I am cheating on this one – I am doing a pictoral blog because…well, a picture paints a thousand words? I am lazy? A combination? I will go with the latter in order to maintain a high level of trust between you and me. But in case you think clicking through to the next page is too hard, I will put in 3 reasons here to click to photos:
A Story from The Field
Like so many others, Abigail got a loan for her provisions shop. Like so many others, she wanted to buy higher profit items so she could make more money – enough money to enroll back into University. Okay, so the last part is a bit different. But that’s just the beginning of how different Abigail is.
Her story involves broken homes, dreams of helping kids, perseverance, Faith, and more determination than one person normally has.
Abigail comes from a broken home, nothing she wants to talk about nor have another child go though. So at the age of 18 she started finding kids in the community in bad situations – broken home, orphan, unsafe environment – and took them home if she was allowed, or looked after them daily if she couldn’t take them out of their situation.
She had gone to University for a semester early on, but decided to allocate her money solely for the kids – to pay for food, a house, healthcare, school materials, and clothing. Now at 24 years old, Abigail has 18 children she looks after – 10 that live with her, 8 she looks after at her rented home. Her provision shop has allowed her to pay for items the children need, while also saving to rent a larger house – and to save for tuition to attend a weekend University nearby.
Through perseverance, she found a lovely home, with its own compound – plenty of room for the children to live and play.
I visited both homes, and the difference is dramatic – the kids will be thrilled! Abigail is also starting up University again in a few short weeks.
Last year she held a community fundraiser with some success. The community does help out in other small ways, offering some food and produce from their farms. She is also a pastor in the community.
How are the children doing? Her eldest is 22, and just started nursing school. Her next eldest began teacher training college last year. The others that stay with her attend school, and there are signs posted at the front door of her house that says “Speak English”. She is determined they get the best fresh start possible in life.
Like so many others, Abigail wants to see Ghanaians step up and out of poverty. But unlike most people, Abigail is taking action every day to ensure that happens – one child at a time.
Thanks for reading about Abigail. There is no ask or action here. Just wanted you to learn about someone else’s life, and the amazing things people are doing in the world.
Sometimes it is snippets of conversations that show the soul of a country:
Looking at the scarf now hanging across the tv in my apartment, I smile. Life is Good.
I mentioned before the potential hazards of constantly moving computer equipment around, especially for someone with my genetic makeup (klutz gene). After 6 weeks and only one issue, it was only a matter of time…
The mouse smashed into 4 pieces when it hit the tile floor of my apartment. (I have decided I am going to stay away from tile flooring in any future home). Never having seen a mouse motherboard before, I spent 10 seconds in admiration of the technological prowess of the thing before spending 45 minutes not-so-silently cursing trying to put the pieces back together. Technology is fun right up until you have to pay special attention to it. Like a rollercoaster – fun to watch, rather terrifying to be a part of it.
The first 30 minutes proved the definition of insanity – I kept trying to fit the pieces together the same way and it kept not working. When I finally turned the thing upside down (figuratively-kind of), it slid into place. Leaving the next 15 minutes trying to put the two outside pieces together. I finally resorted to brut strength and presto! Of course, there was that annoying clear plastic piece left over, but since everything fit together, I figured it was an unnecessary bit put in to confuse and annoy people like me.
I was on a tight time schedule to leave Accra and head to the Volta Region by tro-tro – a small van full of people smashed together for a 3 hour road trip. Lots of smashing in this blog…hmmm…
I got to the Advans office in Ho, regional capital of Volta Region, without mishap. Until I tried to use my computer and mouse, and the mouse didn’t work. There was a hole on the bottom I didn’t remember from the past years of using a mouse. Ah-ha! It was what focused the red light to allow the mouse to move the arrow! Perhaps if I stuffed a piece of tissue in it…
It quickly became obvious I needed the annoying leftover piece. Had I saved it or pitched it before I left? The genetic thing of course came to mind, so likely I had pitched it. But I had paid $5 for this mouse here (because the bluetooth one I brought from home smashed when I dropped my computer 6 weeks ago), and I wasn’t going to just toss this new broken one away.
