But sometimes, I get writers block. Often, it comes at times when I’m feeling confused or frustrated or low. At times like these, I have no desire to write. I stop taking pictures. I shut down. I’m in a funk.

Now is one of those times. I want to write all about little amazing things that I see around me in my new life in Ghana, and I can’t even start. I feel I should be taking pictures since those photos in the first week are the most raw; over time, as life here becomes normal, I’ll forget to take photos of everyday life and turn instead to the striking moments and subtle differences. (What I captured in my photography from Malawi was noticeably different from my first month to my sixth to my tenth.)

I have no desire to use this venue to complain, to demand sympathy or even to fix my funk. But neither can I gloss over what I’m feeling. It doesn’t do the experience justice. Sometimes, things are amazing; sometimes they are not. Often, those extremes are more apparent and stronger in a new culture when I’m far from home.

My challenge is this:

- I like Ghana; I like the people, the culture, the food, the music. BUT, I miss Malawi.

- I like my new work on the ACDI/VOCA ADVANCE project, BUT I am not ready to let go of my previous work with Concern Universal Malawi.

- My new colleagues are amazing and I can’t wait to get to know them more, BUT I miss my old colleagues , our friendship, our work, our fun.

- EWB has volunteers here in Ghana that have welcomed me with welcome arms, BUT my team is still in Southern Africa (details.. Don’t ask) and I am feeling the pain of not being there for strategy meetings, team retreats, fun and fireworks next to Lake Malawi.

I am torn in many places at once, feeling like no matter where I turn, I am sacrificing the most important things to me: my relationships with amazing people. It would be easy if I didn’t care so much about the people and places I meet. Of course, I wouldn’t be the person I am or able to do what I do if that was the case. I happen to like that empathetic and caring streak in myself, but it means that times like these, full of ambiguity and uncertainty (forced or otherwise) are uncomfortable and at times very painful. It is a trade-off of values, over which I may not have complete control.

So how am I really doing? Well, not great. I’ll be fine, of course. I’ll come to love Ghana and her people as much as I have fallen in love with everywhere else I’ve had the pleasure of living. It’ll take time. It’s part of the process and transition.

I considered not telling you any of this, but like I said, it’s who I am and it’s part of this experience. It’s in equal parts an amazing experience filled with highs and lows. Thank you for indulging me my lows. Future writing can now continue to share the beauty, surprises and challenges of Ghana.

~Colleen

I’ve lived in Malawi for almost a year (11 months and 2 weeks really), enough to see the seasons come full circle and with that the activities and specialties it brings. The land is prepared and ready for planting. Farmers are waiting for the first rains.

Mangoes are back!… Starting small and green, but every week they’re getting bigger and tastier. Peaches have returned as have Masau (a strange delicious fruit that I love but struggle to eat).

The flowers on the trees are in full bloom providing patches of bright purple, pink and orange to brighten the dull dusty land.

The weather is getting hot (although Dedza is still cold, of course) and sunscreen is a requirement for Azungus yet again.

And with the hot weather is a resurgence of mosquitoes. Soon, there will be flying ants as the rains come and scare them out of the ground.

The air is heavy from months of smoke from burning fields and requires a good rain to knock it down. The air threatens rain. It should arrive any day.

People are starting to talk about fertilizer again (although last year at this time it was all about the then-upcoming election). Politics is still a forefront for all decent newspapers.

As I move onwards, this time to Ghana, it is good to look back and reflect on life in Malawi coming full circle. It gives me some sense of calm and certainty in the midst of my own confusion. I’m reminded that some things change quickly while others will never change.

And for myself, it is that time of year again.  For the past 7 years, I’ve been moving every fall.  Time to move again.  Time to start something new, to meet new people and new challenges.  Time to eat different food, experience new cultures and fall in love with another part of the world.

Photo: Me in Malawi, a year ago

I spent the past few days in Nairobi.

The first day, outing that night to a fancy hotel to meet with Acumen Fund and Grassroots Business Fund. The second day, was a series of meetings, presentations, more meetings and more taxi rides spent stuck in traffic. The third day, I met a friend for coffee in a fancy little café with high speed wireless internet. I did some art and bead shopping at a craft market. I tried to find tickets to the MTV music awards being held in Nairobi that night. And then I spent more time taking reveling in the internet.

Through it all, I had an increasing and persistent nagging sensation that there was more to see, more to experience… That there was . This was lovely, easy, comfortable. At the cafe, the food was great, the environment was clean, the music was of good old American classics, of Diana Krall and the mellow tones of jazz. Conversations were vibrant but hushed. Everyone wore the latest fashion.

While this reflects a certain part of Nairobi culture, that of the modern skyrise towers and well-light highways; the shopping malls and fancy cars and cappachino drinking locals and expats alike, it does not reflect a whole other portion of the population. Of course, I enjoyed my cappachino and high speed internet, in fact I relished them. But it wasn’t enough.

So, I left the nice music and internet and coffee. I went back to my dive of a hotel, which is still very nice by many standards. I looked out my back window.  And I saw this:

Two guys, sitting against a wall, their dogs lying beside them. Another was gathering random pieces of garbage to feed a fire. On the wall behind them are coils of barbed wire. On the wall infront of them are broken glass bottles turned upside down and cemented in place. Between these walls is their domain. The other side of Nairobi.

I’d almost gone out searching for this other facet of life in Nairobi, a connection and empathy with a different way of life. And all the time, it was out my back window.

Nairobi is a city of many faces and contradictions. There are glass towers and slums and old stone churches. There are the amazingly wealthy and the terribly poor. There are Bentleys and broken down buses and brightly painted Matolas. There are many people on the streets, but mostly men in groups of 2-3, whereas women walking is far more rare. It is a culture with vibrance, movement and progress, but is coupled with a darker undertone of danger and stagnation.

I’d already seen one side. It was time to look beyond, to go deeper. Time to see another side.

The problem (beyond undercutting a local market and sellers, promoting a sense of dependency and Western images) are that these balls are REALLY not built to withstand the enthusiam of all the kids and the tough surfaces (dirt, bush, brick walls, mud, pipes, boreholes) that they get kicked against.

This ball lasted 2 weeks, got patched, lasted another 2 weeks and finally ended its days in a gutter.  And the kids went right back to their far more durable plastic bag home-made football to keep their love of football going strong.

What has impressed me in those 9 months are the changes I’ve seen. The businesses and organizations that have started, grown, collapsed, left. The changing produce available for sale… From boiled groundnuts… to roasted groundnuts… to roasted and salted groundnuts (my favourite!). I’ve seen a new bank come into town. There are a few more shops, and some shops have started selling spices, pasta and apples… rarities here in Dedza. The Peoples and Metro (big convenience stores) have merged, and Metro has started baking their own bread, fresh and at a lower price.

So things are changing, slowly… or so I thought! Then I talked to Brenda (and collaborated this with colleagues and my favourite restaurant owners).

5 years ago, Dedza was little more than a village.

There was no bus depot. There was no town hall or big football/netball stadium. There was no girls netball team. There was no bank… then there was 1… now there are 6, one of which just opened! There was no micro-finance institution. There were no big international NGOs, let alone 5 of them. There were no government offices, or computers. There was no People’s or Metro or internet café.

All of this has been built in 5 years. Dedza has not been changing slowly… it’s been changing fast!! But because I’ve only been here 9 months, because I wasn’t here 5 years ago to see where it started, because my reference point is skewed, I didn’t see this change.

In our desire for swift and transformative change, how much of it is masked by the small view we have into a foreign context? How much of it is coloured by a lack of patience and failure to recognize success and growth when it right before us?