Unlike the first three weeks of the Radio project, the second segment of this fellowship has simply flew away! I feel as though I had just germinated my audiobooks/videos idea yesterday, but already, it is time to move on to new endeavors.

I am very happy with how these last three weeks went, both for selfish and unselfish reasons. Unselfishly, I hope that the four audiobooks and videos I created as the foundation for language-learning stations at Titagya schools will go a long way in improving students’ English pronunciation as well as help them catch the reading bug. However, selfishly, I feel as though I had too much fun recording and making videos of myself reading storybooks. There was something about going back to the old Anansi the Spider folklore that I used to love that took me back to my elementary school years, making me excited all along the way. I am definitely disappointed that I have to move onto another project, but I hope to continue widening this audio library for Titagya Schools and hope to find a different sort of fun for my Literature project.

Other than the bit of grief of ending this project, another element that has stuck in my mind from this week was the roadtrip to the Barnes Museum we all took on Thursday. The Barnes is truly an incredible place. The Fred Wilson exhibit was incredibly striking, as you wander through typical household objects that were now exoticized as museum artifacts while African music drummed in the background. It served as quiet but powerful message on how deeply the cultural appropriation and violence against African people runs in white culture, especially within glorified intellectual circles. I thought it was brilliant to turn the mirror back onto the Barnes, especially as it is so often lovingly celebrated for its honoring of African art.

Although I am a little worried that no amount of letters or protesting would be able to bring to much light how poorly representative the Barnes is to African culture (or how the Africa artifacts that were included were most likely stolen) I am eager to read the letter Alice cooks up about the Barnes and the Penn Museum and I’m ready to offer my help in any way that I can.