This post is under constant editing and addition while celebrating 10th year anniversary of my blog this August. Time goes by way too fast, can't believe we are now in 2016!
I started this blog in 2006, when I was working in the construction of Gilgel Gibe II Hydroelectric project, Ethiopia, I was 23 when I started. My position was mainly in the construction of the 26-km head race tunnel bored by a 6.3 m diameter Tunnel Boring Machine, TBM. I was fascinated by the TBM. It remained one of the most challenging time of my professional experience. I was mostly in the night shift and my job was to control the excavation of the material mucked out of the tunnel, controlling caulking of concrete precast segments and grouting works between tunnel liner and the excavated face. It was an advanced work where civil, geology, materials and geotechnics meet, the cooking pot of my passion that made me who I am right now. Though later I advanced in highways, but that moment in tunnel has remained the peakest of my learning curve in my whole career.
I was a member of 4 friends at early twenties who called ourselves "changes", we had printed a slogan of 'our own' on a shirt, that says "we believe in change and difference", and it was before Barack Obama's first speech that made him the president, so literally we 'own' that phrase. Each of us had a nickname, I was called Terzaghi, the others were Shackleton(Ernest), Freedy (Mercury), and Antonio. Antonio is not with us in this world now, his real name is Yetmante. A true son of Ethiopia, who was taken on his late twenties, a vibrant Hydraulics Engineer, he died in a car accident in 2008 while he was on his next project in Tekeza Hydroelectric Project. May his soul rest in peace, he will always be remembered for his kind heart, passion and dreams, and his effort to bring change to the poor. We all came from a highly impoverished background, we passed through extreme childhood challenges. One more thing common to us was we all needed changes into ourselves and our community desperately. We loved to read and share ideas. From the times of ancient Greeks to the medieval and contemporary, we discuss everything of art, war, philosophy, medicine, space science, religion (we challenged our other friends so much). Modern nerds who spent much time on NatGeo than Premier League.
I am the one not married for now, August 2016. Freddy has got a beautiful son, Shacky just got married this January, got a baby this June (6-months gestation period? lol my Shacy can do miracles!), I was his best man, I was very proud to see Shacky with all his glory. Shacky is a Mechanical Engineer, he was responsible for the quality of electromechanical works in the penstock, powerhouse and switch yard, he stayed in Gibe until commissioning. He had gained much experience, that made him now to be a Resident Engineer in one major hydroelectric project in one of the islands near Singapore. During that time in Gibe he added a Bsc degree in Computer science in extension program from AAU. He traveled more than 200kms every weekends to attend classes, though he missed classes Monday to Friday, but I still don't know how he managed to graduate, with 'great extinction from class'
Freddy who is now an Environmental Expert on a hydrothermal project in Ethiopia was the fun loving and furious one, married a beautiful nurse who approached him to treat his Malaria. Malaria was common, we literally got it every month. Thanks to Chloroquine medicine that has saved our life; but later Chloroquine became the reason for me to leave Gibe. I took it before eating well, the medicine is a real poison, it has eroded my stomach and I got excoriating ulcer, I was taken with an ambulance to Addis and admitted for a week. The malaria has gone but I had to treat my ulcer for coming 5 years of my life. That has changed everything in me.
