Tell me about your off-term.
Last spring, I went to Ghana and I worked for the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance in the Budget Implementation Support Team. Our job was to make sure the different ministries were trying to implement goals and plans published in their yearly budgets and broad goals. I got to intersect with people in different ministries, sit in on meetings, take minutes.
So it was more of a job than a foreign exchange program?
It was an internship. Unpaid, although I received some funding through the Dickey Center.
I assume your coworkers spoke English?
They do speak English and lots of tribal languages. In the capital [Accra], where I worked, most of the people know one of the main tribal languages. But they go back and forth between that and English.
Were you one of many foreign interns?
I was the only foreigner in the Ministry of Finance, and I didn't go through any program with Dartmouth. Ministry of Finance -- so are you an econ major?
I'm a government major, so it was really good to see the inner working of a government, especially of a government that's trying improve.
Where did you live?
I know someone who has a distant family member there and I rented a room in her house.
How did you even come up with this idea for an off-term?
I went to Ghana in high school, where we refurbished computers and did a project with the Ghanaian Ministry of Education, so I had some contacts from that. I just randomly sent a letter and resum, and months later they get back to me and were like, "Sure".
How long were you there?
A little over two months.
And you worked like 9 to 5?
7:30 to 5, and the commute home was an hour and half to two hours each way, too, because Accra is a huge sprawling city and I had to walk to take public transportation, these minibuses. So by the time I got home it was like 7 p.m., and I had to leave for work in the morning at 5:45 or 6 a.m.
Did you travel while you were in Ghana?
At the end I traveled a little. For the last week I went to this mango farm that rents out rooms on a lake. In hindsight, maybe it wasn't that safe to head out on my own. The bus system is a little hard to navigate and when I was standing on the side of the road waiting for and hoping a bus would come, I realized that maybe it wasn't the best idea.
What did you eat in Ghana?
Well, yams, yams mashed into doughy balls that are slightly fermented, bread. They eat of lot of fish because it's coastal, so lots of dried fish that they make into stews. And meat stews. The most interesting thing I had was a stew that had a giant snail literally this big [makes a circle by bracing the fingers of both hands]. They're like land snails that live in swamp areas. I ate part of it, but I couldn't finish it.
What's that taste like?
It was kind of bland, but the texture was really hard and rubbery.
Do you have any anecdotes from your experience?
I'm hesitant to tell stories that objectify it as very foreign because the thing that's striking is that it's both familiar and exotic. For example, during Easter -- it's a big deal there because Ghana is a very Christian country -- my coworkers and I had a party at one of their houses and we made fu fu with a giant mortar pestle, which is when you mash powdered yams into a really sticky consistency and make it into balls. We also had goat stew where the tail was literally floating in the stew. I noticed that my co-worker's house was nice, but it didn't have glass windows -- most houses don't. So in some ways you would view this as foreign and kind of poor, but at the same time, the radio was playing Michael Jackson and my coworkers all got out their cell phones -- which were nicer than mine -- and started taking pictures on their camera phones, and were talking about the news that they had seen earlier on CNN.
So they had TVs but not windows?
Yeah, so it's a really interesting mixture, just this combination of things you would associate with America and things you would never see here.
Would you want to work in Ghana after you graduate?
I don't know if I want to specifically go back to Ghana, but I am interested in working in Africa somewhere. I'm also interested in law school, but that would take me on a completely different path.
Any last thoughts?
I don't want this to come off as like 'Ghana is this exotic place' because I think it's important that we understand that it's not a completely different world. I mean, I had to iron my shirts for work. I'd walk through the streets for work in heels where there was garbage and people had probably peed, but we still had to get dressed up.
