Ep3: So About Ghana Pt1 (ft UncleSam and BenO)

In today's episode, I bring in a couple of fellow Ghanaians to talk about Ghana. We reminisce on the journey of Ghana and what the horizon looks like in the future. We talk about how Ghanaians at home and the diaspora can collaborate to build a stronger Ghana. We laugh and we reflect. The passion and love for Ghana comes through the episode and I hope you are encouraged to brighten the corner where you are and be involved. We are all involved! Enjoy!

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello everyone. How far? Uh uh, it's a beautiful brand new day, and I'm back. Well, kind of, so this episode was supposed to come out sometime in March, but there were some technical hitches. we have, resolved them about halfway and so I'll only be releasing part to one of this new episode. So, I mean, we are going somewhere. we are moving forward. And shout out to those who help me to be afraid to fill out to Simon, to Beau for encouraging me and helping me out because ah, yes, it was, it was, it's something. Mm-hmm. I'll say it that way anyway. And lemme ask you a question. Are you a Ghanaian? Do you want to be a Ghanaian? Well, you once a Ghanaian, in fact, well come close. I wanna tell you something. Today's episode is all about Ghana. So whether you are a Ghanaian or not, listen in, learn, laugh, and hopefully by the end you want to have a Ghanaian passport or keep your Ghanaian passports. Before we get into the episode, I asked my sister and a friend about their thoughts about Ghana with respect to the team of our podcast. Charlie, there has to be more Yes. What they have to say, and we'll get right into the episode after that. All right.

1:19

I.

Speaker 2 1:20

Hi, my name is Charlie. There has to be more. There has to be more. When it comes to Ghana. I've noticed one thing that's Ghanaians, like we, we, we don't talk about Charlie. Why is it that right now Gobert is like 15 Ghana cities? Those times I could buy Gar and beans, one city, 50 plus West, be planting one city, the 50 per west, then get sausage. I know like inflation and things, but we are, we are. L let me use, let me borrow it this way. Like gentrifying gobert and kinky for no reason. These content creators are making, hi guys, come with me to go and eat Gobert 400 Ity. Oh my God. Like me, go 400. Know that we, there must be a time that we have to talk about it, that the average man cannot even afford our staples. Again, like go kinky. They are staples if you cannot afford it again. And then what can you afford? Charlie, we have to talk about it.

Speaker 4 2:17

Yes, here, sister of Queen, the podcaster, lovely to be here. And I'm thinking when it comes to Charlie, there has to be more. It just takes me to the youth of Ghana today and how much does need for so much empowerment of the youth to be able to create jobs, to be able to start businesses, and to be able to contribute effectively and even more to the development of Ghana. Of course a lot has to be done.

Moi 2:47

Hello everyone. it's Queen again. And today we're talking about Ghana. First of all, happy Independence Day. Happy in the 69th Independence Day to our, our homeland country, Ghana. I have two guests for today. We're talking about Ghana. Today's episode is, the title is so about Ghana. So You understand. If you can't see me, it's okay because I'm wearing a Ghana jersey t-shirt right now. very petro, you know. I have two guests. I have Beno and I have Uncle Sam. Let me just do a small, I before they introduce themselves. So Ben, oh, we went to school together. He's like my senior, my boss. I know that when he comes to Ghana, he takes it very seriously. He has action plan in, ongoing. Maybe I'm overselling it, but like Ben is one person to look out for and also have Uncle Sam. Uncle is like. How do I describe Uncle Sam? From Anointed tier ministry back in school in Ghana. That's how come I met him. So it's more like a big brother, a big mentor for me. But let them introduce themselves, however you wanna introduce yourself. So just your name, your introduce yourself, and when I thought about like, okay, let's do a Ghana episode, what came into your mind when I first gave you, you know, that thought? So benu, let's, let's benu go first.

BenO 3:57

Thank you for inviting me to this podcast. It's really interesting. So my name is Benjamin Benjamin. what do I, how do I describe myself? I do a lot of things. I'm a student of, History and things like that. Um, I'm a learner as well from different things. what came to my mind when we, when you, you, you reached out with this, was I think it's an opportunity to also share a bit more of what people miss when it comes to Ghana and, and a bit of our history and what it means to be Ghanaian, right? That pride that we tend to be missing when it means to be Ghanaian. So it was, it was on Anna. yeah.