So I had to find a job that will not take me to a malaria endemic areas any more, I was very lucky to get the chance to work with Gondwana Engineering Consult, a strong design office in Addis, working on highway pavements design, and foundations for bridge and buildings. But soon I had to be sent to a field work to several regions in Ethiopia, and I loved it. I went to investigate road pavement materials for new and rehabilitation works, mostly for new roads in Oromia and the Southern Ethiopia. First a surveyor is sent to come with proposed road alignments, then I took the coordinates and with my Garmin GPS I had to trek wherever the points took me and study that ground condition of the road. I had to dig a hole every 1-km, do in situ testing and also bring samples back to Addis for detailed laboratory analysis to be used for the final structural calculation of the design of the road pavement. A survey in new roads had never been easy, it was not always that I managed to find earth roads to drive my pickup. In most cases I had to trace those coordinates on foot, like catching a Pokemon. I speak to local administrators telling them the importance of my mission, they always wholeheartedly give me support to protect and assist me (though I had a budget with me and at the end I should give them something to say thank you). The people are so nice, so everyone in Ethiopia, when I couldnt find a restaurant to eat my favorite tibs, they invite me into their house to get me anything they have, including a drink, usually a tela. Whenever I end up my daily survey in the most remote places and couldn't find a place to spend the night, they were kind enough to provide me a shelter, usually a carpet by the side of the goats barn. I enjoyed it, the barn is a perforated wall with few poles and sticks holding it laterally, so fresh air blows freely bringing the night aroma of the wildflowers and grasses, I loved it! while the goats breath and body warmth me. I understood that goats are too calm at night, they don't snore nor cry, they sleep happily. Most villages I stayed didn't have electricity so I am always with a torch light and that is the only best thing I will leave to them at the end of my mission.
My love for adventure and research had been most met when my Garmin took me to a river that doesn't have any crossing. As it's part of my mission to study both sides of the river and provide geotechnical data for the proposed bridge design. I employ local divers to measure the depth and width of the river. We tie a stone with a long rope, and the diver should go down with the stone until he reaches the river bed; usually we get a depth of 10 to 15 m. Including their thick marshy banks rivers usually have a width of 30 to 50 meter; the widest I record was on Gojeb river.
My experience in highways materials design has grown now, I kept applying for better paying jobs. Soon a South Korean contractor took me as Materials Engineer for the construction of Jimma Bonga, 107 Km highway project. I have designed by my own Asphalt for the wearing course, concrete for major and minor drainage structures. It was a blast!!! But I was still suffering with the ulcer that I thaught the antimalaria has caused me once, I was eating less and less, my immunity gets low, every week I was treated either for some tropical infection or a flu. And I reached a point that I couldn't take any medicine properly, I can't take anything stronger than water (acidic or basic). I suffered in a vicious cycle of complex tropical diseases. We eat together in a camp cantin. We choose three people every month to run the purchasing and management of the cantin. I run it once, I took the list from the cook and should go to local market and buy all sorts of food items, including live sheeps or goats. Usually the cook prepare Ethiopian food injera with vegetables, or tibis and key-wot (hot meat stew), but only twice in a week as the cost of eating meat all week will destabilize the cantin budget. I didn't enjoy the food, it was usually too hot for my stomach, like I didn't grow up with mitmita and berbera?!?.
The koreans were too arrogant and I saw a lot of abuse on the local people; they had this rule called Stand by! Whenever the local staff made a technical mistake that actually reasoned out for their own bad management, they put the offender on standby, whereby the offender should stand a full day in front of the manager's office without doing anything, that could stay for months, and if the offender is absent or delayed for a single day, that will be total termination without getting any advantages in his contract. Usually the offender fades up and leave the job by his own. I don't remember anyone trying to question the managers against such evil labour abuse, nor the Ethiopian labour union knows or concerned about its people dignity. There was a time that we revolt for a salary adjustment, and we stopped working, but until we were raided by the merciless Federal police. We were called anti-development.
I didn't like the place! The koreans were not good construction managers, the project has been delayed for more than 3-yrs when I arrived. They put the excuse that the rainfall in the region is allyear and everything gets soaked and slippery, can't move machinery nor lay and compact new materials. Such weather condition are indicated in the contract, it is just their weak management. In such high rainfall regions of course there are ample sunny dry days to lay asphalt, and there are techniques to keep materials dry for wet periods. Recently I heard that the 2-year project nearly took 8-yrs to complete. I remember the company supported nib (bee) a sign the regime used for the election they won 100% landslide back in 2009? It is common in Africa, as long as the contractor support and fund an election, they stay in the country, get more jobs no matter how long they complete projects nor how they treated local people. This is tragedy all over Africa! But Ethiopia is the worst!!! The abuse is no different than what colonial master did. I kept applying for international jobs.
