My Salute to "Almost Famous" - One Year in the Peace Corps (Part 1)

Anyone who knows me even a little probably knows that my favorite movie is "Almost Famous." What they may not know is that one of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons, shares my affinity for this cult classic. A few years ago he even had a two-part column in which he used quotes from the movie to discuss that year's NBA off season.

For those that haven't seen it - stop everything you're doing right now and treat yourself to 2 hours of . And for those that have seen it, you should stop what you're doing and go watch it too, because it's just that good.

For a no spoiler refresher, the movie is based on the writer/director Cameron Crowe's (of Say Anything and Jerry Maguire fame) own life. It centers around 15 year old William Miller, who grows up with a loving but controlling mother and a rebellious sister. He falls in love with rock and roll music and weasels his way into a gig with Rolling Stone Magazine to cover the fictional band Stillwater on the road (yes, Crowe really did do this at 15 with Black Sabbath!). Coming from a strict environment at home and a school where everyone hates him, he meets this band that treats him differently - they treat him like he's cool. The rest of the movie is a classic coming of age tale where he has to balance his work with his fun, his budding love for the Band Aid Penny Lane with her indifference, his perception of his heroes with the reality, and of course his own desire to be cool while knowing deep down that he really isn't.

Anyway, now that I have a blog of my own, I wanted to celebrate my one year anniversary in Ghana by writing a similar piece to that of Bill Simmon's about my experience as a PCV and what I've learned so far about Ghanaian culture. This is part 1 and I will post part 2 soon.

Enjoy.

Penny Lane: I’ve made a decision. I’m going to live in Morocco for one year… I need a new crowd. Do you wanna come?

William Miller: Yes, yeah.

Penny: Are you sure?

William: Ask me again.

Penny: Do you wanna come?

William: Yes! Yes.

Perhaps my favorite moment from the entire movie. I love this scene because it shows a young Patrick Fugit legitimately falling in love with a young Kate Hudson – the “Ask me again” was Patrick asking Kate to repeat her line and you can just sense his excitement at the moment. But I also love this scene because it captures the typical American youthful spirit, carefree and unrealistic with your expectations. My favorite thing about it is that as a relative expert in this movie, I feel confident that Penny had never even considered Morocco before that moment – consider that just a few scenes later she claims to have made a similar and equally fantastical decision to a different character. But the newcomer William soaks it all up anyway. Maybe my decision to join the Peace Corps is simply my effort to rekindle that lost sense of adventure and optimism. Here are a few more cheesy and equally preposterous justifications for my decision backed by even more amazing quotes.

Anita Miller (William's Sister): One day, you’ll be cool.

Ah yes, my never ending and ultimately futile quest to feel cool. Maybe joining the Peace Corps is just another foolish attempt to try and convince myself and others that I’m interesting and fun.

Anita: This song explains why I’m leaving home to become a stewardess.

Elaine Miller (William's Mother): We can’t talk, we have to listen to rock music?

As if I need an excuse to play you a Simon and Garfunkel song.

Elaine: Who put such a high price on being typical?

For better or worse, it wasn't me. And it wasn't most of my friends I might add. I think about that car commercial that played for months and months in the U.S. about the son who informs his father he sold all of his possessions to take a road trip expecting that his father will be upset. Instead, he contemplates the news for a minute before declaring, "I wish I had done that." My generation seems to be listening to the countless examples like that one (and the above quote from Elaine Miller in Almost Famous) of previous generations telling us to buck the trend. Typical is good and important and reasonable - but not any better or worse than atypical. There shouldn't be a "higher price" or higher value on being normal.

Russell Hammond: From here on out I’m only interested in what is real. Real people, real feelings. That’s it, that’s all I’m interested in from here on out.

In America, we seem to operate on the assumption that our way of life is the only one that exists or should exist, despite being less than 5% of the world’s population. We acknowledge there are different cultures and different standards of living around the world, but it’s out of sight out of mind (for very good and mostly innocent reasons). While we are no doubt a large influence on cultures around the world, especially in the west, I was interested in immersing myself in a different reality with different societal norms and different values. Finding something completely different that is every bit as real to the people I interact with so that it will never be out of sight out of mind for me. After one year here I can say with confidence, mission accomplished.

Estrella Star (Band Aid): Take a vacation from yourself. Leave this up to the professionals. I’ve seen your future and this all works out reasonably well. William Miller: Reasonably?

We get trained during the first ten weeks and have countless sessions about how to handle different situations that arise while living in Ghana. It can be a bit scary because they have to cover the most likely scenarios and the worst case scenarios together. For example, Ghanaians can be very friendly to the point of accidentally making Americans uncomfortable because of the cultural differences, but a seemingly friendly Ghanaian can also be trying to take advantage of you or even stalk you.

William: Woah hold on hold on, wait I should leave. I think things are going backwards for me. I thought maybe we could hang out. You know do some stuff back home, like regular stuff. Get to know each other a bit better… and then I’d see you pee. I mean, you know, that’s just how I usually do it.

