The Homestretch
As I enter my last two weeks in Ghana having already completed over 4 weeks, I’ve started to notice more about what I don’t like about Ghana and what has been challenging for me. Throughout the duration of the last 2 weeks, we did not have running water in our house, the power was out for most of the time at home, and to top it off the food was starting to get to me and my stomach was not pleased with what I was putting into it.
To make matters worse, work started to feel very frustrating as well. The power would go on and off sporadically and the Wi-Fi just refused to work. All of us were essentially sitting ducks waiting for the time to pass because our work required a strong internet connection. The extremely slow work culture, speed of communication, and lack of urgency for things started to bother me. I completely understand as an intern in a foreign country, the work I will be doing will have to be mostly self-started and internally motivated, but there is only so much I can do completely on my own without needing help or information from the company. For example, while I was generating leads to get new customers, I’ve gotten to the point where a potential client would want to have a meeting a discuss a deal to buy some bamboo bicycles to have in their store which is exactly what I was tasked to do. But because I don’t have the authority to close the deal myself, there would be too much waiting time in between and nothing would happen and a potential customer would be lost. When I asked why something didn’t happen, the excuse seemed to always be “That’s how it is in Ghana.” I refuse to believe that.
It was quite difficult for me to get so close to achieving something while knowing it could be achieved and then have the organization I’m working for, get in the way of me doing the job they brought me to Ghana for. It just felt like there was just so much I was in the dark about. Because of advice before coming on to our trip and experiences at the beginning of the trip, I had convinced myself that being confused all the time was acceptable, but I realize now that I should have been more adamant and inquisitive about the work part of my stay. I didn’t know that there are 3 organizations under Bright Generation each serving a different purpose until the last week of work or how rent and wages were paid until my 2nd to last day of work. There were also a number of company projects that required work that I had ample experience doing and would have allowed me to accomplish so much more for Bright Generation. Even though I assimilated into the Ghanaian work culture, I felt like I was still excluded from work that I know I could have contributed to and would have felt more fulfilled doing.
Regardless of my frustrations, I’m still extremely happy and grateful for this experience. Working for the Bright Generation Community Foundation was still extremely rewarding and I felt like I’ve gained many valuable skills along the way. In addition, Bernice (my boss), was still happy about the work I had done even though I felt like I could have done more. At the end of the day, I came to Ghana to offer as much of my knowledge to the organization as possible, but also gain as many new experiences as possible — I think I have definitely achieved that during this trip.
On the flip side, the weekend excursions have progressively gotten better and better. We visited Busua, a coastal beach village in the Western Region of Ghana. Even though it took over 8 hours to get to, it was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. It felt like I was in an episode of Lost, the latter half of the beach away from the town looked like an uninhabited island. It was so untouched.
I had an absolute blast staying in the hostel and met some really interesting and fun people. We ended up meeting a couple, a Belgian guy named Sid and an Austrian girl named Maria, who met in Ghana and then started traveling together. Sid came to Ghana to surf along the entire coast and find the best surf spots. Sid ended up teaching me how to surf. It was pretty cool. I also met a group of French people who are actually working in Accra doing a whole variety of things. In the group of 8, the work they did ranged from exporting soybeans to doing biomedical research. I even met Jennyfer, a writer for a section of the UN dedicated towards women empowerment. I told her about the work I was doing and she mentioned the work to her boss who now wants to put Bernice’s work into the next issue of their UN newsletter which is also pretty cool.
Interestingly enough, I’m spending my last few days in Ghana with the person who welcomed me when I flew into Ghana in June. My Aunt Minakshi’s old co-worker, Love, had been kind enough to host Brooke, David, and I on her farmhouse in Bawjiase, about a 2-hour drive from Accra Kotoka Airport. I can firmly say that my favorite part of this trip has been staying with Love these past couple days. We had the opportunity to tour this huge 450-acre farm, learn and try all the different fruits her and her husband are cultivating, and visit the packing house where they packed over a thousand boxes of papaya in just 2 days. In addition, we got to hear so many stories from her about her travels and experiences. It was just such a great way to relax and spend my last few nights in Ghana. We also got a chance to visit our friends from Cape Coast, Mikaela and Foster, in Oyibi and just got to go around and see what they did for fun on a daily basis. I saw the cutest litter of puppies. It was fantastic.
Although I’m eager to go home and am frankly a bit homesick, leaving Ghana is definitely bittersweet and I will truly miss being here. I’ve made so many friends and connections I really do hope to keep in contact with them and hopefully see them again at some point. It’s been an experience of a lifetime.
I would like to take some space in this post to thank Louis (both tall and short) and Bernice for taking such good care of me during my stay in Ghana, Mikaela and Foster for at first being just kind strangers to good friends I hope to keep in contact with, Love for being the “bookends” of our trip and escorting us in and out of Ghana, and lastly Tanya and SCU for giving me this opportunity.
All right I got to finish packing now and catch this flight.
Till next time,
Sahil Sagar
