"He Went to the Woods....."

I'm back in Virginia, and the first thing that I noticed as I was in the cab on the way home is the brightness and cleanliness of my surroundings....Gratitude!

It's 4:41am, and I am wide awake. In Ghana it is 8:41am and by 8:41 in Ghana, we were up and at it. I guess my body is still on Ghana's time...Go figure!

This morning I am reflecting on my many blessings, and know that I do not take not one of them for granted....

I am trying desperately to live life deliberately, and in Ghana I tried my best to spend as much time as possible just being and allowing everything else to be, and that happened mostly during our van rides. I tried to take every person and view and capture it in my mind so that I could pull on those memories when I returned home.

Being home I have thought a lot about not trying to put everything in a neat little box but being ok with not knowing and being on an eternal search for knowledge and not necessarily truth, because the truth is relative.....

I wish that everyone who is reading this blog could have come along with me on this incredible experience, but since that was not possible, I'll give you a glimpse into some of my favorite parts of this experience:

Cotton Tree

Making of Kente Cloth

"The Door of No Return"

View from one of our hotels

At Cape Coast Slave Castle

Making dye to dye cloth

A Slave Castle

Elders in a Village

In front of a poster of a female warrior!

Our fearless driver!

At the museum and home of W.E.B. DuBois

The Hoods of Dr. DuBois

Burial site of Dr. DuBois

A Ghanaian Bike Shop

Our guides for the trip

My Ghanaian name, family name, and family symbol

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods