I’ve Bathed Out Of a Bucket Every Day For the Past Three Years (and why that’s relevant to you)
At the end of 2013, I arrived in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, with a small suitcase, my laptop, and about $40 on a debit card. I was a twentysomething black American woman in search of her ancestral roots, a lower cost of living, and most importantly, to be reunited with a daughter I had left in the care of my ex-husband’s mother. Although my marriage to my Ghanaian ex hadn’t worked out, I still felt tremendous love for the country. Since my arrival I’ve gone through the unbelievable ups and downs that come with living and loving in a third world country. Of all the lessons I’ve learned while here, the greatest one has to be the art and necessity of gratitude. Gratitude has become a dominant theme of my life, and this wouldn’t be the case if that life hadn’t been stripped of everything but the bare necessities.
There’s absolutely nothing that I took for granted three years ago that I take for granted now (except maybe air). As long as I’ve lived here, I’ve made a modest income from working online as a freelance writer. Instead of trying to mimic my life back home, I’ve learned to live without a lot of things: hot water heaters, cheese, air conditioning, spring mattresses, public parks, paved residential roads, Wal-Mart’s low low everyday prices, and of course, bathtubs. Not that those things aren’t available in Ghana, because they are. It’s just that my budget forced me to let a lot of those things go (since paying import prices on Fruit Loops just isn’t worth it). Theo from three years ago might have cringed at the thought of not having a regular supply of queso, but I simply adjusted to my new normal. Bonus: I’ve lost a lot of weight.
What I have gained is a tremendous appreciation for simple things in life. I’ve always been a fan of Oprah magazine, but now when I look over an issue, it leaves me a bit stunned. It’s hard for me to relate to the buzz surrounding core exercises, eyebrow shaping, BMI tracking, and carb counting. Mind you, I have nothing against engaging your core or grooming your brows (I just had mine done last week). But the sheer amount of emphasis on these things is a kind of reverse culture shock. I think back to a time where my weight was a constant “problem” in my mind. Even as a teenager, I would eat cottage cheese and fruit, weight myself weekly, and work out with cheesy cable aerobics shows. It’s not really a big surprise that once I came to Ghana, I started losing weight partly because of the lack of stress hormones in my system. Also, it’s common here to walk just as much as you use public transportation. I eat more fruits and veggies because they’re more readily available and cheaper than they were back home. I’ve been drinking more water because living on the equator is basically living in a region-sized sauna.
But most importantly, I dropped the weight because no one was putting any pressure on me to do so. I remember standing onstage at a spoken word event held a few months after my arrival in Accra. I was performing a poem I’d written about how the country’s relaxed body culture had helped me to accept myself for who I was. The warm attitude that Ghanaians take towards plump women stands in stark contrast with the way Americans see obesity. We tend to frame it as a kind of moral shortcoming. So people calling me “heavy” and “fat” with big smiles on their faces took some getting used to. But I did get used to it. It was an incredibly healing time for me, especially since I got the chance to recite the same poem on the radio later. In my mind, I was announcing to the world that I loved myself for who I was, and the feeling was real and genuine. This was a major step in my evolution as a woman.
What I have gained from living here is far more valuable than what I’ve lost. Most of my fellow Americans will never experience poverty at an African level, but I see it almost every day. Witnessing children begging, fetching water from streams, and pleading for odd jobs so that they can support their parents will change you. My daughter has spent most of her life here, and she gets psyched whenever I bring apples home or remember to put drinking water in the fridge so that it’ll be cold later. She washes her clothes by hand, and fashions paper dolls when I can’t afford to buy the plastic ones from the supermarket. She’s an incredibly happy child with bright dreams for the future. When I was her age and living in California, I remember fervently praying for a Powerwheels Barbie Corvette each night, but I never gave much thought to how my laundry would get clean or if I could get a doll from 99 cent store. I had much more to be thankful for materially, but not much of it went noticed. Boy has that changed.
Accra is a sprawling city whose face is continuously changing. Whenever I’m riding through the city center, I gaze at those beautiful, modern housing and office developments, and I imagine myself living a life of financial abundance. I still believe that I’ll have that in the future. But I won’t have it without remembering my humble beginnings. First as a child in a struggling black American lower class family, then as an everyday resident of a sub-Saharan African country.
In my wildest dreams, my life story is one that brings encouragement and healing to the masses. I don’t want my message to just be “If I did it, you can do it too,” but also, “Look at everything you have right now. Really look.” Just imagine how much richer life would feel if you really looked. Ate food today? Check. Living in a building that isn’t ready to fall apart at any moment? Check. Spare change on the dresser? Check. It’s true that you can improve your life simply by changing your mindset. And you don’t even have to bathe out of a bucket to get there.
Do you enjoy my writing? Kindly hit the heart button. And feel free to leave me a tip.
