Dorothea Laurent, Honours BSocSc political Science and minor in law , 4th year
Internship country: Ghana
Canadian NGO: AFS
Local NGO: Future of Africa
Before leaving Canada, I would have confidently described myself as independent. I knew how to get where I needed to go, manage my responsibilities, solve everyday problems and make decisions for myself. I rarely thought twice about it. Independence was simply something I believed I possessed.
Then I arrived in Accra and discovered that apparently, some of my independence had missed the flight.
Suddenly, simple questions became complicated. How do I get there? Where do I catch the right vehicle? Where should I get off? Where do I buy this? Is this the normal price? How long will it actually take me to get somewhere? Things that would require almost no thought in Canada suddenly required instructions, help or sometimes a little trial and error.
It made me wonder: How much of what I had called independence was actually familiarity?
At home, I know the systems around me. If I need to get somewhere, I can search for the address and understand the transportation options available to me. If something changes, I usually know what my alternatives are. If I need a particular service, I have some idea of where to look for it. Even when I do not know something, I generally know how to find the answer.
I had never considered how much confidence comes from simply knowing how your environment works.
Transportation made that realization impossible to ignore. During my internship, getting to work often involved using trotros, shared minibuses that are a major part of everyday transportation in Accra. My commute could involve multiple connections. In the beginning, navigating those routes was not intuitive to me. Unlike moving around a city I had known for years, I had to learn through observation, instructions and experience: where to wait, which vehicle to take, where to switch and how to recognize when I was approaching where I needed to be.
At first, that knowledge belonged to other people.
Eventually, it belonged to me.
There was no dramatic moment when Accra suddenly became easy to navigate. It happened gradually. A route I once needed explained became familiar. Places started connecting in my head. I began recognizing where I was instead of simply following directions. The city had not changed; my ability to move through it had.
That experience changed the way I thought about independence.
I had previously associated independence with not needing much help. Yet living somewhere unfamiliar taught me that refusing help would not have made me more independent. In many situations, it simply would have made things unnecessarily difficult.
I had to ask questions.
Sometimes that meant asking my host family. Sometimes it meant asking coworkers or people around me. Sometimes it meant trusting that when I did not know something, someone else did. In Canada, I am accustomed to finding many answers independently, often through my phone. In Accra, I became much more comfortable with the idea that another person could be my best source of information.
Strangely, learning to depend on people made me more independent.
Every question I asked gave me information I could use the next time. Every unfamiliar route eventually became one I recognized. Every mistake made the next decision easier. Asking for help was not evidence that I could not function on my own; it was part of learning how to.
There were also moments when independence became less about knowing what to do and more about trusting myself when I did not.
One afternoon after work, an Uber I was travelling in broke down in an unfamiliar area. At home, an inconvenience like that would be frustrating, but I would at least understand my surroundings and immediately know some of my options. In that moment, I did not have the same advantage. I was far from the environment in which I had learned how to solve everyday problems.
But the problem still had to be solved.
Experiences like that made me realize that perhaps the strongest form of independence is not knowing exactly what to do. It is believing that you can figure out what to do next.
That distinction became increasingly important throughout my three months abroad. Living far from home meant that the people who normally formed part of my support system could still listen to me, encourage me and give advice, but they could not always solve the problem in front of me. Sometimes the person best positioned to help was someone I had met recently. Other times, I simply had to make a decision with the information I had.
By the end of my stay, many things that had initially demanded my full attention had become ordinary. I could navigate routes that once confused me. I understood my surroundings better. I had developed routines. I had learned whom to ask, what questions to ask and, perhaps most importantly, how to remain functional when I did not immediately have an answer.
That last part is what I brought back to Canada.
My internship also made me reconsider something we rarely acknowledge when we describe someone as independent: independence does not happen in isolation. It is supported by systems, communities and knowledge that can become almost invisible when we have had access to them for most of our lives.
There is a certain confidence that comes from growing up somewhere. You know the unwritten rules. You understand how people communicate. You recognize what is normal and what might signal that something is wrong. You know which resources exist and where to look when you need something. After years of living within those systems, it is easy to mistake that familiarity for complete self-sufficiency.
Leaving Canada temporarily removed much of that familiarity.
What remained was the ability to learn.
I still consider myself independent, perhaps even more than I did before. But I define the word differently now.
Independence is not arriving somewhere and immediately knowing how everything works. It is not refusing to ask for directions, insisting on solving every problem alone or proving that you do not need other people.
Sometimes independence looks like asking a question.
Sometimes it looks like admitting that you do not know.
Sometimes it means observing how other people navigate a situation before trying it yourself.
And sometimes it is simply being able to say, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing right now, but I trust myself to figure it out.
Before Ghana, I knew how to be independent within a world I understood.
Ghana taught me something more valuable: how to begin again when I did not.
So, how far does independence travel?
Maybe as far as your willingness to learn.