts and then discuss ways to get involved. A member of the audience actually raised their hand and mentioned a new program that was being launched involving tutoring children in Africa via Skype. Well hello?! What could be an easier way to get involved than in my pajamas on my couch? (And yes, I do tutor my student in my pajamas, but only because we meet at 7 am on Sundays, okay?!) The audience member simply provided an email address of someone we could get in touch with if we were interested. I decided I was interested and I emailed. The program was just getting started up, as I said, so at the time they didn't have any work for me to do. They said they would be in touch. That was the end of that for a while.

Next step: That exact weekend of the week I went to the "Half the Sky" event "just happened" (wink-wink) to be General Conference weekend. And Elder Dallin H. Oaks "just happened" to give a talk titled "Protect the Children."

Whoa. At this point I was like, "Ok, I think I'm getting this message loud and clear." It was an amazing talk. My favorite of the conference and one of my favorites ever. How applicable it was to everything my eyes had just been opened wide to at the "Half the Sky" showing. I wanted to serve. I felt it so strongly. (I failed to mention earlier, but my not-funness in 2010 had planted a desire to serve within me, which has made me extremely grateful for the not-funness I went through. So basically, I'm saying that the not-forgotten not-funness was fueling my motivations to do something about these injustices I was hearing about. And here was an apostle of the Lord telling me to do it!) It was powerful stuff.

Next step: My memory might be a little fuzzy on this, but I believe it was at the previous General Conference or at Music and the Spoken Word or something that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang "Consider the Lilies." I'd heard that song before, but I remember just loving it when I heard the choir sing it. I don't remember how it came up, but I remembered that moment or something? and either in that moment or afterwards thinking about it I noticed a lyric that I had never noticed before: "Consider the sweet tender children, who must suffer on the earth." And again, it was like this blaring message: There are children suffering on this earth. In unspeakable ways. Now the song may be speaking of all of humankind as children of God, but in that moment I was thinking specifically of the innocent little children I'd been learning about. The starving children Elder Oaks mentioned. The abused little girls in "Half the Sky." The very next line of the song says, "The pains of all of them He carried, from the day of His birth." 

What an important reminder that is, that in the next life all of these sufferings will be gone because of Christ's Atonement. But that these children were suffering so in this mortal existence was not lost on me, and I, having experienced mere not-funness and despising it with all of my being, knew the blessings of having those mortal challenges relieved in mortality. And while this relief simply will not happen for everyone in this life, there are certainly ways I can help to make it happen for at least some individuals. So again, another powerful reminder, and the song has been one of my favorites ever since.

So all of this happened in the fall of 2012. I then went home for Christmas and headed to D.C. immediately after. I was in love with the city and the work I was doing there - very American politics-heavy - so it was kind of a hiatus from all of this newfound passion I was developing. Still there, just a little more laid back. A ways into D.C., I did start thinking about "Half the Sky" again, and somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to organize another showing for when I returned to BYU campus in the fall of 2013. I applied to be a Half the Sky Campus Ambassador via the Half the Sky Movement's website and was accepted. I had signed up for classes for the coming fall already, which were noticeably more international politics-centered than in previous semesters - I was taking Human Rights and International Political Economy of Women, among others. I really had no idea where to get started in organizing this, but I noticed that both my Human Rights and IPEW classes required "Half the Sky" (the book) as a course text. So I decided to take a shot in the dark and emailed my IPEW professor, whom I had never met, explaining my experience with the showing the previous fall and my desire to replicate the experience. I wanted even more people to see the film and hoped that some of them could be affected in the way I was. My IPEW professor was fabulous and immediately got me in touch with all of the right people. I won't go into all of the details, but it ended up being even more work than I had anticipated. We organized student panels to explain ways to get involved (turns out there are lots of amazing students here at BYU who have cared about this stuff for a lot longer than I have and have done something about it), as well as faculty speakers and department sponsorships for the event. So I was organizing all of these things throughout the summer and into the fall. The event was in October. And it was so wonderful! Dear friends came just to support me, and all of the speakers and panelists did an excellent job. And people showed interest in getting involved, which was the most important part for me. It was a great experience. (Oh! I just remembered that a bunch of us in D.C. did go to see "Girl Rising" at GW together. I think that may have helped trigger my motivation for having another "Half the Sky" event at BYU.) 

Oh! Also, (this is all very stream-of-consciousness) the August after D.C., which I spent in Indiana, and right before returning to BYU, after a series of "it doesn't look like it's going to work out" events, I was finally assigned a student to tutor over Skype! I was so excited! Buuuuut the first time we tried it, the video didn't work, and I was mortified. I saw all of this crashing down before it even began. But, alas! We discovered that Google Hangout worked just dandy. So I have been tutoring my friend since August of 2013 and am loving every second. 

Something I've noted along the way as well: Twice I've woken up to tutor the little girl and she hasn't shown up. Why? The power was out on her end. Isn't that crazy to think about? "Oh I guess I won't have my lesson today because the power is out. No big deal. It happens all the time." We are blessed.  

