Good morning…

I thought I would make a quick post to update whoever reads this. Life is great. There is really so much to say that I don’t know where to begin… I have been working hard but living large on the weekends. Although I am staying until mid-May, placements officially end in two weeks, so all the Trent-in-Ghana students will be re-grouping back in Accra. We have our papers due and our presentations in three weeks.
I have really settled in here, but my goodness I look back on the beginning of the trip and I have been here a long time. I shouldn’t have started thinking about it… I hope you are all doing well, I am thinking of you, Daniel.

Hello, here are some recent pictures…

I am going to make the descriptions quick as I don’t have much time to write. One is of my house mate Shama and I on the beach in Ada, we walked the beach for five hours Saturday night to search for sea turtles with a marine biologist who has been tagging them for the past 7 months. Unfortunately the only turtle we saw was dead, but we still got to see the entire cycle of a lunar eclipse. Another picture is of Maria and I with Fred and his new wife Judy at their wedding a few weeks ago. Fred was the one that I worked with researching for the USCRI; he has become a great friend of mine here in Ghana. Another picture is me in my office at the UNHCR. The last is of a few of my friends from my old community Madina. I should have a few stories in the near future as tomorrow is independence day, 50 years of independence for the oldest African independent country. The party is going to be insane.

A quick note while I decide how to spend the rest of my evening…

This is to fulfill the promise that I would write something wholly positive, without sarcasm. Yesterdays events…

After a day at work in front of the computer, I headed over to Dustin’s place to say hello and chill out for a bit. To my surprise, when I arrived he had a house full of children that were over watching a video on his sweet television and stereo set-up. After letting Dustin tell me about all that is going on in his life and how ridiculous it is, he went into the kitchen to make out with his girl (not really) and I was left with the 10-12 10 year old kids. Before long we were counting things on the walls, giving high fives and singing a few small songs. Once we realized that our singing really wasn’t that good, we got Dustin’s I-pod hooked up to his stereo and started playing some tunes. Of course the dancing started almost as soon as the music, and before I could really think about how this scene contrasted with the rest of my day in the office, we had a full-fledged dance party going. Dustin came back to join myself and the children and show off his newly acquired dance moves that he picked up from “Africana”, a dance group he hangs out with. We were sweating, (I honestly cant think of a time outside of my office that I am not sweating), hollering, egging each other on, copying one another’s dance moves, and just letting it loose. After about 6 songs we decided that it was time to eat so I yelled, “everyone give me a high five as you go out the door!!” and the children excitedly lined up and left in a hurry as I cheered them on. I could have wrung all the sweat out of my shirt and pants but I just left it and continued on as if nothing even happened. It was a nice dose of reality and the possibilities that each moment has.

Hello, I just wanted to put a quick post before the weekend, so here it is…

It is cloudy and cool today, wonderful. It rained the other night and the morning was damp and refreshing, a nice break from the intense heat we have been experiencing here. This evening I plan to meet up with Alex, Shama, Gill and Holly to have a few drinks on a roof top in Osu, it is going to be a much needed break, a time to clear my head a little.

The trip to work every morning is quite grueling, over an hour in stop and go traffic crammed into a trotro with on at least twenty others who are also beginning their day with the sun rise. It is chaotic and peaceful; chaotic because the drivers like to drive on the shoulder or take back routes through quarries to avoid the traffic, and peaceful because it is so normal that most of us on the van/bus sleep through it all. My mind of course does not like taking breaks (or it does but it just doesn’t know how to yet) so I read or listen to lectures or music to pass the time. I just finished a book by Jamaica Kinkaid, (sp?). For all those who took IDS 100, she wrote “A Small Place”, which was a required read in the class. The book I just finished, entitled “an autobiography of my mother”, was really depressing and I do not recommend it. Anyway, my eyes hurt from looking at this computer screen so I am going to make a to-do list for the weekend and then take off. I hope all who read this reads it in good health, have a great day, Daniel.

"what's with the last post on your blog? surely five retarded Internet cafes alone aren't going damn you." -- written in an email from my bro, Aaron...

I need to apologize for the last blog, I hope no one took it too seriously. I really didn't think people read my blogs often, but this one assured me that you guys are on the ball. I was having a really bad day but writing the blog made me laugh so I think it was worth it.

