Giving a blank page to the unheard.
Asisiriwa Day 13 20 November 2015 I live most in the morning, when the air still moves coolly down through the mountain roads, slowing even the taxi drivers into reason. Unfrenzied and bright, these mornings are different from the November mornings of home, which I am thankful for when going outside to bathe in the still-cool mid morning. As the …
Asisiriwa Day 7 14 November 2015 I am ravenous, devouring books like a person who has been starved, walking barefoot through a desert, delirious from thirst and hunger, not realizing they are deprived. I have not realized how I’ve been deprived until I began reading again, and now I am ravenous. I will read all the books we brought with …
Don’t you find it’s easy to get caught up in the routines of life and somehow forget the passing of time, especially when you’re busy doing something you’ve never done before? You become so focused on the task (or tasks) at hand that days, weeks, months pass, and eventually you look up from that grindstone and realize that, somehow, somewhere …
According to the CIA World Factbook, the 2015 estimated global literacy rate is 86.1%. Upon first hearing that, it doesn’t sound so bad. Here in the US, that’s a solid B grade in school—perfectly passable. But if you zoom in on that number and realize that 13.9% of the world is still illiterate largely because of poor access to education, it …
I want you to tell me a story. One of the things I believe wholeheartedly, and one of the core tenets of our mission, is that storytelling brings people together, and helps people get to know not only one another, but also themselves. The act of telling stories is itself, fundamentally, an act of communion–of coming together and sharing pieces …
I don’t know if you listen to Coldplay, but I have, and there is a lyric that’s been stuck with me for weeks now: Nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be this hard. I’m sure Chris Martin wasn’t singing about creating a nonprofit from scratch when he crooned those words, but they ring true. When we started …
Nestled in the Bosomtwe District of Ashanti Region, just a few kilometers away from Lake Bosomtwe, the water-filled crater left by a meteor some 10 million years ago and the legendary site of the god Twi, for whom the traditional lingua franca of much of Ghana is named, lies the proud and newly paved village of Asisiriwa. Boasting a quad-shaped …
A professor at Regis University recently told me, “I love your vision. As you’ll soon learn in development work, about 5% of the overall effort is the vision and 95% is the delivery and refinement of that vision. No exaggeration here!” I had a feeling that he was right, but could do nothing to refine the vision than to brace …
It was hot the day we arrived in Adaklu Helekpe, a small town in the Volta Region abutting Adaklu Mountain, said to be the tallest free-standing mountain in Ghana. We came first by tro-tro to Ho, then took a shared taxi the rest of the way to Helekpe, after being informed that the town we originally intended to visit had …
I once wrote a poem to encapsulate my study abroad experience that began with the words, “What did we expect to find in Ghana?” That rings as true now, finding myself plodding along these same pedestrian-hostile streets I knew so well two years ago. What did I expect this time? What can I expect from Ghana, even having lived here before? Heat, …
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