Sometimes I went with Dad when he traveled to villages around Nalerigu. I'm sitting on top of the truck while he treats a young boy's leg. Even though Dad did great agricultural and veterinary work, he was of great service to people who needed medical help.
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My Dad continues to archive
his memories, service work and adventures in Ghana. He
also has a
website and
DVDs of his recordings, photos and home movies. He and my
brother Clint have invested thousands of hours
into these projects.
One fine day, over a year ago, a man named Henri who lives
in Canada was surfing the Web and stumbled across my
Dad's
website.
Seeing the videos and images of Ghana inspired
Henri to introduced himself. He had lived in the
northern region of Ghana many years working, with the Ghanaian
and Canadian governments, doing various service projects such
as digging water wells and teaching the blind to garden. He
was happy to read about Dad's experiences. He had come to
love Ghana also, had married Rose, a Ghanaian woman from Bolgatanga,
and they now live in his homeland, Canada.
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Rose and Henri (the angel)
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Henri and Dad began a wonderful e-mail dialogue of which
Dad would forward me some of Henri's e-mails. Henri knew
lots of Ghanaians who live in Canada and the U.S. He sent
Dad some videos of his work in Ghana and Dad forwarded the
videos to me. It was great to see the work he did with the
Ghanaian people and once again my desire to return to Ghana
was sparked.
Henri and I began e-mailing and I mentioned Sandow in one of
my e-mails. He asked if I wanted him to help me find Sandow
as he knew lots of people in Ghana. Of course I said yes! The
next day he sent me the e-mail address of a Ghanaian woman,
Alice, who lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
I immediately e-mailed her Friday, Sept. 30, 2005.
Sunday, Oct. 2, 2005, I received an e-mail from
Alice and this is what it said:
Dear Patty,
Greetings! I
read your letter with much interest. I
do not think I know this Mr Sandow. However, I am confident that we can
track him down through contacts in Nalerigu. It may take a bit of time, though. I
will keep you posted.
Regards,
Wow! I was very excited and eagerly awaited her reply, but what are the odds
that she would actually be able to help me find Sandow? I figured pretty slim
considering there are over 18 million people in Ghana. But 19 days later, on
October 21st, I received this amazing e-mail:
Hello Patty,
I think we have tracked down Mr Sulemana Sandow. In
fact I know him personally, and when I was home this summer, I met him in Kumasi,
where he now lives. However, I (and others) have always called him "SS". So
I did not even know what the SS stood for. Anyway, my uncle (more a brother
to me) got in touch with him, and I talked with him this morning. He said
his phone was not working but you could reach him through my uncle - cell phone
# (she gave me the phone#!). I told him you may be able
to call him tomorrow (Saturday). That
is all for now.
I will call you later.
Isn't that amazing? Not only did Alice locate him, she knew him!
So now I knew:
Sandow lived in the city of Kumasi and I could call and possibly speak
to him on the phone the next day.
Making a phone call to Ghana...
continue
