Author: Nanadadzie Ghansah

It is the day before Thanksgiving. Manuel, a painter is finishing some work in our home. He told me a story that made this holiday and what it stands for more poignant.

I’ve known him for about 2 years and I know he came into the US illegally about almost 20 years ago. He is here legally now. On the few occassons he’s done some work in our home, he has hinted at how he got into the US. Today, he talks to me about his family, about his kids. He is worried he is making life too easy for them. He worries they’ll grow up “soft”. Then he opens up.

“I ran away from home when I was 12 years old” Manuel said.

I was blown away when Manuel told me that. At 12, I was trying to convince my mum to send me to the best and coolest boarding school in Ghana. Running away from home was the last thing on my mind.

“My dad worked as a farm hand for a wealthy farmer in the small town of Yorito in Honduras. I helped my dad after school and on weekends”, Manuel went on.

Manuel’s dad had 19 children so life was hard at home. Manuel made a few bucks doing the chores of the kids of the wealthy farmer. He also got paid by them to carry their bags to school and to fight for them if they got into trouble. According to him, “those kids never lifted a finger!”

Money was always tight and when it was time for high school, his dad could not afford it. Manuel had heard all these stories about the USA, where one could become someone. He asked his dad if he could move to the US. His dad said “NO!” So he ran away.

Before he did that though, he did his homework. He asked around about how to get to the US. Flying wasn’t an option. He had to hitchhike. He came up with a plan. He would hitchhike to an uncle who lived at the El Salvador border, go through El Salvador to Guatemala to Mexico. Once in Mexico, he’ll find a way to get into the US.

One Friday, while supposedly playing with friends, he took of on his journey. For 2 weeks he walked and begged for rides on trucks. He ate what he could find or steal. He slept in old sheds, under bridges in trees. Finally he got to Mexico, which wasn’t as welcoming as he had thought. He was arrested at the border, strip-searched and dumped back on the Guatemalan side.

“Those Mexican border officials are mean”, recounts Manuel. “They are nothing compared to their American counterparts.”

Not to be deterred, he tried again and made it into Mexico one night. He stayed in Mexico for nine months working and saving $300 in that time. With that money, he was able to pay someone to smuggle him across the border into the US. On the night that was supposed to happen, this smuggler never showed up so Manuel stayed another year working and saving. He decided to do it himself the next time. He found out that if he swam across the Rio Grande river, Texas was at the other side. As long as he stayed away from large groups of other illegals and border posts, he would be fine. So one night, that’s what he did. He swam across the river and crawled out onto land in Texas. Back in Mexico, he found out that he had to walk across the Texas desert to reach the nearest town. He was advised to “follow the towers” to get into a town.

About an hour after getting on land, he was sighted by a border patrol agent who asked him to stop and then gave chase. “I’ve never ran so fast my whole life! When I looked back after a while, he (the agent) was just a speck!” For two weeks, he walked across the Texas desert. He had two water jugs that he filled whenever he found a windmill. He had to drop one as both got heavy to carry as he got more tired. He fed on rabbits and rats he caught.  He had a box of matches with him and cooked them over fire he made with twigs he could collect. “Most times, they were half-cooked!” When he ran out of water, he drank his urine.

A week into his hike on US soil, he came across the dead bodies of a man and a little girl.

“She lay beside him in his arms. She had long brown hair. The birds had eaten their eyes. I wasn’t scared. I just thought about how mean the birds were.”

About 2 weeks after getting into the US, he came into a small town, whose name he cannot remember. He stumbled into a gas station for some water. The owner was really kind. Days later he hitched a ride on a truck to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Four  years after he ran away, he sent his dad $200 with a message that he was alive and well. A month later, he got a letter from his dad. It talked about how worried they had been and feared the worst. It talked about how grandma still cries every night. At the end, the letter read: “I’m glad you are fine now but if I get my hands on you, I’ll kill you!”

Then came Hurricane Mitch in 1998. It devastated Honduras and most of Central America.The US government granted amnesty to Hondurans in the US as a way of helping the country. The thought was the Hondurans here would works and support he rebuilding of their country. Manuel was finally not an illegal immigrant.

