As a study abroad student in Ghana in 1973, Professor Sandra E. Greene recalls her first impressions were of an intense sensory experience of novel heat, humidity and smells: "It's very alive. It feels good, healthy."

Greene, a historian with a focus on West Africa and Ghanaian culture and society, spoke to a group of students at the apartment of Hans Bethe House Dean Scott MacDonald on Sept. 14.

Greene said that she has made a career of her passion for the country, returning too many times to count, integrating more deeply into the culture and society with each visit and able to experience the country's changes over decades.

She encourages students to commit more than a semester to truly appreciate living abroad by "going back year after year, actually having an investment in the place because then your knowledge becomes deeper and deeper and deeper."

Greene has collected oral histories of community members to glean insights into traditions, which are laden with as much social and cultural context as history. "The fun thing about interviewing is that you really can establish close relationships with individuals," she said.

But accessing people hasn't always been easy, Greene said, recounting how once she took a bus and three lorries (passenger trucks) to travel to a neighboring town only to find that her interviewee could not speak with her.

Despite the challenges of mobility and learning the local language on the fly, Greene said, "It's tremendously rewarding. Otherwise I wouldn't have kept going back. … I really, really loved it. The people were open; they're warm."

West Africans have a reputation across the continent of being outgoing and business-oriented, qualities they readily extend to visiting foreigners, she said.

Ghanaians are also more adept at reading people than Americans, observed Greene. "They're constantly reading people. You may be saying something and asking a question, and in the back of people's minds [they are thinking], is that really what they want to know? You may get a very different answer."

This penchant for interpretation also comes with impressive observation skills, she said, something that American students experience when they casually date, a practice common in the United States, by the way, but fodder for gossip in Ghana.

Greene also noted some of the cultural differences she's experienced over the years, many communicated through body language. For example, you never offer or accept anything with your left hand, she explained, a custom practiced across West Africa. And she unwittingly learned while stretching her arms on a crowded bus that placing hands on your head is a gesture that expresses profound loss, leading the other passengers asking if she had lost her mother or father.

Greene, who married a Ghanaian man and now has family there, tries to visit every three years for a longer period of time to continue learning about the dynamic society: "With the short periods you get things done, but I want to have a feel for what has shifted and what has changed."

The discussion was part of the Bethe Ansatz: Conversation that Matters series -- faculty members casually speaking with students in the house professor's apartment on many Wednesday evenings.

Erica Rhodin '12 is a student writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.