Surprisingly I didn't have any internet line in to my PC, and no one had it. So I brought with me a technique to connect the phone internet to a PC. I had a Nokia N70 and a small bluetooth port. The mobile network was too weak I had to suspend the phone on top of a window from the outside frame, so every time I am interrupted by a call I have to go out from the door to answer and to reconnect the Internet. That internet was too weak. I remember the Korean project manager and planning engineers were coming to my office (a laboratory ) to use internet, it was too weak but they manage to read their emails after a process that took me 10 to 20 minutes to connect it fully. I was very lucky to keep my old habit of Googling and reading literatures related with my professional interest. My old hobby of graphics designing is forgotten by now. I keep reading asphalt technology and I stumble upon SUPERPAVE. SUPERPAVE is an acronym for Superior Performing Asphalt Pavement. A new American asphalt mix design technology supposedly to prevent premature failure of roads in cracking, potholes and rutting due to heavy traffic volume and erratic climate. I read it, I loved it, I didn't have the lab equipment to exercise it. Later in one of my online application I added my knowledge in it, and soon one major European contractor was looking for a SUPERPAVE mix designer, they called and asked me if I know about it, I said a loud Yes! They send me a contract and an air ticket to Tanzania. Young and a dreamer I succeed to design an asphalt mix to one of the the major highway project that connects Tanzania with Mombasa Kenya. We did amazing job, I soon establish similar labs for the company branch in Uganda. I have also helped a Chinese contractor who made a new superpave road as the first phase to our project; they didn't implement the technology properly, and a total 120 km highway had to crack and rut before it was officially inaugurated. I helped them with a new design for the maintenance works.
I loved what I was doing, Tanzania is a beautiful county, I enjoyed the foods, the sea and the wildlife in the national parks. However my health issue has become a concern again. I knew from the beginning that I chose a tough carer that the environment is too chaotic and responsibility is stressful. And I realised that life is too fragile; sometimes I wanted to eat a lot didn't mind getting out of shape, in which I learned gaining weight itself didn't help. Later I found that I Google more about my health concerns than my usual reads. Out of this progress and challenges I had to tell myself to balance work and personal life, and little by little I have learned to reclaim my health. However, this was after I visited a doctor in Dar es salaam, an energetic Germany woman. After she examined and couldnt find anything in me, she told me I have anxiety and warned me to look after myself. To my surprise I didn't really have gastric ulcer as I claimed had it since the antimalaria. I regret that I didn't understand the major cause was just very common and was avoidable somehow. In an effort to improve my future and to catch along in the fast pacing world, I didn't know my body and mind had been in sheer over work since I graduated from uni in 2005.
From that time on I got to learn to love running, eat healthy and enjoy my break and have fun. My life started to give sense. I am convinced that I had to properly relax, rest and reflect. I was getting healthier, and started to seriously focus on my-own-self, doing things one at a time, giving attention to nature and the things that surrounded me including the melody of the morning birds, the tirrrrrr of a jumping beetle hiding at corners in my office, and the bzzzzzz of honey bees hiving by the roof of my lab. Listening to nature calling was all about listening to everything resonating in it - a new connection that I loved.
Talking of the honey bees, they were so friendly with everybody, our Maasai security guards steal their honey periodically. However sometimes, some violent bees attack us when they see us put on our reflective safety jacket - may be because of its yellowish reddish color, may be it looked like a nectar, or a honey they have lost the previous nights?
My time in Gibe has always been in my mind. Young and vibrant we discussed like real leaders, the ideas we raised the solutions we proposed to alleviate extreme poverty, and to improve life in general should have been documented for reference. For Shacky ill management and corruption by the leaders were the root cause of our country's problem. Freedy worried that business monopoly and dictatorship by a minority government is leaving hopelessness and hatred in to the the minds of younger generation, he was worried a potential revolution will cause civil war. Yetman believed in the power of young people, but he was disappointed by the absence of proper education and guidance for different reasons in the system, ''the youth is not creative and doesn't know what to do with his life; it's very hard to see what's good for your future if you don't know what opportunities are there''; he is concerned that the system itself did this deliberately, ''see how the government encourages all mass medias to talk only about European soccer''.
