Last Chance to Be…

If my youth was Chapter 1 and my career Chapter 2, then the third is about to start. I leave tomorrow morning.

My Outlook Task list is almost empty. One task I didn’t manage before I went away was to write an inventory of everything in my bag. Probably the main reason for this is the indecision which preceded the final packing.

Also I didn’t manage to send out an email to everybody before I left. After all the hype and the fundraising, I decided to slip away quietly.

I was also planning to write something about laptops, the subject of much discussion at Harborne Hall. A lot of the VSOs wanted the benefits they can bring but not many had the technical knowledge to get the most out of them. Time permitting, I will write a guide to prepping a laptop for a VSOer as I think it would be a very useful guide.

I did manage a lot of other stuff though, including the acquisition of a large quantity of Ebooks and Audio Books. With 120GB to play with, I figured they were the best bet to keep me entertained for a space/entertainment value ratio. All we need now is rain. With enough rain the Akosombo Dam may actually fill up enough to power Ghana enough for me to turn my laptop on for more than an hour a week. (Since I found this out I have become concerned how I am going to teach IT?!)

As any good IT Support Engineer will tell you, ‘Google is your best friend.’ Not in my case. I will have no Internet on a day to day basis (when there is electricity of course). Updates to this site will be done by proxy, by bicycle, or whatever it takes, they will happen. Google will no longer be my best friend. With this in mind, I have been having a very long conversation with her. I have tried to imagine everything I may need to know and planned in advance. Working in IT with no Internet certainly represents its challenges. I think I have yet to find out how challenging.

My belly feels weird, like I met a girl I like, or I made an arse of myself at a party. Perhaps I did both those things recently anyway. It feels like I am about to go on stage and perform Shakespeare, in French.

I don’t know why Africa seems more intimidating than elsewhere. It shouldn’t do. I wonder how I would feel if I was decamping to New Zealand. I have only been out of Europe twice. I went on holiday to New York 12 years ago and Morocco for a week 15 years ago.

I did consider that Morocco is probably my nearest developed nation, but using Google Earth have worked out it is probably the Canary Islands. I may have to go there for cheese as it’s only 1700 miles. I am looking for challenges to this presumption if you can find a country with Pasteurisation closer than that.

At the Post Office today I tried to post a 6.5 KG parcel to myself. Everybody laughed including those in the queue behind me as I was told it would cost £110. After some ‘jiggery pokery’ and repacking I created two parcels under 2kg which went for £7 each. I won’t let on what was in them. I am trying to forget so if and when they do arrive, I will get a nice suprise.

Finally, a promise to myself. ‘Whatever I write here, whatever I see, whatever makes me laugh or cry, I will not portray Africans in a way which reinforces racial stereotypes.’ I may be a White Man, going to Africa but that is not the subject of this blog. The point, is that I have things to share with Ghana, just as Ghanaians have much to share me. We are not black, we are not white we are just we. Those inimitable words will be mentioned once more on this site then I will move on.

                Me……………..We

See you on the other side.

(ps never let a spell checker tell you that pokery is not a word)