Searing Memory

This picture is of two little Ghanaian boys who go to school in a rural village. Maybe their parents make about $300-400 a year, not a week or even a month...a year. But they go to school and they are trying to make a way to succeed in this world that is not waiting or helping in any substantial way...That's life here in Ghana.

But the message for this one is not about those two boys or the abject poverty that is prolific throughout the country, it's about Claire and I going for a walk in our neighborhood the other night. We were walking down our street which happens to be one of the few that is unpaved in our neighborhood. We live in East Legon which is a nice area with a lot of nice houses that wealthy Ghanaians have built through the years. Most of them rent them to foreigners from anywhere from $800-3500 per month. Our rent is actually the cheapest of all our fellow co-workers in the area. We were blessed to find such a place. In the midst of these houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, 200 yards from our house a family of five or six, one mom and several small children, live in a wooden hut, cook outside all the time and survive day to day. So that's the look of things.

As we rounded the corner there were two young kids studying by kerosene lantern right off the road and they were keeping the "shop" of dry goods their mom had set up to sell sugar, canned fish, oil, peanuts, Milo and tea bags. It was probaly 7:30 and they were straining to do their homework with that one kerosene lantern. Of course my beloved stopped and said in Twi, "What are you studying?" And they replied in perfect English, "English." So she encouraged them to keep studying hard. And we walked on.

How many of you growing up griped about homework in your rooms with carpet, desks, lamps, a/c, heat, everything you needed. You know why my Ryan loves Ghana? You know why we love Ghana? Because everyday we see incredible things like this, two little kids straining at a kerosene lantern to learn and do well in school in hopes of going further than their mom or dad and hoping they can afford school fees for junior high or high school.

Just be grateful. Try not to gripe or whine as much.

Now you know why Ghana ruins us.