STATE COLLEGE — When you spend most of your life living in sub-Saharan Africa, there’ll be plenty of adjustments coming to the United States.
Even the appropriate times and ways to smile, it turns out, for State College Area High School senior girls’ tennis player Amelia Dodoo.
“She finds it awkward walking through the hallways,” teammate and senior classmate Kelly Vanden said. “In America, if you make awkward eye contact, you just give them a small smile. She said to me, in Ghana, even if you make the slightest eye contact, you come up to them and give them a hug. You smile and say, ‘How’s your family?’”
In a country of 25.5 million, one can do that. If Dodoo was to greet everyone that way at State High, she probably wouldn’t have time to get to her classes.
“So, she has to try to avoid eye contact here,” Vanden said.
Dodoo makes do, though, while still bringing her unique warmth and joy to the sometimes cold climates of central Pennsylvania after moving back here in 2017.
Born in Tennessee, Dodoo moved with her family to Ghana — her parents’ homeland — in 2005. They returned to the United States when her father, former Ghanian Olympic athlete Francis Dodoo, landed a professorship at Penn State.
“Ghana had become all I’d known, and it was my home,” Dodoo said in a noticeable British accent. “So it was moving back here that was an adjustment, getting used to the culture and the system and things like that.”
Dodoo might have more difficulties making the transition had she not returned to a community as multicultural as the one that has sprung up around Penn State, where you can find virtually any nationality or ethnicity. But that still doesn’t make it easy to find the simple things to which she’d become accustomed all those years halfway round the world.
“Our food is very spicy and has a lot of flavor. We eat more of like yams and plantains and casabas and carrots and rice, so that’s an adjustment sometimes,” Dodoo said. “The way we greet people and the music and the dancing is different. In terms of school, the curriculum is significantly different. In ninth grade math, for instance, we would divide the year among several subjects, like algebra, trigonometry and others, instead of one year of algebra, followed by a year of trig.
“I like listening to music in my free time. I like African-beat music, like from Nigeria and Ghana.”
While she can download those songs into her phone or iPad, the biggest adjustment is one over which Dodoo has no control at all.
“It is very cold here,” Dodoo said with laughter.
The average temperature in State College this month is 61 degrees. In Ghana, the average October temperature is 87 degrees.
Among the many other things that Dodoo might take for granted in her adopted homeland that is different coming here is skin tone.
Ghanians have a very dark pigment. Some of her friends, like Vanden, do not, and that can lead to some comical exchanges.
“We were putting on makeup. She said, ‘You want to put on a very light shade so it comes out,’” Vanden said. “I said, ‘But Amelia, I have very light skin.’”
Vanden said it took a moment until it registered with Dodoo.
“Amelia is one of my best friends,” Vanden said. “She’s such a good person.”
That shouldn’t be all that surprising. Ghana is the most peaceful country in Africa according to the Global Peace Index. It was the first sub-Saharan country to gain its independence, too.
On the tennis court, Dodoo is making a solid transition, too. She sports a 13-1 singles record this season playing primarily No. 3 singles for the Lady Little Lions. She didn’t represent State College in the District 6 Class 3A singles tournament, and she Marissa Xu in district doubles were eliminated in their opening match of the doubles tournament last week. However, she is continuing to help the Lady Little Lions in pursuit of the team district title.
On the tennis court, Dodoo is making a solid transition, too. She sports a 13-1 record this season playing primarily No. 3 singles for the Lady Little Lions. She didn’t represent State College in the District 6 Class 3A singles tournament, but she will be teaming up with Marissa Xu in district doubles this week while also continuing to help the Lady Little Lions in the team districts.
It might be surprising, but Dodoo only took up the sport in the spring of 2016.
“I used to run track, but I didn’t really like it,” Dodoo said. “My dad thought I should play tennis. His father was a very good recreational tennis player.”
Dodoo took to the new game like a duck to water. She was 10-5 for State College last season.
“I am happy with the way this season is gone. At the same time, I would have liked to do even better,” Dodoo said.
That she’s a driven athlete shouldn’t be a surprise. Her father was an African gold medalist in the triple jump and competed in four Olympic Games.
In her free time, in addition to listening to her music, Dodoo likes to study history and plays Tetris. She’s still firming up her college plans.
“I either want to major in forensic science or criminology. I want to become a forensic psychologist,” Dodoo said.
“I’ll probably go to Penn State. I guess I’ll be staying in the cold weather for a little bit longer, unfortunately,” Dodoo added with a laugh.
