GO AND COME

The dry season ended today, and rain fell on the city for the first time since October. Mama Ackerson said that it is “showers of blessings”. I told her that Ghana is crying because I am leaving today. She laughed.

Today, I have a few errands to run then I will relax at the house before I go.

Just as it was hard to believe that I was here, it is hard to believe that I am leaving. I used to say to myself, walking down the street, “wow, I’m in Ghana”. I can imagine now waking up and realizing, “whoah, I’m not in Ghana”.

If you have read my journals, or have been in touch with me, you know that I have been greatly blessed and have been through many challenges. Through it all, Ghana has been good to me. Being here was not just visiting a country, but through the love I have been shown, I have been at home here.

While I will be boarding a plane leaving to England tonight, I don’t have the sense that “I am going home”. ‘Akwaaba’, is used to say ‘welcome’, but more exactly, it means .you have gone and you have come’. So I don’t feel like I am ‘going home’, I feel like ‘I will go and I will come’.

And now, so many possibilities have been opened to me. Canada is where I live, and the deep roots I have there are strong. The family and friends that I love, the beautiful land, and the city that I have been raised in are central in my heart. I see Ghana in my future, and I see other places on the globe in my future.

There are so many people and places that I have been privileged to know. My contact with them will now be in memory and over the ocean, until I return again. That saddens me. I don’t know if tears will fall though; if my eyes will open up like the sky has. Though I leave, I am returning to others that I have only been in contact with over an ocean. That excites me.

There are treasures in my heart, and my vision has been expanded. My faith has been increased, and my destiny has unfolded further.

We don’t say goodbye then, we say, ‘go and come’. In July 2006, I had gone, and March 2007 I will come.