Croix-Rouge Village Clean-up

On preparations. On leaving . . .

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May 2013. I arrived in Norman as a classically trained ballerina in pursuit of a BFA from the FINEST ballet program in the country. Coming from Columbus, Ohio, Oklahoma was a very foreign place. I entered the ballet program in the fall of 2010 .  .  . my dream had come true! As I continued through the program, began to take classes in other disciplines, and became involved in student organizations, my dreams began to shift. I no longer saw myself as an artist limited to the physical stage. My stage had expanded. I became an artist passionate about the betterment of humanity, passionate about travel and adventure; Passionate about providing sustainable solutions in a world inherently plagued by disease, poverty, climate crisis, a lack of educational resources, and wicked deeds. I wanted to be a part of the solution, and I was determined to change it with art (in whatever form that art may mold).

My studies took me to Italy with the Honors College and continued to guide me to Switzerland where I worked as a Counselor, English Teacher, and Dance Teacher at the American School in Switzerland. Combining my interests in Public Health, Travel, and Education, I traveled to India, China, and South Africa with the School of International Training's International Honors Program for a study abroad experience. My travels soon brought me to Dindefelo, Senegal to volunteer with the Jane Goodall National Institute. I taught dance classes at a local school and was a student of local dance traditions, alongside my sister, Grace Bachmann, who used art to teach children about environmental issues in their immediate and global communities.

This past year since graduating, I have completed the Physical Therapy admission requirements, worked with the American Red Cross in Disaster Relief, and am teaching dance at my home studio here in Columbus, Ohio. I have since become an avid runner and cyclist (I ran the Columbus Marathon in 2013 and am training for TOSRV - a 200 mile bike race). This year has also been spent closely with family and dear friends as I prepare to leave for Sierra Leone in June for 2 years with the United States Peace Corps. I will be working in Secondary Education and potentially in the health sector. After completion of service, I plan to attend graduate school to earn a doctorate in Physical Therapy traveling to disaster sites around the world providing sustainable healthcare integrating dance into treatment methods.

My Peace Corps journey began long before I applied after graduating from college. The journey to and with the Peace corps has been a series of events, a collection of moments, which have guided me towards service to my country and to people of need. Another dream in the making. Now with just 6 short days before departure, I prepare to leave my family and friends for a world unknown to me with people whom I have yet to meet, eating food I've never tasted, speaking a language I have yet to learn, and teaching subjects I’m not quite sure I comprehend in a school quite different from the ones I grew up in. Yet while so much of this experience is and will be foreign, I know it will become home, my family. It will become my stage. With or without the sequined costumes or the bright lights, the stage has been set. It is a place where all people can become active participants in storytelling, in the birth of imagination and creativity, and in a place where the simplicity of childhood dreams exist.

In the inaugural post written by my sister, she wrote of her fears about blogging; “I feared that maybe I'd be speaking to a nonexistent audience--that I would be writing with the false pretense that my three months in Senegal were actually relevant to other people.” I must say, I have had the same fears, perhaps a greater fear that I may not accurately portray my experiences in Sierra Leone or more importantly, the experiences of the people with whom I interact. Hattie, Grace, and I concluded that we are lucky though. To quote Grace, “We are lucky.  Simply put, we are lucky to have the opportunity to live and work abroad,” and we have to share our experiences. Hattie said it best, “We three are sisters, though only two by blood, from the same town in Ohio who happen to have a thing for West Africa.” I hope we can invite you into that world.

Visa Troubles

As most Americans who have travelled outside of the country are aware, we rarely need visas. I travelled to France, England, Ireland, Wales, and Honduras before I went to Ghana in 2012 and this lovely West African country was the first for which I needed a visa to enter. My then lacking knowledge of the process was a hindrance as a result of a privilege we tend to ignore. I don't intend for this to be particularly political or critical, but I do intend to cause you to ponder this for a second. I am now becoming very familiar with the immigration process within our own country as I met the man I intend to share my life with and he happens to not be from America. We would like to get married and it is an unfortunate truth that we can't simply hop in a car, head to Vegas, and live happily ever after. It is a lengthy and costly process that has changed my perspective on the minor inconveniences I've experienced while applying for visas to his country. Okay, from here on out this blog post is essentially a shout-out and a confession of mistakes.

