A big retrospectivey sort of post.

Hello.

Apparently 9 people in the world like me and this blog. That's nice. As such, I will find a way to continue this blog. Well, not 'find a way' so much as 'get off my arse and try to write about things.'

I've been home for a week or so now and am still trying to get back in the swing of things. One of the chief problems relating to that is that I don't really have a 'swing of things' to get back to. This is a problem. Anyhow, I'm back at work, have played cricket, etc. and Ghana is just a distant memory. Well, not really.

Ghana.

Here are some deep thoughts.

First of all - people are really poor. Really poor.
Second thing - I don't understand how things work there. Relationships, customs, courtesies and other day-to-day things are still unknown to me. Sure, I managed to work with it, but I don't understand it - things are so different that it's dangerous to rely on my certain set of expectations, interpretations and understandings of people's behaviour when attempting to 'understand' how things work. Of course, really we don't know how anything works -- how other people think and feel, etc. -- but within our own societies we generally find that our model of 'what goes on' doesn't get proven too wrong too frequently. Additionally, when things happen in our own society that we don't understand, we are able to ignore it or ascribe some other reasoning to it. In Ghana, frequently I had to remind myself to attempt to attenuate my natural second-guessing.

So, there's that.

I found Ghana to be incredibly friendly and accommodating. I suspect that much of this is due to people wanting to know 'the white guy' in case he handed out money. I don't know whether that is realistic or overly cynical. Either way, it made me feel welcome and at times annoyed by the constant greeting.

Also, the ways of teaching and learning are completely different. Everything there is transmitted, taught, remembered and learned aurally and orally. I suspect that I am chiefly visual - when remembering and learning rhythms and music, I visualise what I am playing and am able to remember and analyse it that way, from what I can tell. So, that was interesting too. Yeah. Interesting.

The lack of organisation, truth and care annoyed the hell out of me many times. Of course, much of this is to do with communication, different values and customs (as mentioned earlier), problems caused by poverty and lack of infrastructure (traffic, power outages, people getting sick, etc.) and sometimes just plain laziness. Of course it's possible to explain laziness and tardiness as effects of the hopelessness that poverty can induce, but let's not worry about that. It still is and is still annoying.

Ok. I'm bored of this. Maybe I will do some more semi-intelligent ramblings later on as they appear to me. In dreams.

I would strongly recommend a trip to Ghana. If you are at all interested in music, whatever instrument you play, it will help you understand things in a different way. Also, if you are looking for a holiday, it's more interesting than Bali. I think anyway. If you want any advice or have any specific questions, feel free to let me know.

Melbourne.

I'm finding it a little bit hard to 'get things done' back here in Melbourne. This is largely because I have an intimidatingly-large list of things to do. And I have no money. Anyhow, I am chipping away and slowly becoming (more) the awesome person that we all want me to be. Yeah!

Also, my communications are a bit weak at the moment so if you want to contact me, email is your best bet.

Have fun. If I hear of anything interesting I'll let you know.

Thanks for reading. Please continue if you want. Or don't. Whatever.

But please do.

Bye.