Journey to the center of my soul

I'm going to Africa in July. I've never been, and I don't know what to expect; but, I'm going and so I am excited. My friends who are/were in the army and who went over seas keep trying to scare me. They tell me about all the shots you have to get, and the big spiders that live over there. It's amusing to them because I'm gullable, and afraid of large insects. It's all done in fun, and for me, those are not the biggest issues on my mind. No, the issues plaguing me are more esoteric in nature. Will I find what I'm looking for in the plains of Africa?

The trip I am taking is for a school research project, and we are going to Ghana, Africa. The research project is basically a collection of interviews that we will be conducting with the Akan people regarding what happened within their family when people were kidnapped and brought to America to serve as slaves. Professor Anokye has aptly titled the project: "Stories from the otherside." "We already know the stories and experiences of the slaves after coming to America," Dr. Anokye tells me, "but what about those left behind."

When this project was first presented to me by Dr. Duku Anokye, I was extremely excited to even be offered a spot on her research team. How lucky was I to be invited on such an important trip? I never thought something like this would ever happen to me. It was a good day to say the least. As the days past, and I told people about the invitation to go to Ghana, and to research with Dr. Anokye, they continuosly asked me why Africa. Why would I want to go there, when my heart had been set on Ireland and England. And, to be honest, the answer always came back to the same root: because I want to know myself.

Growing up, I was "the mixed girl," half black, half white, and always lost inside herself. Making people happy so they would like me better was my goal; if I had to make fun of my self for being the "crazy loud black girl" among my white friends, I did; and, if I had to talk a certain way, and dress a certain way with my black friends, I did. Satisfying the wants of the crowd was easier than satisfying the wants of my personal self. So, I became the person people were comfortable with, spiced up with a little independent self (but not a lot), and that's the person I stayed. Though to be completely honest, I was never 100% comfortable with any crowd, or 100% accepted, among any group of friends. The jokes people make at the expense of their friends are always more telling than people care to admit. Plus, how can other people fully accept you when they don't accept themselves?

Once I reached college and began taking ethnic and women's studies, I realized that there was an anger inside of me that I did not know how to deal with. If you avoid certain topics of study and repsress certain feelings for so long, they begin to feel null and void in your life, until, that is, they hit you in the face and you're forced to face them.

As a child and in high school you are never taught the full and complete histories of minority people in America, and around the world for that matter. Every lesson taught is backed with an Anglo-American, ethnocentric, patriotic thread, and everything outside of that is kind of glossed over. Why teach the hard stuff that might insight questions teachers don't want to, or can't, answer, when we can teach the easy, "America is great, everyone is loved, yeah there were hard times, but those went away quickly," lesson plans? Students are never taught until college the full histories of each culture, or ethnic movements, here in America, except that of the majority. And so, as we mature, we grow less and less equiped to our feeling when presented with authors like August Wilson, Stella Pope Duarte, June Jordan, Jose Angel Gutierez, Alex Haley, and Andrea Dorkin. The whole of my Fall 2009 semester, I would come home from my classes at ASU with a handful of internal questions about myself and who I was as a mixed, liberal, femenist woman, and would externalize these unanswered feelings in an almost aggressive way towards my family and friends. Through research of my own, and outside conversations with empathetic teachers and mentors, I've begun coming to terms with who Rosie actually is on the inside.

However, going back to my original topic for this blog, I feel like going to Africa and researching these slave stories, experiencing the slave castles, and just being immersed in a culture where being "black" is the norm, and where people know their histories for hundreds of years past, will help me gain a steady ground on which to build my own identity. I want to eventually know myself, and to stop searching, for right now I feel I am the eternal wanderer. By visiting the past, I think I will be better prepared for the present and future.