The visa application for Ghana is an extremely simple, one-page form asking for the basic info (name, birthdate, passport number, dates of travel, etc.) You submit two copies of that form along with two passport photos, your passport, and a money order in the amount which corresponds to the particular visa you are applying for in an over-night envelope which includes another return-addressed, over-night envelope. Slip it in the mail at least four weeks before your intended departure and that's it. Easy. So easy that you very well may forget an essential part of the package...say...the money. Yep. The first time I was applying for my visa to Ghana, I realized a good three weeks after I sent my application, while I was nervous about getting my passport back in time for my flight which was only two weeks away, that I had forgotten to include my money order. Needless to say, I went into a manage-the-situation tizzy which included no less than twenty phone calls (and multiple e-mails) to the Embassy phone (which I have since been informed is only ever used to place outgoing calls) at various points in the day over three days and never getting a response. Finally I contacted someone in the Office of Education Abroad at Ohio University (which was in charge of the program I was going to Ghana with) who had the good sense to reach out to a saint at the Ghanaian Consulate in Texas. Diane spent the better part of the next week explaining the far more complicated steps to fix my mistake and sweet-talking her contact in D.C. I think she even gave me her home number so she could reassure me after hours in her maternal southern drawl. As a result of her efforts, along with the cooperation of the staff at the embassy, I received my passport and visa in the mail one day before my flight and I made my flight to Ghana in August of 2012 and my life has been changed because of it.

The second and third times around, I was much more thorough in my checklisting and I received my visas without any years stressed off the end of my life. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite as well for my brother who accompanied me to Ghana this time. His application was perfect, but his minor error was in sending a priority mailer as the return package when the form specifically requests an over-night, trackable package. He received a call on the Thursday before our Tuesday flight from the embassy that he had been granted the visa but he needed to send a different package so they could mail back his passport. We went to the post office that afternoon and he did as he was told. The package arrived at the embassy by noon the next day and then we never saw any action in the tracking for the return package. After utilizing many avenues, Ben got word from an embassy staff member that the package would be shipped by the end of the day Monday. As it had been guaranteed by noon on Tuesday, we panicked a little less since that would allow at least an hour an a half before our first flight to Baltimore. Tuesday came and no package with it. Our dad contacted VP2Go, an expediting service in D.C. which worked wonders. They sent a courier to the embassy early in the morning who eventually collected the passport five minutes before the embassy closed for the day. By that point, Ben and I were waiting on our second flight of the day to take us from Baltimore to Boston. Our flight had been delayed 35 minutes which meant that there were 95 minutes for the VP2Go angels to get the passport from D.C. to the airport during rush hour. We later learned that it was the owner of the service himself got in his car and drove so that Ben received his passport literally three minutes before we were meant to board our flight. It all worked out so perfectly it was humorous, once we were over the desperation. A staff member at VP2Go named Samantha answered multiple stressed out calls during that day and kept me informed as much as possible throughout. My dad contacted them after never receiving a bill (which we expected to be quite heavy) and was informed they weren't planning to bill. After he pushed them, they sent an invoice that barely exceeded the standard cost of an expedited visa from the embassy. All of this is to say that if any of you is ever in a tight spot with anything regarding visas or passports, I highly suggest you find your way to VP2Go. They work miracles. If not for their efforts, in cooperation with the embassy staff members (of course), I would not have had the chance to introduce my favorite brother to my favorite future-husband and the city I'm finding a second home in.   

On Returning

I recall a letter my godmother wrote to me the first time I travelled to Ghana for a semester abroad in 2012. In the letter, she told me to do everything I wanted to on this trip as return trips are a different thing altogether. I don't think I understood that at the time, but it's becoming clearer on this, my third season of living in Cape Coast, Ghana.

I arrived in Accra a little over two weeks ago along with my brother, Ben, for whom this experience was entirely new. We were met at the airport by friends and my fiance who helped us haul our luggage to a vehicle and piled into the car with us to escort us back to Cape Coast and I overwhelmingly felt like I was on my way home. This time I didn't feel so much like a foreigner coming for a holiday, but rather a friend returning for an extended visit. I know what to expect most of the time. The creative interpretation of traffic laws does not set my nerves on edge anymore. I like to think I've become a master in the art of waiting, a requisite for life in Ghana. As I walk the streets, I am met by people who know my name and who say "welcome back." I'm being called upon later today to show some students from the U.S. around the city by someone who has lived here her whole life and thinks that I'm qualified for the job.

While many things have grown unremarkable to me, I want to strive not to forget what it was like to experience them for the first time. The first time I travelled here, it was about the place. The second time it was equally about the place and the people. This time, my motivation for coming was almost entirely based upon people. (Certainly one person in particular.) For two years all of my travel has been focused on this one city in Ghana and by the end of this summer I will have spent ten months here collectively. I don't want to travel to a place just to leave it behind but I want to have people across oceans I can look forward to returning to. When I leave in August, I may be leaving a place behind but I will look forward to returning to the people.