The room is full of laughter, pizza, and hugs. You can hear Liz Sgro scream joyfully with every new person entering the room. Brady struggles to find the restaurant, joking that he can find his way around Ghana, but not Eugene.
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Earlier this week, we had a Media in Ghana reunion at the pizza restaurant in the student union. Dr. Leslie Steeves asked everyone to go around the room and discuss their time in Ghana. Left with a vague prompt, answers ranged from heart-wrenching memories of the slave castles and stark images of poverty to images of amazing internships, kind people, and beautiful communities.
Personally, I talked about the experiences I’ve had staying in touch with people I met this summer. I also noted that the experience of climbing the tallest mountain in Ghana has haunted me (changed me? Challenged me?) and that Sam and I joke to our personal trainer that nothing he can make us do will ever top the difficulty of summiting the mountain. While people loudly chatted about their experiences on the hill, we also recalled the unique, genuinely once-in-a-lifetime experience of being deep inside a monkey sanctuary in the Volta region when we got the breaking news notifications – Monkeypox was officially a problem, and we were holding monkeys and walking through their sanctuary.

I am still in awe of the experiences I had in Ghana. I left a better researcher, a more intentional academic, and more aware of my own biases (and how to fight them). It’s been two months since we left Ghana, and I still reflect on my time there every single day. I can only hope that future groups have equally positive, beautiful experiences walking the streets of Accra and sitting in newsrooms and nonprofits debating the Bolt vs. tro-tro transportation options at the end of the day (update – it’s both).