And so we are home. Home, but not home. It is impossible to describe so I will just explain what we have done for the past month and see if we end up any closer to summing up how we feel.

Well after leaving work we went north as was always intended – our sights were set on Timbuktu. We left on the Friday and reached Kumasi early. Kwame and I wanted to spend the night at the lake – it is a magical place and where we fell in love. It was so important to pour libation and give thanks there. The road however is being rebuilt and after a days of rain we got thoroughly stuck in our trusty Peugeot that otherwise has never failed. The large digger making the road used its huge scoop to push us up the hill – terrifying in the extreme.

However we made it to the hotel and should have let, us, and the car rest. But such good friends were so close and so we went onto sixth village where CK lives. It was wonderful to find him so alive and so well. We have lost eleven leven (he has 22 children with two wives hence the name) and Adjamono (quite the most wonderful old man, ever so wise, and so full of herbal knowledge – before the nonsense he would turn up on the other side of the lake at exactly the point someone got sick – ready to administer aid). But how special to find many friends not gone but so alive and so well.

We got the car back to the Hotel but the following morning learnt the clutch was totally burnt out. To be fair to Bosumtwi it had been slipping for a while but we like to think she just wanted our company for those few days. Our children were dreamed and named here and it was right for them to swim in the waters that were so much a part of our falling in love.

So then we left for north but with so little time left we only made it to Buipe and Kwames home. His family was as beautiful as always – it is a joy to see them together after Kwame was wrenched from them by illness and grew up so far away. They no longer speak the same language and there is pain but what a bond a family is when it works right. It can encompass years of separation, illness, death and pain with love.

On the way back to Accra we bought yams at a village where the lady who helped Kwames mother lived. For Kwame it was the contact with his mother he has so needed since her death. Of course there were tears but what an opportunity to come so close as to be able to heal some of that pain.

Back in Accra we tried to finalise buying land – I would love to tell you about it but as we say we tried – buying land, chiefs, cheating and shitiness but hopefully they will have signed next month and we can start a new blog cataloguing the building etc.

Then thoughts turned to home and days of eating and drinking and smoking with those we love commenced. Leaving on Friday cannot be dressed up in any way – it was simply terrible. We all concentrated upon Nayah because Kwajo was looking forward and Nayah was to lose her constant audience of adoring uncles. No one was more aware of this than they were and there were many many tears. We all left each other at the departure gate in Accra - it was rushed and horrendous and whilst we were all looking at Nayah we did not realise that a boy so looking forward to videos and toys would suddenly grasp the moment so strongly. I fear we all failed his pain because we were having so much hardship with our own.

Kwame was heinously angry – and as a human being who has always death with anger rather than tears I can do nothing but respect this. At this moment it felt like there was only sadness and that we would suspend living and just bear for a year to gather money to build on the land. Neither of us was expecting to find so much love and happiness at home with my family, our house, our life and our friends. Here for just a couple of days and we have seen some of our most loved people – we still have many more to go. Our life here is wonderful and so is our life there. Our pain comes from not being able to combine the two - not from one being better than the other – shame on us for ever thinking otherwise.

I guess for us blessed, blessed love in the end is all there is - no matter where you find it. Thank you for reading this. Ghana we could cry everyday – England thank you for giving us reasons to remember smile.

One love

Bakoji-Hume’s

Turning Round

And so thoughts turn towards home. I finish work this week and will be sad to go. It has been educational and the people at the Embassy are lovely without fail – it makes me want to go to Canada. I was offered a wonderful job for August, but such is timing. However, I have the experience of consultancy, working in an Embassy and a good reference all of which I can use when we come back in future.

The dream is delayed, we are coming home. In the short time we have left we are trying to buy the land that the dream depends on – but buying land in Ghana is, to be frank, harrowing. You spend loads of money and time before you have any idea if the land is for sale or not. Secondly horror stories of people taking back and buying your land abound. However, if we can buy it (and pull off all the other little plans aside) the dream will be alive – a lot of work but a lot of hope too.

I am looking forward to my holiday – at the moment we still hold out hope for us all seeing Timbuktu but to be frank just being back in Ghana and out of Accra will be a wonder beyond words. Goodbye traffic and pollution – we will not miss you!

We hosted Ellie, Michael and the stunning baby Anokye as they passed through. Sadly resting from plane flights and settling in meant we saw little of them but we hope to catch up on our way up north. It is wonderful to think that we are all back in Ghana (plus additions) having first met here in 1997 – it’s our anniversary!

It is odd that I set up this blog so as not to annoy friends with round robbin emails as they struggled to work on a Monday morning. However, it seems mainly the only people who have read it have been strangers – many friends have been embarrassed by the whole idea of a ‘blog. Thank you for loving me enough to read it even though its tacky! However, how wonderful to have met and heard from so many people in ‘our’ situation – thank you so much for your friendship and your help in settling us in.

God we will miss Ghana soooo much but what a lot to look forward to at home. Friends, Family, Electricity, Drains, 15 min journeys to work and so much else besides – but not for a second am I kidding myself that we won’t all be devastated. Living in Ghana is so different and so wonderful.

Here in Ghana sometimes instead of saying I'm leaving we say ‘I’m coming’. Well we are coming – in the English and the Ghanaian sense of the word.