Posted: 02/14/07

The Ghana experience
St. Michael's students embrace African culture through M.O.V.E.

Mary Cate Connors | contributing writer
mconnors@smcvt.edu

While other students were skiing, working, or lounging during winter break this year, a group of five St. Michael’s College students were busy painting the walls of the Millennium Elementary School in Ghana. The students, who were there for 18 days, learned about drumming, performed service work and studied the Middle Passage.

St. Michael's students help paint a classroom in the Millenium Elementary School, Ghana. (photo courtesy of Katie Downes-Angus)

M.O.V.E. on up

Lorrie Smith, an English professor, led the trip to Ghana as a two-credit global studies/English course on the Middle Passage, with an incorporated component of service learning.

“The way I see it, there were three components,” Smith says. "The academic, the cultural immersion, and the service learning.”

Students went on excursions to historical forts that helped them understand the Middle Passage and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Smith says.

"The service learning component is just as essential to the program because it helps students become more integrated in the community," Smith says.

“If you go to a poor country, you shouldn’t just be a tourist, you know?” Smith says. “You should help out.”

This is Smith’s second time going to Ghana with the school. Last year, she assisted an extended service trip through Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (M.O.V.E.) and this year she expanded it to an academic experience, Smith says. She says the trip ran smoothly the second time around, but it was a trial-and-error experience.

Smith teaches African-American literature and says that going to Ghana helps her understand the culture better.

Lorrie Smith, St. Michael's English professor, led the Ghana excursion. (Mary Cate Connors, photo)

“I love Ghana, I love the people,” she says. “They are such a welcoming culture.” Smith says she is proud of her students for facing the unknown and overcoming their anxiety in new situations.

“The students grow so much; it’s such a powerful learning experience,” Smith says.

Homestays and bucket baths

Caity Courcier, a sophomore business major, says she was inspired to go on the Ghana service trip by her world music class, taught by Professor Valerie Price.

Courcier says the students were all placed with families in Ghana for the majority of their trip.

“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says Courcier.

Courcier says she lived in a one-room apartment with a woman named Na Na, who spoke almost no English.

There was no running water, so bathing involved using a bucket, Courcier says. In the apartments surrounding hers, Courcier says there were at least three of four people sleeping on the floor in one room.

“I felt privileged to share a room with just one other person,” she says.

For the service component of the trip, the students helped to re-paint and restore an elementary school in one of the villages.

“It was pretty sad,” Courcier says. “The classrooms were so distressed.”

Courcier says most of the chairs and tables had nails sticking out of them and there were dead animals rotting in corners of the schoolhouse. The high AIDS rate and the percentage of orphans at the school also upset her, she says.

Despite their dire situation, the children were still really happy and eager to interact with her and the other St. Michael’s students, Courcier says.

“Everyone was just so happy,” Courcier says. “The kids were just so psyched to learn.”

Courcier says she was surprised that she didn’t feel more like a minority while she was in Ghana.

“The people there became like my friends and my family,” she says. “There was just no race division.”

The homestay where Katie Downes-Angus and Caity Courcier resided during their visit. (photo courtesy of Katie Downes-Angus)

Katie Downes-Angus, a sophomore political science major, also went on the Ghana trip. She also learned about it in her music class.

Downes-Angus says she had an interest in both service work and Africa before she signed up for the trip.

“I firmly believe that all people should be given an equal opportunity to life,” she says.

Working in the elementary school was sad but rewarding, says Downes-Angus. She says that even though the teachers don’t have enough pens or paper or books, they are very appreciative of what they do have.

Downes-Angus says her favorite part of the trip was the knowledge and experience she took away from it.

“I liked just being able to experience a culture that was so different,” Downes-Angus says.

Life after Ghana

The first thing Courcier did when she got back to the United States was take a trip with her dad to a convenience store.

“Everything there seemed so ridiculous and unnecessary,” Courcier says. She says she learned a great deal while she was abroad, and that her perspective on things has changed.

“Now, if I can change one person’s perspective, that’s all that matters,” Courcier says.

Downes-Angus, on the other hand, says that she wants to dedicate her life to non-profit work.

She wants to do grassroots work in Africa, doing anything from teaching to building. Her experience in Ghana has taught her to be more aware of how she affects the world around her, she says.

“I just think, ‘what can I do to increase my impact on the world?’” she says.

Downes-Angus says she would definitely go back to Ghana, because the two weeks there reassured her she could handle it.

“This experience kind of showed me that I can do this kind of thing,” she says.

Downes-Angus plans to study abroad in South Africa next semester.

As far as changing her everyday lifestyle when she returned to the United States, Downes-Angus says that there are some rituals she wanted to leave in Ghana.

“It’s kind of hard to take a bucket bath here,” she says.

Other service opportunities

Although the Ghana service-learning study tour wasn’t sponsored by St. Michael’s, the M.O.V.E. program at St. Michael’s sponsors several extended service trips each year.

Jason Moore, assistant director of M.O.V.E., says that this year, there are 11 domestic trips and three international trips. These trips host roughly 10 people each. M.O.V.E. offers domestic service trips to Kentucky, Connecticut, New York City, Big Thicket National Park in Texas, New Orleans, Maryland, Alabama and Florida.

Anyone on campus is allowed to go on the domestic trips, Moore says. There is an application and an interview process. To go on an international service trip, however, students are required to have gone on a domestic trip beforehand, Moore says.

“People find other students of like mind and values,” Moore says. “M.O.V.E. helps students to connect with the Vermont community and from there it connects them to different parts of the country and the world.”

Moore says he would recommend everyone on campus to get involved with some sort of service in the community.

“There’s a lot of need,” he says. “What we strive to do in M.O.V.E. is to show people what’s out there and that they can do something about it.”