Ok but back to the "Half the Sky" showing we put on. That all was last semester. Also, last semester, maybe a little before, I had started considering the Peace Corps. In the past all I knew about the Peace Corps is that it was stereotyped as a "hippy hangout." But now after all of these experiences I'd had, that got me pretty riled up. "People want to serve others! Let's make fun of them!" Haha I went a little crazy. My parents helped bring me back down to earth, very supportive of my new goals, and of the Peace Corps, but encouraging me to try this kind of work out for a couple of months before committing to two full years. Okay, that made sense. But I didn't know where those "couple of months" would ever come from. 

Fast-forward to Christmas. There were some delays getting out of Utah for lots of people on the way home for Christmas, but we luckily had no problems. Coming back was a different story. We knew the storm was coming, and we knew it was a biggie. My sister and I had been booked on the flight back to Utah on the Sunday of the first week of school for months. But now over break it was looking like that was when the storm was going to hit. Well the Colts ended up making it to the playoffs and were playing one of the Saturday games. Needless to say my family jumped on that opportunity. My dad bought tickets so we could see the Colts take on the Chiefs, but as game day approached we started getting nervous. Should we change our flight to Saturday night, the night of the game, to be sure we got out and didn't miss the first week of school? HECK. NO. Brooke and I WERE NOT missing that game. The first week of school and all it's "let's read the syllabus together" glory could wait. Well, by halftime, I was convinced we'd made a mistake. Not only were we going to get stuck in Indy, but the Colts were going to get KILLED. Even at the start of the third when Luck threw an interception, I was just sure we were in trouble. And then..... THE GREATEST COMEBACK EVER!!!!! Pure joy. Have I ever been so ecstatic? My dad and I were jumping around like maniacs, and the two drunk old men in front of us high-fived us after literally every play. Literally. It was fantastic. So we ended up thrilled we didn't skip the game, and we didn't depart from Indy until 1:30 AM on Wednesday. It was totally worth it.

This all seems completely irrelevant, but in fact it is not. So missing the first day of classes meant I had to email all my professors to see what I'd missed. All of them said not to worry about it. Except for one. My Global Issues of Children at Risk professor requested that I come into her office to get caught up. I finally was able to do so on Thursday of that week. At the end of the conversation, she briefly mentioned that she was doing research in Ghana this spring. I told her I thought that was interesting and I'd actually been really interested in doing something like that. Well that made her excited so she told me more. I indulged her, not thinking I would actually end up going because I'm about to graduate and need a job. 

After a few classes, this professor emailed me about my interest in the program. I was leaning towards not going for various reasons; it was whatever. I don't want to get into a lot of details, but basically, eventually I was offered a research position. I, along with one other student, will be paid to lead a team in researching the child welfare system in Ghana. Now I want to do this work whether I am paid or not, but as a poor college student about to graduate, I was thinking the time for this kind of work would have to come later, when I could afford to go and had stabilized my life a bit more. But then this job came up. And it is a miracle. A blessing. I really feel like I am "meant to go." Everything just kind of fell into place.

Now along this whole journey I have been naive at times. At some points along the way I was convinced I was going to save the world. That I would travel to Africa and somehow be "saving" the people there. My eyes were opened to the harsh realities of this mindset. I came to learn that often times this mentality has led a lot of philanthropists to do much more harm than good. Additionally, it's condescending. It's assuming that I have all the answers and other cultures just need to be caught up. As if they aren't intelligent and running their lives in different but valid ways. This reality kind of freaked me out. For awhile I worried that my passion had been destroyed. I later learned that was not the case. Instead, I just needed to do my research. I needed to be picky and really look at what I can do to actually make a difference without being condescending or ethnocentric or harmful. And I am convinced that this opportunity I now have to go to Ghana is achieving this goal. I am convinced that I can do real, tangible good working with this NGO and that I will come away learning so much more from everyone I meet than I could ever teach them. The following video shows a volunteer for the NGO we will be working with discussing the work the NGO does. This girl isn't the greatest public speaker, but I think she does a good job of explaining how we have to be careful in how we approach philanthropy but that when we take the right approach, we really can create positive results.

So here we now are. It's been a crazy journey. Even four years ago when it all kind of began, I never would have thought I would be heading to Ghana. But here I go. And I'm so excited. I'm so excited to learn, to grow as a person, to experience a new culture, to see outside of myself, to make a difference, to have fun! The road to Africa was one I never anticipated. But it's been the result of a good life - as in a blessed life - and it's leading to that result as well.

So let's watch Alex Boye in Ghana singing about the goodness of life one more time. Because I love this video. I love it. 

Oh and also, fun side-note. I met Tim Howard while I was in the District. MEANT TO BE.

Side-note to the side-note: I'll be in Ghana during the USA-Ghana match of the 2014 World Cup, the first match for both teams. Miracles? Miracles.