Meda ase pa Ghana

Sitting down to write my final thoughts on this year has proven tough, probably due to the fact that I’m watching the World Cup for about seven hours a day.

Here’s a brief but necessary back-story. We went over to Shawnigan on Friday for a birthday party for my sister, which was good. We came back here on Saturday, after watching Ghana beat the Czechs in an amazing game. I was going nuts and would have given anything to have been in Kumasi. And that brings us to now, as the past few days have been relaxed to say the least. Yesterday was my birthday, so I hope all of you who didn’t email me or call or sky-write ‘Happy Birthday Tony’ feel really guilty.

On to the matter at hand. I am happy to be home, but I miss Ghana a lot. This past year was an incredible experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It was also very difficult and totally different (duh) from anything I’ve ever done. I spent a lot of time looking forward to going home, but I never actually wanted to go home, at least not early, if that makes any sense.

It was a lonely experience at times, as cultural and language barriers meant that I didn’t forge too many really good connections with people, apart from Dr. Addae. My friends there were all great, but I can’t compare them to my friends here. It’s not that they were worse or better—just different. It is also harder to make lasting connections when you know you’re going to be living a million miles apart pretty soon.

That is the negative. The positives totally outweigh them. I learned as much in 9 months as I had in a lifetime, particularly about small business, adapting to a challenging environment, and myself. Those are things that will help me immeasurably down the road.

Look, I really can’t put all of this into words, or at least not onto paper. This year is something that I am still figuring out and that will continue for a while. It comes out better in conversation so you’ll all just have to call me if you’re interested. Sorry.

I’ve got a job lined up with the Mississauga News in Toronto doing sales work. I want to learn how to sell properly, as I believe this is a skill essential to success in business. I’ll probably move to Toronto in early July. As for Tony’s Adventures in Ghana, I’m not too sure what to do with it. Paul asked me to keep it going because “books are really long” but I don’t know if I want to keep doing it. I won’t delete it but there is the chance that it will be yet another piece of roadkill on the information superhighway.

Thank you all for reading this, thank you all for your emails, thank you all for everything. Knowing that I had so many great people back home really helped in some of the tougher times. Thank you Dr. Addae for being such a great host and boss. And finally, thank you Ghana. I know I’ll make it back at some point.

But for now, I’m going to enjoy the World Cup. Forza Italia (and Ghana Black Stars)!

Home

At home. The new house is great, but small. Still, it's pretty hard to argue with the view. More later.

P.S. TsoTsi is an amazing movie. It's South African and won Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars' this year. Go see it.

Homeward Bound, the Incredible Journey

It's Wednesday morning and I'm at La Palm Beach Hotel with my parents. Things have been fantastic since they got here last week and it's pretty surreal to realize that I'm leaving at 10:30 tonight.

I'm going to keep this short and put up photos and a big end-of-the-year-summary post when I get back home. We get into London tomorrow at 6 AM and then we're supposed to arrive in Vancouver around 3:30 PM.

So it's bye-bye Ghana. See you in Canada.

In Accra

It's now Saturday afternoon. I'm in Accra and my parents are getting here soon. Needless to say, I'm totally not excited or anything. I'm in a bit of a rush so I'll just say that it's sweet to be in Accra and I've got two separate posts within this post below this paragraph. See if you can decipher it. Enjoy!

It’s Wednesday night but I doubt I’ll put this up til Friday. Today was really good. As I think I mentioned in my last post, we had a ceremony to distribute school uniforms and books to twenty needy girls as part of a program that was initiated last year. We had some of the things left over and some people from a village near where we live asked for them. Ask and ye shall receive.

So Grace and I went up there to give them out. There was a big ceremony in the church with the teachers and some village elders and parents, plus at least 200 hyperactive kids. I gave a little speech about Dr. Addae, stressing the importance of education and remembering your roots. In truth, I think most of it went over the kids’ heads, but the few sentences I spoke in Twi got me a huge cheer.

It was rewarding to be able to do this, but it was also unfulfilling in a way. I wish we had more to give but I know that it would never have been enough. That’s the way it goes with this kind of work-it never ends.

One more thing: kids here go absolutely bonkers when you take their picture, especially after the flash goes off. I got a few good shots today and took a bit of video as well so I’ll be able to remember the noise. What I really need is two cameras, or at least a separate flash, so I can take a photo of how they react to the flash going off. Crazy.

It’s Friday morning now. Yesterday I finished creating an application form for the college and then we went up to the clinic to deliver everything and start putting things in order…finally. It’ll take a few more days to get everything done but it should be up and running by the time I get back on Wednesday. I spent about half an hour putting outpatient cards in alphabetical order (fun!). It seems like half of Ghana has a last name that starts with ‘A’ and the other half has a last name starting with ‘O’. Not one ‘C’. At least I know that if I got sick there they could find my card quickly.

I’m about to head to Accra but hopefully I’ll get this posted before I leave. I’m staying with Nana Aba tonight and my parents are getting in tomorrow night. Not too sure how often I’ll be writing after they get here, so it might be a while. So long, everyone…