I have always agreed with Yetman's concerns. In my recent trip to Addis I was surprised to hear in all the new and old FMs that the whole country is worried about Arsenal over Manchester. How about entrepreneurship to help the youth decide for his own future that I hope will help give the final solution to our misery, provided that liberty and opportunities are improved?!?. Famine has now officially become our identity, the double digit economy that we boosted for over a decade doesn't stop the famine; 10s of millions would die if aid couldn't be reached on time. Recently a Ghanaian friend send me a message that says, '' hey, your people are dying you should help them!!'' She saw it on BBC. There is no shame than dying with famine in this century.
My current project is in Western Ghana. We are building a 100 km highway connecting the most economically important mining cities. It's a 65m Euro project funded by European Union.The region is rich in Gold, Aluminum, Manganese. We cut age old trees to make roads, it is a deep jungle. The locals mainly grow yam, cassava and plantain in their farms located under the deep forest. Food is abundant. The coastal fisheries cover the fish needed to indulge their fufu. The western sell their yams and plantains to the coastal and central. The Ashanti region has slowly flowing rivers surrounded by greenish wild long fields that produce vegetables. The northern graze cattle, sheep and goats. I can say this democratic nation has democratic farming too that covers a balanced distribution of food, equally for the whole Ghanaian nutritional requirement.
My Ghanaian lab team eat their breakfast around 8:00 to 9:00 am. There is a kind old woman running a small restaurant behind my lab. She sells Banku, Fufu, Porridge, Absea, a heavily nutritious collection of food that immediately pumps muscle, thicken bone and give you energy, literally few minutes after meal. Ghanaian men are strong, well carved statue figure with 8 packs on their belly.
From local gold miners, fishermen, a farmer or a fufu pounding woman, what they eat and do made them thick and fit.
I started this blog in 2006, when I was working in the construction of Gilgel Gibe II Hydroelectric project, Ethiopia, I was 23 when I started. My position was mainly in the construction of the 26-km head race tunnel bored by a 6.3 m diameter Tunnel Boring Machine, TBM. I was fascinated by the TBM. It remained one of the most challenging time of my professional experience. I was mostly in the night shift and my job was to control the excavation of the material mucked out of the tunnel, controlling caulking of concrete precast segments and grouting works between tunnel liner and the excavated face. It was an advanced work where civil, geology, materials and geotechnics meet, the cooking pot of my passion that made me who I am right now. Though later I advanced in highways, but that moment in tunnel has remained the peakest of my learning curve in my whole career.
I was a member of 4 friends at early twenties who called ourselves "changes", we had printed a slogan of 'our own' on a shirt, that says "we believe in change and difference", and it was before Barack Obama's first speech that made him the president, so literally we 'own' that phrase. Each of us had a nickname, I was called Terzaghi, the others were Shackleton(Ernest), Freedy (Mercury), and Antonio. Antonio is not with us in this world now, his real name is Yetmante. A true son of Ethiopia, who was taken on his late twenties, a vibrant Hydraulics Engineer, he died in a car accident in 2008 while he was on his next project in Tekeza Hydroelectric Project. May his soul rest in peace, he will always be remembered for his kind heart, passion and dreams, and his effort to bring change to the poor. We all came from a highly impoverished background, we passed through extreme childhood challenges. One more thing common to us was we all needed changes into ourselves and our community desperately. We loved to read and share ideas. From the times of ancient Greeks to the medieval and contemporary, we discuss everything of art, war, philosophy, medicine, space science, religion (we challenged our other friends so much). Modern nerds who spent much time on NatGeo than Premier League.