5 days later I got home. The plastic leftover piece sat calmly on my table. (😜😜😜to genetics!) 10 minutes silently pleading and cursing the thing to come apart and go back together. (The back together part took 9.5 of those minutes.) VOILA!!!!! A WORKING MOUSE!!
I feel inordinately proud of myself. If I could high-five myself I would. Instead, I put it all on blog for posterity, to remind myself that “What if a mouse gets smashed…I can fix it!” really happened.
It’s been awhile, and I am afraid I will start forgetting all the fine, wonderful, wacky things that are making up my current life. You get to help me keep the memories and share in a laugh and a nod.
Do you have any idea how invasive curry powder is? Let me just say I was finding orange particles for 3 days, hiding in cracks and crevices I had cleaned only an hour before.
The great news is that my whole apartment smelled fantastic for about 48 hours.
After wandering the streets of Osu for about 30 minutes (no mean feat, it’s not that big, but dodging cars and open sewers was a bit exciting), I heard a “Hello Madam!” Sure enough, there was Esther welcoming me back to her shop that I had just walked by +3 years!
After exchanging greetings and catching up a little, we got down to business of fitting me for my new wardrobe: two dresses, a skirt and a simple short-sleeved jacket.
Fabric: $30
Tailor: $55
Reconnecting with a lovely lady: Priceless
Stay tuned for photos!!
Can’t wait to see what happens when I wear my new collection!
I have compromised to every 10 days.
Turns out he has a friend who is going to be out of town for several months – and a housemate willing to share the empty space! With hot water and A/C! AND A COFFEE GRINDER!!
I have been searching off and on for a coffee grinder ever since.
My finding the house in Tamale is obviously a God-wink. Must be doing something right!
Women in their bright fabrics with children tied to their backs dodged in and out of the traffic – both human and vehicle – with fully loaded heads. Why use your hands and arms to carry stuff when you have a perfectly good head that can balance buckets with fish, bananas, glass cases with baked goods, clothes, etc.
Well, when in Ghana…seriously, did you not read my post about being a klutz?! I will eventually give this a try, but not during work hours when I am chasing down my dream – a potato salad.
Tomorrow (August 21) is a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s intervention. This got me thinking about the 4th of July. And yes I know, other than they are both in the summer months, they have absolutely NOTHING in common. Other than the requisite feast, of course.
Potato salad came to mind. It’s easy, totally American, and holiday appropriate.
And I am in Ghana, at an outdoor market that sells everything from mangoes to salt to flip-flops to…you guessed it, potatoes.
My colleagues (2 Advans loan officers I was tagging along with to Nsuwam and its market) assured me they could find me potatoes – sure enough, a bag of 8 dirt encrusted slightely odd-shaped “yellow” potatoes cost me about $.75. I had mayo at home and an onion…what else could I possibly need? Ohhh – EGGS!
I hadn’t touched an egg since my traumatic experience two weeks ago. It was time I stopped being chicken ( 😜 ) and faced my fears.
After quizzing my colleagues about the likelihood of coming across another chick-in-the-egg, and (more) assurances that it NEVER happened to them, I bought 6 eggs for $.80.
Let me clear up the ingredients list issue right now. No one sells celery, and I was so excited about potatoes I forgot about peppers, which they have plenty of here. I know, I know, I was already on shaky ground for good results.
Things back in my apartment were going fairly well. Potatoes were cleaned, peeled, chopped and immersed in boiling water. A few minutes later, they were done, and I cooled them off the best I could – lots of running water, finally putting them in my fridge’s little box freezer compartment (no ice cube tray).
On with the terrifying part – the eggs.
I spun each of them, promising myself if one spun oddly I would pitch it. They all spun the same odd way, so I went ahead and boiled 4 of them.
Done! But how to cool them off quickly so they didn’t overcook? Easy! Put them in the freezer!
