2.5 Days in Ghana

Well, the first thing I learned on our trip is that my good friend, Brando,  has a lot of friends in Portland and Ghana!  The photo to the right is from the Portland Airport.  Upon landing in Accra late Sunday, we were met by three friends of friends before we even got through customs (one soldier and two airport employees), then another six or so in the lobby.  And Brando had arranged for me to have a modem, phone, and several shirts, plus a drink, ready to go.  Ghanaians inside and outside of Ghana are incredibly hospitable.

The hospitality has continued at Ashesi University, where I am working in an office about three times the size of the one I have at Portland State.  I've talked with a lot of inspirational people and sat in on several classes.  President Patrick Awuah spoke Monday, the first day of school, about the Ebola outbreak, a talk that sort of encapsulated how Ashesi approaches the world, as he kept coming back to the themes of knowledge and leadership, that the disease's spread had been due largely to failures in those areas.

I'll introduce you soon to an inspiring Ashesi student from Liberia who is on the front line of containing Ebola in Liberia.

The challenges that the students and staff face at Ashesi are daunting, though, and frequent reference is made to "the road" (the photo to the left shows a portion of it, taken from my hotel room) which most staff and faculty traverse daily to get to the university, a commute that consumed well over 2 hours a day for most, largely because the road is unpaved and badly rutted much of the way.
 Our personal introduction to Ghana's infrastructure came right after our plane landed, when it took 2.5 hours to unload the baggage.  I suspect that these hardships are part of what prompt Ghanaians to rely on each other so much.  But I also suspect that Ashesi graduates and others are solving these problems while remaining, as President Awuah would emphasize, their traditional emphasis on community and hospitality.