Manuel has made a lot of his time here. I got to know him through a builder friend when I needed our deck painted. You see, he is self-employed now as a painter and is doing rather well for himself. He met and married a woman from Mexico who decided a few years ago to move back to Mexico with their 2 children. In 2004, he went back home to Honduras and bought the farm that he and his dad used to work on. “Those kids of the rich farmer never learned the value of work and could not manage the farm!”, Manuel explained. It is for that reason he is worried about his kids.He wants them to learn the value of work. He wishes he could teach them that everyday. He misses them.

“I am really grateful for all I have now looking at what I went through”, he added.

Those words stuck with me. I guess the season made him reflective. Whatever the reason, I thought of my life, what I had gone through to be where I am now and the sacrifices I made and they pale compared to what Manuel and thousands of other illegal immigrants go through to make it to the promised land.The trip from Honduras to Mexico is about 1500 miles and that from the Rio Grande River at the US-Mexico border to Corpus Christi Texas is about 150 miles.

I think of the old Persian saying: “I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.”

I think of millions who live in areas torn by war, famine, disease, I think of the sick, of orphans, of those jailed for crimes they never committed, of the oppressed, the abused and I truly count my blessings.

Count your blessings!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I saw the “Dolphin Tale” with the family today.

To be honest, the only reason I went to see it was because my daughter wanted to.

What a touching story!

Charles Martin Smith took a “touchy-feely” story and made it even “touchier-feelier”.

So, this is the storyline: A lonely and friendless boy, Sawyer, finds and untangles a hurt dolphin that is caught in a crab trap. He becomes very attached to the dolphin. Unfortunately, the dolphin’s must be taken off to save the dolphin’s life. Sawyer believes the dolphin would be able to swim normally if it was given a prosthetic tail.

The most touching scene for me was when the little girl, an amputee, in a wheel chair touched the glass as Winter swam by in it’s aquarium with a stump for a tail and she said: “Mum, she’s just like me!”

How true…and she’s just like a lot of other Americans!

I thought of the country as a I watched the movie. I thought of all the people who could use a helping hand, who could use a “Sawyer” in their lives.

You see, a nation’s worth is not really in how many millionaires it churns out annually. No!

It is about how it takes care of it’s “Winters”. Those caught in “crab traps”, unable to free themselves. Those who’ve lost limbs, the will to go on, the purpose. Those who cannot face this fight called life alone.

We are at a time when care for the poor and needy is seen as “spending that needs to be cut. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps…nothing is safe.

I am guilty of it like most in finding this the right thing to do to save the economy.

We see the single mother with five kids on drugs drawing welfare and we think all needy people don’t deserve our support.

We see that able-bodied man on welfare because of a phantom illness and our desire to help wanes.

 

The graph below was so unintelligible to me that  I fled Economics after the first class in high school. I never looked back.

Not until I read “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell. It made all the difference.

Anyway, I digress…

The demand of goods and services and their supply decide the price that is charged for by the providers and paid for by consumers.

In any economy, supply has to increase to keep pace with the high demand for goods and services.

For providers of such goods and services, this is a good thing – it hopefully means more revenue (as long as they are operating at a profit).

Increased supply means owners of companies that produce these goods and services have to increase output. This can be done by automating processes and/or hiring more workers.

So, increased demand can lead to more work for the population.

What can lead to an increase in demand? Affluence and population growth are two things that come to mind.

Which brings me to the question – can either supply or demand be influenced selectively to affect an an economy?

The “Supply-siders” want to make it easier for business to produce goods and services with lower taxes and less regulation. They hope that  these measures will spur businesses to expand production which can lead increased hiring. The increase in the number of working people will only increase the number of people with demands for goods and services.

The “Demand-siders” want to leave more cash in the hands of consumers to increase demand. The belief is that an increase in demand will force businesses to produce more. This will hopefully necessitate hiring more workers. The increase in the number of working people will only increase the number of people with demands for more goods and services.

Ronald Reagan is famous for believing in the “Supply-Siders”. He cut taxes which were in the 60-70% range and created a rather friendly business environment. Many credit the turn-around to those “supply-side” policies.

