"I Will Never See You Again"

I'm currently writing this on the way to Cape Town, South Africa. It seems so crazy that we're just sailing past all of Africa, a place that still interests me so much and where so many things have happened that are worth studying. And then I realized that I'm going around the entire world and bypassing... everywhere. As much as I'm learning so much and seeing so many places, there are so many other things and places to learn and see that I feel that I'm just skipping. I don't want to think about it. I'll keep that thought for the end of my voyage.

Like I already mentioned in a previous blog post, on my first day in Ghana, I ran into a group of school children. One of my companions was Rheanna (who I also already mentioned), and on the packed taxi back to the ship, we were discussing what had just transpired. She told me that one of the boys she was talking to had said the following heartbreaking sentence: "I will never see you again."

The kid, for all we know, is most likely correct in his statement. He probably didn't mean too much when he said it, but it really sticked with me. What are the chances that we will ever cross paths again? What were the chances that we had just crossed paths for the first time?

It just comes to show that even the most mundane, everyday occurrences are really just once-in-a-lifetime experiences in disguise. We tend to throw that phrase around a lot and reserve it for things that seem uncommon, but if we think about it, never again will the cards fall the same way they already have. All moments are once-in-a-lifetime. We can't forget that.

Now I don't want to go into some kind of "live each moment like it's your last" bullshit. Yeah, be thankful for every second you have and all that jazz, but you also have to decide the things that are worth remembering. What I'm trying to say is to value the normal as much as the irregular because those can be just as memorable. Sometimes it's the banality of the situation that makes something stand out. It doesn't need to be big to make a huge impact. No, I didn't go to the slave dungeons in Cape Coast, nor did I do a homestay in a far-off village with no running water or electricity. Those would have been eye-opening and life-changing. But I know for a fact that my "normal" experiences have been just as enlightening.

For instance, I met some remarkable women in Ghana. There was Dzifa Gomashie, a famous Ghanaian actress and the CEO of the Values for Life organization which engages the community in social environmental issues. The colors on her dress were almost as bright as her personality. Her current focus, amongst many others, is to eliminate the dumping of electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, an area right outside of Accra. This practice has not only already harmed the environment and landscape, but it has a lasting impact on the lifestyles of those living there in the form of pollution and other health risks. Through theatre, she gets youth involved in forming and expressing their own opinions in order to shape their future.

There was also Renae Adams, co-founder of Global Mamas, a Fair Trade not-for-profit NGO whose mission is to provide an outlet for entrepreneurial women to have more sustainable livelihoods. A play on traditional micro-lending, the organization gives skilled women raw goods to produce beautiful batik fabrics and sew beautiful garments or other goods with them. In turn, Global Mamas finds markets full of customers willing to purchase these wares. Through this work, she has mobilized hoards of women into the work-force, and provided them with reliable incomes which has given once disadvantaged women more agency over their lives.

These two women are both pretty high-ranking individuals with frilly titles, but there were also the countless unnamed women who helped form my experience. There was the lady who relentlessly pounded my fufu for my eating pleasure. There was the woman who sold me an unknown fruit which may have been the most sour thing I've ever tasted. There was also the madame at Makola Market who laughed as I accidentally bumped into an old man carrying an enormous bag of rice.

It's this combination of little things that made my time in Ghana such a phenomenal adventure. They could have been overshadowed by other experiences that everyone else told me were supposed to be amazing. And I'm sure they were. I know loads of people who chose to visit orphanages to meet abandoned children, relive the events of the slave trade at Elmina Castle, or spend the night in a far-away village. I know that these were incredibly transformative, but I stand confident in my stance that my own "completely normal" happenings were just as epic.

With this in mind, I think we all need to take a vow to enjoy the simple things. We keep looking for "brand-name" escapades, but those things have been, and always will be, right in front of our faces.

Now onto Cape Town!