Moi 4:39

And then you're in the US, right?

BenO 4:41

Yes,

Moi 4:41

Yeah.

UncleSam 4:45

Thanks for adding me to this conversation. It's been so many years since I saw your infectious smile. It's good to see you and Daniel as well. I'm a chartered quantity surveyor, so a chartered quantity surveyor is someone who handles construction costs, contracts and legal issues in construction. So that's what I do for my madly salary that they're not aside. I'm just passionate about grooming young people so actively. I speak at events and church groups, in youth meetings, schools, and I use my LinkedIn platform to mentor the next generation of professionals. So it's all about making sure where we are passed, we guide people to pass the right path and help others to avoid the wrong path that we took. so, about this conversation, honestly, when I, first heard about Ghana. Wow. Okay. occasionally when I speak to my friends and colleagues who are not in Ghana, by the way, I, I live and work in Ghana. So, we have conversation about how they feel at where they stay, that nostalgia feeling about home, whether they miss home and what they wish they want to do when they come back home or ever return. those conversations excite me and we want to always treat the current. And then invite them to always come home because is always home. There's.

Moi 6:31

Yeah, there's no place like you are making me think about, um, Saturday morning watch. I'm like, this is a perfect time to have watch in the morning. Oh no, don't tell me. Oh God. No, no. I remember I was, when I was in Ghana the last time I was, I went out to buy, watch 30 in the morning. My friend a he, he's in web somewhere in Europe. He called me, even actually video called me. I'm like, don't call me at this time. Say why? I say I'm out by watching. I showed him, he was like, ah, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't do this to me. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wanna just ask, when it comes to Ghana, like. When it comes to Ghana, what comes into your mind? Do you have any memory as a child, that you feel like, okay, I'm proud to be a Ghanaian, even as an adult, like I'm proud to be a Ghanaian. I know it's home, but do you have any memory? anything that comes into mind for you guys?

BenO 7:20

for me, when we talk about Ghana, growing up, I remember, I lived in a compound house, right? So we, everyone was, everyone's kid basically, one way or the other. So we going out and playing. Football on the, on the road and like betting ourselves and like, you can't, can't find one of your, and you, you trying to like your friend helping or your Yeah. Your friend basically helping you to look for it and we having fun and coming back home and like everyone like that kind of, I would say. Community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of community. it's, it's something I really think about. Another thing talking about Ghana, it's much more of the hope as well. Whenever we talk about Ghana, the hope that we have and a sense of the history. The history and where we've come from, right? it's really, it really speaks a lot, right? There's been a lot Ghana. Ghana is just, I would say In national years, it's young, but there's a lot of things that have been packed in there. It's really interesting. those are the things that come to mind.

Moi 8:34

Yeah, you like to know a lot about like some of the history and things. I'm like, yeah. I just like Ghana, that's all. I don't really have history.

BenO 8:42

history is much more fascinating, like when you think about how things signs interconnected, it's much more interesting and fascinating. It gets you to see that, oh, Ghana is actually a country. Like, it's not like something that's, we are just sprung out. It's actually a country and it, it, there's a lot of thought and planning to it. Pretty impressive. Yeah.

Moi 9:02

What about you, Juan? Do you have any memories or like, why are you proud to be a Ghanaian? Like what does that, because you've been in Ghana, you know, all this time. You, you've worked in Ghana, you've grown in Ghana. You, I, I don't know, but it has to be like something that, 'cause I just posted at offer them, they feel like they can be in Ghana and they can do well depending on what, no matter what happens in like the country, they'll be fine. But like for you, like. When you say Ghanaian, what does that mean to you?

UncleSam 9:28

Um, you. Value of what you have until someone experiences and tells you. Lemme just share with you just a few weeks ago, in our church we have different nationalities and a few Nigerians are there. So one Nigerian, came to give a testimony in church and we'll feel like this should this be a testimony, but the was that his wife traveled to in Nigeria and came back and she came back safely. And that is big news because, their village has a lot of these stories attached and, rarely are they able to go home for the past five years they've never visited home. And so going home around the time, like Christmas and coming back safely without any attack on the road. There was so much, you know, at the beginning of the testimony, everybody in the church was memorizing, but at the tail end of the testimony, we all became sober and we came to value what we have. And that is the truth about Ghana. under the peace in Ghana, until someone comes in and experiences and tell us that we are holding onto gold so eternally, I would say that. Ghana, the piece that we enjoy here is one thing that makes me very proud as a Ghana. I mean, a few weeks ago too, I visited one site construction sites that has some s there and then a lady from the northern part of Africa. That said she was traveling home to see her sick dad. And I was asking, you know, recently head of the news of tomato traders who were attacked and she was going through, I was talking, how are you? Like, I wish I don't go, but my father is sick and he's calling me to come and visit. And she's fine in Ghana because of the peace she has to go home. It should bring happiness, but she was scared of

BenO 11:45

Yeah.

