I don’t have any pictures for this update, but I do have some links to different websites I’ll include. The update’s also a little overdue. And it’s also not about where I am currently living and working, rather, it’s about Buduburam again. I’m still in touch with some of my friends and some of the people with whom I was working these past few years, and in the past couple of months things have been tense on the camp.

I’ve been expecting a couple of good friends to come from the camp for a visit – but the visit got postponed a week so that they could stay a little longer when they did arrive, and then when the bus didn’t leave on the scheduled day of departure the visit became postponed indefinitely. It’s too bad for a number of reasons – I was looking forward to being with some good friends, laughing and talking freely (I am gradually getting some friends like that here in Nkoranza, but it takes me time), and I was also looking forward to getting first hand, face-to-face accounts of what’s been going on in the camp and how the troubles and tensions are going to affect the refugees – particularly some of the students I know who are almost finished with their university education. (I did just get a call from one of my friends who says he is now planning to come alone this Saturday - I hope it works out - so much can come up, though.)

If you have time, check out some of these links to get more information on what’s been happening: (thank you, Phyllis, for sending them to me)

Ghana: UN Refugee Agency Urges Govt to Halt Deportation of Liberians

Liberian refugee sues government

Buduburam Refugee Concerns International Calls for Action to ...

Safeguard refugee rights in Ghana

The time that this was all going on was stressful for people, obviously. I had a couple of friends calling me, giving me updates, not sure if they’d be needing to run into the bush to hide at any moment, fearing for their safety, of if they would just be captured and sent away with no warning.

It’s strange to think this was happening here in Ghana – this is a shining star of West Africa, and yet people were being treated in this way.

So – I’ll keep my part of the blog short because of those few links I included – I hope you check some of them out. I’m still not sure what the near future will be for the Liberians here – especially the students who only have a semester or a year left. We’ll find a way for them to complete their education – but it will be a bit more difficult, and probably more expensive.

But it’ll work out – that’s what happens here, things work out. People trust things will somehow be fine. Sometimes they may fight for what they want; they may get angry. But then there's often an acceptance that things will work out - that things always do work out - that things have worked out.

It’s hard to explain this attitude/feeling/approach to life, but when you’re here for awhile you sometimes can understand it and feel it. Things do turn out fine – not always as expected or hoped, but fine. It's often just a matter of adjusting expectations, adjusting a point of view. Often, a matter of trying for what you want, but accepting, working with and making the best of what you get. And then adjusting your view to realize that it wasn't what you wanted, it may have been disappointing, it's not what you thought was best, but it ended up for the best. (Anyway - I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this - so I'll end here.)