Many contend that the policies of this present administration are on the demand side. The Stimulus package, unemployment benefits, payroll tax-cuts – these are all geared to stimulate more spending i.e. increase demand. The theory is the increased demand will in turn stimulate the supply side and with that the jobs will come.

For some reason, the theory does not seem to be panning out. Was the stimulus too little? Do we need more on the demand side or do we now switch over to the supply side? Is it one or the other?

Remember, I am not an economist…just someone with a lot of questions and very few answers.

Going back to the demand versus supply question, two thing skew the attempts of the “Demand-Siders”. Sure an increased demand leads to increased supply.

The problem is that the supply of goods especially is coming from outside the US – most manufacturers have moved jobs offshore. So that boost in hiring is seen outside the US.

Then is the issue of increased and improved productivity due to technology. A few workers can do a lot more.

Can we manipulate the supply side to improve the employment picture?

Well, we could create conditions in the US that attract manufacturing jobs back. Good Luck with that. Foxconn is the Chinese company that manufactures Apple’s iPad. The monthly wage there is between $168 to $176!

Beside, most corporations are very profitable even in these tough times – American corporations are sitting on some trillions of cash!

So, the answer may not be either on the supply side or the demand side.

Maybe the answer is in the creation of a whole new industry. An industry with jobs that cannot go offshore. An industry whose product or service can really revolutionize our lives.

The start of any plan, product, movement or innovation is a dream.

Then comes the ability to express that dream in terms that is clear to everyone.

People either gravitate to the the ideas in that dream or they just walk away.

The tenacious ones don’t give up but hang on to that dream.

Sometimes the dream is bold, sometimes it’s realistic, other times one wonders what the dreamer is smoking.

More importantly, the ability of the dreamer to draw others into his world plays an enormous role.

He or she can be so eloquent that his hearers are more enthralled by his words than the substance of it.

Now let’s take a further step and say the dream catches on.

We are now at the point where we need to turn words into deeds.

It’s at this crossroad that the successful ones move on and a majority of dreams die.

Can you elaborate the distinct steps you need to get us from Dream to Reality?

Many are the times in life where words have earned people a chance without any proof of the ability to deliver.

Some have delivered – through learning on the job.

Others have failed.

It is great to give dreamers a chance.

Some opportunities though are too costly to chance on dreamers without a plan.

The last part Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” is titled “Götterdämmerung”. In it, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, a rather voluptuous lady, sings her aria to end the opera.

Hence the saying “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”.

The German word “Götterdämmerung” is a translation of “Ragnarök” (old Norse), which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the gods in a battle with evil, resulting in apocalypse!

For all Ghanaians, yesterday felt like the end of the world! It felt like we battled evil and lost.

Wait! I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind to February 8, 2008. Superbowl XLII. The undefeated New England Patriots are playing the 12-pont underdog New York Giants. It’s the 4th quarter and the Patriots are up by 4 with 75 seconds to go. The Giants have the ball on their 40-yard line for a third-and-five. Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback, avoids a sack and floats the ball to Tyree who makes an improbable catch against his helmet for the first down. The Giants go on to win. An improbable upset! Just before the ball was snapped by the Giants on the third-and-five, the Patriots players (who already thought they had the game won) were talking smack to the Giants players on the field. They were so sure of their win they even invited the Giants to their after-game party! They had forgotten one important lesson in sports:

It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!

Since Uruguay beat Ghana yesterday, the talk has only been about Suarez’s “hand of the devil”. Well, I contend that the Black Stars rather than Suarez committed a cardinal sport’s sin yesterday – they forgot that the fat lady had not sang yet!

The Black Stars are a young team. One thing youth brings is confidence and sense of invincibility. These traits can lead to a false sense of security.  Young teams are also impatient and have mental lapses. They forget to wait for the fat lady to sing.

Watching the stars play, one noticed a certain swagger and an attitude that projected the sentiment “We belong! Deal with it!” Maybe it was from winning the Under-20 tournament. Maybe it was because they were playing on the African continent or came so close to winning the African Cup.

