A Step Towards the Rainbow

The Beginning: Photo Above: Me, Amy Hicks and Katie Pickle showing off a night's worth of making colorful braclets for future Ghanaian friends. 

I am beginning this blog journey in no better setting than the present. I will be traveling to Ghana Africa in approximately 3 days to begin a field studies program with my dear college, The University of Alabama. I am more excited, inspired, and driven now than ever before in my whole life! While on this journey, my mission is to engulf myself with the Ghanaian culture in order to understand and appreciate the vastly diverse world that we live in today. As for myself, this is something that for the longest time I was very afraid of. Why afraid you wonder? Well, in living in a very small town for my entire life I was not exactly exposed to much of a diverse surrounding of people and backgrounds. As much as I adore my hometown and raising, it did not necessarily prepare me for the huge world surrounding my comfort zone. This aspect made the beginning of my college experience quite the job! As of my first freshman day of college, I had never had an educational class with an African American throughout the entire history of my education, 13 years. I understood the lack of diversity surrounding my life and knew that it was my job to defeat it. In my eyes, diversity was just the medicine I needed to end my battle with a closed, confidence hungry mind and the key to unlock my hopes of finding my individual place in the massive world that I had not even begun to observe and understand. Just that... happened. Two years in to this journey of understanding, I found myself staring at the study abroad table in the Student Center on campus after an incredibly tempting call to recieve a free t-shirt at the booth. Free t-shirt? I'm THERE! So in looking at this goofy t-shirt with a dancing elephant on a globe, I began to glance at the programs offered through UA's study abroad program. I looked with only dreams, because I understood the financial responsibility of such a program. Never with a hint of reality. I became entranced with a program entitled: Ghana: Field Studies in Africa and found myself leaving my friend Katie Pickle to study alone for an hour and a half. Something felt right. Really right. After class I literally ran to financial aid to recieve my status on additional funding and to my surprise, I had one week earlier been awarded a $1,300 grant in Federal Student Aid's response to my increasing academic standards. FATE- my word for that entire week. I signed up for Ghana: Field Studies in Africa, just a week later. The word approached me again this week as my travel date to Ghana sped upon me and obstacle after obstacle was in my way. In addition to the normal problems of travel, I was informed by my study abroad Professor, Dr. Appiah Opoku's wife (a born and raised citizen of Ghana) that her mother had began a school for struggling children in Ghana and was in desperate need for supplies. Mrs.Opoku stated that she had the supplies packed and ready but lacked the funding to send it to Ghana, making the supplies waste away in her closet. Little did I know that in the meanwhile my wonderful family from The Retreat at Lake Tamaha (where I am currently completing my marketing internship) was planning me a going away celebration with a surprise travel gift of $500. Little did they know they were going to be the helping hands Mrs. Opoku so desperately needed to finally send her mother's school supplies. I sit today in a room filled with supplies, a heart filled with warmth and the thought of my journey across the world in just 3 simple days. Three days separates me from my first big girl step into that unknown world of diversity that I so strongly crave. Overwhelmed. Anxious. Loved. Until next time, Life is Love