I am the one not married for now, August 2016. Freddy has got a beautiful son, Shacky just got married this January, got a baby this June (6-months gestation period? lol my Shacy can do miracles!), I was his best man, I was very proud to see Shacky with all his glory. Shacky is a Mechanical Engineer, he was responsible for the quality of electromechanical works in the penstock, powerhouse and switch yard, he stayed in Gibe until commissioning. He had gained much experience, that made him now to be a Resident Engineer in one major hydroelectric project in one of the islands near Singapore. During that time in Gibe he added a Bsc degree in Computer science in extension program from AAU. He traveled more than 200kms every weekends to attend classes, though he missed classes Monday to Friday, but I still don't know how he managed to graduate, with 'great extinction from class'
Freddy who is now an Environmental Expert on a hydrothermal project in Ethiopia was the fun loving and furious one, married a beautiful nurse who approached him to treat his Malaria. Malaria was common, we literally got it every month. Thanks to Chloroquine medicine that has saved our life; but later Chloroquine became the reason for me to leave Gibe. I took it before eating well, the medicine is a real poison, it has eroded my stomach and I got excoriating ulcer, I was taken with an ambulance to Addis and admitted for a week. The malaria has gone but I had to treat my ulcer for coming 5 years of my life. That has changed everything in me.
So I had to find a job that will not take me to a malaria endemic areas any more, I was very lucky to get the chance to work with Gondwana Engineering Consult, a strong design office in Addis, working on highway pavements design, and foundations for bridge and buildings. But soon I had to be sent to a field work to several regions in Ethiopia, and I loved it. I went to investigate road pavement materials for new and rehabilitation works, mostly for new roads in Oromia and the Southern Ethiopia. First a surveyor is sent to come with proposed road alignments, then I took the coordinates and with my Garmin GPS I had to trek wherever the points took me and study that ground condition of the road. I had to dig a hole every 1-km, do in situ testing and also bring samples back to Addis for detailed laboratory analysis to be used for the final structural calculation of the design of the road pavement. A survey in new roads had never been easy, it was not always that I managed to find earth roads to drive my pickup. In most cases I had to trace those coordinates on foot, like catching a Pokemon. I speak to local administrators telling them the importance of my mission, they always wholeheartedly give me support to protect and assist me (though I had a budget with me and at the end I should give them something to say thank you). The people are so nice, so everyone in Ethiopia, when I couldnt find a restaurant to eat my favorite tibs, they invite me into their house to get me anything they have, including a drink, usually a tela. Whenever I end up my daily survey in the most remote places and couldn't find a place to spend the night, they were kind enough to provide me a shelter, usually a carpet by the side of the goats barn. I enjoyed it, the barn is a perforated wall with few poles and sticks holding it laterally, so fresh air blows freely bringing the night aroma of the wildflowers and grasses, I loved it! while the goats breath and body warmth me. I understood that goats are too calm at night, they don't snore nor cry, they sleep happily. Most villages I stayed didn't have electricity so I am always with a torch light and that is the only best thing I will leave to them at the end of my mission.
My love for adventure and research had been most met when my Garmin took me to a river that doesn't have any crossing. As it's part of my mission to study both sides of the river and provide geotechnical data for the proposed bridge design. I employ local divers to measure the depth and width of the river. We tie a stone with a long rope, and the diver should go down with the stone until he reaches the river bed; usually we get a depth of 10 to 15 m. Including their thick marshy banks rivers usually have a width of 30 to 50 meter; the widest I record was on Gojeb river.
My experience in highways materials design has grown now, I kept applying for better paying jobs. Soon a South Korean contractor took me as Materials Engineer for the construction of Jimma Bonga, 107 Km highway project. I have designed by my own Asphalt for the wearing course, concrete for major and minor drainage structures. It was a blast!!! But I was still suffering with the ulcer that I thaught the antimalaria has caused me once, I was eating less and less, my immunity gets low, every week I was treated either for some tropical infection or a flu. And I reached a point that I couldn't take any medicine properly, I can't take anything stronger than water (acidic or basic). I suffered in a vicious cycle of complex tropical diseases. We eat together in a camp cantin. We choose three people every month to run the purchasing and management of the cantin. I run it once, I took the list from the cook and should go to local market and buy all sorts of food items, including live sheeps or goats. Usually the cook prepare Ethiopian food injera with vegetables, or tibis and key-wot (hot meat stew), but only twice in a week as the cost of eating meat all week will destabilize the cantin budget. I didn't enjoy the food, it was usually too hot for my stomach, like I didn't grow up with mitmita and berbera?!?.
