Stepping off the airplane into the thick tropical air. Going into the parking lot on the way to Robyn’s car and being asked by a local Ghanaian for a Coca-Cola, not having any clue what that meant. (He was asking for some money) Just being amazed at the organized chaos of the traffic.

At the beach late at night looking out at the Atlantic ocean and marveling at how small the world suddenly felt.

In the days leading up to my departure, feeling worried about forgetting things or leaving things behind. And then in the final hours before leaving the house, a calm settling over me … and then wondering to myself if this is how mom felt in her last days. You can only do what you can and simply trust that things will be okay in your absence.

Dear Family, going to Ghana. BRB in a bit. Love, Jason

I’m going to be trying to make more efficient use of my sleeping hours. For instance, I’m considering cutting back on bed-sleep and swapping it out with train-sleep. For instance, I don’t really need to sleep that much tonight if I can snooze on the train to Toronto, right? And I should be able to snooze on the subway too.

I’m hoping to have my Twitter feed piped in through the blog sometime tomorrow. Keep checking back!

While blogging has exploded in recent years, I’ve noticed that the general tone of blogs has shifted. They aren’t as intimate and personal as the ones I was familiar with in the early 2000s. To me, blogging has always been about sharing pieces of myself with the world and hoping that others may find some of their own thoughts, experiences, hopes, or dreams reflected back at them.

In this blog, I will be sharing writing, pictures, video (if bandwidth allows) and audio during my time away. In addition to detailing my work in Ghana, I will also be sharing my thoughts and feelings surrounding my first time outside the Americas. My initial posts will be short and perhaps less polished then I would like, but I am hoping that this will change as I get into the swing of things.

As well, some posts may be password protected for viewing only by close friends and family members. If you fall into either one of those categories and come across a protected entry, please email me for the password. I will be using this feature mostly to post things like itineraries and phone numbers, things that are probably best left outside of the public eye.

So that’s it for the first post. More to come!