UncleSam 11:45

going home, and that is what as a Ghanaian makes me proud. We've gone through elections of military rule and all that, and beyond that, the Fourth Republic has not been absolute peace, but trust you. Piece we have here in Ghana, you can match it to so many countries, so many developed countries cannot boost off the piece we have here in Ghana. And that's what makes me proud as a.

Moi 12:13

Wow, I'm becoming sober myself. Yeah, it's true. It's true. I'm just curious because like why do you think we have this piece? Like where is it, what do you think is it like from our whole journey, how far we've come, like where, how come we do, we have this piece? Like if you could summarize it, what would you say? Like since you mentioned it, I'm curious.

UncleSam 12:35

we are more tolerant of Ghanaians because in my construction state we do so many people on our construction site in Ghana currently, we have a lot of foreigners on our construction is not to be true, but you'll never find any Ghanaian second foreigner from sites, but they're taking our jobs. We are tolerant as long as we're helpful to the development of. I don't think we'll find even two out of 10 cases, someone out because they're in their space and that's the reason why Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Hindus in every kind of religious sex that you belong to, we can stay in the same environment, respect each other's interest, and still go ahead with what we we want. So I think it's the tolerance.

BenO 13:28

Yeah, a piece of, a piece of it also comes from, so with how Ghana is from, so most other African countries, let's take our, our brothers or sisters, Nigeria, for example. You could be like three distinct sect, right? Coming together to form a country. So for, for, for Nigeria, for example, you had, the fire B like the north, you could see they are separate. This thing, it's kind of like three countries sold

Moi 13:57

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. One.

BenO 13:59

where for a long time they were still left as like there was no mix. So in Ghana, especially our education system, I give Kudo to anyone who pushed in the beginning more boarding schools. So you go to boarding schools, we have, majority of our high school is boarding schools. So you have a northerner sleeping on your top bed, like you have a, a Arian biocide in your house. So you've got to intermingle, understand them, tolerate them, even from that age. And in Ghana you could see someone from the north coming down to my, although we have those kind of like one once in a while, you have our, oh, we have our own differences. And yeah, there is

Moi 14:38

Yeah.

BenO 14:38

but not to the extent of most other, uh, African countries where. Almost like Haram when you intermingle, right? So that from that young age, oh, I understand how these people think and I'll be tolerant to tolerance to them a little bit in, in a way. Which I think that, especially with our educational type of system, really, really helped us, to kind of like blend You can't. When you take someone out right now in, in Ghana, there's a high possibility they might be connected to people from all over the country, right? Maybe in third or fourth connection connected to all other, which you don't find in most other places.

Moi 15:19

I see. Interesting. Yeah. 'cause one of my very good friends is actually from the north, so I'm like, yeah, we met in high school. You kind of touched on it a bit, but like, you know, we've had a good run all of these years from 1957, even before 1957. I mean, from all that time to now, if you were to think like, you know. Somebody, you know, our leaders, whether Kwaman, chroma the Bist or a champion or Hi Milan. I hope I'm saying their name. Their name strikes, like if you could take them for anything, like what would it be like if you know you could thank them for something they have done in our country up until this time? What would it be? Even recently? I don't know. You know what would you thank them for? Uh, there. Silence Ghana. Silence.

BenO 16:11

You wanna take this?

UncleSam 16:12

Okay. Maybe I'll have to salute them. I mean, um, one thing I would say a bit thank to, uh, forefather five government step was for the seeing, uh, our own capabilities. I still believe in that. The Ghanaian or the African was capable of, ruling himself or taking care of their, own skills and needs. You know, if we compare our current generation to the past, it's easy for us. To believe and accept that we can take care of ourself. But let's take our minds back to pre 1957. How many people were educated? How many people could read, how many people had a skill beyond the agriculture or the intended tendon full? Music needs beyond that, and yet a few people who were enlightened in codes or exposed believe that even with this mass of people who are not at our level, we can govern ourselves and that belief. That belief in the people that they had around them is what I salute them for. Because if you just oppose that with today, with all the resources we have of all the knowledge we have, peoples toand say they don't believe in our own people to do right? Then you have a lot of respect to people, our common and the people before. That's what I thank.

