I was canoeing this weekend, and while in the middle of an adventure to get to the other side of the lake, my cell phone rang. I laughed as I was digging it out of my life-jacket "ah, enjoying nature" and saw that the number was from Ghana. Phone calls from friends and acquaintances overseas have been dwindling over the past 6 months, as they always do over time with any travels. This time, it was my old friend, Cheif Antony Awiagah, the chief of a small rural village in Kpandai, Mbowura. He was calling to send his greetings to me and my "husband" and to thank me once again for the gifts and books I had sent months earlier.

I stayed with Cheif Antony for one week last summer for something called a "village stay". This as to allow us to experience the lives of the people we were truly going overseas to help. Not only did I find that all of the women I met there more capable and motivated than myself, I found that what we call poverty, to them, was the lack of opportunity to live as a westerner. There was no running water or electricity in the village, and they seemed to get along just fine without it. I didn't, not that well, of course. I had been living without a refrigerator for the past few months prior to my village stay, and the only places that had running water of any sort were the hotels in the wealthier areas of the country. People thrived, but would have done better with a hospital in the vicinity, and, of course, running water. The environmentalist in me, sometimes a little harsher than my humanitarian side, sees the ecological benefit of having no electricity, but as nobody has the right to take away what others want, I keep that as my opinion and put no attempt towards any action on my part.


This time last year, I was in Accra, Ghana. It took me a long time to settle into where I would eventually stay for the entire summer. It was a very stressful time, and I think I have been riding on the same emotional stress wave ever since then, and probably even before that. Since 2006, almost way back to when I started university, I have been under the guise of two large and powerful non-governmental , not for profit organizations. While I have learned and benefited immensely from my experiences, I am still sifting through the emotional frameworks and guidelines of each organization, trying to piece myself together amidst it all. I am insanely jealous of all of the friends I have made in this time who have managed to DO something with what we learned during all the trainings and workshops. I feel the need in me to do something purposeful and selfless with my life. It would be great if I could do that from the comfort of my bed and be served fair trade, organic peppermint tea b my handsome boyfriend, whose life would revolve around ensuring my comfort and happiness. Ha haha.

In addition to emotional side effects, somewhere along the way, I picked up whipworm, which I have been treating naturopathically, i.e., the long and painful way. I will benefit from this by having a super-immune system when I am done, but in the meantime, I spent my Victoria day-off work resting in bed. I'm exhausted from getting my first colonic... yaaaaaaaaaay... Bathrooms be close. It hasn't been all that bad, I hate to sound ungrateful for my experiences, but there is always more to the picture than meets the eye... the motivation behind the painting or the landscape design. The reason behind the party on paper. I'm beginning to feel restless and am in denial of having to go back to work tomorrow, however, my job is completely wonderful and it is only the obligation of having to be somewhere that I am unhappy about. That, and, I begin my two solid months of summer school - calculus - in two weeks, so it's time to take it easy and only scheme, not plan, how I will execute greening my borough next year.