Persona – Afriyie

Growing up in Ghana, attending a government school, I learned so much about my country and my culture. Ever since I started university in Canada, I’ve been looking forward to sharing my culture with others here and learning from them too, especially because U of T is so diverse. I haven’t travelled outside of Ghana before, so I was thrilled about moving to Canada because it would be my first experience in a new place where I could learn from scholars from all over the world.

Actually, it seemed like I would have the perfect opportunity to learn from both my peers and professors this week in one of my classes, but it didn’t turn out like I’d expected. We were going to talk about how household practices impact climate change, and I was really looking forward to the discussion because the topic is so personal to me. Back home, my mom used charcoal and firewood to cook for the ten people in our family, and cooking over the fire was part of our daily life. I always knew it wasn’t great for the environment, but I also understood why we did it. We didn’t have many other options. I thought this class would be a chance to finally share my perspective on things like this and maybe learn something that I could take back to my family.

The situation in class, however, felt so different. When the professor started teaching us about common household practices that are negatively impacting the climate, he talked about how burning charcoal is so damaging for the environment. It felt like a personal attack – as if my family was at fault for causing harm to the environment. I couldn’t help but feel a wave of frustration being blamed for something instead of being understood. Even the classroom discussions that followed overlooked the fact that certain countries choose to continue to burn charcoal and firewood for cooking because of problems like poverty that make these practices more of a necessity than a choice. I wanted to speak up, but I just couldn’t because I felt hurt at the time.

I don’t know how to get others to understand my perspective and to see things for how they are for people in other parts of the world. Being a student is already so difficult, and course discussions happening like this with the professor not understanding the struggles of other communities makes it even harder. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I’m irrelevant, and my traditions are just a problem that needs to be solved. I wonder if I should have just stayed back in Ghana where I was understood by those around me. I’m hoping these first few weeks aren’t representative of what my life at university will be like because I genuinely believe I have so much to share. I want to be accepted for my views and not feel like I have to hide who I truly am.