World W.I.S.E

Africa. It will break you down, and build you back up again.

Studying abroad at the University of Ghana and traveling throughout West Africa brought me through some of the most intense highs and lows of my life and was the greatest out of classroom learning experience I have ever had. From dodging a cholera outbreak in the culturally alien capital of Accra, Ghana, to a series of dangerous motorcycle adventures in the Atakora mountain chain of northern Togo, to being lectured in staggeringly hot and humid University classrooms in equatorial Africa - I found that there was always a lesson to be learnt. 

Through all of these lessons and unique learning environments I experienced an evolution of sorts from my former self and an eventual rebirth in all mind, body and spirit.  This rebirth or break down and rebuilding of the mind came in the form of a change in my perception on a lot of real world issues such as poverty and development, economic and political structures, population growth, disease, and civil war violence many West African countries are infamous for. I discovered for myself how many of the stereotypes attached to Africa by the Western world were unfair and thus gave me a clearer picture of what that region of the world is really like. 

My body on the other hand got a real break down in the form of sickness and sun burns. I’ll never forget what one of my Ghanaian friends told me when I was sick with fever and heat exhaustion, which was that “it is just Africa passing through you,” and in a way it really felt like it. Getting painfully ill in such foreign locations and then recovering back to health gave me a deeper insight into what I was made of and surprised me with with how much one can adapt in stressful situations. 

There was also definite spiritual rebirth that was not necessarily in a religious context, but in regards to moral and philosophical issues. Walking through slums for example, and seeing poverty face to face stirred up a tremendous amount of thought and it was the flavor, so to speak, of that thought which changed some fire within me. This constant change and growth in ones life can be found anywhere you seek it, but it seems as though Africa really brings it out in full force.

As a student, the greatest lesson was to stay humbled with how much there is to learn in this world and to keep positive with your studies, no matter how bizarre or foreign your learning environment may be. The great Winston Churchill himself once said that, “success is the ability to transition from failure to failure, with no loss of enthusiasm,” and those words express the story of my African experience well. Being in your element - out of your element, expecting the unexpected and never forgetting what Alexander Supertramp from the book, “Into the Wild” said;  “ the core of ones spirit comes from new experiences.” This is the soul of what a study abroad experience at the University of Ghana can offer.

(be) World W.I.S.E. @ University of Manitoba

Cascade de Karfiguéla

Bobo-Dioulasso

The Desert Express

Ouagadougou Grand Market