It looks like I may have broken the formatting of the blog a bit with
the picture posts, but I won’t be able to fix it for a while. Ah well.
This is a picture of the a-cha fruit that is incredibly sweet.
Apparently, there is a German company that exports this stuff, but I’ll
have to do a bit of research to figure out where to find it.
I think I’ve figured out how to post pictures from my camera now. Here’s
a picture from Wli Falls. The hike was about 350 metres and took us
about 5 hours there and back. We were all drenched with sweat by the
time we got up to the top and all of us were more than happy to plunge
into the refreshing cool water. As we made our way up, we saw many
coconuts, bananas and pineapples growing on the side of the trail. Our
guide, Emmanuel, also introduced us to delicious fruits that none of us
had ever heard of. One of which was called "monkey fruit" and had a
tangy sour taste to it and another called "a-cha" which was this
incredibly sweet fruit similar in appearance to lychee, but smaller and
a clear jelly surrounds a hard pit. The taste lingers on your tongue for
a good hour and everything tastes slightly sweet. I’m somewhat saddened
that I will likely never taste this fruit again, but man oh man, it
certainly made for a delicious memory.
The view from the top of the falls is breathtaking and apparently it’s
even more amazing during the wet season when even more water is coming
down. Emmanuel mentioned that there were plans to build something that
would take visitors straight to the top (without having to do the 5 hour
hike). It will be interesting to see how tourism affects the local area
in the years ahead.
Another audio phonepost!
Another audio phonepost!
I keep on forgetting my USB cable back at the YMCA, but here is an
unflattering picture that Nat took with her cellphone. This is me in
Ghana. Enjoy.
Another audio phonepost!
I often get asked what the weather is like in Ghana. Well, here’s this weekend’s weather forecast:
Saturday – day
Chance of a Thunderstorm. Scattered Clouds. High: 34 °C . Wind WSW 21 km/h . Chance of precipitation 30% (water equivalent of 1.58 mm). Heat Index: 41 °C .
Yes, it will feel like 41 °C (106 °F). Yowza. It can still get pretty hot in the evenings, holding steady at 35 °C (95°F)
We are spending this week researching the themes that we will be presenting at the employability workshops in Koforidua and Takoradi – I will be covering “Business Planning” and “How to Start a Small Business”. As Nat and I were sitting in the internet café this morning researching the process of starting a small business (she will be presenting on financial planning), we realized that while there was a lot of information available online, some answers were also available just around the corner.
In order to learn more about what people need to start a small business, why not ask local Ghanaian entrepreneurs? We met a framer who had a small shop down the street and he was more than happy to share his experience with us. He had started his business with a small loan from his family and in the past ten years, he had managed to scale his business quite well, going from selling on the street walking around to setting up a shop on one of the main streets. He had also diversified his offerings to cater to different markets. He had also recently begun importing directly from China to reduce his costs. He stressed the importance of clear written contracts as there was a misunderstanding regarding some quality of product received, but it was a lesson learned.
From the conversation, it seemed that the qualities that were critical to his success were resilience and the self-discipline to save his profits and reinvesting it back into the business over the years.
A little further down the street, we met a woman who was working at a book cart and we asked her about how she had found that job as our group will also be offering resume workshops and interview skills. She had learned how to create a CV from a friend and had also found the job at the book cart through a friend. The situation seems to be similar in Canada, schools typically don’t teach students how to prepare a resume and most people find job through their networks. She was saving to eventually go back to school to become a nurse, something she had always felt drawn to. Like the framer, she also placed a great deal of importance on saving for the future.
It’s been fascinating learning more about the labour market in Ghana. More details to come as the workshop comes together.
Another audio phonepost!
Another audio phonepost!
I have been in Ghana for less than 72 hours and it feels like I have been here for so much longer. It will be nearly impossible to recount everything that has happened so far, so I offer up a few very small vignettes.
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.
This is a test of the email photo blogging system. As you were.
Another audio phonepost!
My flight leaves in just about 72 hours and I’m furiously working through my to-do list. Travel insurance. Power of attorney. Bills. Shopping. Prescriptions. Oh yeah, in all the hustle and bustle, I somehow neglected to inform my extended family that I was traveling overseas.
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!
A co-worker referenced this XKCD comic today as he suggested focusing on enjoying the time I’ll be abroad and not worrying too much about blogging. The balance between experiencing the moment and blogging is something that I’ll be thinking about in the days leading up to my departure. It often takes me a lot of time to compose what I consider to be a good blog post and in addition to the time it takes to write it, I often spend most of the day letting the thoughts simmer on the back of my mind.
I will be challenging myself to set a time limit of 15 minutes for each blog entry and will be making my best effort to otherwise not think about puttings things online.
Time’s up for today. This is a lot tougher than I thought.
A cup of water and a burger with everything.It’s a pretty ordinary meal, but it’s one that I often order at Angie’s Diner and it’s a lunch hour routine that I’ll miss while I’m overseas. Pause. No, when I really think about it, it’s not the routine itself, but the people. The friendly faces, the cheerfulness and feeling right at home. So when I was asked where I would like to have a farewell get-together with coworkers, Angie’s naturally came to mind.
I was overwhelmed at the response and was glad so many people came out to share in the occasion. I wish I had the chance to speak to everyone individually, but having everyone in the same room together did afford me the opportunity to say a few words of appreciation for all the positive support and great memories during my time with the organization.
However, there are many sentiments of appreciation that floated through my mind for the rest of the day; ones that I wish I had taken an extra moment in the past year to say to people, but the moment never seemed quite right. Things like, thank you for your kindness; for taking that moment way back when and asking how I was doing; for being a pleasure to work with; for always being a positive and cheerful presence, because even though we seldom talked, it was nonetheless appreciated. Things like that. But I’ve been fortunate to work with many individuals for whom the thank yous aren’t their raison d’etre. Not to say those sentiments aren’t appreciated, but they do the things they do because they’re good people.
It really will be the people I miss the most.
Another audio phonepost!
Alright, let’s get this show on the road. For those of you visiting this site for the first time, I will be departing for Ghana at the beginning of March and I will be blogging my experience overseas. I’ve blogged in some form another since 2002, but I haven’t been keeping up on it in the last couple of years as I needed to take a step back from the “public” eye and live a bit of life without feeling the need to constantly write about it.
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!