The koreans were too arrogant and I saw a lot of abuse on the local people; they had this rule called Stand by! Whenever the local staff made a technical mistake that actually reasoned out for their own bad management, they put the offender on standby, whereby the offender should stand a full day in front of the manager's office without doing anything, that could stay for months, and if the offender is absent or delayed for a single day, that will be total termination without getting any advantages in his contract. Usually the offender fades up and leave the job by his own. I don't remember anyone trying to question the managers against such evil labour abuse, nor the Ethiopian labour union knows or concerned about its people dignity. There was a time that we revolt for a salary adjustment, and we stopped working, but until we were raided by the merciless Federal police. We were called anti-development.
I didn't like the place! The koreans were not good construction managers, the project has been delayed for more than 3-yrs when I arrived. They put the excuse that the rainfall in the region is allyear and everything gets soaked and slippery, can't move machinery nor lay and compact new materials. Such weather condition are indicated in the contract, it is just their weak management. In such high rainfall regions of course there are ample sunny dry days to lay asphalt, and there are techniques to keep materials dry for wet periods. Recently I heard that the 2-year project nearly took 8-yrs to complete. I remember the company supported nib (bee) a sign the regime used for the election they won 100% landslide back in 2009? It is common in Africa, as long as the contractor support and fund an election, they stay in the country, get more jobs no matter how long they complete projects nor how they treated local people. This is tragedy all over Africa! But Ethiopia is the worst!!! The abuse is no different than what colonial master did. I kept applying for international jobs.
Surprisingly I didn't have any internet line in to my PC, and no one had it. So I brought with me a technique to connect the phone internet to a PC. I had a Nokia N70 and a small bluetooth port. The mobile network was too weak I had to suspend the phone on top of a window from the outside frame, so every time I am interrupted by a call I have to go out from the door to answer and to reconnect the Internet. That internet was too weak. I remember the Korean project manager and planning engineers were coming to my office (a laboratory ) to use internet, it was too weak but they manage to read their emails after a process that took me 10 to 20 minutes to connect it fully. I was very lucky to keep my old habit of Googling and reading literatures related with my professional interest. My old hobby of graphics designing is forgotten by now. I keep reading asphalt technology and I stumble upon SUPERPAVE. SUPERPAVE is an acronym for Superior Performing Asphalt Pavement. A new American asphalt mix design technology supposedly to prevent premature failure of roads in cracking, potholes and rutting due to heavy traffic volume and erratic climate. I read it, I loved it, I didn't have the lab equipment to exercise it. Later in one of my online application I added my knowledge in it, and soon one major European contractor was looking for a SUPERPAVE mix designer, they called and asked me if I know about it, I said a loud Yes! They send me a contract and an air ticket to Tanzania. Young and a dreamer I succeed to design an asphalt mix to one of the the major highway project that connects Tanzania with Mombasa Kenya. We did amazing job, I soon establish similar labs for the company branch in Uganda. I have also helped a Chinese contractor who made a new superpave road as the first phase to our project; they didn't implement the technology properly, and a total 120 km highway had to crack and rut before it was officially inaugurated. I helped them with a new design for the maintenance works.
I loved what I was doing, Tanzania is a beautiful county, I enjoyed the foods, the sea and the wildlife in the national parks. However my health issue has become a concern again. I knew from the beginning that I chose a tough carer that the environment is too chaotic and responsibility is stressful. And I realised that life is too fragile; sometimes I wanted to eat a lot didn't mind getting out of shape, in which I learned gaining weight itself didn't help. Later I found that I Google more about my health concerns than my usual reads. Out of this progress and challenges I had to tell myself to balance work and personal life, and little by little I have learned to reclaim my health. However, this was after I visited a doctor in Dar es salaam, an energetic Germany woman. After she examined and couldnt find anything in me, she told me I have anxiety and warned me to look after myself. To my surprise I didn't really have gastric ulcer as I claimed had it since the antimalaria. I regret that I didn't understand the major cause was just very common and was avoidable somehow. In an effort to improve my future and to catch along in the fast pacing world, I didn't know my body and mind had been in sheer over work since I graduated from uni in 2005.
