Reigniting my enthusiasm, LIFE is SIMPLE…

Ghana represents for me the beginning of my West African Experience. At arrival at the airport after a cool trip the guys were waiting for me. The flight was almost empty, and the airport as well. It was late night and after fighting for cheap prices with taxi drivers we headed home.

The MC has a house in Ghana. Three rooms, bathroom, kitchen and social areas, there are four houses inside the fence of what seems to be just one house. There are also many mango trees in the yard. I felt like at home back in my childhood in the Venezuelan Andes, of course the weather was completely different.

Ghana is more like the pictures I had of Africa. Disorder, trash, litter, loads of people, traffic jam, street sellers, colors, sand roads, and stop of counting.

In the middle of all this mess, there is a country with a lot of potential, a growing country. Young people in Ghana are aware of this potential, they do believe in a brighter future. I heard less complains and more dreams than in any other country I visited so far. This reignited my enthusiasm.

Days passed by slowly, not like in the rest of the trip. It seems I was there for months. Life is definitely slow in Accra (Accra is the capital of the country in case you didn’t know).

There is no real downtown in Accra. There are a couple of streets that are more popular than others. One of them is known as Oxford Street, it is not the real name of it, but I think that even local people do not remember the real name. Food court, pizza places, discos, bars, supermarkets and banks are there. The other popular place I got to know is the ‘Circle’. The Circle is where all the busses (matatus, combis, however you wanna call them but in Ghana are called ‘tro-tro’) have their stop. You can picture the crowd at this place. It is like when you are getting closer everything slows down, the traffic starts to go in slow motion and suddenly you are completely surrounded by hawkers, fruit sellers, food, and all imaginable product it can be sold in the streets… You cross the circle slowly, there is no way to speed up… Suddenly, again, life starts the normal pace, and you realize you are leaving the circle…

I wander if that is what happens with us when we start to live in circles around things, around places, around people… Suddenly we realize we are living better, smoother, faster, but we never perceive that we stopped living in circles, maybe we move to another town, maybe we broke up, may be… I want to live my life in a simple way and I do not want to live it in circles, I want to keep moving, I want to die and be happy of what I was able to see, to experience, to love…

I made good friends in AIESEC Ghana. It was not an easy task since I had to be hard with them in order to put things in order. I strongly believe AIESEC in Ghana will make it to get their full membership back next year. Cheers guys!

My agenda was pretty busy, as always. I had to visit our local committees in three different universities: University of Legon and CUC in Accra, and the Local Committee in Kumasi, a city around four hours by bus from Accra.

Legon University is big, nice white buildings at colonial style that give the place a special touch, like it has been suspended in time. In the middle of such environment I was positively surprised with wireless connection all around the campus, yeeeeeeeeeahh!

CUC is a small private university in the city. Very cute and with a small garden in the middle of the parking lot. Nothing special thou.

Kumasi was another story. I went there with Sabina (from Slovenia) and we arrived late at night. The city is like a huge little town. It is the perfect replica of African towns in movies. Walking through those streets brought me memories of my time in Haiti. Life looks so simple, so easy, so non-complicated.

I couldn’t stop myself thinking how complicated I had become lately. I made a promise to myself and I will fulfill it, I always fulfill my promises. I will stop making things more complicated than they are.

In Kumasi I stayed in a house of an AIESECer. Small house, two rooms interconnected. Both of them have door access to a corridor that is divided in the middle by a bed sheet hanging from a rope, in one corner is the kitchen and in the other corner is the bathroom/toilet. Life is simple. Brother and sister share the house, they go to University, He works in AIESEC and she works in a HIV/AIDS NGO. Life is simple and meaningful.

After meeting members here and there, after attending company meetings and finishing the review of the plan with the Member Committee, I finished my duties with AIESEC and I was satisfied of the job done.

Ghana was again a challenge for my ‘maestro’ card. No ATM takes maestro in the country. If you are thinking to come to Africa, make sure you have visa card and ATM cards that are compatible with visa ATMs. I had to receive money again through western union.

Life can be very cheap in Ghana or very expensive. Transport in the city is cheap, but intercity is not. Food in the streets is cheap, but is go for a pizza you will pay like in most European countries. Funny contrasts; bad for me since I had to take care of what I was eating. I ended up going to supermarket and filling my empty stomach with pasta, bread, tune and sardines for a whole week to be able to live inside my budget, however I regret the fact I wasn’t able to taste local food.

Ghana was also the wake up to my health problems. I went to the doctor and receive an ultimatum. I am following up his instructions dot by dot. I want to finish my trip. Life is simple, but I have to care about myself.