Then was their inability to score. It was not so much as an inability as a lack of patience to develop the goal. They were trying to score from 100 miles out! It was almost like a guy who gets the chance to be with the woman of his dreams and comes even before he can get his boxers off!
 They needed to calm down.

Lastly were the mental lapses, which ultimately led to their demise.

After their first goal against Uruguay, they played as if they had already won the game. They should have been prepared for that Forlan free kick! Towards the end of the game, they recovered their game and pushed till finally Suarez had to punch the ball to prevent a goal against Uruguay. From that point till then end of the game, one saw what happens when you don’t wait for the fat lady.

When athletes, who thought they had the game won, realize they haven’t, there is often not enough time to recover mentally. At that point, the game is lost. That is what happened to the Stars. When Suarez was red-carded and the Stars awarded a penalty, they assumed they had already won the game! But the fat lady hadn’t sung yet!

Gyan’s kick was taken in haste. It was almost like “Let me get this over so we can party!” Well guess what? It hit the bar and an unlikely opportunity had been squandered.

Anyone who watches enough competitive sports could predict what was going to happen during the penalty shoot-out.  As young a team as the Stars were, they didn’t have the mettle and time to recover mentally.

The Uruguayans on the other hand battled till the very end. They made no assumptions and prevailed. I totally hate Suarez too, but harbor a certain admiration for the risk he took. After all it paid off.  We may curse Suarez all we want. We may criticize FIFA for not instituting goal-tending all we want. At the end of the day, the Uruguayans played to win and the Stars didn’t.

As we Ghanaians lick our wounds, lament our loss and curse Suarez, let us also appreciate what the Stars did. They brought much honor to their name and to Ghana.  Let us also hope that individually the players learnt a lesson from this debacle. Let us hope that in 2014, we have a team which will wait till the fat lady sings.

I was born in Ghana, became a man in Germany and made a home in the US. However, no matter how far I go, I never forget my origins – Ghana, Africa.

Why?

Because there is a bond that pulls all Africans together and to the continent.

It is a bond forged by pain and suffering, disease and hunger, exploitation and colonialism, tribal strife and inept leaders.

This bond is not static. It waxes and wanes. It grows and sometimes looks like it’s on it’s death bed.

The bond reaches far. It reaches into the hearts of immigrants all around the world – living rooms in the US, England and Australia. It reaches Darfur. It reaches the pirates in Somalia and rival factions in the Congo.

This bond has stood the test of time because it is nurtured. It is nurtured by family and friends, love and charity, the warmth of helping one another and encouragement. We cry with each other and share the joys too.

Perhaps though, its strongest sustenance is hope. The hope of something great. The hope of rising above the impediments that liter our way. The hope that it can be better. The hope that this time, it is different.

Like a clarion call, nothing gets this bond going more than hope.

So when the Black Stars made to the round of 16 as the only African team, there was hope. The hope fed the bond and the bond grew.

For the first time in it’s 80-year history, the FIFA World Cup comes to Africa. It is really symbolic that it is being held in South Africa. By the end of the first round of games, 5 of 6 African teams are out, including the Bafana Bafana of the host nation, South Africa. The Black Stars of Ghana are left standing, alone.  That also by itself is deeply symbolic, then Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to win independence from colonial rule.

Before the games started, I am sure all the African teams hoped to make their countries as well as the continent proud.  And all Africans, on the continent and abroad, hoped for the same.  But only one team seems to believe it more than all the others.  The Black Stars. And with their performance so far they have engendered a lot of hope in Ghana and on the continent.

…and are feeding the bond!

I rooted for Ghana in the Word Cup match against the US not because I don’t like the country I live in now. Far from that! I love the US! It’s just that Ghana and the continent of Africa needed this win more.

Many years ago Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president said “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa.” Back then (and even now), that was a bold statement and many a critic berated him for it. Nkrumah however recognized how important and symbolic the Ghanaian independence was. It had spurned hope and the hope was feeding the bond. He realized that on this continent of pain and suffering, no one country was an island. We need each other. That is why the bond is essential.

That is why the success of the Black Stars is so important.

