ALL PLAY AND NO WORK...

makes Corrine a lazy girl. I realized I haven't put anything about the MAIN reason I'm in Ghana:: TO DO RESEARCH!! So I've been busy meeting people, having fun with Michelle and Deidre all while trying to collect data for some anthropological paper that I can write when I get back. I have recently been struggling with how to connect the data I've collected through informal interviews (my favorite kind) with the theories I focused on before coming to this wonderful place.

Well guess what? All that hard work payed off because I was able to make a connection... just on Thursday. Because it's so new, you can't judge it too harshly if it turns out to be a bunch of bologna. (ps. totally random but haven't you even wondered why bologna ends with an A? I wonder everytime I write that word) Anyhoo, here it is::

I have seen this reoccuring trend of Ghanaians trying to embrace nationalism and their national identity (part A) but their tribal identity is holding them back (Part B).

It is almost a catch 22 because you cannot get rid of their tribal identity (or at least, that is what people tell me) but they have thought of some solutions themselves to promote unity within the country by removing tribal lines as a form of identity and making it more of a form of heritage (Part C).

The evidence is this:

Part A: Their love for democracy and the 'colonial government' which they call it. calling Ghana their motherland. Their interest in national development. Their love for Ghana versus other African countries. Also, how high this idea of unity falls on their importance scale as well as one of the major problems in their country

Part B: Politics playing along tribal lines, creating un-unity among people because of fighting. Uneducated people still holding on to 'ignorant' views of other tribes, and their still practicing of traditional ruling, funerals, festivals.

Part C: Teaching of nation building in schools, education as a whole is the number one answer I get because it is what 'dispels the ignorance of people' and promotings intertribal groupings, intertribal marriages is probably tied for number one answer because it is how to get rid of 'pure' race.

So that is what I have and I am STOKED to spend the next three weeks gathering data to support this..... It is when we are at home typing up fieldnotes and coding them for these ideas that I always tell M and D "I LOVE RESEARCH! I LOVE CODING! I LOVE RESEARCH!"

Needless to say, I think I'm in the right major :)

OH.... PS. YES, I'M STILL LOOKING AT DANCE, I'LL DO AN UPDATE ON THAT RESEARCH NEXT WEEK!