The Conference

Ok, so I haven't written a blog in a while, but I hopefully have a good excuse. In short, my two months of work in Ghana culminated into the last two days.

Since I arrived at CHRI, I've primarily been working on this big "international" conference that I've written about before. Anyways, I won't go into the details, and I'm too tired to write a long blog, but I'll at least ramble about it.

I must say though, wow am I relieved to have it over with. I had to work the entire weekend, meeting and greeting the foreign participants, setting things up, running errands and all that. Very little sleep, really long hours, lots of stress. But the conference went really well.

Day 1 started off really stressfully but really well. The Opening Ceremonies had some pretty major politicians from Ghana giving speeches, as well as the most famous scholar in the country I think. It drew about 40-50 members of the media. It was kind of crazy, but unfortunately I was manning the registration desk outside for much of it. I guess I missed some crazy political bantering between a couple of the politicians.

After that though things calmed down. Nana and the Minority Leader in Parliament did some TV interviews and whatnot, and then the real conference started. The entire morning went well, some interesting presentations, some decent discussion. But the afternoon things thinned out a bit.

We were supposed to have about 50 participants, and about 20 were supposed to be from outside Ghana, 30 from Ghana. But only about 16 of the foreign participants came (4 dropped out in the days before, including our unofficial "guest of honour". And by the afternoon, only about 10 Ghanaian participants were still there. So the dissapointment of the conference was the numbers. While we expected 40-50, we got 25-30.

Ultimately though it went well I think. Edmund made a mess of some things, but Steve and I tried to clean things up. The conference room was great, I think we did our best and that's good.

I also got to meet some really interesting people. None of the foreign participants were celebrities, but they were all big and impressive members of various civil society organizations. Meeting people from South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and so on and so forth was really interesting.

We also went out for this really cool dinner on Monday night. It was supposed to be to show the foreign participants a good time, but I think myself and the other interns (only Steve and I worked on the conference, but the others were invited because of low numbers relative to the original reservation) were about as amused as them. We went to this gorgeous outdoor restaurant on the ocean just outside of town. The moon was out, the waves were big and spraying mist over the big patio.

The highlight was this cultural group we hired to perform for us. It was basically like a 'busker festival' combined with west african drumming. It was sweet, I wish my camera wasn't out of batteries.

But it was still great. There were a couple great moments, but I'm not sure if retelling them would do them justice. A video might, perhaps, but not a blog entry. But it was really cool to see the foreign participants go from serious and intellectual to relaxed and fun.

The second day was good, again low numbers, but overall fine. Some presentations were really interesting, including from two different guys from South Africa. Then there was discussion and all that.

Finally, I was asked to give the closing thanks. Steve and Florence joked about me doing it because they know I'm shy about public speaking. I thought it was a joke, and i was running around the entire afternoon session, passing the microphone and stuff. Then Nana pulls me over and asks if I'm ready. I say I thought it was a joke, but she says it's too late. She scribbles a few sentences, and then I have to go. I have no idea how I sounded, probably terrified, but I kind of winged it and didn't completely embarrass myself.

And then it was over. I'm still at the hotel today, making sure all the guests leave alright. But I get tomorrow off (i guess because I worked all weekend) and will rest and relax. I honestly have no idea what i'll do the rest of my work time here in Ghana. Probably start some new project and not finish it. I only have two more weeks left of work (maybe less if I decide to do some continental travelling), so I guess it's kind of winding down.

People are leaving too, it's getting quiet and really feels like it's winding down. That I have one month to go is crazy. I feel like I've been here forever, but in good way.