BenO 17:51

Yeah. I, I would, I would thank them for also, and yeah, it's a lot of, a lot of things you, you mentioned, uh, one thing I also want. Them for the selflessness, right? So most of these people had families, they had loved ones didn't. It's not as if they didn't have something they could like, tend to, right? They, they had their own personal life. They could say, okay, let me focus on this. Right? Most people also gave. They are, they are monies, right? You have power grants. You have, like when we were talking about pre Ghana, right? To form Ghana. The amount of money that was given to even bring in Oma from UK in right to, to be able to take on that role, you had to pay for him to come,

Moi 18:39

Personal money.

BenO 18:40

Personal monies, right? You have Wilson say who did a lot of work from infant, so some of these. Connections were even tied to the formation of infant, which brought

Moi 18:51

Oh, wow.

BenO 18:52

Then connecting to most of these people in the Cape Coast who formed these, these new ccc and then connecting and then in chroma coming in like as, quote unquote a young man and his drive, his passion, right? You didn't know where he was even paid from. Okay. To a point where he slept in veranda is what? So they call him Veranda Boy, basically. Right? So all these things, he had his own life that he could say, okay, lemme just give up this idea, right to all the way to the head servicemen who came back trying to struggle for not themselves, but their colleagues as well. Like all these things forming up. That's form of selflessness. They didn't look onto, okay, if I go and do this thing, there's some politician who is giving me 20 Ghana or 10 Ghana somewhere. So I could, no, it wasn't for their personal gain. It was for, okay. There is some idea that we have in our mind, which may not even come to pass. Right? But going to the point of your life being put in prison. Right after the 1948 route being thrown into prison and out of them you have the big sin, the people who were put put in prison and were the people we call big sin basically. So outta that, we celebrated that. All these things, right? You had people who fell off because they, at some point we had to think that matter, like

Moi 20:21

It's not, it's not worth it. Yeah.

BenO 20:23

Right. But people still going on and going on and making sure that we got to that point. So the selflessness, which. Unfortunately we tend to miss a lot today, but it's one thing I really think about them for like that's self business. Wild.

Moi 20:37

Yeah. What I'm also hearing is like courage, because I'm thinking about, I was reading, long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela and a bit of like, Obama's story, and it's like all you could see was like selfless, like there was some sacrifice. Is on the way, even though they are families. So it's like selflessness, courage, risk taking. 'cause you can't really create something big if you don't exam risk. You're not courageous, like, well, yeah, that's, mm-hmm. I'm just thinking.

BenO 21:03

It, it's really well, even to presence type like modern form quote, modern form of like our leaders. You take someone like, Rollins at one point his wife was pregnant, right? When all these going into prison, right? Like all these like him or dislike him, these are like people or leaders who, who impacted, our country that we call Ghana. Like for someone to go to that extent. Like in Chroma ex out. Right. Still having his family still in Ghana. Right. At some point he was being told to bring his wife and children to, to Guinea and he's like, no, if all the, the, the people still have their families in Ghana, so why should I alone bring my family out of Ghana? They should. So you see that kind of, it's the mind. Yeah.

Moi 21:52

Yeah.

UncleSam 21:53

Add this. You see what we are saying also means that a lot of thank you needs to go to the families of the freedom fighters

Moi 22:00

That's true.

UncleSam 22:01

we all experiences before the, you are trying to do something or stand for a course and your, your parents will visit you in school and tell you that I don't want you to do this. Focus on your. Course that you believed in you.

BenO 22:18

exactly.

UncleSam 22:19

imagine if

Moi 22:24

Yeah.

UncleSam 22:33

So parents gone. Passionate, the wife. Oh, why, why are you trying to leave me a widow? Think about our children and have gotten into their head and they have abandoned this course. Where would we have been? So a lot of solutions go to their families as well for having that, forbearance, I mean, a long suffering to throughout. I mean, imagine Nelson Mandela in and out. I mean, it's

Moi 23:05

Like 27 years or something.

