Day 5 - Happy Days

I’ve been told that doctoral students aren’t supposed to try to change the world, at least not with their dissertation, but I’ve never been one who likes traditional rules—and I am changing the world every second I am here. The examples are transformational on so many levels, for them, for me, for the bystanders who gather around to watch and ask questions, for the country of Ghana, for world. The woman who was shunned from her village and her family because of her disability--- was exposed to sport and now is the breadwinner in the family, and her family talks to her. She is invited to family meetings. The student who thanks me every day for coming here to teach him. The determination and drive is there—he just needs the tools which we are providing. He will get a university education, I have no doubt in my mind of that – he told top government officials he will bring home a gold medal for Ghana in the Paralympics – and he still hasn’t been in a racing chair yet!! The guy rolling around on 3 wheels instead of four because a $.10 nut is missing. The athletes who crawl around – but are participating in daily life—using homemade scooter boards, flip flops on their hands or just dragging themselves along the dirt roads to get to where they need to be. These individuals do it every day, just to participate in life.

All of THAT is life changing—especially when I can relate to it on so many levels, and when I am one of the ones who is providing the tools to these individuals to solve these problems, and the counseling to the policy makers and government officials to sustain these changes and to develop from within the country.

There’s plenty of stuff all there that can and will take a while to process, these issues but I know that’s just part of the process. Many of those things mentioned above are not new to me, so certainly I gain new perspective and work through some of it a bit more during/after a trip like this, but it’s not entirely foreign. But that is some of the scene going on here.

Today was another noteworthy day to report, and it’s only halfway over! The highlights from today included an amazing meeting with the President of the Ghana Paralympic Committee and his board. They want what we want, what the athletes want, what we have been dreaming about. They are so excited to have a relationship with us to make it a reality. We left that meeting giddy, all of us did! Forging international relationships in a very siloed society and system is never easy, but we have been tremendously successful. And the best part about it is, we are helping to make connections between so many key stakeholders from different disability-related organizations, different sport organizations, different segments of government, who should, and now will be. It is magical to go into these meetings and to leave with new agreements and partnerships all working towards the same vision. This is what Paralympic Sport can be about. Just like Olympic sport, Paralympic Sport is about nations coming together and working towards a united world, a world of opportunity for people with disabilities. As a Paralympian, I honestly feel it is our duty to pay it forward and to help provide these opportunities for others, both domestically and internationally. If we focus all our efforts domestically, then the sport itself does not continue to grow and sustain. If we focus all our efforts internationally, then our nation does not continue to grow and sustain. There is a balance that must be struck. But, as an ambassador for the Paralympic movement, it is bigger than just getting ourselves as Americans to the world stage, it is about getting the world behind it too. And in places such as Ghana, it is sport that can be uniting, that can literally change these people’s lives and change the country and change the world for the better. But, more than that, the rest of the world can learn from Ghana too; there is so much good going on here, so much that the rest of the world is oblivious to.

The true highlight of the day, however, which inspired the title for this blog, was being able to give the equipment to the athletes. To give the everyday wheelchairs AND the racing chairs. I had one individual, who coincidentally received my old wheelchair – and we both were wearing orange today (pictures will come once I get a chance to upload), had a smile ear to ear just radiating off of his face and he said, “thank you, thank you so much for one of the happiest days of my life! Thank you to you, your friends, and your country.” WOW. It doesn’t get much more amazing than that. And, he’s my own little MacGyver. As a kid, I always got in trouble for getting a new chair and then instantly taking it apart, to understand how it worked, ditch the brakes and seatbelt and other unnecessary accessories, and to make it customized for me. Well, this guy, after receiving an everyday chair and a racing chair comes up to me and asks, how will I get tools? Where do I get allen keys? (We were working on his compensator and I was teaching him about the nuts and bolts to always check etc.). A while passes, and then his compensator was loose and I needed to take it all apart, but was lacking a critical tool in my tool bag. (To my teammates, yes I admit that, but in my defense it was an Eagle chair so I was not accustomed to certain Barry-specialty parts and the appropriate sizes). I am getting frustrated with this equipment issue, and the fact that I’m in the middle of Accra, Ghana, we can’t get replacement $.10 washers, we can’t find the right size wrench, and so we have racing chairs that took days to arrive that aren’t being used. Even as an athlete, the days when your equipment tests you are challenging and frustrating days, we all have them, we all struggle with them. So, as I’m frustrated with one issue, and dealing with other equipment issues too that we are discovering—the warped wheel, the fender that needs banging (and no, I did not pack a rubber mallet, so we used rocks). I am frustrated, but just doing the best you can with what you have --- that’s what I’ve always been taught to do. And then here comes my little MacGyver with the perfect size wrench I was missing and he started taking it apart because at this point he knew what needed to be fixed. I ask him, where did you find this? Since we had already asked one of the drivers to take the racing chair to the gas station mechanic to see if they might have a tool to help--- he said, drivers have tools, I went and asked our driver for the right size wrench! After witnessing that, it was all okay! And, the other happy ending to this story was the other woman who came up to give me a huge hug and also said thank you for the happiest day in her life.

Not bad for a day's work.