I can go home now. I’ve had my biggest successes in Ghana and know that it will be tough to top. Desmond slapped my hand.
Since the day that I came to Kpetoe Desmond would run away screaming anytime he saw me. Once I passed he would start yelling “For Daniel” until I waved at him. His house is between mine and the road so I go by him a few times a day. Each time same story, his mom tells me to touch him and he screams and does a run/waddle away. White people are scary. Sometimes I would chase him; it is the neighborhood joke. So much that Michael was talking to me one night:
Dan: You will be very happy when I go home, I’ll leave you my baseball glove.
Michael: No, I will cry when you leave (Michael is the toughest 11 year old I know), just For Desmond will be happy when you leave.
Tuesday, when I walked by Desmond after my run he comes up to me and I reached out like I do to scare him and instead he slaps it. He looks at his hand to see if it’s alright then gets this look on his face of great accomplishment; it was the most joy I’ve ever seen in a child’s eyes, then he runs away. A day that starts like that can’t be a bad one.
There have been some frustrations with my projects lately. My basketball court proposal has been sitting at the Accra PC office for over a month now, and as we speak all the quotes on it are changing due to inflation and exchange rates. It still has to go through Washington too. After taking the constitution all over the country to get signatures the Ghana Tourist Board in Ho has had it for 3 weeks, they’re the last Herbie Hancock we need and we said we wouldn’t have another meeting until it was all finalized. We worked hard on a proposal to NCRC for rubbish bins throughout town and hadn’t heard from them for over a month but I think they’ll be installed July 16th. Basically lately the only work I’ve been able to do is work with the District Assembly, host tourists and my computer lessons. Luckily number of tourists continues to be on the rise and I have my weaving so I haven’t gone crazy.
After Desmond slapped my hand I realized that meant more to me than if I got them a theme park built here in Kpetoe (be sweet though wouldn’t it!?). PC is more about the relationships and exchange of cultures then the actual aid work. I look at how my feelings have changed from being all alone in some African village 5,660.15 miles and 771 days from home (273 days down but who’s counting) to being part of Kpetoe and I’m very happy with all the little successes I’ve had here so far.
If that was too cheesy for ya we did have 18 art students from western Canada (apparently they do exist) stop by last Sunday, hilarious. How do I explain to Bright and Joshua why people pierce their tongues and lips or why they are taking a picture of the ground? “No Bright, her lips aren’t naturally black.” When they left they were wearing kente in ways I’ve never seen before. One of my best friends is an art student and I used to tease her about how weird they were, little did I know, they weren’t that bad.

I hate snakes, like run and scream like a little girl, hate snakes. On the rowing team if there was a snake by the river they’d always manage to scare the crap outta me with it, real mature guys. I’m getting better here due to seeing so many, mostly dead, on my runs. Well yesterday there was the thickest one I’ve ever seen that had been run over by a car. Today I run by and pray it’s been moved and most of it had, I was relieved. Then I saw a guy on the other side of the road starting a fire, I won’t go into details but I think you can figure out what he was grilling, disgusting. Probably shouldn’t have shared that but it grossed me out and that takes a lot now.

Adam Luck (remember the name, he’s gonna be famous), my best friend in PC, just starred in a Ghanaian movie as “white man who brings education to village.” Ghanaian movies may be the worst acting in the history of mankind and all of Adam’s lines were improv, sounds like a sure hit to me. Can’t wait to see it.

The only way that Spain won’t score 5 goals on America is if they put 11 men on the goal line. –BBC World Sports Update June 24
US won 2-0 the next day and almost beat Brazil in the final yesterday. AWESOME.


Desmond's reaction for me until Tuesday


Desmond giving me five for like the 5th time