UncleSam 23:07

Can you imagine? So lot of Thank you. Good.

BenO 23:12

Yep. Yep. True.

Moi 23:15

Wow. Wow. That's all I'll say. Okay. Now, I know Beno, you had mentioned that like, you know, as far as the country is concerned, Ghana is so young. This year we are 29, sorry, this year. This year we're 69. This year we're 69. Next year we'll be 70. But with how far we've come, are we happy with where we are today? Like are we satisfied? Like, okay, we are on track. Or if you like, ah, you know, this age we should be doing more. But, you know, where are we now? That's the main question. Where are we now? Like, you know, as a country.

BenO 23:59

So personally, I think, when we, when we look at different countries that have been built, we take China. China is like hundreds or maybe even thousands of years old, like the country, the, the 'cause. China. you have dynasties, so you have the thing dynasties in Dynasty, right? Like that kind of collection of people at a location, right, who have gone through phases. Unlike Ghana where you have different sects of people, not Ghana is what we call Ghana. Today is basically like when 1956, when we added, so initially Ghana was mainly just, without a northern region, right? The north that was territory without the, the, the, voter origin and some part. What we call currently Ghana was formed 1956, like after the, referendum went out and they decided to add voters in the northern tridge to it. Right? So it's young, right? But China has been in existence for years that that group of people, right? You have the US right people coming from the. The UK or Europe to, to form what we call the United States of America here. Right. So that's when you just opposed the years. Let's take the US for example. When US was 69 years, I don't know when, what year that was, but if we want to compare year pay like year by year, right? Let's say US has 69 and Ghana has 69. I, I haven't looked critical to into it, but I would say that Ghana ideas are ahead, like in terms of. Like how we've done basically, mainly because there's advancements and technological advancements and how we've been able to go. so on one hand, right, on one hand we are comparing year by year we kind of have done well. on the other hand, and we've done well because now you have technology and we'll be able to leverage on what we see in the west. Okay. Initially, the reason why, let's say most part of Sub-Saharan Africa were cut out was mainly because of the sa. The sa. Right. So information wasn't being able to transfer to us for us to be able to developing that rate. Right. Whenever the information came from the Middle East and all that. Right. So done well, right when you compare it year to year. Right. But with what we have, the kind of information and advancement we have. We still seem to have a long way to go. we, in some, in some cases we are just going round and round, right? Some of these things we've, we see or we, we come across with, forefathers have. Possibly laid foundations long ago, and we tend to kind of repeat the same mistakes. And Uncle Sam said one thing that he does is that he helps the younger generation so that they don't, they can do things faster or they don't repeat certain mistakes. Right. And it's sometimes we see the mistake and we just go into it. Right.

Moi 27:09

wanna see for ourselves. Right. Wanna test the hypothesis Exactly.

BenO 27:17

like a clear example is the flooding that happens like every year. We know that there's a season that there should be flooding, like we've accepted it. You go back as there was a, there was a newspaper that was shared. I've forgotten the year, but it's in the maybe fifties or even before or something. There was the same aircraft like that. Right. An old newspaper and it's there. Right. And then we've been experiencing if it is fire outbreak.

Moi 27:47

machine. It's time machine things.

BenO 27:49

Oh. So yeah. Something that is the cyclical and then we've some quote unquote, have accepted it. Right. So to us, to some extent, we've come far, looking at what we've been given by looking at what we've been given by our fathers forefathers, which a lot of African countries can boast off. The, the, the type of foundation that has been built by our previous generation to the point of even lands for us to be, for you to be able to own a land today is because John men, Saba on his own, went to, the Queen to actually fight for like our lands, like that we can own our land. Because they said at some point the lands belongs, the lands that don't have owners belong to the Queen. Right? And so he had to go all the way himself. Say that the lands do not belong to only the living, but the dead and the future. Right. That's why we are able to, they'll say, okay, I can own a land today. You get it. So there's a lot of foundation that has been built for us. So the foundation has been given to us. When you just oppose it with where we are today, it's not, we've not really done a lot. Right. But to some extent too, we've come far so.

Moi 29:02

Yeah, I like that you look at it at both perspectives, like, you know, yeah. Okay. What about you Uncle Sam? What? What do you think? Like, where are we now? Are you satisfied with where our country is today? 69 years?

