8/17/2008 - Girl's Trip to Ghana a Changing Experience
By Candice Evans
The Daily Times
BERLIN, MD—During her commute on “trotros” to the orphanage, Paige Spangler, 16, observed Ghanaian locals wearing traditional robes, walking pet monkeys and balancing baskets of plantains on their heads.
“Growing up around here, I never experienced public transportation,” said Spangler, who described her month-long stay in Accra, Ghana, with 40 other AFS-USA volunteers in July. “But in Ghana, we traveled around in these old vans and just when you thought the trotro was full—five other people came in.”
A worldwide nonprofit organization, AFS Intercultural Programs sends more than 1,600 students to more than 40 countries each year and welcomes more than 2,800 international high school students to the United States. Students are placed with host families to immerse themselves in the culture and leave with a better understanding of the country’s natives.
“I picked Africa because it’s one of the most exotic places you could go,” said Spangler, a junior at Worcester Preparatory School in Berlin. “It also allowed me to do community service.”
In Ghana, Spangler lived with a low-income family, which consisted of “Mr. and Mrs. Biney,” and their four children, Boye, 27, Maame, 24, Nana Janke, 19, and Kweku Mensa, 17. Every day, Spangler traveled to work at a local orphanage to play with the children and teach them how to read.
“I was kind of shaking when I gave my host family their gifts,” said Spangler, laughing. “I brought them chocolates, but (my Ghanaian siblings) found these princess stickers I had for the orphans and they started fighting over these stickers.”
Despite a shaky beginning, Spangler gradually adapted to Ghanian life, which involved showering with scarce buckets of water, washing clothes by hand and declining offers to purchase $4 dollar monkeys at the marketplace. She also ate traditional Ghanaian food, “fufu” with her hands, learned Ghanaian dances and attended a Ghanaian wedding during her stay abroad.
The Berlin resident quickly realized that she has a strong stomach.
“A lot of the students got sick,” she said. “I was the only one who didn’t, and I had to drink the tap water because I knew my family couldn’t afford bottled water.” Spangler even ate a slug.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what we had for dinner one night, but I didn’t ask my host mom until the end,” she said.
Spangler’s blonde hair caught the attention of Accra passersby, who couldn’t resist combing their fingers through it and calling her “obrunie, obrunie,” or white child, she said.
“If I did a hair flip to put it up into a pony tail, all of these people would get really excited and gather around me—it wasn’t just kids, adults too,” she said. “They also wanted to know if my skin felt different.”
During the last week in July, AFS took Paige and other volunteers on a tour through Ghana. They stayed in hostels and saw the Elmina Castle, Nzulezu, the Kakum national wildlife refuge park and the holding cells of the trans-Atlantic slave trade at Cape Coast.
“It was cool, too, because I had to barter for everything,” said Spangler, who purchased numerous souvenirs for Lower Shore family members, which included African necklaces and a giraffe.
On her flight home, Spangler wore one of the colorful African sundresses her host sister, Maame, made for her.
“When I saw her in that dress, I couldn’t believe it,” said Renee Spangler, Paige’s mother. “She left a child and came back as an adult—sophisticated and confident.”
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