My last week in Ghana and heading 'home'
Trip Start
Mar 27, 2008
1
21
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Accra,
Ghana
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
the Commission, I was hanging around Cape Coast wrapping up 'loose ends' and
saying goodbye, but really didn't have much to do. I had originally thought
that I would be needed to help finish the October issue of Youth Alive! but Sossah
and the management team had decided to postpone the issue, as there was a
lack of copy (no surprise there) and they were trying to re-jig the programme because
of new funding from the Open Society Institute of West Africa (OSIWA). That
final Saturday was the last youth engagement workshop for the DED funded
version of Youth Alive! and it was a good one. We had a feedback session with
our most dedicated participants in order to figure out what worked with the
programme and what didn't, so that the OSIWA funded version could be that much
better. It was a nice ending for me and it left me feeling sad that I was leaving
the project, but somewhat optimistic about its future.
That week I decided the best thing to do with my free time was to be a tourist in
Cape Coast. So I went and saw the castle, I took pictures of funny signs and I
wandered around aimlessly- it was really nice. I also had some final dresses and skirts made up by my seamstresses and said a final goodbye to them.
Unlike many of the volunteers that came before me in the Abusua house I did not have a
going away party or a big dinner. I decided that I wanted to slip away without
any commotion and say proper goodbyes to the people who meant something to me
in Cape Coast- Sossah, Isaac and Aggrey. By Monday I was all packed up and
heading to Accra to spend my final night there before leaving Tuesday evening.
I met some friends for a farewell dinner at a very expensive Chinese restaurant
and had a couple drinks at the expat hangout Monsoon. Really, a classic Accra
evening.
Leaving was bittersweet. The work had been interesting and challenging and I had made
some good friends in Accra and in Cape Coast, whom I would miss dearly, however
I was ready to go home and face the music of my real life.
I have now spent the last week and a half in the UK giving away ¾ of what I own
to charity shops and to friends and packing everything else away into suitcases
to cart across the Atlantic back to New York. Now back in the big city my life
plans are up in the air and it looks like the next couple months will be uncertain
ones, but I am happy to be, once again, on my own.
