Ghana Trip Four - Wrap-Up

There was precious little time during this trip to just sit back and reflect. In fact, I am already home! I left late Saturday night and got back to Albuquerque on Sunday evening.

I gave everyone pretty good reports during the trip. We accomplished all of our major objectives.

• We have the content we need for the video. We are well on the way to having a very acceptable product I can use for fundraising. It won't be perfect but perfect is not needed.

• We completed all of the focus groups we needed for our community assessment requirement. There was a bit of drama to see if we could actually get two groups of 10 women who were in fact not part of the existing sex worker cooperative. But the feedback I got was that these women were so ready to throw themselves into something that would take them out of the disrespect associated with sex work. I have to say that what really gets to me as I meet more and more of these women and learn of their stories, that it is not the negativity associated with the work itself...it is their hatred of being disrespected that is at the core of their desire to change

•  Not only did we get the full endorsement of our host club in Ghana for the Global Grant application, but I but together a video conference call between the Ghana head and the Albuquerque head. So another brick in the edifice of getting the necessary funding

• Not only do I have five solid proof-of-concept consults going for the JOBS project, but I got a key influencer within Rotary to meet with me one-on-one finally and take a serious look at the prospects of providing business succession knowledge here. 

• I did not get as much progress as I hoped in moving work forward for two more of the Theodora women. One of my potential clients bailed and the other who is in the US has proven very difficult to get to follow-through. On the other hand, my first lady project is doing very and is so confident in her ability to do this work she is now setting up her own Virtual Personal Assistant business.

So as I look at these results and contemplate the next year the watchword will be patience. Let things happen. Put steady pressure but don't get impatient. All will happen as it should.

Ghana Trip Four - In Heavy Work Mode But Keeping Things Moving

The tenor of activity on this trip is very different from prior trips. Whereas at first, it was all about getting my name out, finding potential folks to work with. Now I have a fairly full set of folks that I am working with doing coaching. This includes six businesses I am doing JOBS Project proof-of-concept consulting and three Theodora Project women that I have found work for and am coaching in the doing of their work. The implication of this has been a drop in the number of actual meetings I have had but an increase in the amount of work being done per meeting and in-between meetings.

This trip has also been dominated by two big projects that are required for us to raise money. One has been the second round of video work and the other is the conducting of our focus groups to complete the community assessment requirement for the Rotary Global Grant application. I took charge of the first project while my partner GG has been handling the second. These two have required a lot of time and money to arrange transportation and ensure that everyone is in the right place at the right time (not a given in a country that makes being on-time a rare occurrence).

That being said we accomplished the video shoot and got good takes in an environment much improved over last time. I have actually seen the first cut of the video and while it still needs a lot of work, it is worlds better than our last effort.

The first focus group for our six first Theodora participants took place yesterday. We had a celebratory dinner afterward and all the ladies seemed very upbeat and engaged. So hopefully the last two go as well.

A few more days and this edition of the adventure will be over.

Ghana Trip Four - Storming The Barriers

Three days into Trip Number 4 and significant accomplishments have been achieved. Maybe using the word accomplishments is a bit too strong because it implies that we have done things of our sole accord. It might be better to say significant obstacles to moving forward have been overcome.

As it is late and I am sleepy, I will just cover them in brief.

• First, our host Rotary Club...the club that is critical to the success of our Global Grant request...in a meeting on Thursday expressed their unqualified support for the project. They indicated they would be submitting the proposal shorty. Very exciting and humbling.

•  We did our second attempt at video recording for our promotional video. It went a thousand times better. The advice from fLO Content Marketing was invaluable. All the issues we had earlier with location and equipment were resolved. I am confident we have the raw material we need to produce the video I need.

•   I have work for the third of my six ladies in the Theodora group. There are actually two jobs, one an internet research project and the other a data input on-going job. Both of these are actually Ghana companies they will be working for. Each time I bring a first paying work to one of these women, it is so gratifying to see their faces light up as they realize they will be appreciated, respected and paid for doing this type of work. Even though this project is not supposed to officially start until December 1, the young woman was so excited that she couldn't sleep and started to do the research that very night!

