I’m going to jump to another place – not Nkoranza, not my leave in the U.S., not where I currently am (Accra and Hope for Life), but back to the camp and over to Liberia.

Since even before I left the refugee camp, people have been encouraged to return to Liberia. Many have, but there’s still a significant number who haven’t. This is an update for a couple of people I’ve written about in the past who are now back in Liberia.

I’ve written about Samuel several times in the past (but, I'm not linking to any of those stories because I'm trying to find them quickly and am having a hard time finding them). He’s the one I’ve known for about 1000 years (since 1993), who I’ve seen struggle through and then build himself up from difficult situations time and again. There’s a story about him at this site (but you need to scroll down a bit) – the version in French is what he wrote and is much better written and more accurate than the translation that someone else has done in English.

A friend of mine helped him get through University – other donations from friends helped with some unexpected expenses that arose during his education. Just before the end of last year, after completing his studies, his wife and son returned to Liberia while Samuel remained to pack up their things that wouldn’t be easily replaced in Liberia (primarily text books). He also needed to follow through on his final project, making sure all copies went to where they were needed, that it followed the correct format, etc. Then in February this year he returned to Liberia – where he found it wasn’t so easy to get a job. And then he found that, in spite of staying and following his project through to the end, there were problems with the final result.

But, to sum up the story – he will officially graduate on the 14th – sadly, he won’t be here to walk across the platform and be handed his documents. There’s not enough money for the transport (he’s got some other priorities going on – his family, for one). And he’s also just been hired by Save the Children. So, good things are happening for him – it’s exciting.

Another guy I’ve written about in the past is Otis (another past update on Otis is here). He’s the one who’s a tailor and also does “designing” (which usually means machine embroidering). He does some good work. A little over a year ago he returned to Liberia. It was a long process. He wanted to return earlier, but then was told he could get into a program to help set up his business, and something something something, and he ended up shipping all his equipment back, but then being interminably delayed here by the “helping” organization(s). In the end, no help came through from this group, so he found his way back to Liberia, and met his equipment waiting for him there. His getting through this process of shipping his equipment [not a cheap task, and it included some sewing machines, embroidery machine, generator, knitting machine (that’s the thing that stitches up the ends of the cloth so they don’t unravel)] and then being delayed for a few months with no means of supporting himself was helped by some other friends. (Timing is always perfect – I’ve talked of that in the past – a donation comes when it’s most needed, it seems. This time the friends who sent the donation ended up being the brother and sister-in-law of the friend who had at one time helped Otis to buy one of his machines. So it was nice – kind of coming full circle, staying in the family, etc.)

So he got back to Liberia and was finally able to rent a place where he could start his business.







And gradually it built up and he was doing well for himself. Then suddenly, his sister died. And Otis was the working member of the family, all eyes and open palms turned in his direction to help with the funeral business. That barely finished when his father also fell sick – and again, those eyes were looking his way and the palms were looking to be papered by him. He needed to basically pawn his generator to get the money he needed to help his father. He told me the story and I gave him a hard time for giving up the one thing he most needed to be able to ensure his income in the future.

But it’s a system I can never fully understand. It’s a system very different than the one from where I come. It often seems to be a system that operates a lot on fear – fear of reprisals, fear of poisoning, fear of being “witched”, etc. So – out of fear, people do what’s expected of them, even if what’s expected can seem unfair and if what’s expected holds a person back from getting ahead and moving on in life.

So, this is what was happening with Otis – this system had these expectations of him – and that has led him to do things that will hold him back. But again, things worked out well and a donation came after a few months. He had already worked it out that the person to whom he’d pawned his generator was allowing him to use it – but he had a deadline to pay the balance of the money. Fortunately – another donation came just as needed and he was able to keep the generator.

After all of this, he’s decided he needs to move on – he can’t stay where he is because these expectations will always be on him and he’ll never be able to advance in the way he’d like to do. He very much wants to return to school to study fashion designing. Either that, or at the same time as school, he’d like to return to Ghana, or any other country that would give him some distance from these expectations, to set up his business again. He told me of a school in the States – but it’s pretty expensive. I also know of a school in Ghana (the guy who took over the running of the sheltered workshop where I was the past couple of years attended this school). Again – finances.

He wrote a story for me to share with people who might be interested or able to help him out – but I can’t do that. The story refers to and criticizes a few things, situations, groups, and individuals about which and whom I don’t know enough or have any kind of evidence to support putting all into the blog. That’s why I’ve chosen to do my own summary of what I know about him.