From that time on I got to learn to love running, eat healthy and enjoy my break and have fun. My life started to give sense. I am convinced that I had to properly relax, rest and reflect. I was getting healthier, and started to seriously focus on my-own-self, doing things one at a time, giving attention to nature and the things that surrounded me including the melody of the morning birds, the tirrrrrr of a jumping beetle hiding at corners in my office, and the bzzzzzz of honey bees hiving by the roof of my lab. Listening to nature calling was all about listening to everything resonating in it - a new connection that I loved.
Talking of the honey bees, they were so friendly with everybody, our Maasai security guards steal their honey periodically. However sometimes, some violent bees attack us when they see us put on our reflective safety jacket - may be because of its yellowish reddish color, may be it looked like a nectar, or a honey they have lost the previous nights?
My time in Gibe has always been in my mind. Young and vibrant we discussed like real leaders, the ideas we raised the solutions we proposed to alleviate extreme poverty, and to improve life in general should have been documented for reference. For Shacky ill management and corruption by the leaders were the root cause of our country's problem. Freedy worried that business monopoly and dictatorship by a minority government is leaving hopelessness and hatred in to the the minds of younger generation, he was worried a potential revolution will cause civil war. Yetman believed in the power of young people, but he was disappointed by the absence of proper education and guidance for different reasons in the system, ''the youth is not creative and doesn't know what to do with his life; it's very hard to see what's good for your future if you don't know what opportunities are there''; he is concerned that the system itself did this deliberately, ''see how the government encourages all mass medias to talk only about European soccer''.
I have always agreed with Yetman's concerns. In my recent trip to Addis I was surprised to hear in all the new and old FMs that the whole country is worried about Arsenal over Manchester. How about entrepreneurship to help the youth decide for his own future that I hope will help give the final solution to our misery, provided that liberty and opportunities are improved?!?. Famine has now officially become our identity, the double digit economy that we boosted for over a decade doesn't stop the famine; 10s of millions would die if aid couldn't be reached on time. Recently a Ghanaian friend send me a message that says, '' hey, your people are dying you should help them!!'' She saw it on BBC. There is no shame than dying with famine in this century.
My current project is in Western Ghana. We are building a 100 km highway connecting the most economically important mining cities. It's a 65m Euro project funded by European Union.The region is rich in Gold, Aluminum, Manganese. We cut age old trees to make roads, it is a deep jungle. The locals mainly grow yam, cassava and plantain in their farms located under the deep forest. Food is abundant. The coastal fisheries cover the fish needed to indulge their fufu. The western sell their yams and plantains to the coastal and central. The Ashanti region has slowly flowing rivers surrounded by greenish wild long fields that produce vegetables. The northern graze cattle, sheep and goats. I can say this democratic nation has democratic farming too that covers a balanced distribution of food, equally for the whole Ghanaian nutritional requirement.
My Ghanaian lab team eat their breakfast around 8:00 to 9:00 am. There is a kind old woman running a small restaurant behind my lab. She sells Banku, Fufu, Porridge, Absea, a heavily nutritious collection of food that immediately pumps muscle, thicken bone and give you energy, literally few minutes after meal. Ghanaian men are strong, well carved statue figure with 8 packs on their belly.
From local gold miners, fishermen, a farmer or a fufu pounding woman, what they eat and do made them thick and fit.
Ghanaian police are not so much different from other African country policemen looking for 'kitu kidogo' by the road side. However one policeman I met few months
ago has surprised me the most. He stopped me for taking a picture at
a police barrier 'illegally'. He asked me, "would you snap like
this in your country?" I said, it's Okay! we are free. And he said, "we
know you are oppressed people, you don't even have opposition party, you throw
everyone to prison, so don't tell me you are free, but Ghana is free." I said I am sorry! Then he allowed me to
go. One week after I heard that HMD has visited Ghana, the policeman must had an update from the local media.
