Read Somebody's Heart Is Burning for Free Online

villages were chosen for projects several years in a row, while others nearby remained unvisited. Since the presence of so many foreigners brought a lot of energy to the local economies, I suspected personal connections might be involved.
    One of the more disheartening stories I heard involved a camp in which the volunteers dug a foundation for a schoolhouse right next to an identical foundation that another group had dug and abandoned. When the volunteers asked why they couldn’t simply build on the existing foundation, they were told that it was forbidden to interfere with the work of another group. Another tale involved a village to which a group had returned several years in a row and done nothing but make bricks. As the story went, the village was so overrun with bricks that the local people were using them as tables, chairs, even bassinets.
    Most of the foreign volunteers I worked with in Ghana fell into one of two groups: those who came with an already ingrained sense that the work we were doing here was futile (but doing it was marginally better than doing nothing at all), and those who arrived filled with hopeful romanticism about their own ability to “help.” Members of the second category were often terribly disillusioned when their projects hit a snag, and tended to resemble the members of the first category by the time they left. Members of the first group, on the other hand, were occasionally jolted back to the second by the sheer exuberance of Ghanaian life.
    Outwardly, I allied myself with the jaded camp—I’d done enough volunteering in the past to know that it often benefited the supposed help-
ers
more than the help-
ees,
but my cynical veneer was ridiculously thin. Beneath my world-weary affectation, I longed with my entire being to be knocked over the head by a driving sense of purpose. I approached each new project harboring a shameful secret: a vast, uncool reservoir of hope. In the guise of offering service, I came to the construction site seeking nothing less than redemption. Perhaps we all did.

    Whenever I returned to Accra, I looked for Hannah. She alone seemed peculiarly free of either grudge or expectation concerning our role here. She soaked up everything with unbiased delight. I envied her capacity for simple enjoyment and secretly hoped that if I spent enough time with her, some of it might rub off.
    A few months after our initial meeting, I came back from a project on the northern coast to find that Hannah had gotten romantically involved with a Ghanaian volunteer who went by the camp name of Rambo. Rambo was devilishly handsome, with silky skin the color of polished walnut, pronounced cheekbones, and striking gray-green eyes. He dressed to fit his nickname, in Western tank tops that exposed his enormous biceps, camouflage pants, and heavy-soled boots. He was studying mathematics at Legon University and was rumored to be a brilliant student. He came from that minuscule portion of the Ghanaian population that could be called middle class, meaning he had been raised in a home with both a television and a phone. His father had some mysterious government post, which Rambo cryptically described as “near the top.” He spoke flawless English in a deep, purring voice, and was famous for his ability to drink any European under the table when it came to
apeteshi
, the strong home-brewed liquor that was popular in the Ghanaian countryside.
    Throughout the steamy afternoons and into the balmy evenings, Hannah sat beside Rambo on the steps of the hostel. She listened intently as he talked to the other African volunteers in Fanti, Ga, or Twi, his arm slung heavily across her shoulders or hooked around her neck like a boa constrictor. Often she leaned over to kiss his cheek or nibble at his ear. He allowed this briefly before pushing her away with a murmured reprimand.
    She began to wash his laundry on a regular basis. As I sat in the dirt courtyard behind the hostel with my plastic bucket, wringing