Travel Of A Different Sort

At this time next week if all goes as planned and the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel does not interfere, I will be in Accra, the capital city of Ghana in West Africa. This trip will represent a number of firsts.

• It will be the first time in a long, long time that I have traveled internationally without Wife
• It will be the first time I have been in Africa
• It will be the first time I am traveling for a purpose other that travel for its own sake
• It will be the first time I will be doing serious culture immersion with a goal of accomplishing something

How has this all come about?

A couple of years ago as we became more and more comfortable with our traveling ability, Wife and I started to feel a desire to take our travel experiences to different level. We felt we wanted to get to know a place and its people on a deeper level. And we felt we wanted to give something...that we have been so fortunate in our life it required a passing forward of something positive.

As luck would have it a woman I mentor who loves travel as much as we do, had just completed a volunteer project in Lebanon in her specialty, micro lending. As she talked about her great experience, I was filled with the desire to have the same. I mentioned it to Wife and she felt the same. I asked my friend what they did once they gave money to people to help those people actually be successful with their business. They did nothing. I suggested that we could create a back end service that would provide that guidance.

We presented our idea to the organization she worked for but they were not interested. We searched other organizations and as I have written previously, we ultimately were led to Rotary International.  This post describes then how I ended up focusing on Accra in Ghana.

Once having gotten positive feedback from Ghana, I began to plan in earnest. The physical aspects of planning went smoothly...getting tickets using frequent flyer miles, obtaining a visa, getting vaccinations. The actual getting things set up for the business side have been a different story altogether.

In my next post I will discuss the issues associated with planning this trip and expectations as they stand just before I leave