A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - The Blizzard

dentaa — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:34:49 GMT

As usual, after I woke up, I took a shower, got dressed, had breakfast and got ready to leave the house. I opened the front door as usual, but closed it right back, which was very unusual. I really had no choice. I literally had to fight against the wind to shut the door.
Yes, I had always wanted to see snow, and living in Canada during the winter gave me that opportunity, but I had never seen that much snow in one place since it had started snowing that winter.
It seemed the snow in the driveway was about waist deep, and I had to get to work. I was not sure what was happening, but I did not for a second think it was a storm of any sort. Where I am from, when there is a storm, it has to do with rain, and that is a reasonable reason to skip work. I had to get to work somehow, and my housemate agreed.
My housemate and I opened the front door together, stepped out and shut it together. It took us approximately two minutes to make it out of the driveway and onto the sidewalk. That was when it happened. I fell flat on my backside. Why? The wind was just too strong and I could not stand my ground any more.
Our trip to the bus stop was characterised by more falls and poor visibility. We were walking in snow that was knee deep and the wind was so strong, it either blew us onto the ground or blew snow in our faces so we could barely see. We only knew where we were going by instinct, because we had used that same route everyday for the last three months.
The roads had been ploughed and were still being ploughed, but we had been told to walk only on the sidewalks, which were yet to be ploughed. There were not that many cars on the road, and every once in a while, when visibility was slightly better, we would catch a glimpse of a curious stare from an occupant of a vehicle passing by.
The usual twenty minute walk to the bus stop turned out to be an hour and a half walk. Naturally, we missed the bus and as we sat down to contemplate our next move, a car pulled up to the bus stop. Our landlady had spotted us trudging through the snow on her way home from night duty. She did a turn around and caught up with us at the bus stop.
Thankful and looking forward to the heat in her car, we got in and received such a scolding from her.
"What were you thinking? Do you walk outside during a storm in Ghana?", she asked.
And then it hit me. That was a snow storm.

My Scholarship entry - A local encounter that changed my life

dentaa — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:01:59 GMT

Overcrowded neighbourhoods, dilapidated buildings, overflowing garbage bins with an indescribable stench, artificially created footpaths where there once might have been a well manicured lawn, cluttered balconies and groups of people sitting outside watching your every move with overly suspicious looks. Did I just get off a bus or did I just walk out of an aeroplane? I know I just got off a bus but why do I feel like I'm home? Last time I checked, home was over 6000 miles away.

A walk through Central Park in Winnipeg, Manitoba had me wondering if I was back in Ghana or if I was still in Canada. Something had to be terribly wrong. No part of Canada is supposed to remotely remind me of where I came from, or so I thought. What even baffled me more was, everywhere I turned, I just kept seeing other Africans like myself and a few other minority groups including a group I had come to learn about during my stay in the country, Aboriginals. I would almost have fit right in if I didn't feel like and wasn't being treated like a stray.

All I'd wanted was to get to know my new environment as much as I could in the short time I had. Last thing I'd expected was to find a bit of my country in this country, especially since I had only been exposed to the plush neighbourhoods I had expected to see. As a matter of fact, I lived in one such neighbourhood. Of course, I termed these neighbourhoods as plush by my standards.

As I got on a bus to ride out and head on back to the plush neighbourhood I lived in, I couldn't help but hope all the people back home who would do just about anything to get out and seek greener pastures in other countries, could see what I'd just seen. Sad thing is I was one of those people. Worse yet, even though my neighbourhood in Accra was not as plush as the neighbourhood I lived in, in Winnipeg, It was so much better than this place I'd just left.

Almost Feels Like Home

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - The Blizzard

My Scholarship entry - A local encounter that changed my life