He also sent a few pictures to share, showing his current workshop:

Before I left Nkoranza back in July, I did a blog entry and mentioned that I had a couple more entries I planned to do before leaving. However, the internet café (which wasn’t working too well at that time) and some last minute visitors didn’t make it easy for me to cooperate with my plan. I thought, “no problem, I’ll be going back to the U.S. and will have even faster internet access there.” But now . . . I’ve been back in Ghana for almost a month – so, that plan of catching up while in the U.S. obviously didn’t get followed through upon. Ah well. The main part of the delay while in the States was that I was just being with people where I was at any particular time – does that make sense? I was visiting family and friends from NY to CA, and they were giving me their time and presence – and I really try, when people are able to take time out of their busy schedules because I say that I’m hoping to come visit, to do nothing and want to do nothing more than be fully present to those moments and gifts of time that I’m being given. (Sadly, I’m not always successful in these efforts – I sometimes check my email, answer the phone, send a text – do something that takes me away from that person/those people I’m with at that moment. If a TV is on in the same room (I HATE all those restaurants and bars that need to have a tv within every angle of vision), I can easily become mesmerized by the moving sites and colours – not even aware of what I’m watching other than images blending and moving. And I often regret afterwards my forgetfulness that I can just let the phone ring, the text go unanswered, and the emails wait. And my eyes can be trained not to drift to the backdrop of floating scenes. I ask my friends and family to forgive me those lapses.)

So – I’m going to combine one of the blog entries I hoped to do before leaving Nkoranza with a little bit of an update of my time in the States. There may not be much writing going on here, just a bunch of pictures.

I had mentioned to some friends about painting the septic tank just below my house. It was a big slab of cement in the foreground of this spectacular view of the valley below and the hill beyond. I had visions of doing a mural – sunrise to sunset over an African village kind of theme, planning to blend it in with the colours of the surrounding environment.




Sadly, the really sweet image I had in mind didn’t quite come out on the septic tank. Then rains came and it was hard to paint. So, for a long time – a really pitiful mural adorned the cover of my sewage storage area. I could barely sit or stand on the rock behind my house to simply enjoy the view, not just because of too much wine or beer making it hard for me to stand but also because this childish, unfinished image was there - mocking my "skills".



(Believe it or not, I had taken a series of photographs – showing progress all along the way – from pre-painting, to ½ way with paint tins on the tank, to each stage. My delusions of grandeur had me convinced that the reality of my mind's image would make the process worth documenting - and could lead to world reknown as one of the best septic tank painters in the universe - so maybe universal reknown. I'm sparing you the good - or bad - majority of those pictures.)

The killer part is that it started off with a nice blending of colours – hoping that blending would be the background – going from lighter to darker shades of green, blue, yellow, etc. – enhancing the sunrise to sunset idea.



And this initial background is where I should have stopped. I would have preferred this view during the rainy season. Oh well.

I finally had a chance to fix it up in the last few months of my time there. Sadly, though, a new phone company had come into Ghana and purchased ALL the red paint in the country. (I hate that company. I like red, but suddenly everywhere I looked another shop or house had been painted red with this phone company’s name splattered across it. Awful. I still like the red, but I seriously detest the phone company.) I searched high and low for red paint, near and far, up and down – but no luck. All the little shops up and down every blessed road in the country were painted red – except for the few that competing phone companies had managed to paint with their colours. Anyway – I’m still fine with the result of the septic tank.







There were a few other painting pastimes while I was there – one was my table. It had been a slightly chipped, industrial gray kind of colour at its birth, so I painted it red (this was before the detested phone company came on the scene). Then one night when the power was out (a rare occasion where I was living) I was able to use a few of the paints I had for the septic tank but couldn’t use due to the rain – and I repainted it.



It was done by candlelight and seemed necessary to do no matter what level of lighting because I was going to be gone for the following few days so it would have time to dry.

So – painting - or more like just blending colours. One pastime over the past couple of years.

Another was gardening. I used to talk of digging in my garden when people asked what I had done over the weekend. But it was a little embarrassing at the same time, because it started off small – just clearing the bush, putting in a small sitting area and transplanting a few plants I found around the property.




Gradually, it got a little bigger, and ended up being kind of pleasant, I think.










Even though I was an Agricultural Extension Agent (oh la la) while in Peace Corps (a position gained by being guided to reinforce, during my interview with the Peace Corps, the fact that for a couple of weeks every summer I took care of my grandparents’ garden while they were on vacation), I know next to nothing about gardening.









I mostly know that I get some kind of satisfaction and peace and calm from digging and experimenting in the dirt.









And, as with the murals, I have visions of what I think it really could be. And, as with the murals, those visions don’t become the realities. However, I think the reality was also quite nice:


















So – I think that’s about it. (If you look carefully, in addition to the flowers you'll find some herbs - basil, parsley, lemon grass, thyme, dill.)

I’ve changed my mind – it doesn’t seem right to combine this entry with some of the experiences from the States – those things need separate entries. (And I ended up writing much more than I thought I would.) But that means I’m falling behind on blog entries, because there’s another I was going to do about a second or third favourite pastime while in Nkoranza (taking different kids to the BIG city on weekends – and that would have had pictures of people in it – maybe more interesting than this one), and another with a few stories and updates from some refugees with whom I’m still involved, and still another entry with a little info on the first few weeks back in Ghana. Oh well, I’ll work it out. The blog entries won’t be in any kind of chronological order, but they’ll be in the usual, random, rambling sequence (is that some kind of anachronism – a sequence that’s rambling and random? I don’t even know since I sometimes think I just use words I’ve heard and read without fully understanding them; although I usually try to use them with confidence so that other people who think they know what they mean and think I’m using them incorrectly question their own judgment and understanding of the words since I’m pretending to be so confident in my verbosiveness).