Home is Solace

This was a sight I chanced upon some months ago when I had a vacation and was going home to my family. Just a little knowledge of Accra will reveal this is a location close to circle, (The Central Business District of Ghana, if I may call it so). This looks regular, and may of course not bequeath any curiosity until further inquiry. It actually reveals to be the home of a trader who finds it a place to keep his stock as he ply the trade of hawking to survive in Accra. The sight stirred a lot of thoughts which were heightened all through my journey. My expression of hope in Ghana gets challenged greatly in times like this when the place we call home cannot be a place to be proud of. Hope keeps on keeping on however because it is only in hope there is promise of change.

In the article "The Day of our Independence", an article written on Ghana's independence day (http://theagleswingfoundation.blogspot.com/2012/03/day-of-our-independence.html), I concluded by writing "I dream of home I can call home, home I can be proud of, one that is an example of what it is that faith can achieve. Let us gather around thoughtfulness and avail our hands to prudent work, our attitude to beneficence, our hearts to love, our minds to diligence and our culture to excellence." It is quiet evident that Ghana my home is far from the ideal and this article seeks to find out how we may build a home from where we may receive solace.

1. Let us recognize our woes. It is difficult to do much about a situation we are comfortable with. The picture below shows, the comfort we have train our kids to have fun in a drainage system. This was a sight I saw in my journey somewhere close to Kumasi. We have literally grown numb to the pain and woes and relish it as our joy. The delusion may soothe us today but it gives us no hope to change the plights. I do not speak of not having joy or not been happy, rather I speak of carrying a passion to see our shame and reproach rolled off our shoulders.
2. Let us develop and use our gifts. In the eyes of this children having fun in a drainage system are gifts that will help us transform our lots. Not many of us do with effort seek, mine, refine and use of natural abilities. The time to find and use our gifts is now when we must make the difference and change.
3. Let us build enduring attitudes. When we begin to develop who we are, people who are still enjoying the woes will try to settle us to nothings more that they are doing, so no one sees them as little. We must build an attitude that never gives up, an attitude that never stops to learn, and an attitude that will never relent to help. We must not be boxed into cowardice and intimidation to give up, neither shall we grow complacent and give up growing and learning but beyond all we must be willing to put our hands to wheel.

I conclude with the hope that at least one person will find inspiration in this and will endeavor to build with me a home we may find solace. A home we can gladly hand over to our children and not one that will impel them to take their passports in search of greener pastures. May God help us and grant Ghana home builders, men and women who will make all the changes we desperately need!