Pleasantly Surprised

It’s hard to remember what exactly I thought about Africa or what I expected a field study to look like before I traveled here. But since I’ve arrived I have felt pleasantly surprised. There have been moments I’ve felt or seen what I expected too, but I have had many surprises! And maybe that’s why I am so pleasantly surprised, because the surprises make this adventure so exciting and rewarding.

I remember telling myself before I came that I shouldn’t have expectations. A good friend told me one of the most common reasons for sadness is unmet expectations: so I decided I wasn’t going to have any expectations. Also, I wanted to remind myself I could always be honest with my feelings and I would go to Africa and I could like it if I wanted to, or I could not like the experience. I just had to go, I had to have the experience and then I could know whether I liked it or not, but in any case I was going to be honest with myself.

Well if you haven’t caught on yet, I love it!!! I like to think it’s because I didn’t set too many expectations for my experience here. I just expected myself to live, be real with myself and others, and work as hard as I could to perform my research and course work and have a cultural experience as well. This attitude has really helped me thus far.

I’d now like to share some of my pleasant African surprises:

• · I got an A + on my Twi assignment last night! I really struggle with Twi and so I’ve been taking lessons from my new brother King and the other day he said something about how I was learning slowly. I was offended because as my teacher he really expects a lot of me and we do not miss lessons often and if we do, o does he take the time to make them up! SO last night I made 11 Twi sentences on my own. I surprised him with it. He looked over it. Then laughed and said someone helped me with the sentences because they were fantastic! I had done much better then he thought I should. I had performed at a higher level then he thought I could. HUZZAH! Success! Let that be a lesson to anyone who wants to call me slow, it makes me work harder. I am grateful for Kings high expectations.
• · I can feel productive and calm even just sitting down and chatting with my new Ghanaian friends and family. I don’t feel a need to “go-go-go” all the time. I can actually relax. Who knew?
• · Ghanaians don’t lie when they call you sister, everyone really is a big family! I find it so easy and normal to call Momma Doris “Ma” and “Momma” she really is my mother here.
• · I have little dance lessons all the time. But not the kind I would have expected in America. I planned to learn Adwa or Kete traditional dances but here I learn a lot of hip-life (popular) dancing. I love it! And I look like a crazy white girl who’s trying too hard, that was something I expected though.
• · I didn’t expect to have so many traditional worshippers to interview or observe. There are at least 5 or 6 shrines in walking distance for me to visit. I was not expecting that at all and I love that they are so accessible and that so many people want to share and teach me about them.

Folklore

I have decided to take English 391 "Introduction to Folklore" while in the field. I will be working with Professor Jacqueline Thursby. She has mentored many students on this course while out in the field and she is very enthusiastic and excited about the subject of folklore. I adore passionate teachers!

After our first meeting she had me read an article on the basics of folklore. I absolutely ate this article up. It was so fascinating. It talked about the differences between myths, legends, marchen, folktales, memorate, urban legends and all sorts of other folk narratives.

Folklore can be a number of things it can be stories, handicrafts, dances, traditions, as long as they are something that shed greater light on the society it effects or harbors in. In folklore they refer to a story or artifact as an "item". So for ENGLISH 391 I will be collecting as many items as I feel are pertinent for my subject and then creating a finished paper synthesizing the similarities and such between them. Clifford Gertz is quoted in the article as saying that "analaysis is guessing at meanings." That is just what I will be doing with the items I collect in my interviews and conversations.

So to finish this post I will specifically point out what types of stories I will collect.

Genres of Oral Narrative

Myth- a sacred narrative that people tell about the beginnings of things. Often related to religion, ritual and ceremony.

Folktales- completely fictional tales where characters are not real people.

Legends- Stores people tell about events that purportedly really happened. Specifically supernatural legends that include stories of ghost, spirits, witches, dead, and other supernatural creatures and events.

Memorate- an expression of a personal experience with the supernatural

Urban legends- sotres of horror or erriness that involve weird events, close calls or horrible deaths. Local legends would deal with the local location.

Personal Narrative- a unique story about an event that has occurred in the narrator's life (Probably the majority of my items will be personal narrative).