And I am happy to say that I am actually following my stated objective of working much fewer hours and keeping the energy expenditure in line with my actual energy. Am also happy to report that the current apartment rented is in a way better location that has reduced substantially the amount of time in transit.

Ghana Trip Four - Lessons In Optimizing Longer-Term Travel Planning and Acclimatization

I am into day three of this my fourth trip to Ghana in 2019. It has become clear to Wife and I that this venture has the potentail to have legs...by that I mean that it can achieve the types of objectives we theorized when we started the venture. That has led to us establishing a schedule for continuing the work in 2020. Which in turn has me (in particular) working on how to make the travel, work and living experience here as good as possible.

Of course 'as good as possible' is a relative term and leads to the process of optimization...understanding that a number of the things one wants to achieve might be contradictory. For example, I may desire the shortest of flight time each trip. I might also want the lowest airfare. Most likely I cannot get both. I most likely have to make a tradeoff between time and price. Similarly I might want to spend as little time as possible with non-productive time when on site but also want to avoid stressing myself too much from fatigue and energy drain. Again, it is unlikely I can do both.

This trip I opted for less flight time and less non-productive time enroute. That turned out to be a less than optimum choice as I have been more tired and less organized hitting the ground working. On the plus side, I am on my third lodging option which has turned out to be a winner in terms of its location, reasonable access to locales I usually want to go to, quiet and overall quality of the space.

So as I look forward, I will be seeking an optimum solution that allows me to function reasonably well at a cost I can afford.

Heading Back - Ghana Part Four

I have to pinch myself. Really. Has it only been nine months since I took that first rather terrifying voyage to Accra, Ghana?

I am heading out again tomorrow for my fourth trip of the year. In just nine months, I've gone from not having a clue as to what I might find, to focused action to accomplish well-defined goals. This trip I need to complete what is necessary for our fund-raising video. We need to complete our community assessment required for our Rotary Global Grant request. I need to reconnect with the club President who is supposed to be our local partner. I have paid projects for three of the Theodora women that need to be moved forward. I have four proof-of-concept clients for the JOBS program that all have action items to be worked on. And I want to find an apartment to rent because I think I can get a full-time place and furnish it for no more and maybe a bit less than what I've paid this year for hotels and Airbnb.

All in all, it should be a very busy trip. Really, all this in just nine months?

Gearing Up To Be Off Again

I will be leaving Friday for my fourth trip to Ghana this year.

I have a very busy schedule. There are two tasks that are critical to being able to raise funds for the projects. We need to do a second set of video takes and we need to do a community assessment (to make sure we have buy-in from those we propose to help).

Our first cut at the video in September was just 'OK'. Not at all where it needed to be. I will cut all of us some slack on this. I certainly did not provide the leadership necessary in large part because I'd never done anything like it before. But (as with so many things associated with this venture) providence had Daughter #1 and son-in-law 1A visiting us for some alone, adult time last weekend. As professional videographers, 1A took the time to look at the first cut of our video and gave me really excellent advice on how to improve it. I am confident that we will rise to the challenge.

My partner GG is handling all the logistics of the community assessment which involves three different focus groups with about thirty people altogether.

Also, there are the 'proof-of-concept' businesses I am mentoring for the JOBs project. There are five of them and I will be giving them some substantial time as well. There are two more potential virtual assistant jobs for ladies in the THEODORA project group. And the one woman who has done the most is building out a detailed business action plan to get into Virtual Assistant work as her career. That's one woman seeing this as a viable way out of sex work. A tiny victory, not fully achieved but moving tangibly in the right direction. I will be giving her a lot of coaching during this trip as well.

And here at home, work, paying work, keeps up at what seems just the right pace. I have plenty to do but I really never feel that stressed because the work I do is perfect for my abilities. I was looking at our financial reports (Wife is so incredible at giving us great financial information so we always know exactly where we are) for our year-to-date. Amazingly enough, despite all the costs associated with our Ghana venture, we are actually doing better overall than we did last year! How can that be? I have stopped trying to understand. I just go into each day, do the best I can and accept whatever comes.