Disastrous African Night

Last night was African Cultural Night (Ghana) and I went there with Melissa, who was born in Burkina Faso, and Aurelia.

At first things went all right. Everyone had dinner and the President of the African Association (I think) gave a presentation on Ghana's history, albeit with an overload of bullet points and little visuals. The video of a Ghanaian marriage didn't work so oh well.

Eunice was born in Ghana but she has been living in the UK since she was a small girl. I can't remember where the guy is from.

Melissa, always making me laugh

But then this Americanized African-born girl took to the podium and started showing us a slideshow of pictures of her stay in Ghana as part of an exchange program. Instead of pictures of Ghana's people or cultural traditions or historical relics, I was sitting there staring at picture after picture of that girl in bikinis and her friends having the time of their lives on a beautiful beach, partying, lying on hammocks and canoeing for leisure. Granted, there were pictures of Ghanaians living their everyday lives, but those were easily outnumbered by the girl's personal pictures.

Compared to the first speaker, this girl was twice as loud, twice as animated and twice as fake. She was going on and on about how living in Ghana had touched her and made her a different person and how she had broken down when she visited what used to be a slave's quarter, where many Ghanaians were killed.

I couldn't really stomach all that so I asked her during the Q&A session whether she really thinks that she had immersed herself in the Ghanaian culture, and she oh-so-confidently flashed her smile and said "yes".

Then I said, but most of the pictures and the video I see are of her and her friends having fun in a resort-like place. She said that the beach was so peaceful, where there were only her and her friends, except for some people who kept asking them for money. And she said it with this disdainful expression and a quick wave of her hand, like brushing off an insignificant fly-like topic. Had she actually asked these people why they needed money? Had she actually spent time with ordinary Ghanaians? Had she actually tried to understand their lives?

In retaliation, she said that she did spend time with the Ghanaians and yada yada at that point in time she had lost all credibility to me and her attempt at self-defense just made her all the more fake. After the whole thing the President of the African Association came to talk to me and she said she agreed with what I said. I was really quite pissed and I just told her what I really thought.

I went there wanting to learn about African history and culture, I want to to know more about the people there, how they live, how they cope with their poverty. If I really want to see pictures of a bunch of college students playing with coconuts or sun-tanning on a beach, I don't have to come all the way there. I can just ask my friends back in Laws to show me their pictures. For crying out loud, don't call the whole thing African Cultural Night then, call it My Vacation to Ghana. That girl didn't just show a form of disrespect to her audience, she also showed disrespect to the people of Ghana. Eunice left halfway through the presentation and I can understand why.

African food. Stew and curry and fish soup.

I thought that the only saving grace that night was the delicious African food. But the next day I got diarrhoea and my stomach was queasy for the entire day. I thought it was only me until I learned that Melissa and Eunice also had stomachaches. Aurelia surprisingly was not affected. Maybe she has an iron stomach.

So that's it, the African Night was a disaster.