///MinorityReport//

It is pretty easy to be repetitive when blogging on a trip about how "I did this today" or "I saw this" which to an extent is what a blog is useful for, a way to update and communicate with my world. But that's too easy. Nobody wants to read what I'm doing they want to read what I am experiencing.
After I was accepted in to this program in February we met every Friday for two hours preparing and discussing what we were to encounter during our 6 weeks here. If I didn't attend these weekly meetings I would have had to leave once I got here (which someone from our group has done already). But nothing you can read or talk about in Eugene, Oregon can prepare you mentally for what you're going to see or do 6,000 miles away from your comfort zone. I've seen people defecating in the street, a slum literally relocated because its pollution was causing the water purification process of the city to fail. When i was walking to work on my first day it was pouring rain and I was lost and couldnt find my office. Then I passed a man who was shivering, being poured on naked in the middle of the road. All my frustration turned to sympathy. It just makes you know that no matter how bad you have it one day, someone has it worse. I'm not trying to compare my directional mishap to this man's poverty because in no wya do they connect, however it put everything in perspective for me. These people work twice as hard to have half of what we have.
But then comes the dilemna. What are you gunna do about it? Someone in our group who works for a newspaper was put on an assignment to cover child prostitution and she was put out to follow a reporter tracking this story who had all these encounters with 10-11 year old girls begging for money and sex. She was shook. Obviously that will have quite the effect but I think it was less due to her not being able to handle the situation than her wanting to take these girls back and show them a different life. These children were doomed from the beginning and as sad as it is, they will be next to nothing for their entire lives becasue of their lack of education and physical abuse. So what are you gunna do? Everytime someone comes up to you are you going to give them change in hopes that that becomes the start to their fortune? Or does that just prove that they can get money when they need it from the Obruni by begging?
It is somehting I can avoid in the U.S.....but not here, no chance. It the U.S. I am generally unsympathetic to the homeless unless they happen to have a physical or mental disablement, because if you really wanted to, you could get a job. I'm not gunna donate money so you can get a 40oz., I'll get myself a 40 thanks. But here in Ghana the poor don't drink alcohol, they can't,and any money you give them will make a difference in that person's week or month. So is it my social responsibility to flip a 20 cent piece to someone if I have it on me? You can see the hopelessness in their eyes...but I still don't know.
But then who am I to say, if this person is not a begger, that they want me to pity them. There are many very poor and homeless people who are too busy to give a fuck what I think and for me to judge them. But i have definitely put in perspective that the richest can make the poorest moral decision and vice versa. These are good poeple they are jsut misunderstood. Just because they don't an ipod or new kicks doesn't mean you are better than them, or anyone for that matter. Ghanainas are simple but full of life. Yes it sucks to have to be on all the time and always listening or observing but I think I am just surprised thatI'm surprised. It's really not that different. I think I was going in to the situation like I was going here to save something, as a humanitarian doing something to become cultured and bring back stories, as a wiser adult comming in to the real world. But its not like that anymore. I've stopped being the tourist. I eat the food, take the public transportation, interact,conversate, bargain, and argue just like I am one of them. Whether they think so or not remains to be seen haha but it really doesn't matter. I'm trying. This is what subconsciously I was looking for out of this trip. Where, if i really engage this, they will really engage me, and I think they finally have. It is not about comming home and sharing my knowledge or somehting cliche (well maybe a little) but it is about living in the moment [shout out to Paul] now and being thankful for what you have. But I don't think this in unbearable my any means. I mean, if you were born into somehting like this and its all you know, you make every day better the best way you can. These people didnt do this to themselves, they inherited it.
I guess I'll have to take a picture to make it last longer.


we forget the unfortunate
sure i ponied up a bill, but i didnt give my time
so in reality I didnt give a dime, or a damn
i just put my monies in the hands of the same people that left these people stranded
nothin' but a bandit
left them folks abandoned
damn, that money that we gave was just a band aid
can't say we better off then then we were before
in synopsis, this is my minority report.

- JAY-Z