This blog entry comes from Nora's Dad, back home in the States with Nora's Mom for just a few days now, after the whirlwind adventure of a lifetime visiting Nora in her adopted Ghanaian home. It was truly an amazing trip!
With Nora as our erudite and sophisticated guide, we encountered waterfalls and elephants, climbed through the canopy of a rain forest and sunbathed on gorgeous beaches, found chickens and goats running free almost everywhere we turned (even in Nora’s yard) and fresh mangos and pineapples for sale all along the roads throughout the length and breadth of the country, and went shopping in local markets for our food and for trinkets to bring home as souvenirs.
Ghana is truly a beautiful country - but the people impressed me even more than the landscape. Nora has worked with wonderful people in the small town of Ho, people who have befriended her and loved her during her sojourn living with them since last September; and Beth and I were welcomed into their homes and with Nora had the joy of joining them for Easter Sunday worship our first weekend in the country. We were embraced like family, and we laughed and ate and even danced together - both during the four-hour church service and during the “after-party” in the town center that afternoon - while we shared our life stories with one another and our common love for God - and for Nora.
I was impressed by the Ghanaian flora and fauna. I was impressed even more by the Ghanaian people, especially the children whose smiles and joyful love of life are infectious. But I was impressed most of all by my own daughter, who has made a home for herself in a foreign land thousands of miles away, where life is so incredibly different than what she knows here in America.
Nora has faced challenges every day accomplishing even the simplest things. She washes her clothes by hand, and has to burn her trash, for example; and she has to manage in a country where English is the official language, but where most of the people actually speak not English but tribal languages which come in multiple dialects. But Nora has overcome every challenge she has faced, and in the process has become an even more beautiful and capable young woman, while making friends for life.
We’re just a little bit proud of her…
Watch for Nora carrying me to victory on the winning team on next season’s “Amazing Race”!