UncleSam 29:17

Sorry he's laughing. Can predict what I'm gonna say, but I

Moi 29:22

I.

UncleSam 29:23

I hope not to. Disappointed, okay.

Moi 29:29

Only the first.

UncleSam 29:30

I've gotta be honest, but I, I don't want this to be a pity party that we've to feast on. So I, I, so I'll start with this statement that we are not where we are supposed to be, but we're definitely not where we started from,

BenO 29:46

Yeah.

UncleSam 29:46

and that alone means there's progress.

BenO 29:49

Yeah.

UncleSam 29:50

We are not where we are supposed to be. Having said that, my mind just soon, 69 years. What do you want to have? Nine? That is that, that is, that is, you know. Okay. So let's, let's, let's look at the general expectations of somebody who has lived life worked so hard because in Ghana, say we are training the of our fathers. So what you 12. What you 12 For the, your working life and you're in your, retirement age. What should you have to say about all the years of twelves? Naturally, let's say you should have a house, your retirement home,

Moi 30:54

Mm.

BenO 30:54

be free.

UncleSam 30:56

some funds that you don't have to be toileting again.

BenO 30:59

Exactly.

UncleSam 31:00

At your old age, if you work, probably you wanna keep fit, you wanna stay active, or because you still feel like there's something left in you that you still can contribute. That's why you're still working, but you are not in the TWI kids education should have been paid for. Either your kids are done with school or you have them. So I believe you're not related to.

Moi 31:28

Yeah, listen, we're following. We're following.

UncleSam 31:31

You have some societal status

BenO 31:33

Yeah.

UncleSam 31:34

because at least if you are a, a, a senior citizen, you get into a space. You, you don't expect to be at the back seat all the time. Some status should be according to your name. And then finally, some legacy that can be said or mentioned to your name, mentioned five instance. You have your retirement home paid for. You have reserved funds so that you don't have to be toiling or working so hard

BenO 32:08

All.

UncleSam 32:09

You kids should be done with school or you, you have your educational fund already set for them. So they're eating from or from your reserve.

BenO 32:20

Yeah.

UncleSam 32:20

You should have some societal status. And then finally, legacy your name now Ghana. Ghana State Infrastructure, Ghana.

Moi 32:38

I'm respond as Ghana. I'm.

UncleSam 32:43

you in depth, Ghana, do you have results? Your reserves that you talk about, if we had to match it with your debts, we used to have reserves, real reserves. So can you say, your retirement is a good retirement. Now let's ask about your kids. Where are they schooling? Can you take care of your kids schooling, you know, free And teachers came and we're all happy about it. When do, and Jeffrey as.

Moi 33:19

no, I didn't enjoy it. No. My siblings did.

UncleSam 33:23

one, one of my, my siblings was who enjoyed career me as somebody in the construction field. When I encounter workers on the construction site who have, at least to my high school education, relating to them on site is much easier. They understand things they can reason, they can add one-to-one and take decision. You don't have to police them all the time if their head is correct. I mean, pardon my friend.

Moi 33:53

Understand.

UncleSam 33:54

their head is correct and yeah, they wanna be productive. You don't have to police them. They take simple instructions and they turn it into very productive outcomes. But ask Ghana, dear Ghana, how many of

Moi 34:08

Hello.

UncleSam 34:09

can you educate? Without stressing yourself, how many of them have to drop out of school because they can't fend for their own education? if we had States funded scholarships available for brilliant students. Would we all be running away looking for scholarships outside? Ghana, let me ask you again, what, what is your status? What is your status in the the world? In all rankings, health, global health ranks.

Moi 34:43

Mm-hmm.

UncleSam 34:48

So what is our status in health, our economy? What is our status? When we do global corruption ranks ranking, what is our status? So the society, I mean global world, how do we view Ghana? And finally, what legacy are we leaving? What can we see? We have built, of course we can't see. Ghana is useless. Ghana has a lot to see. I mean, in the year of retain, when DPOs came down, they were proud of their heritage. That's to say that we still have something, but are we counting on past glories or we are still building on those glories to leave legacies that our children would not say that, oh, with this one we've seen it before. What is new? So if you ask me about 69 years, I just ask Ghana, dear Ghana, your retirement, what do you have to. Thank you very much.