I also need to clear something up about the blog I wrote before that. I tried to write to tell everyone that I am having a good time and am really not depressed, but still my great friends made comments to encourage me that I will be home soon and I should just enjoy myself. I am not counting the days until I get home, I am having a great time and this experience is having a very profound impact on my future goals. The bottom line is this: I can't remember a time in my life that I wasn't extremely hard on myself and I didn't get waves of depression. It is part of my character. This is not a good thing, but I am working on it. I also have good reason to be having a hard time, although this doesn't mean that I want to escape it and come home. I just finished a survey with Fred that is meant to be the voice for 58,000 refugees in this country. Our task was to report on the refugee situation and follow up on the promises made by the UNHCR, the Ghanaian government and the international community to make sure that the refugees are receiving their rights and have been assisted towards finding durable, sustainable solutions for their future. But when all is said and done, how do you make sure that a refugee that has fled extreme violence can move on in their life with dignity? Refugees have had the one thing that I want back (a place to call home) taken from them for good. At the moment I personally hate the part of the bible that tells us to bare each others burdens because I can't do it without giving up on this thing we call life. I saw the film "Blood Diamond" the other day and this line really stood out to me, "How could God ever forgive us for the things that we do to each other?". So we can either go on with our lives or let this become a nuisance.

I apologize for making you uncomfortable. Overall I would say that I am in good spirits, but only because I am learning to live "unhistorically"; I am learning to detach myself from the realities of our history and our actions and am convincing myself that another world is possible, I am doing the little that I can as I wait for paradise, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven".

Again, I sat down to write something really positive to convince everyone that things are great, but I think I have failed. Next time I promise I will write about the power of love and communal living, it is everywhere here and I can't get enough of it. Or maybe I will write about Samuel, a little boy who comes to say hi almost every time I go out to catch a taxi. Last time he was playing with a tire so we rolled it back and forth for a little while, another time he had a radio so we danced for a few minuets. Ghanaians love seeing ubrunis (white persons) dance. I promise you that I don't go around moping all day, if I saw you we could sit down and have a good laugh. (except the jokes but be really awkward sarcasm based on harsh realities, like "don't do that around here or you will get lynched!" -- street lynching is on the rise in Ghana, and because it is so extreme one of the defense mechanisms we use to deal with it is to joke around like it is entertainment or just to crazy to be real).

There is so much more I could say, but I am afraid that it might have to wait until we can sit down with some tea or a beer. Thank-you for reading, on one hand I hope I don't depress you and on the other I hope you don't avoid reality in fear of getting depressed. You are loved, Daniel.

(I am begining to dislike blogs because they give such a narrow idea of what life is like. Life is beautiful, in our dreams and in reality. I needed someone who had nothing compared to what I have teach me that.)

this is the fifth fucking internet cafe I have been to and all i needed to do was download a simple fucking document from my email account to do the final editing. i am going to kill someone and then cry.

fuck off, daniel.

this is to preface the last post.. I have a feeling that I might sound a little down in it so I want to say that I am doing great. I have also been getting the feeling from some people that they feel that I am having a hard time; I won't deny that there are days that I get frusturated and homesick and suffer from moderate depression because of it, and there are also many times that I am so overwhelmed with everything that is happening around me that i really dont know what to feel. But overall I am doing great, I really really love what I am doing and learning and I can see myself doing it for a good chunck of my life. Ghana is absolutley beautiful and I am soo thankful for this experience. Thanks for your concern, Daniel.

More has changed in the past four weeks than I would have ever imagined. First off, my placement with RESPECT began by conducting research for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. Fred and I began researching full time to collect the information and data needed to write the Ghana chapter for the 2006 World Refugee survey, a publication by the USCRI. Regretfully, the report has not been sent out yet but will be within the next few days. At the moment I am waiting to see a doctor to get a “certificate of good health” so I can submit it to the UNHCR; it is the last of many documents that I have to submit to become an intern at the office, where I will begin full time tomorrow or Wednesday. I will be at the UNHCR Regional Hub for West and Central Africa doing research in the resettlement department. I also moved into a new, beautiful home (yes, it is so beautiful that I can call it a “home”) with my good friends Shama and Holly. I hate writing about this sort of thing on a blog because it is so impersonal, but Stef and I broke up as well. So, lots of change in one month, I will keep you updated on the next few months in Ghana. Honestly, I am really damn tiered so I hope next month is a little more tame, although I see that as highly unlikely because I am really going to have to produce some great work at the UNHCR. I remember a quote from Martin Luther King, “I have so much to do today so I better spend two hours in prayer instead of one”.
Peace, if you can find it, Daniel.