Flashback

FLASHBACK… You know how Facebook throws up in your face, memories of what you said and did last year?

Well, this morning the past 370 days flashed before me. I reminisced for a Mississippi minute but sanely snapped back into Atlanta mode to check the driveway for the 15th time for the promised first snow of 2022.

This time last year I remember feeling alone in a place where no one knew my name. I think back how fearless I was and how I insisted on finding the best soil in West Afrika. Thankfully I was guided by the Chiefs from the Royal family to climb the Aburi Mountains. But I found my place with the Asante Nation and my name in Nigeria and discovered who I was in history at Cape Coast, Benin and Togo. And when the work waned for the week, I found a beach somewhere on the shores of West Afrika to put my feet in and eat some Palava Sauce and fish to make my belly sing.

I started the Kwesi Rashid Foundation in Ghana to transform a sliver of a possibility into a major opportunity for the youth and young adults who wanted to follow their entrepreneurial dreams. I was recruited to plan and build the first ergonomically designed college dorms that will house more than 800,000 students on 40 universities across all 36 states in Nigeria. (Most universities don’t have on-campus housing. Ghana and Cameroon have just inquired to us.)

And in between all that I met regularly with a few other Americans, chiefs, professors and politicians to research, rewrite, introduce and implement policies and laws that will make life better in the communities that need it the most.

But now, fast forward to this new year of 2022 as I sit staring out my window waiting on the cold rain to turn into the first snowfall in Atlanta, it didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t my name that the people of West Afrika would right down in their scrolls, they taught me that it was my heart that matters more.

Surely, the Florida Keys is my home, Atlanta is where I live and West Afrika (maybe all of Afrika soon) is where my heart rests. I have to and will always give back to the lands and people that has been so kind to me, opened her arms wide and hugged me tight.

My works not over tho. Plans, budgets, negotiations and still doing what I love!

Sunday, I rest and then tomorrow, I’ll get back to it… Afrika I’m coming, I’m coming…soon.