I cant believe how long its been since I've written anything and I must say writing seems incredibly hard now. I don't blame myself too much though because I have gone through so much turmoil since September 2011. After living all my life on the Gold Coast, having to live in Canada came as a brutal shock to me. I did know it was going to be hard but until I found myself bidding farewell to my family amidst "water works" (endless tears), I didn't know how traumatising it will be. Few mornings after I woke and did not see my cousin Akyere in my room, or my familiar UNICEF calender I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I could no longer hear the soft feet of my nephew in the hall way or hear his incomprehensible baby chatter, it hasn't been an easy road. Instead all I felt were cold winds, strange sounds and emptiness. I feel I was totally unprepared for this experience.
I threw myself into a totally new system, educational experience proving very different and nouveau. For the first time I actually had to think outside the box in order to make meaning of anything that had a meaning. The cultural shock? I wouldn't say with Canadians it was very different or new as I have previously worked and lived with American students, the shock of the citizenry, I could manage but the workings of the society took me by storm. It apparently took this trip for me to appreciate Ghana very very well. Not to get it twisted, am not saying the Canadian experience has been completely awful, but it just gave me fresh insight into the little things of life that I must appreciate more now. The idea of having to wait to pick a bus at a particular time was the first thing that hit me like a blow from Floyd Mayweather. Like seriously what happened to just going to the street and entering a "troski" (public transport)? I mean I do know sometimes you have to wait in endless queues for that too, granted but come on there's always an alternative.
Taxi drivers practically honk your ear drums out just for you to board their cabs, on the contrary in Canada you have to call a cab before you can get one, very simple. This is the point where I wish i had a "confused" emoticon to insert.Actually i found one. 
The cost of the cab you will call is an issue for another day. All I can say is that I miss paying my 3 and 5 cedis for short taxi rides. I remember having people stop all the time to offer me rides and I always declined. Having been here nine months, I have never had that experience even once. I concede I never took kindly to that in Ghana, but it was just nice to appreciate how nice, open and free people were.I acknowledge that a half of them were men who also intended to hit on me as a latent function of their gesture but hey at least they offered right? Well am not too surprised that it has not occurred here, for its not a normal occurrence for "white people" to offer "black people" rides here and I say this with no malice, its simply the truth.
To add insult to injury, the weather condition makes waiting for the bus an experience only comparable to living in a deep freezer and am not even exaggerating. Suddenly the heat I used to complain about in Ghana seemed like a forbidden paradise because I just couldn't feel warm anymore. What else can i complain about? many a thing but in order not to make reading painful, I will just say I wish there was more food that was not laced with sugar. You attend any event and the chicken is coated in sugar, the pork is laced with sugar, beef is found in one sugar sauce, bottom line almost everything is sweetened. Need I mention the muffins, cakes, chocolate rolls, all the "delicious voluntary sicknesses" and "friends of weight gain" you can think off?. Retrospectively I think back to walking leisurely to the bus stop to buy kenkey and fried fish or even porridge and koose. Little did I know that all those things I took for granted were fast going to be luxuries.
My roommate and I have half a sachet of "ekwegbemi" (corn grits) which we keeping to eat on a festive occasion, how funny is that? the first time we ate it was at Christmas, major jokes. That same cereal that I never wanted to eat in secondary school is now among the "creme De la creme" of foods in my locker. The two cans of palm nut soup we had was so highly protected one would have thought they were rather cans of liquid gold. The first time we cooked the first can? we actually did a little jig. I have so much to say but I guess I will have to write them in bits for easy digestion. All I can really say for now is I believe what they say, "you don't know what you have until its gone" and no better experience to explain that than the Canadian one. I will definitely be back very soon this time with some more thoughts. The picture at the beginning was me before my journey across oceans. Amidst the incessant tears and blood-shot eyes, my cousin managed to take this shot, ha. I know it seems I was happy because I had all my teeth out and It was no toothpaste commercial, well look at those eyes.,they tell a story...................to be continued...