You remember what happens to Ralphie in A Christmas Story? The tongue-on-the- flagpole thing? Turns out eggs in a freezer compartment react the same way. They were practically glued down. I tried water to little effect. I wound up wrenching them out of the freezer, leaving chunks of egg and shell behind.
Will frozen egg smell up the freezer/fridge? The water I used to try and unfreeze them created a nice layer of ice over the actual egg and shell.
Eager to move past the ridiculousness, I tasted the cooled down potatoes. Hmmm…not bad…but not what I expected from a slightly white/yellow potato. Ummm…sweet???
Yup. My good ol’ fashioned potato and egg salad sans anything green was now a sweet potato and egg salad. I threw in some chili powder, onion, salt, pepper and mayonnaise with an air of desperation.
It’s almost 10pm, and I have decided to do the taste test tomorrow. That way I can go to bed hopeful.
THE BIG DAY
Let’s not drag this out any longer…it’s edible!! And not bad, in the grand scheme of things. The chili powder is a definite plus. Gumby oversaw my tasting, reminding me to be flexible – just because it isn’t a perfect reproduction of what I wanted doesn’t make it bad, just different.
And as I sit at my table eating sweet potato and egg salad, listening to the sounds of Ghana around me, different seems to be pretty darn good.
The music being blasted from the truck’s speakers was stunning – as in, if you stood too close you would get stunned. But with 40-50 people between me and the truck, and another 150 or so behind the truck, I figured I was in a pretty darn good spot in the parade. What parade? Why, Advans’ 10th Anniversary walk/dance through the streets of Accra parade!
My colleagues at Advans informed me everyone would be there on Saturday at 6am for a 7am start. I set my alarm for 6:15, knowing if I got there by 7 I would still be an hour early. Sure enough, I got there a couple of minutes before 7am and I was probably the 10th one there.
The rest of the Advans employees from around the Greater Accra Region – about 180 I would guess – trickled in by 7:30, and we were off by 7:45am.
Banners, music, dancing, handing out flyers, a police escort to manage the traffic (we were under police orders to say on street and off the sidewalk – go figure), a truck with massive speakers, a DJ and support vehicles – made up the 2 hour walk around Accra under fairly cloudy skies – thank god!
Our band of merry-makers drew quite a crowd of onlookers, who were eage to take the flyers. We finished up back at HQ for more water and of course, aerobics! Yup, because 2 miles walking wasn’t enough, now that the sun was out and merciless, it was time for some real sweating-to-the-beat! I took some pictures, but was quickly called in to join the ‘fun’. I lasted about 15 minutes, and then made a beeline for the water and shade. I definitely made a better cheerleader than participant!!
Once the jumping, swaying, flailing and good times came to an end, next on the agenda was kenkay and fried fish. I grabbed my driver, who had been ecstatic to be invited to join in the walk (I think it was all about the t-shirt), and declared it was time to leave.
I may be embracing my new adventure, but really, too many adventures in one day…hmmm, will have to come up with an ending for that! Any ideas anyone??
Every so often there is so much happening that I want to share little bits – snippets!
Thanks for reading – have a fun day!
Maybe I set myself up for this by even thinking about it. My computer has everything in my life on it (should I be admitting that online??), but I can be a klutz. It’s a disease I am managing, this klutziness. I keep a sharp eye out for possible pitfalls, like uneven sidewalks, things sticking out from car roofs, posts that tempt me to walk into them…Over the years I have even trained myself not to catch a falling knife or put my hand in a running garbage disposal (the last is from personal experience…).
So lugging a computer back and forth from my apartment in Accra, Ghana to an Uber, into the office and back again, seemed fraught with danger. But worse was the idea of having it stolen. Lugging won.
And then I dropped it. On the second day. In my apartment. And I treated it like a knife – no stopping it. I waited to assess the damage until I got to work, as it was tucked into my backpack-really, how bad could it be??
Great news, screen was intact and my computer started. Bad news – the opening hinge was broken and it was pulling up the corner of my laptop. CRAP!
By Thursday I knew the computer and I couldn’t go on like this. I confided in my next-desk seat mate, Kubra, who told me to go to IT (the org I am partnered with, Advans Savings and Loan, has all the mod cons). With trepidation and sweaty palms, I carefully took by wonky computer to them. “Oh, we can’t fix that.” Crap. “But we can send it to a shop that can.” YAY! Wait, NO!!! That’s got my life in it!! Send it to some computer shop in Ghana? Seriously? I might be a klutz, but I am not stupid.
I handed over the computer, begging for its safe return. Friday I would be visiting cashew farmers in the Volta Region, so I would pick it up on Saturday. I started to hyperventilate. Everyone chuckled in commiseration – at least, that’s how I decided to view it.
Saturday morning finally came – managing my anxiety levels over the past 36 hours had almost been effective – and I made my way to Advans, hopeful that IT (whom I was assured would be there) had my fixed and unviolated computer.
The super nice security guard lady led me into the bank, informing me with a lovely smile that of course IT was not in today. Whipping out my phone I called my contact and lifeline at Advans, Samuel, who knew all about this stuff. I gave the phone to the Advans bank teller, and lots of conversation ensued. She closed her window (much to the dismay of the other clients) and led me to the back office. To a desk that had a hidden key that unlocked a secret cupboard. And my computer!!
I started it up to make sure it really WAS my computer and functioned – YAY! Hinge fixed, and seemingly unviolated, I silently sent apologies to everyone everywhere for my doubts and anxiety. A well-deserved coffee was in my very near future, and I headed out with the backpack confined to my back with both straps.
I will be looking for a secret cupboard of my own on Monday.
Everyone has a story. The last time I posted a blog was in 2014 and I was living in Cambodia. Now I’m on a new adventure and thought some of you might be interested in how the life of a 50-something can morph – the life of a getting-older dog learning lots of new tricks!
Where have I been?
My Global Health Fellowship with Pfizer in Phnom Penh “wrecked me”* me for corporate America. I tried going from positively affect a country’s birth spacing and health issues as a GHF to trying to convince a doctor that Viagra was a better choice than the other ED meds. Talk about a letdown!!
I tried to get into the swing of things by trying to introduce a US Health Fellowship within Pfizer. I mean, so many Pfizer reps and employees wanted to help and give of themselves but couldn’t leave family for months on end. So why not give the USA a boost and put Pfizer employees to work in their own back yards? Got as far as submitting a budget, but it fell through.
In 2015 I went on another volunteer trip to Ghana with Adanu (been on two prior to Cambodia, they helped cement my love for Nonprofit ideals and values), and at the end of the trip I was offered a job to help run their Friends of Adanu organization in the US – from my home! I jumped at the chance (after I mopped up my tears of gratitude), and that’s where I was for 2 ½ years.
The job finished up, and earlier this year I started job hunting – from my new state of residence, Rhode Island. I had become interested in the idea of lending money to folks who were financially excluded from banking because they were poor.
Donors, I truly love every one of you, but really, is it sustainable? What if…people learn to save and manage their own money so they could make their own plans to benefit their own lives? What about empowering versus charity? Adanu was on the absolute right path, and I wanted to push it further.
In early April, a friend in Rotary (yep, I’m a Rotarian now!) mentioned Kiva during a phone call. Being completely naïve, I looked up their website. Six weeks later I had gotten the coveted Kiva Fellowship and was booking a flight to Ghana!
Everyone has a story. Mine begins here in Accra Ghana as a Kiva Fellow for the next six months. This blog will NOT be Kiva focused, but rather my trials, tribulations and the forever “What if…I can!” mantra while going in a new direction post-50 years old. Join me, comment, coach, throw ideas at me…and please be patient with me, I am still a newby and learning! (Coaching welcomed!)
First cooked meal – with advisor at hand!
*Shout out to Kimberly Cotto!
What if...I can! 