The Darkest Shadows Means The Brightest Light

"I bet you're tired of people asking what happened, aren't you?" 

It’s been a few weeks now since I have broken both of my feet and if I were to get a dollar for every time someone asked me that, I probably could have paid the medical bill for the surgery. The answer is no. Why should I be tired of people showing that they care? Sure, I could get annoyed with the situation, but that wouldn’t change it. So I might as well just embrace it and make the most of it!

Here is the story. A typical Friday in August in Ghana going rock climbing. Ok. So maybe that isn’t very typical, but I guess that’s just my life. I had spent the summer in Ghana running Yenso Solar, a social venture that Cole and Ariana Rosenberg and I started about two years ago. I was with four champions for the summer; Aldan Halterman, Seth Huber, Canyen Heimuli and Ryan Liston though Canyen had to leave a few weeks before. We had wrapped things up for the summer and were taking the last few days to have some adventures before going back home to the U S of A. We had planned it all out; surf at the beach for two days, climb the tallest mountain in Ghana the next day (a whopping 3000 feet tall) and then go rock climbing. We got to Kpong the night before and luckily met a kind friend named Abraham who helped us find a place to stay. We woke up early the next day and started making our way up Krobo Mountain.

Just so you know, Ghanaians don’t hike. When your whole life is spent outside working hard, you don’t have as much of an inclination to walk in the hot sun more than you have to. So, the trail going up the mountain was not as much of a trail but more of a water run-off route with giant rocks strewn about. We crawled up the mountain, all the while realizing how little hiking we had done in the past few months. After some search, we found the small gray bolts glinting in the sun on a rock face and we knew we were in the right place. I have done a good amount of climbing since making my trek West to go to school in Utah, so I lead climbed up the face and set up a top rope. The three guys crushed the route, especially Aldan since it was his first time ever climbing outside and he did it all barefoot. We saw that there was another route a bit more difficult on a boulder a few feet next to where we had been climbing, so I went up to see if I could easily jump over and set up the next route.

I was standing on the edge of one boulder and saw that there was only a 2-3 foot gap to the next boulder with a 50-foot gap. I have jumped over gaps much larger than that in my day and have no qualms about height. But as I was standing there, a thought came to me- “Don’t Jump.” All I could do was smile and obey.

How lucky we are to have a Heavenly Father who loves us and watches over us, who wants to guide us and direct us in everything that we do. How many times has a crisis been averted in direct result of our prayer? How many times have we actually been protected when we casually prayed “to get home safely”? I am so grateful for the Spirit that communicates in our own thoughts in our own way. We are so blessed.

All of this was going through my mind when I fell from 50 feet and hit the rocks below. There was a failure with the anchor at the top of the next route that resulted in my personal anchor device slipping out and letting me fall. The fall happened so fast that I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. I have climbed hundreds of times and I know a hundred people who have each climbed hundreds of times and never once heard of an anchor failing. I love climbing and I know that there are calculated risks. This was not one of those risks.

I laid on the ground with the wind knocked out of me and feet throbbing, I again heard a thought in my mind, “You are going to be ok. You’ve been trained for this, you know what to do.”

I quickly sprang into action. I went to school to be an EMT and had all the medical supplies I needed in my bag to splint my feet and prevent myself from going into shock. I laid there for about an hour while my friends kept me talking and helped me through the pain. We were on top of the mountain with no clue where the nearest hospital was but luckily we had, our friend, Abraham’s number from the night before and we knew we could call him to bring a taxi to the foot of the mountain. But that was still hours away. We had to get down first.

It took nearly 5 hours to get down the rocky trail. It took the three guys’ strength plus my own to pick me up and carry me over the uneven ground and make progress. We moved about 10 feet at a time and drank the little water we had to stay hydrated. We got scraped and burned and cut and ripped. I will forever be in the debt of Aldan, Ryan and Seth for what they did to get me down. There was no way I could have done it myself.

We got to the taxi and made our way to the hospital. I didn’t really have the best tell on time but it felt like about an hour before we made it to the rural hospital. When they transferred me from the car to the gurney, the bed became unhinged and I almost fell right there in the parking lot. I was laid on a hospital bed and the first thing they asked for was money. Boy, did I almost give it to them. This whole time, we were in crisis mode from the top of the mountain to the bottom and I knew if I were to be writhing around and screaming it would just make the ordeal that much more difficult. In my mind, I told myself that I need to swallow the pain and when I got to the hospital, the pain could be managed. The absolute LAST thing I care about was how much it cost. Just FIX my dang feet and THEN we will talk money.

That was all in my head. I knew that if I were to be demanding and rude, that would just annoy the doctors and nurses. The last thing you want when you are in a rural African hospital with both feet broken is to have doctors annoyed with you, so I kept it all in. In my most polite tone possible, I asked, “may I please have some painkillers. Please.” I received a needle to the butt and was told it would take some time to kick in. Two hours later, nothing. Whatever they stuck in my butt was absolutely not working and had absolutely no effect. I was getting ticked. Through clenched teeth, I begged them for some more pain medication and after probably an hour of suppressed screams and twisting their arms, they gave me another shot to the butt. Again, hours after, the drug absolutely did not work. There was nothing I could do but wait it out.

