Written in Ghana, May 10th 2011
Mi likkle Angel,
I’m writing you from Hut 10 of the Anomabo Beach Resort in Ghana and sending this letter to the Assembly of Stars in the Skies, knowing it will reach you stat… Tomorrow night, it’ll be two weeks since you left this Earthly dimension forever to reside on the Other Side, freed from pain, fatigue, sorrow and constraint.
Being here, it’s almost impossible to imagine that you’re really gone… It took a text message from sis Adrienne to convince me that all the things passing by in my dreams are actually true. You ARE gone from here, you will be gone forever, and I will just have to deal with that horrifying fact!
Being here, it’s almost impossible to imagine that you’re really gone… It took a text message from sis Adrienne to convince me that all the things passing by in my dreams are actually true. You ARE gone from here, you will be gone forever, and I will just have to deal with that horrifying fact!
Of course, I considered cancelling this trip after that fatal early morning of April 28th, when you left your ailing body to set your loving Spirit free. But you really wanted me to travel to Ghana, the land of our forefathers;
in fact, you were quite excited about this opportunity that came my way.
I realise that you and I both imagined we’d talk about it after I returned, that we’d discuss the pictures and video I shot here, that we’d laugh and cry together over 500 years of history and put them into perspective together. Somehow, fate got in the way, and I’m left alone to do all of the above, knowing that in ways incomprehensible,
you ARE sharing this experience with me…
So I will report to you as planned
and just take the rest as it comes.
After all, that’s what you taught me the past 4 years:
to take things as they come!
Being in Ghana is special in many ways. This is one of the places where our historical roots lie and it’s both comforting and disturbing to see people in the streets that look like us, act like us, eat the foods we love, show each other Love and Respect the way our parents taught us. More than any other African country I’ve been to, this feels like home; every tree seems familiar, every road leads to a place I feel I know, every child calls me auntie…
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Breakfast before school starts
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I spent the past few days filming for the Dutch organization Kinderhulp Ghana. They started out a couple of years ago with water pumps and have now built an orphanage, a primary school,
a day-care centre and a couple of clinics.
a day-care centre and a couple of clinics.
Plans are to build a secondary school in the near future and even a university.
With very simple means they have changed the Lives of over 3-thousand children and countless communities, driven by an internal force of Goodness and daily prayers of thanks. There are now adults in this region pretending their child is an orphan, in the hopes that child will be taken up into the loving care of the organization, thus granting it a better Life.
In fact, the results are so solid that they have caught the attention of the Ghanaian government, spurring it on to build schools and clinics of its own, so that it is not upstaged by a handful of foreigners…
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© Leo Nieuwenhuis
Government building school right next to Kinderhulp Ghana school...
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© Leo Nieuwenhuis
New clinic by Kinderhulp Ghana, to be opened July 2011
You would have LOVED to see all of this! I can just imagine how you would’ve thrown yourself into the middle of it all, feeding little toddlers, hugging them, feeling proud of older children as they loudly drone up their morning class… It certainly brought a few tears to my eyes to see it all, and everybody knows that I am NOT the REAL caretaker that Mom and Dad put upon this Earth…
You, and all the rest of the Universe, will have to wait
until I’ve edited my video footage to know what I’m talking about.
I hope to have it ready by June 24th,
the day a classical concert will be held in the St. Janskerk in Utrecht
by director Pieter Jan Leusink and his vocal ensemble Call
to raise more funds for Kinderhulp Ghana…
(note to reader: I will be hosting the concert!)
TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE!!   My filming work in the Nsuatre area is now done, and I travelled approximately 800 kilometres by car today, together with driver/fixer Gideon, who has taken me to the Anomabo region for my last day here. Tomorrow I will visit Elmina, the fortress from where slave masters shipped our forefathers to Surinam and the rest of the "New World" all those centuries ago.
I’m sure it’ll be a very moving experience to be there.
Today’s voyage here took me right through the tiny village of Pokikrom, which to me is proof of historical ties, as it reminded me instantly of that tiny village in Surinam called Pokigron… On the way, driver Gideon talked about the Acaan people and the Koromantee; in Surinam we call them Aucaners and Cromantie: runaway slaves that settled in the South-American jungle hundreds of years ago and kept their African traditions in defiance of the Dutch colonial powers.
They still speak the same language as their forefathers do, as I remember from the heartwrenching documentary Katibo Ye Ye a few years ago… Unfortunately the film is no longer available online.
All of that will be experienced tomorrow.
For now, I’m in a huge bed in Hut 10 of the Anomabo Beach Resort, recovering from that uncharacteristic half litre of Ghanaian Star beer I drank on the beach after my long journey, marvelling at the fact that the beer celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Many tears rolled down my face as I realized
you weren’t granted that milestone… 
to have called you to Her after only 42 years,
a total Life span of only 15.590 days…
I certainly expect Her to
compensate you royally
for all the years on Earth you will miss out on in the future!
Please make sure She sticks to the programme, mi likkle Angel!
I love you and miss you... Terribly…
 Aldith Hunkar |
