Reality check

I have been home for awhile now. Settled back to my old habits and patterns ... taking everything for granted again .. hot running water, electricity that is not tempermental, the quietness (everyone is not honking at everyone else!) .... the streets clean ... the pollution hidden .

In Ghana hot water is rare and running water a luxury. The electricity seems to be as much off as on. The noise can be unbelievable with every car honking... every vehicle so old and complaining noisely belching deisel fumes .. And  the pollution and garbage is so in your face. Since it costs money to have your garbage taken away, it is either dumped somewhere or burnt. Everywhere you look there are black plastic bags and the small square clear water bags littering every surface. People sweep up the garbage from their personal space so the immediate area around the shops and homes are cleared. It is the public areas that take the brunt. Along the roads, the streams and rivers ... it is the rivers and streams that are full of stagnant water and waste that really caught my heart ... the open sewers bubbling and pungent..

I said despairingly to Etienne, my son the biologist ... 'Ghana is just so pollluted!' His answer was swift and brutal: 'It is just as polluted here. We are just more successful at hiding it!'  This brought me up short and made me think..

It is this that lingers ...the idea that  if Ghana, who cannot hide her garbage, has this pollution that in some places looks like a disaster hatching what kind of damage are we as an affluent society with all of our excesses  doing to the world?

In Ghana you go to the market and buy plantains, carrots and mangos that were grown in the next village. You put this in a plastic bag and walk home and prepare the food and eat it. The plastic bag is thrown out! I drive in my large car to a huge supermarket where i buy produce that has been flown in from Australia and China, prepared with preservatives, packaged in plastic and then placed in a cardboard box  ... but hey!  i have my own re-usable shopping bags!!

Seeing the garbage and pollution in Ghana was a reality check. Somehow, somewhere my garbage which is 100x more than the average Ghanian is going somewhere damaging our world....

The water was a dark murky grey and the whole area smelt pungent. Kids were running barefoot along the banks darting in and out... people live and work here ... It was like looking at Hell ... is this where we are heading?  

Jet lag

Well, i have finally really landed! This return home was the worst jet lag i have ever experienced. Clara, my daughter, has been living and working in Burkino Faso as a young doctor. She wrote me an email saying she is now traveling again and how strange it felt ... as she had felt so part of the community in which she had been living not a visitor at all. This really struck a chord with me. Perhaps the reason why the jet lag was so difficult was because i, too, had felt part of the community there. I, too, had started to feel part of the world there. Both volunteering with Lady Volta and the bead Hunt had really given me a focus ... and had given me a way into a community in a real way.

Over the last few days i have been updating the funkyFrog.ca website. This has been a really good bridge to bring me all the way back home. I have been thinking about my trip from the perspective of being at home and telling people about it. This has really helped ground me.

I made a page each  for the two necklaces i made while sitting with Yaya and Rita beading.. I decided to call the necklaces by the name of the young ladies who modeled them for me.

Bernice's necklace  was the first one i made. I had already chosen the beads back in Montreal. It was a good ice breaker as i had something to do during that first stage when i am very shy !! Everyone was so welcoming that it didn't take me long to feel comfortable. Bernice was the one who showed Kathy and I around ... so i got to know her quite quickly.  http://www.funkyfrog.ca/html/bernice.html

Rita's necklace is made of the first beads i found on the beadHunt so it is very special to me.  Rita is also very special to me! She is so vital and full of life ... in the last week i was there she had done her hair 'au natural' ... a beautiful curly mass and she was wearing batik dresses ... she looked like the next Miss Africa!! truly a beautiful young lady!!


http://www.funkyfrog.ca/html/rita.html

I also did a small photo Essay of Lady Volta ... which i hope to add to as i go along.


http://www.funkyfrog.ca/html/ghanaBlurb.html


I have  started cataloguing the beads ... hopefully i will be able to start adding the beads to the site in the next while...

Also i had amazing news ... Pure Art which is a very cool organization  ...  a fair trade store and foundation doing wonderful work... has committed to being the distributor for Lady Volta's products here in Montreal and Hudson.. The products will go into the stores in early spring. Brigitte has asked me to do a talk as well on my experience with Lady Volta. I am really looking forward to doing this and helping to promote Lady Volta.  [http://pureart.ca/index.asp ]