Page 10 - Obruni In Ghana | Amber Lockridge

8 EPISODE 1: TAKE IT UP
“Bo ko”, I respond and everyone within audible range erupts in cheers and chatter at my pitiful meager grasp of their native language. The family bombards me with a hail of cacophonous Fante until my complete lack of understanding becomes clear and they switch to English. I laugh with them at my own bewilderment then take a seat on a bench next to my friend.
I reflect upon my past two weeks as the noise of this family and its culture swirl around me. Did I have any idea what I was in for when I registered to spend a year in Ghana as an exchange student? I thought so then, now I am far less sure. I’ll admit I imagined huts, perhaps smiling natives and ritualistic body paint. The kind on thing an 18-year- old inhabitant of American suburbia might watch on a Nature documentary. Instead I live in the upper level of a modestly sized, if poor, concrete house. There is a gas stove and a refrigerator, even a veranda where I often sit to look out over the city.
Amidst these concessions of “civilized” life, however, nothing is as I imagined it. Sitting on my