#travel

Sep 26, 2017
4 min

The Risk of Listening

This blog post is about Nambia. Yes, I’m going there. Not literally, because there is no country of Nambia. In a speech to African leaders at the United Nations last week, the President referred twice to the country of Nambia with regard to an increasingly self-sufficient health care system. To be clear, there are countries in Africa where the names have changed: Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, Gold Coast to Ghana, Belgian Congo to Congo to Zaire to Congo.

Dec 7, 2016
5 min

This Time, Last Year

On Friday, I’m leaving town. It’s not the best time for me to be gone because we run a retail shop and it’s almost Christmas. And yet, it’s the best time for me to be gone because it’s almost Christmas. Dad died one year ago today, so I’m going to Colorado. It was Dad’s favorite place in the world and I’m hoping I can hold myself together until we get there. For several weeks leading up to this day, I’ve been a falling apart and recovering in equal measure. On certain days, I

Nov 6, 2014
2 min

Connecting Across the Continents

Today, it felt like Ghana – hot, sunny, and a little humid. No, actually it was very humid. Yesterday, Chris wondered where all that hot weather was that I had promised her, so today Ghana delivered it. Ah, this feels like the Ghana I know and love. This was a day to catch up with old and new friends and to share greetings from our friends back in the U.S. We brought photo albums for our Income Generation women with postcard greetings, letters, and photos of women in the U.S.

Nov 5, 2014
2 min

We’re Back in Ghana: Half of Day One

This is last night’s post, but the WiFi was not cooperating, so I’m once again posting after the fact. Just pretend it is about 3:29 p.m. yesterday, which is when you would have been reading this if all things technical hadn’t fallen apart. We’re here! Four hours of sleep in 48 hours makes for one exhausted team. But we can’t complain. Our only delay was a turnaround in the air when we were in the process of landing in Kumasi. After about 35 hours of travel (and four hours of

Nov 2, 2014
3 min

It’s Orphan Sunday: Rise and Go

It seems perfectly fitting that on Orphan Sunday we are boarding a flight to Ghana – a country I was introduced to through the faces of five orphans. Three years ago I looked at photos of the children taken in their orphanage, and a few months later was on a plane to meet them. At the time I thought that adoption might be in the plan, but it wasn’t. That was difficult for me to accept until I realized that there was another reason I was led to Ghana. Orphan Sunday is a day to

Jan 22, 2014
3 min

Would You?

I’m posting this because we set a goal and it would be so wonderful to reach it before we leave for Ghana on Monday. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and wondering if it’s appropriate, but I’m taking the risk and praying that you don’t run the other direction when you see me coming. So here is my ask: We’re looking for 20 people who will make a commitment to give $25 a month to Rising Village Foundation. I could tell you that $25 a month is such a small amount that y

Oct 9, 2012
4 min

The Art Auction: How Did We End Up Here?

I met an artist in Kumasi, Ghana who sells his work on the street. We were shopping for items to take back to Dillon’s Lunar New Year fundraiser, but I was open to buying a little something for myself. After a small amount of price negotiating with this very motivated artist, I purchased a beautiful painting of an African mother and child. It’s too expensive to frame (maybe someday), but I am still proud of it and bring it down from the upstairs gameroom pool table to show pe

Oct 4, 2012
4 min

My Sankofa Bird

It was a sweltering afternoon in Ankaase Village and the temperature in the schoolroom was even hotter, but at least we were shaded. The sun in Africa is like a different star than it is here: closer, brighter, with the kind of heat that reminds you how small and vulnerable you really are. I grabbed a bottle of Coke (not Diet Coke, not Coke Zero, but sugar-ladden Coke) and drank it like water. It was a gift, brought to us as part of a goodbye ceremony. We were spending our la

Sep 11, 2012
2 min

Exactly Two Months After 9/11: New Life

While the world was still reeling and the dust still settling in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, we boarded a plane to fly across the world. Many people we knew who had booked overseas flights canceled after the terrorist strike, but we didn’t. We couldn’t. The clothes – size 12 months – had been laid out on top of the suitcase for weeks. We had bibs, shoes, toys, and an endless amount of paperwork ready to pack. For those six weeks between the falling of the twin towers and th

Aug 20, 2012
4 min

The Beauty of a Crazy Idea

“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum.” – Sir Walter Scott. I met Hajar on a Tuesday afternoon in 2008 in the courtyard of a hospital. A psychiatric hospital. In Azerbaijan. A month earlier, some friends and I had this crazy idea of giving makeovers to the patients in the women’s ward of this hospital. “What if?” we said, which are two words that you should alwa