In this somehow longer blog post I have tried to recall the memories of my life this last decade, I couldn't end the story of Gibe without mentioning the amazing friend and sister I met, Judy (aka JAM). She worked for the German company Voith Siemens who was incharge of installation and commissioning of the turbines, she managed their large office. Only under 20 when she joined us, she puts everyone in wowww, an energetic brilliant, adorable and friendly JAM had been a spice in our friendship that was built in hardships, in the Omo valley under the Sheba mountains. She once drafted an onsite magazine naming it Beneath The Hills and discussed it to the Project manager of Salini. She also talked to me about it and I have agreed to help with the graphics design part; we all knew that her writing was like no other, she was just wonderful! Salini wasn't so much interested to go for publication, fearing that it will give so much VOICE to the local people, like our leaders, a RIGHT, any foreign company doesn't tolerate local people exercising it. JAM later moved to Germany, Italy, Spain.., and pursue so much education in International Relations. JAM remained my best friend to this day. She is the only active contact from the old Gibe crew that I would call and share and discuss everything. She travels so much for work and fun between Europe and Singapore, she is doing so well!!!
And I couldn't write all down the life that I chose for myself in this post. I will keep adding to The Life of My Choice offline. While I improve in life, in writing and experience, will see what comes out of it one day for a much larger audience? Life has been so much generous to me this past few years, someone so special and dear to me from my early-youth has become the person I talk to when I woke up and before I sleep, right now in my early 30s. The reunion with my campus sweetheart is like a water gushing out of a rejuvenated spring, washing away the worries and troubles in the silts of my past life channel. Gives a purpose to celebrate my success and journey, a bliss, a hope to look so much excited for tomorrow.
I was in high school when I learn about the word bliss. I never know the word, never read it anywhere nor they taught me or heard it anyone speaking it. I saw a dream struggling to pronounce bliss. I woke up and checked my dictionary. It defines as perfect happiness, great joy. After nearly 20 years since I learned the word I have finally got to feel it - my Campus Sweetheart.
Post closed on 29-August-2016
Bogoso, Western Region
Ghana
In this somehow longer blog post I have tried to recall the memories of my life this last decade, I couldn't end the story of Gibe without mentioning the amazing friend and sister I met, Judy (aka JAM). She worked for the German company Voith Siemens who was incharge of installation and commissioning of the turbines, she managed their large office. Only under 20 when she joined us, she puts everyone in wowww, an energetic brilliant, adorable and friendly JAM had been a spice in our friendship that was built in hardships, in the Omo valley under the Sheba mountains. She once drafted an onsite magazine naming it Beneath The Hills and discussed it to the Project manager of Salini. She also talked to me about it and I have agreed to help with the graphics design part; we all knew that her writing was like no other, she was just wonderful! Salini wasn't so much interested to go for publication, fearing that it will give so much VOICE to the local people, like our leaders, a RIGHT, any foreign company doesn't tolerate local people exercising it. JAM later moved to Germany, Italy, Spain.., and pursue so much education in International Relations. JAM remained my best friend to this day. She is the only active contact from the old Gibe crew that I would call and share and discuss everything. She travels so much for work and fun between Europe and Singapore, she is doing so well!!!
And I couldn't write all down the life that I chose for myself in this post. I will keep adding to The Life of My Choice offline. While I improve in life, in writing and experience, will see what comes out of it one day for a much larger audience? Life has been so much generous to me this past few years, someone so special and dear to me from my early-youth has become the person I talk to when I woke up and before I sleep, right now in my early 30s. The reunion with my campus sweetheart is like a water gushing out of a rejuvenated spring, washing away the worries and troubles in the silts of my past life channel. Gives a purpose to celebrate my success and journey, a bliss, a hope to look so much excited for tomorrow.
I was in high school when I learn about the word bliss. I never know the word, never read it anywhere nor they taught me or heard it anyone speaking it. I saw a dream struggling to pronounce bliss. I woke up and checked my dictionary. It defines as perfect happiness, great joy. After nearly 20 years since I learned the word I have finally got to feel it - my Campus Sweetheart.
Post closed on 29-August-2016
Bogoso, Western Region
Ghana
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