The farewell wasn’t easy… It was like all of us had hidden tears behind the eyes and nobody wanted to say the last ‘bye’.

I finally checked in and left.

This was my first experience with Afriqiyah Airlines. It is an airline from Libya; this was weird for me since the name sounded more like West African. The service was very bad, the crew spoke the worst English I ever heard and we were late in the take off, if you think this isn’t enough, the aircraft seemed to be fallen apart, literally. The flight is coming from Tripoli to Accra and from Accra I was flying to Lome in Togo. I felt pity for the passenger that did the long flight. These 45 minutes were the worst flying experience of my life, and I have been in many, many flights.

I arrived to Togo, where actually life is simpler that in Ghana.

My friend Sebastian was waiting for me. I had to fight with the airport crew to be able to get my luggage by myself, since they always want a tip. There were four guys waiting for me. One of them was obviously a person who wanted a tip after carrying my luggage; I fought again to get my car with my backpack back. I greeted Sebastian and the other two guys with and ‘African hug’. I was very surprised when I realized they came in ‘vespas’ to pick me up. Everybody seems to have a small motorcycle in Togo.

When putting the luggage in the bikes one of the guy started to ask for money very silently, it was then that I realize that there were just two AIESECers and the third one was another ‘give me a tip’ guy. I wanted him to give me back my ‘African hug’ but wasn’t possible, isn’t?

In the way home we stopped for a drink. I got a ‘malta’ I was missing this from Venezuela. It seems that Africa has been connecting me with my Latin-American roots very often lately.

We arrive home, to a very nice house. The next day I realize there was not running water and I took a bath taking water with a bowl. I remember then that in my childhood I used to do that, I had forgotten. There were no water boilers by then and the maid used to boil water and mix it with cold water and put it in the bathroom in a bucket for us (my sister and I) to take showers. It seems I am recovering lost memories during this trip and that is connecting me more and more with who I am very deep inside myself. I love these feelings.

Next morning we went to University to take a bus to the north of the country where a National Leadership Development Seminar was to take place.

I saw two streets that were ‘normal’. The whole part of the city I was able to see had sand streets. No pavement, no pedestrian roads. However streets are wide and full of trees. It was like living in a beach with loads of houses around.

Another thing that caught my attention was the lack of crowd and noise. Lome is very peaceful and silent place. I think wasn’t like this six months ago in the middle of the political disturbance the country passed by.

Togo was governed for more than 30 years by the same man. He died and his son took on the power. International claims and national disturbs made their way to set up democratic elections. After many hard days, potential revolution and a civil war around the corner. The results were announced. The son of the former dictator became the first democratic president of the Republic. No comments.

At the university we took the bus. We headed north to Nangbeto, where a dam was built in co-operation with Togo. The dam was supposed to provide with electricity to both countries, but due to the increase of demand, it is not enough. I had the chance to visit the dam and it is pretty small but the landscape is awesome, it was a very cool experience.

Togo imports electricity from Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana, which makes it very expensive and this makes it hard for an average family to live under normal quality standards of life. Benin in its side has been improving its quality of life. The reasons? EU and international commissions have been supporting Benin. Togo, due to the unclear late elections doesn’t receive any direct support.

Togo is my first French speaking country in my African trip. My sessions were in English, it was funny to see people wrapping up my sessions in French at the end. It was like they memorized my words and then gave the session again, in some way these were the longest sessions I ever delivered.

One of the most amazing moments for me was the roll call of the delegation from Benin. There was no AIESEC in Benin until around six months ago. At that moment a guy from Benin visited Togo and asked to open AIESEC in Benin. AIESEC Togo cannot be expansion partner since they are not a full member country, but they decided to move forward by opening a local committee of AIESEC Togo in Benin. The initiative was fruitful and I met 11 members of the first generation of AIESECers from Benin. Definitely we are expanding our ability to generate more impact in more places!

Togo was also witness of my first malaria experience! I got malaria, it feels weird, dizzy, headache, diarrhea, like a cold, you feel it in your bones. Two pills per day said the doctor and I obey; two awful pills per day. Malaria pills sent me to bed immediately and if you add to that that in Ghana I got stronger antibiotics, ha, I feel like an addicted. I am following strictly the diet the doctor gave me and I expect to get better soon.

However, looking the positive side of the story, Togo and malaria gave me two days of bed that I was completely missing. Thanks god life is wise.

My next destination is the surreal Nigeria. I have heard many stories, I have met many Nigerians. Soon I will be facing the streets of Lagos and I will know by myself what it feels like to be in Nigeria, the country that hosts 56% of the population of West Africa.

I do not really know what to expect, and that is why I decided to expect nothing, let’s life be simple…

Dey