Aug 9, 2012
4 min

Children Here and There

Just so you know, there is a video at the conclusion of this post, but it’s cheating if you scroll to the bottom first. It’s been almost three months since Erin and I boarded a 777 bound for Ghana. In Accra, the welcome sign in the Kotoka Airport boasts the country as “The Gateway to Africa,” and this may be true. Economy Watch listed Ghana as the fastest growing economy in 2011, citing a GDP Growth Rate of 20.146%. The GDP is forecasted to grow by at least 8% in 2012. The c

Jul 30, 2012
1 min

The Vacation Breakdown

I’m here: It’s a vacation, and I’m taking it. Finally. My ability to shift into low gear is hampered by my brain’s inability to stop circling around tasks and projects like a ravenous dog. I create them because I’m deathly afraid of boredom, so for the first few days of this beautiful Colorado vacation I was still in busywork mode. On Day Four I dumped the vacation tasks and projects. I decided to read books, take walks, enjoy naps, and sit on our patio table and have convers

Jun 9, 2012
3 min

The Waves Break: My Deal With the Beach

For no good reason that I can think of, I’ve never been a beach person. There is no beach trauma in my childhood. I’m not afraid of water. I like catching rays. There is no explanation for my ambivalence, and I end up sounding snooty when I try to be honest and say, “There just isn’t that much to do.” I realize this is a problem. The other night, we were talking with a couple friend and the husband agreed with me, but he couldn’t really explain it either. “It’s nice for a whi

Jun 1, 2012
2 min

This Time Last Year

But I digress in a big way, so back to the photo display. I got it on sale and it holds twelve 8×10 photos. It’s one of my favorite purchases and I’m forever grateful that at the time I found it I hadn’t yet been convicted about my shopping habits. My intention was to change the photos out every couple of months, but it’s been almost a year since they’ve been replaced. I couldn’t bring myself to remove the China photos. It took a trip to Ghana to force them out of the frames.

May 23, 2012
4 min

Ghana Day Nine: Goodbye

Sometimes I really hate that word. Today, it was a horrible thing to have to say. These kids have really messed me up so I wonder if perhaps I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. At the same time that my heart is all wrapped around the kids, my brain is frantically trying to come up with solutions. I am reminding myself that I don’t have to find the answers for all of the world’s problems. I am reading Richard Stearns Hole in the Gospel, and he says this: “It is not our fau

May 22, 2012
5 min

Ghana Day Eight: One More Boy

He appeared at my side yesterday as soon as I stepped out of the car at the village school and he did not leave it all day. He stood beside me while I took video of the boys playing soccer at recess. He carried my bag into the classroom where I would be tutoring Osei and Adu. And then, when we were back outside listening to the girls sing, he looked up at me and asked, “When you come back, would you please bring me a bicycle?” I’m ashamed to say that I sort of dismissed him a

May 21, 2012
2 min

Ghana Day Seven: Let Us Give Thanks

I am also thankful that Erin is here with me. That’s her in the photo above with her students Sarah and Beatrice. Spending ten days in Africa with your child turns out to be a very effective way to bond. As we walked through the woods yesterday with the machete-wielding man in front of us (his purpose to clear the way and kill the snakes), we looked at each other and shook our heads. “Nobody would believe this if we told them,” I said to her. Africa is an experience that ofte

May 20, 2012
3 min

Ghana Day Six: Will You Take My Baby?

The Miklin Hotel is starting to feel like a familiar little home and we’re getting adjusted to loose schedules, shifting plans, and unexpected delays. We had planned to go to church this morning, but it didn’t happen. We thought we were leaving the hotel at 1 p.m. to tour the villages, but we left at 1:45 p.m. We determined that we would be back early enough tonight to walk down the street to the “chop house” for dinner, but we ate dinner in the room. We’re learning not to ge

May 19, 2012
3 min

Ghana Day Five: A Day of Celebration

Guess what? Tonight, Chelsea beat Bayern Munich 4-3 in a penalty shootout to win the Champions League trophy. Do you care? Everyone in Ghana does. And now Erin and I are caught up in it and we don’t know even watch soccer (just like almost every other adult in the United States). We’re trying to figure out why the rest of the world loves soccer and why people in the U.S. only love it until they’re about 14. But tonight, we’re cheering along with the city of Kumasi. We attende

May 15, 2012
4 min

Ghana Day One: The Slave Castles

Here are two disclaimers if this post a)looks funny, B)reads like I’m in preschool: I am working on a PC (in the “Business Center” of the Miklin Hotel in Accra, Ghana), and I’m writing this using the HTML screen. I have no idea what that really means – it was just the button I had to push to be able to see the words. This is Africa. That’s what they say when things are so very different that there isn’t any other way to describe what does or does not happen. There is no way t