Life-changing experience in Africa
‘Local’ intern received marriage proposals every day
by LEN LEAR
PART ONE
Amy Brisson is a highly intelligent, friendly and charming young lady, but even with all of her charms, Amy would be the first to admit she was shocked at one point in her life to be receiving an average of three or four marriage proposals a day. And it’s not because she was a movie star, the daughter of Bill Gates or Britney Spears’ twin sister.
“Taxi drivers, bank tellers, store clerks, you name it,” she explained. “They would propose marriage, and they were serious. It was no joke. They figured this was a way for them to get to America. (The least they could do was propose a date first at Starbucks to see if they have anything in common. Like some small talk about hobbies or to see if they both like American Idol.)
“They also thought because of the American media that American girls were ‘easy.’ I was asked to dance like they do on MTV. One taxi driver literally drove his car into a ditch trying to get my attention. He was leaning out of the car and waving. This happened in an area where few whites are seen.”
Amy, 21, who was the Anna Fisher Clark Intern at the Local this summer, had this unusual multiple-proposal experience during a five-week stay in Ghana, West Africa. At the time she was a high school student in Rochester, New York, taking part in a program called “Experiment in International Living,” which sends high-achieving, highly motivated students to countries all over the world. One has to apply and be accepted, and your own family pays for it.
“It was really an accident that I wound up in Ghana,” said Amy. “I had always wanted to go to Australia, but I did not like the description of the program there. It was too touristy. On the other hand, the program in Ghana sounded fascinating, so I decided to go. And most of the people there were very, very nice.”
For the first two weeks of Amy’s stay, she lived in a small village in the countryside, where she helped to build a school. For the next two weeks she lived with a host family in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city and the former capital of the Ashanti Kingdom. During her last week in the country, Brisson traveled all around, visiting a rain forest, observing wildlife and spending time at a former slave castle on the west coast, among other experiences.
“The time at the slave castle was very depressing, upsetting and emotional,” said Amy. “I felt like the rich white American, which was an awful feeling. I don’t even know if I could describe it. The whole place felt sick and evil. There were a lot of tourists there, though, and poor people selling trinkets, which bothered me a lot. I don’t want to be just a tourist watching people’s suffering. That made me want to learn more and study more.”
The experience in Ghana was a life-changing one. Afterwards Amy read voraciously about Africa, past and present, and later became an African Studies major at Swarthmore, where she graduated this May with honors. (“At first I was not sure what I wanted to major in, but it seemed that every time I was assigned to write a paper, I wound up writing about Africa.”) Two years ago she made another visit to Africa, this time to Botswana in the southern part of the continent for five months.
“I’m really glad I went to Ghana,” said Amy. “My host family made the biggest impression on me. We fell in love with each other, and we stayed in touch afterwards. They made me want to help Americans lose many of their assumptions about Africa.
“We think Africa is a homogeneous place, and it is not. The countries are so different from one another. We think they are all run by warlords, and they all mistreat their women. That’s the way they are often portrayed in the media, and it doesn’t help anyone.
“We think Africans are not savvy or self-motivated, that they are not entrepreneurs. It is true that there are many wars and very serious problems in Africa, but many have developed out of their colonial history with the West.”
Brisson, whose career goal is to be a foreign correspondent in Africa (she is already an accomplished journalist and is currently being considered by the New York Times for an internship), grew up in Rochester. She has one sibling, David, 17, who she insists is “a better writer than I am.” Her dad, Michael, is an electrician, and her mom, Judy, is a hospice nurse.
“My mom was hoping my trip to Ghana would cure my wanderlust, but it did not,” said Amy. “There were definitely some bad times. One time I got very sick and dehydrated on safari. Then I hit my head on a concrete wall and floor while throwing up. I had to drive in a car for four hours, but then I finally started feeling better. I was popping Pepto Bismol pills every two minutes. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and passed out.”
Another near-disaster occurred at a soccer game Amy attended with friends. Apparently some of the fans there would make rabid Eagles’ fans seem like choir boys by comparison. Amy’s host family had warned her and her friends not to wear certain colors that would apparently provoke certain fans. But the experience proved to be scary, anyway.
“A drunken fan tried to grope my girlfriend,” said Amy. “We eventually had to run away, literally, but cars were coming right at us. We finally got into a taxi, but the ‘groper’ tried to get in through the taxi window. A crowd of local women rushed over to help save us. We finally did get away. Escaping was my only priority.”
Another interesting fact of life in Ghana is that while most people there are quite friendly, most are also devout Christians, and many are apparently quite intolerant of those who do not share their views. “One girl in my group said she was an atheist, and her host family almost threw her out of the house,” said Amy. “My host family was very tolerant, though. They had no problem with people of other religions.”
One problem in Ghana for newcomers is the humidity, which is often “unbearable.” Also, at 9 p.m. the government turns off the electrical power, so there are no working air conditioners or even fans at nighttime.
TO BE CONTINUED: Amy lives for five months in Botswana, one of the hottest places on earth (because of the Kalahari Desert), where the temperature can get up as high as 120 degrees.
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