It was a long night, that night. Seth stayed with me the whole night and I did my best to not let him sleep. He was exhausted after a ridiculous day but stayed up to help me the whole time.

I called my parents that night as well. Definitely was not a call they were expecting, but they took it so well and didn’t freak out once.

We left that morning to Accra to wait for our flights. I flew out on Tuesday afternoon to Dubai where I had a 20-hour layover and there was no way I was going to let a little thing like broken feet get in my way of that! Luckily, my friend David, a Nigerian that I met in Ghana had recently moved to Dubai and helped me out with renting a wheelchair and taking me around for the day. I probably got some funny looks as a scruffy white guy in a wheelchair with two poorly made casts on my feet. But I made the most of it and had an awesome day!

After about 46 hours of travel, I made it home to lovely Washington DC where loving family was waiting. I received surgery on both feet the next day and was discharged home the next. One screw in the left foot and three in the right. Going to be messing with metal detectors for the rest of my life! The doctor urged me not to go to Utah for school and I politely declined his advice. When something bad happens in life, you don’t sit down and wait for it to pass and for life to get easier. You take life by the horns and confront it head on. I knew that the Lord would provide for me when I was actively making an effort to progress and make things work. You either progress or you digress and there was no way I was going to digress for three months.

And sure enough, the Lord has in fact provided for my every need since coming out to school. There have been stacks of miracles and I am grateful every day. Here are a few:

·      Aunt Leta was ready to pick me up from the airport and had the most amazing bed waiting for me at her house.

·      I have been planning for the past 6 months to be living with my second cousin Xane who is the most amazing person I know and has been there for anything I could possibly need.

·      Xane had already been living in a ground floor apartment for the past two years so I didn’t have to switch rooms.

·      My Uncle Lance came and built me a wheelchair ramp so I can get in and out of my apartment by myself.

·      The ward I moved into used to be in a building that is not wheelchair accessible and I would have had to be carried up the stairs to sacrament meeting. They changed buildings to an accessible meeting over the summer.

·      My Bishop is a foot and ankle surgeon and knows exactly what I am going through.

·      Cole and I happen to have the same times of classes every day, so it is actually easier for him to pick me up because I can give him free and top-notch parking privileges.

·      Everyone on BYU campus is extremely kind and willing to help me at any time. Every door is opened for me. Crowds are parted. There is always someone willing to give me a push when I need one.

·      So so so many more that have made every day a joy and an adventure.

This whole experience has taught me so much. First, never get seriously hurt in Africa. 10/10 would not recommend. Second, there is so much in this world we can be grateful for! Grateful for life, for family, for friends. Every time you see a shadow means that there is a light shining on the other side. Always look for the light.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me over the past few weeks. I could not have done it all without you.  I most of all want to thank my Heavenly Father for the amazing lives we all live and for all he does to keep us smiling.

Take your Doxy

You can’t really understand Africa until you sink to the bottom of one of their biggest problems; Malaria. It was bound to happen eventually. Nearly half the world’s population is at risk of getting malaria, though prevention and treatment research has drastically decreased the mortality rate. But there is a reason why it is the #1 worst disease in the world. Maybe the amount of actual deaths has gone down, but it sure makes you feel like dying when you have it. I received treatment quickly, but for the 4 days that I was infected, death would have been a merciful option. Here is how it played out.

Day 1- Friday

I went out that morning to town to buy a few things and to make repairs on my motorcycle. I felt exhausted and weak but I attributed that to the scorching hot sun and lack of fluid intake. I also figured the lack of a real workout and the massive amount of food that the Johnsons have been giving me probably wasn’t helping either. I had some more plans to do in town but I was feeling so weak that by the time I got to the moto repairer, I just sat and waited. I sat in the corner in the shade on an old piece of engine and tried to escape the sun. There was a point where the sun arched higher in the sky and my foot was exposed. I cant and even explain the scorching sensation from just being in contact with the sunlight. I jerked my foot away and cowered in the corner. It was then I felt like there must be a real problem. I have been in Africa long enough that the sun shouldn’t bother me this month. Then I felt the joint pain, headache and extreme over heating. I sped home in time to crash on my bed and pass out. I slept for a few hours, waking up every so often in pain. Even though the sun had gone down, I began to feel burning hot. I stripped out of my uncomfortable clothes and turned the fan to full blast. I lay there briefly comforted and fell back asleep. Then the real suffering came. I began to feel like I stepped outside during the 2011 Snowpacalypse in nothing but a loin cloth. I couldn’t believe how cold it was. I struggled to turn off the fan and put on every article of clothing I could reach and lay on the bed shivering, not just normal shivering but near to grand mal seizure convulsions. I don’t know how long I lay there shaking but it felt like forever. I got up but my hands were shaking so violently that I couldn’t even open a pill bottle of some medicine. It was really quite frightening. I prayed to sleep and eventually sleep came until Sister Johnson awakened me. Next thing I knew I was in a car to a small clinic where they measured my temperature at 104 degrees. They gave me drugs and I was home again in my bed, afraid to sleep in fear of the shaking to come again.

