There's Beauty in Fear

by JJ Sandler (Canada)

A leap into the unknown Ghana

We often find ourselves gripped by fear when venturing outside of our comfort zone. It’s unfamiliar, it’s uncomfortable, it’s unexpected. When I was in university, fate presented me with an opportunity to leap way outside my comfort zone when my professor invited me on a university sanctioned trip to Ghana. My immediate reaction was, “Heck yeah” (insert more gratuitous profanity, I know I did) and why not? What did I have to lose? A lot, but that’s a different story. I had six months to prepare, and later learned I would be travelling with eighteen total strangers -- a challenge in its own right. My first stop was the travel clinic. I had to find out what illnesses I could contract. It wasn't an overly exhaustive list but included some of nature’s greatest hits; yellow fever, typhoid, and malaria. A mosquito net here, an info session there, and a stuffy twenty-two hours of flying with three connections, then BAM!!! Ghana. When we landed, I shuffled along in line to exit the plane. I reached the opening of the aircraft, and was smacked in the face by the humidity emanating from my final destination; it was then and there that I realized this was real. Officially, I was in Ghana to learn about Chieftaincy Disputes, a complex topic I was wholly unqualified to talk about. Over the course of six weeks, I heard stories of how some disputes cost lives, while others were relatively civil with their own unique quirks, like the Town of Two Names. I learned that an audience with a Chief was a cost prohibitive privilege, and a lot of disputes were driven by ego, and a historical sense of vengeance rather than civil politics. Prior to landing in Ghana, I had only experienced life from one perspective- narrow, privileged, and passive aggressively oppressive sums it up well. I checked off all the white male stereotypes. White Saviour? You betcha. Just ask the three children whose uniforms and school supplies my friends and I purchased; Bro - drinking excessively and acting both inappropriate and oblivious in every situation; Naive White Guy - the glare off my skin will protect me from the danger I willingly put myself in; Local Cuisine Critique - guinea fowl in peanut soup with fufu (a dough ball of starch) is still an absolute favourite; Try Anything Guy - crocodiles are heavy and this was by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done (given my totally valid fear of crocodiles) and whatever other trope you can come up with for a twenty-something white guy from the west. My willingness to leap was a double-edged sword. The risk - especially for western (Canadian, U.S., European Union) travellers - is that you can get yourself into very dangerous situations just by being there. We are a product of our colonial predecessors, and some of the people in places we travel to, will use that as justification to take advantage of us, harm us, or worse. This is the fear that prevents us from taking trips to parts unknown because we don't know if we are going to be safe. This fear is crippling, terrifying and paralyzing, then we miss out on opportunities that can exponentially enhance our lives. And that's the other edge; experiences that dramatically alter who we are as people because we took the chance to face our fears and leave the comforts of home where they belong, at home. This world, with its vast beauty and cultures can hardly be deconstructed into us and them. If it were, and I had embraced familiarity over the unknown, I never would have watched the 2008 Champion's League Final, with more than one hundred exuberant Ghanaians, in the backyard of a compound, crowded around a 32-inch television with spotty reception. I would have never started a chant, cementing instant friendships, watching the Black Stars qualify for the World Cup. I would have never met and mingled with beautiful people, so open to sharing their lives and hospitality with me. That was the gift I was given when I decided to leap into the unknown, and embrace the uncertainty it would bring.