The continent needs it.  A proof that we can measure up, if just for a few weeks. A proof that if we set our minds and spirit to it, we can achieve success. A proof that given the chance, like the prepared, we seized it. A proof that in spite of wars, disease, hunger, famine and bad leadership, we can rise above it all. The continent needs that spirit, if just for a few weeks. Then that can change  and save lives.

The US has this spirit. It permeates every aspect of life here. This nation is a “Can-Do” nation. Africa could use a dose of that.

That is why I rooted for the Black Stars.

Technology has always changed our lives here on earth, sometimes totally disrupting it. Look what DVDs did to VHS. Lately, the progress has been so swift that keeping up is sometimes head spinning. There is also the tendency to look at the most recent developments as luxurious. That is where I tend to differ. The following story might explain why.
After going through the security check at the airport today, I got to my gate and couldn’t find my iphone! My initial thought – I left it at the security check point. It’s 30 min to board! I rushed back to the TSA folks. Well, none of them had seen it. One lady was actually quite helpful – she called my number and rescanned my bags. No phone! I retraced my steps to the gate – no phone! It’s 15 min to boarding time!
Plan B – I whipped out my Macbook Pro, bought a day’s pass for the T-Mobile Hot Spot and logged on to my MobileMe account. There are apps there to locate the iphone, lock it, wipe it clean or send a message to the phone and have it alarm at the same time if one looses it. I tried locating it but the GPS position was vague. So I activated the alarm and sent a message: “I lost this phone. If you find it please bring it to gate ..”
Two minutes later, I see a TSA lady walking up with the phone. I had left it in one of the trays and someone had stacked other trays on top of it. The alarm had alerted them.
A thank you and a hug later, I’m praising Steve Jobs, Apple, technology and the power of the internet.
Who said technology is a luxury?

I

I fell in love with the idea of an electronic reader several years ago when I got my first PDA and loaded a few books on it. For an avid reader, it was awesome to be able to read anywhere without carrying the load. I yearned for an e-reader with the size of a real book.
Sony released a reader but the reviews were mixed so I held off. Then came the Kindle. My excitement grew. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, the rumor started that Apple was going to possibly release an e-reader this year. Now being a believer in all things apple, I decided to wait.
Today, it finally happened!
The iPad is here and I cannot wait till I have one in my hands.
I think all these developments spell the doom of the book as we know it and that is not so bad. Sure, the publishing industry will loose jobs. However, think of all the trees that will be saved. You can literally carry your entire library with you (those heavy textbooks!) Revisions to textbooks will be downloaded  – no need for publishing another book. You can buy books on the fly. It might actually simplify getting published. There won’t be stacks of newspapers, journals and magazines to go through. I could go on….
Maybe in a few years we will look back and wonder where all those records, VHS-tapes and books are!

II

Did anyone get the ipad yet?
I played with it for about an hour on Saturday.
Did not get one yet ‘cos am waiting for the 3G version.
Man does it rock or what.
The screen’s resolution is awesome and the processor really fast.
It fits really well in your hands but has some heft to it.
It’s potential will be seen with time.
I don’t think it replaces you laptop but it fills a niche.
Whether it displaces the laptop or not will be seen with future versions.

It is not an iphone without the phone or a big Ipod touch. Get one in your hands and you’ll realize what it is  – a new way of personal computing!

Say you travel a  lot…well, keep that laptop packed away if you want to watch a movie.
Watch it on the ipad with it’s 10 -12 hours of battery life!
Have a presentation?
Get the pages app (the apple equivalent of PowerPoint) and the VGA cable, hook your iPad to the projector and voila!
So you do some photography and need to show your work?
Well, there is an Ipad for you.
You are going on a looo-nnnn-g road trip, say from DC to Miami.
Stick that Ipad in your kid’s hands and there is total silence for 10-12 hours.
Imagine rounding on your patients with an Ipad connected to the hospital database.
You can pull up Xrays, labs, echos etc.
Read a lot? What about your whole library on your iPad.
The cool thing is you can use iBooks from Apple as well as the Kindle app from Amazon to get books.
Wake up in the morning and pull up all the news immediately – WSJ, NYT, the Post.

I think Jobs has a product that is going to revolutionize the laptop/netbook sector.

III