Day 2- Saturday

I was fully awake somewhere around 7:00 am and had waves of consciousness the whole day. Because of the shivering episode of the night before, I was afraid to turn on the fan so I lay there in bed melting all day. Couldn’t keep food down , fever still as high as the sky, and a pounding headache. The night before, when listing off the symptoms of Malaria and I was nodding to each of them nervously, I was relived that when they mentioned “bitter taste in the mouth” and I could say no. But day 2 it hit. Its hard to explain, but the taste in the mouth was up there on the worst part of having Malaria list.

Day 3- Sunday

Another night of quaking shivering, but I was comforted that I was able to sleep in and feel somewhat rested. Still, I felt like a sinner for missing church. For the whole day, I still sweated, couldn’t eat and huge headache but today there was also debilitating stomach pain to add to the lot. Every time I moved, it was like a knife was slid into my abdomen. Nothing would subdue it. Laying there praying was the only way to let time go by.

Day 4- Monday

After three straight days in bed, I had to get out. I don’t know whether I was 100% quite yet, but I had to get out of there. I have been loving life in Ghana but honestly one of the biggest things I have been missing is actually rock climbing. I would have these lucid dreams of climbing and than wake up to realize it was only a dream. Probably because of that whole situation is the reason that a rock climbing gym membership was the only thing I asked for a present for Christmas. I went for a walk, just to get out, trying to ignore the knife in the gut. Then for the first night in what seemed like forever, I slept without all hell freezing over.

So moral of the story is, there is a reason why Malaria is the #1 worst disease in the world. I hated having it, but after the fact, I look back and am glad that I now have better insight into the people and culture of Africa. I now have more resolve to find innovative solutions to solve problems in this world.

Me, My Motorcycle and I

When you are in a new place, there is a certain threshold that when crossed, the place doesn’t feel so new anymore. It just becomes normal life. Once you adapt to a place, you can discover new aspects of culture that a tourist passing through with his eyes in his camera is not privileged to witness.  I am now staying with the Brigham Johnson and his family in Twifo Hemang, a village about an hour north of Cape Coast. They are an amazing family that really has their life in order. They are a powerful couple with three motivated and intelligent (though sometimes very stubborn) boys centered in the gospel and in living a happy and fulfilling life. They have welcomed me as they would their family and provided for my every need. But everyday when I go out, I am by myself. Alone. I have never really been truly alone much before. My whole life growing up I was with my family, if not with family, then in school surrounded by everyone else I knew. I spent quite a bit of time away from home prior to my mission but was always with close friends. For those two years on my mission, 24 hours a day seven days a week, a companion accompanied me like a shadow. Then college; new school, new scene, but I found my people faster than any loneliness could really settle. I guess I live by the “home is where the heart is” adage and bloom wherever I am planted. Including now. But to bloom as a single tree in an empty tundra is much different than in a sheltered forest. There are different winds that blow in new ways.

To combat any feeling of loneliness, I have tired to stay busy. In the past weeks I have been here, I have purchased and learned how to ride a motorcycle. I love Ghana and all of its little intricacies but if I could pick one thing to go without, it would have to be the use of the shoddy private transportation system. There is no government run transportation with standardized prices and fares. Every taxi and tro tro (15 passenger vans that can fit double that) is individually owned and therefore has their own individual costs. These costs can widely very, especially with the introduction of a foreign skin colour. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of time and money I have wasted standing outside a dirty taxi window fighting over a few cents they want more than then fair price. Yes, I know it is just a few cents and I should probably just give them what they want and avoid contention. But there is an unalienable principle; you don’t treat someone differently because of the colour of their skin, no matter what country or continent one may reside. No matter the amount of education or exposure one may have had. Exposure is the key. Ignorance is a hard opponent; they don’t know when they have lost.  

Naturally, the only way to really avoid any of my principle-fighting is just to get my own set of wheels. I bought a motorcycle from a friend and oh, has it been worth it! I am free to go where I want, when I want and for the price I want. Petrol is quite cheap for a motorcycle and one tank can take me pretty far. About a week and a half after I learned to ride, I set off on a solo 100 mile journey from Agona Nkwanta to Twifo Hemang. Sure, there was some difficulty along the way, like the part where the moto completely died at a top of a hill in the middle of a rainstorm. Or the part where the mud was so thick that my wheels lost traction and I flopped to the ground like and idiot. Of course it was the one place where there were tonnes of people idly sitting and watching. Or the other part where the panel that holds the battery in place fell off and I had to squeeze it tight the rest of the way with my legs. You know, that kind of stuff. You either sit and pout about it or find a solution and move on.

It’s been an adventure driving a motorcycle around the jungles of Ghana and I’m convinced that you can never truly know true freedom until you are driving through the jungle by yourself on a motorcycle hours away from any civilization. It’s quite a feeling.