The pee and poop conversations with other volunteers come early and often. Also, urinals and toilets are few and far between when you’re traveling so men, women and children use the bushes on the side of the highways.

Russell: You’re more important than all the silly machinery. Silly machinery! And you know it! In 11 years it’s going to be 1984 man, think about that!

The technology landscape in Ghana is very different than in the states. Nobody has a landline, including businesses, but most people have cellphones (some have android smartphones). Internet cafes aren’t that common because people just use the data on their phone. The cellphone etiquette is also very different. They answer phone calls they receive in any circumstance and if you don’t answer they will call repeatedly until you pick up leading to equally hilarious and annoying situations. Laptops are fairly uncommon. More families have a TV than a laptop but neither is ubiquitous by any stretch. It should be noted different regions have different levels of wealth and access to technology. My comments here, as with any related to Ghana, are what I’ve observed at my site in the Volta Region and training community in the Eastern Region, both of which are relatively less poor than other parts of the country.

Russell: Look at him. He’s taking notes with his eyes. How do we know you’re not a cop, huh?! The enemy?!

Volunteers are left observing in a lot of situations, unable to intervene. Political conversations, fights, discussions among elders. Even after a year, I don’t understand the culture nearly well enough to proactively engage in these types of confrontations unless I’m extremely comfortable with the person. I recently read a story from another LGBTQ volunteer who expressed regret that they couldn’t come out to their Ghanaian friends because that topic is also not something you should share here. While that specific issue isn’t a problem for me as a heterosexual, there are some similar instances in which I was forced to remain silent when I otherwise would have felt compelled to speak.

Polexia Aphrodesia (Band Aid): You’re funny. If you were only taller and English and rich and a guitar player and older.

William: I’d be somebody else.

Polexia: Yeah, good point.

I might as well be all of those things and more in Ghana. As an American, especially a white American, I stick out in any setting outside of the capital, Accra (and I stand out there too, although to a lesser degree). It is rare I see anyone that isn’t black in my community or market town, although it does happen from time to time. There are other volunteers and NGOs in the area and sometimes people are just traveling through. Either way, my presence is quickly noted wherever I go and usually someone (typically kids) will point it out. Sometimes this is great – I can show off my use of the local language,experience a lot of culture without having to be proactive about it, and I can use my celebrity to push important information and ideas. But other times this is really difficult. I’m tired of always having to be “on”. Having unwanted attention when I’m having a bad day, or even a good day. People asking me for my phone number (and regularly getting strange calls and texts). Feeling constant pressure to represent my country well and not making any culturally insensitive mistakes. Having people who I’ve never met ask if I will marry their sister or take them to America. Day in and day out, it wears on you – but as a volunteer you learn to take the bad with the good.

Lester Bangs: And hey, I’ve met you. You are not cool.

William: I know. Even when I thought I was I knew I wasn’t.

​Even though Ghanaians make me feel like a celebrity, I’m going to come home and be just another Joe Schmo. After having been here more than a year now, I can’t wait. But I also know that I’ll miss feeling cool and popular after a few days or weeks and be just as tired and depressed as William Miller looked in this scene.

Russell: You’re dangerous. You see everything. Most people they’re just waiting to talk, but you listen.

Ghanaians are so extremely open to advice, constructive criticism and new thoughts that it stands in complete contrast to the typical American mindset in which everyone thinks they know everything. And while I have to avoid a superiority complex setting in, the truth is that because of my privilege of being an American with the resources of the Peace Corps I have information and that are valuable to the Ghanaians. What makes my job so easy and rewarding is that the people in my community have been so receptive to new information and genuinely want the information that could make an impact in their lives. That being said, successfully transferring the knowledge and influencing behavior change is a completely different challenge.

Russell: Write what you want.

Despite the disclaimer at the bottom of this page that these ideas are my own and not reflective of the government, as a Peace Corps Volunteer I am an employee and representative of the U.S. government so I have to watch what I say politically and otherwise. But it actually runs deeper than that. Members of my community in Ghana can find this blog and read it so both my safety and friendships can be jeopardized if I write the wrong thing about them. Fortunately, I haven’t had any real instances of having to censoring myself, but I thought it was worth noting.

Penny: It’s all happening.

At the end of March, six months into my Peace Corps experience, I hadn’t started a single project. You’re not exactly supposed to be starting any until month 7, especially as the first volunteer at a site like I was (each site usually gets three volunteers back to back to back), but my cohort are a bunch of over achievers and many already had impressive accomplishments, so at that point I felt very low. Flash forward to September and I had six distinct projects all under way, not including my work with Operation Smile and ELiTE or my speaking engagement with Global Leadership Adventures. Working on six projects is relatively unheard of and I’m very proud of the work I’ve been able to do so far, thanks entirely to my amazing counterpart and community. And while one of those projects, the GLOW / BRO camp has ended, I quickly picked up another potential camp-like project with farmers and volunteers from a different region that I will be running (hopefully in July!).