Moi 35:46

Okay. very welcome for expressing your consents as Ghana. I'll take your consent consideration. Wow. let's be sober for a few seconds. Listeners, please be sober for the next few seconds. Um, I wanna talk about the future because from what AAN will say, it's like, because I've heard some of these things before from my sister Um, faith is the one who kind of like motivate me to do this episode because it's like, it doesn't look like the future is nice, because you have to use present history to predict the future. So it's like people are sort of like, you know, losing hope to an extent, you know? I'm like giving up like, oh, I want to just leave the country. I won't come back anymore. You know, things like that. But do you see Hope Benu Uncle Sam? Do you see Hope? What hope do you see? So you will inspire some of us who inspire. My sisters, my brothers, you know, people. 'cause people just feel like, oh, they've tried that. They've hoped and hoped and hope. They've hoped against hope. But still not. In fact, you know, they don't see anything different. What hope do you see that you can inspire us with?

BenO 36:53

For me, I'm, I'm still hopeful, right? So I'm, I'm very hopeful, very hopeful in Ghana. because, and again, like you said, we look at the past to predict our future, right? We've there, there have been instances where we've been through cools and like instabilities and like insecurities, right? and like in the beginning, uncle Sam mentioned one thing that we have in Ghana where a lot of people don't have is speech and a little bit of reasonable security, right? where you can go out at night, you can go to work and come back. Yes. Maybe the work might not be there, but you can, you can go.

Moi 37:35

traffic.

BenO 37:37

When driving my day work, you might not find some, but you can go and come, right? Exactly right. You could travel from, if you have their money, you could travel for, from AC crowd to tamal. You might be in traffic for like days, but, but you might, you could be able to, to do that, which first of all, for every hope to be built on a country, you need that sense of security and that ability to do that, right? You can't say that. you, there is hope or there is a lot of, future for any country that is in, in, in turmoil. But even for those countries, there's still hope you get it. For me, I think, yes, there is hope because we have those basic, parameters, under hope of what's, I also have hope in, in, in the people, right? The young generation, the younger generation. in a, not, not only because of who we are as Ghanaians, but because of what is around us, right? Like I said, like there's a lot of opportunities that we can leverage on to build or develop our country, Ghana, right? We were during colonization, quote unquote. You didn't have people ourselves in affairs to be able to say, okay, make a decision. Every decision was based on what will favor maybe the queen. Okay. So we didn't have that opportunity to do what we wanted as a country. And there is that hope that now that we are in affairs, we've been in affairs for 69 years. Understood. But hopefully on the hope that. The generation that we have would be able to learn from what is happening elsewhere, technology that is going on elsewhere, leverage on that to leapfrog. Right? So now we have the ability of, even currently you have ai, right? We are talking about maybe even, let's say, poor, health infrastructure. Right now we can pick up a paper. We can go online, pick up that research paper that they did to come up with that cure, try and see if we can replicate something like that. Someone in high school today might be able to do that, right? They might not be able to have that advanced machines, but they can read the paper. Yeah, you can have access to that paper. 10 years ago, you, you might not be able to do that, right? You could pick that paper, throw it into, for example, Could throw that into GPT and say, okay, what does that, what does this mean? Can you really break it down? Can I build a simpler model? Right? There is that capability. So hope not only in the people, but also in what the world hoping the world fools. My hope. Hope. Yeah. It's not only about us and where we are right now, it's about leveraging on where we've come from and also like, what world? The hope, hope in the world, right? Yeah. So that, that's, I still have hope and, and hoping you like, so for example, you, you're here, you started up talking about Ghana. That's hopeful.

Moi 40:51

Yes. Yes.

Speaker 6 40:56

And that is part one for you. Hmm. There's hope Charlie. There's hope. That's it. I mean, like Benu said, uh, we have this podcast, I call it our podcast. We have this podcast, so there's hope. While we work on continuing the conversation with Beno and Uncle Sam in part two, please send me a voice note about what you think about part one. So far. Did you learn anything? Did something like, you know, trigger you or like, oh, I didn't think of it that way. Like, you know, so please send me a voice note if you can. Um, because Charlie, we are all involved. We are all involved. You know that song? Yes. We are all involved. So please send me a voice. What if we can for our country, our motherland, Ghana. Let's, let's all get involved. Watch out for part two, watch out for part two of the conversation as we finish it up. But thank you so much for listening. Love you all. Bye.