If only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy

This year has been a crazy one and not in a negative way at all, at times you feel like the world is on top of you. Sometimes it might be but it can’t be negative. Everything is a learning curve and it’s thrown at you for a reason to make you the person you are going to be. People say it sounds daft that everything happens for a reason but it does, it must. At the beginning of this year I was still in Ghana, and since then I have been back again. I am now back home, some of you may be aware that I am but I haven’t told many people because I wanted to tell everyone properly and not just from a Facebook status.

Since I got back from Ghana in February, I dedicated a huge part of my life to raising awareness, money and supplies for Larabanga, a small village in Northern Ghana. I have loved every minute of it and have met some great people in the process, people who have inspired me to keep going and to aim high. That’s exactly what I did, from a song being written in support of the project by a beautiful musician Mynah Marie to collecting five suitcases full of supplies to delivering assemblies at Meols Cop and KGV. It has all been so much fun and I have lots of people to thank, the support they gave me was incredible. I see 2014 as a very successful year for me, I have grown as a person and realised my potential and what I can achieve if I want it enough. There is nothing more rewarding than helping other people and knowing you are making positive difference to people’s lives but my recent trip taught me to concentrate on myself too.

I received a very warming message from a friend on the Facebook page “Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy...”. It has really encouraged me and kept my spirits high even when I had to make a very tough decision. I’m going to explain the situation and tell you what actually happened and the reason I had to come home.

You all know that I went to Ghana by myself and I think I was completely wrapped up in all of the work I was doing that I didn’t realise what I was actually letting myself in for. Of course I had stayed in Larabanga before and that’s how this all came about but I was with other volunteers, we were together experiencing a completely alien life (to us). Experiencing an extremely different way of life is a crazy thing, there are times when you feel you have changed as a person and become one of them and I feel hugely blessed to have felt that. On the other hand, like my recent trip, there are moments when you stop and stare, you stare at their lives and hardship and again you realise you are part of that struggle. But should you have to struggle when you personally don’t have to? That’s the question I had to answer, the person I turned to was my mum but of course she just worried a lot and that’s not what I wanted. The whole year I was always occupied with one thing or another and it didn’t hit me until I got there again that I was going to be subject to dismissive attitudes and gender inequality. Gender inequality is a massive issue in every country around the world, whether it’s under an Islamic state or within individual households. Every person can relate, I’m sure. I see myself as a very independent person with strong opinions, some say I am outspoken, I don’t care, we live in a free country and I am so very grateful for that. I want to let everyone know that each and every penny that was donated went exactly to the cause. I was there to oversee the construction of the toilet/bathroom and hand washing facility. I was so relieved when it was finished, cleanliness is the key to being healthy and the only thing I want in the world is for the precious children I worked with to grow up to be healthy because then they have the freedom to be the people they aim to be. I completed everything I aimed to do whilst there which is great, the supplies got there in one piece and I still can’t get over the generosity of everyone towards the project. It is just quite unfortunate that I felt I had to leave the community. I sometimes, a lot of the time felt disregarded. When I’m there of course you can probably guess, my main communication is done through the men because the women cannot speak English. In a way I felt like my ideas and opinions weren’t important, it took me completely by surprise as I did feel like a member of the community. I told everyone how much I loved being there but I guess traditional ways are always going to be there and that is a different challenge and maybe it lies in religion but I am not prepared to challenge religion in a country that isn’t my home. The teaching supplies I took over to use were so useful, they enabled me to teach effectively and over the days and weeks I seen progress. Being able to read a Shakespeare play over and over isn’t the be all and end all, its progress. However little the progress is, it’s so important to praise them if they progress in the smallest of ways. 

Child sponsorship, its something that is very close to me as I sponsor a special little boy from Larabanga to go to school. He is a beautiful young boy with so much potential and I love him dearly, a lot of people know him as I have always spoken about him. Sponsoring a child can also be tough because I became so close to Baba when I was there it was so hard to leave him, his parents are no longer around and he has nobody except the hope. 

One things that has stuck with me throughout both my trips to Ghana is the existence of so many people. Existence is a strange thing, it means different things to different people. Whilst travelling the country, hawkers are hard to avoid, they’re running between cars, standing on corners and swarming cars. Hawkers usually carry goods on their heads trying to sell them. Food/water or anything really but there are so many of them and I wonder how any of them make any money at all. That is their existence, imagine. The youngest I seen must have been no older than 4 and then there are the mothers with children strapped to their back selling plantain chips. In the blazing heat, all day long. Imagine that being your existence, having no choice but to do that. You can’t imagine it. It’s New Year’s Eve, tomorrow is a new year and a chance to change your future and your outlook. In this country you have the chances and opportunities to do whatever you want and it’s such a shame to see many people wasting their chances.

I hope this post has given you an insight to how I felt and feel about my experience. Your all fantastic and I wish you all a very Happy New Year!