A day as as “business coach”

I’m taking a little different approach to this post.  I’ve heard that some prospective business coaches applying for the next group are reading the current coaches’ posts to get a senses of the experience.

This post speaks to my Friday visit to International Community School, one of my “transformer” companies.  ICS is a private school with students from preschool to grade 12 in Kumasi (3 ½ drive by car but only a 35 minute plane flight from Accra) that has 1200 students.  A number of each year’s graduates go on to top universities in the UK and US.  The purpose of my visit was to run an exercise with ALL of the school staff while the school’s Director, Dr. Charles Yehoah, was in South Africa with a handful of students for a conference.  The school provides boarding facilities for those students living outside of the Kumasi area.

Here are a couple pictures of the school’s beautiful campus:

 

 

I arrived at the Accra airport Friday around 9:30 for an 11:00 AM flight.  They recommend that you arrive at the airport 2 hours early, even for local hops.  Each business coach chooses their own style, but some have missed flights because they get caught in traffic so I tend to not try to cut it too close.  In stead, I take work with me to fill the time.  After checking my bag (the planes are small enough there is little room even for small luggage—my packed brief case barely fits in the overhead), I headed to the waiting room which is an air conditioned (sort of) tent.  I walked around the tent to find the AC that seemed to be working the best.

One of the ICS employees met me at the Kumasi airport to drive me to the school.  They also provided a ride to my hotel Friday evening and picked me up for an early morning flight back to Accra Saturday morning (I stayed overnight as the exercise would run late enough I could not be confident that I could catch the last flight Friday evening).

Interestingly, on the drive to the school I saw a number of taxis and trotros (small buses generally jammed with people) the police had pulled over.  My driver explained that the weekend was coming so the police, wanting weekend spending money, were hitting up the taxis for “dash”—a payment of between 1 and 2 cedis ($.40 to $.80) in exchange for not getting a ticket.  He also said the police don’t generally bother the private cars.  Note to self, stick with private cars on Fridays, or one more reason not to cut the timing too short when going to catch a flight.

I arrived at the school before lunch time with time to kill before the 2:00 PM program was to begin.  A typical Ghanaian lunch magically appeared, probably from the school cafeteria, of delicious fried rice (with as much hot sauce on the side as you wanted) and a couple pieces of chicken.  The school’s IT guy stopped by to get my PC’s MAC address (what’s that all about?) to be able to give me access to the campus computer network and the internet.

The goal of this exercise, which was the last of  3 work sessions, was to engage the teaching staff and administrators, more than 60 people in total, to think about what it would take to make ICS “the best international school in Ghana in terms of value for money—providing quality education for less without compromising quality”.  To achieve this would require a culture change.  The staff was organized by student grade levels—preschool, primary, middle, high school and administration.  During the 3 work sessions staff groups were to brainstorm ideas to achieve the goal and to report back at today’s session the 4 best ideas their department came up with to answer the following 4 questions:

• What will we do new?
• What will we do less of?
• What will we do more of?
• What changes will our team make to accomplish this?

Charles and I introduced the 3 phase plan when I visited the campus the week before—we began the brainstorming process at that meeting with the staff breaking into their education groups.  Each staff group then met on their own mid-week, continuing the brainstorming but then narrowing the ideas to the 4 best for each question.  After this second meeting, they emailed me their 4 best ideas for each question.  Friday’s program was a presentation by each group to the entire staff with a group discussion of the ideas.  Charles and I had agreed he would not participate in the Friday session to prevent the possibility that his presence could inhibit open discussion.

Obviously I was nervous—a non-educator leading a group of professional educators about how to improve education…and with the school’s Director in South Africa.  .But as I’ve sub-titled this blog, this is my “stretch year”, and based on the emails I received of the ideas for each of the questions, the teachers were really into it.  I told myself that my job was to facilitate.

After a slow start—US humor, or at least my humor, doesn’t always translate well to Ghanaians—we picked up momentum and midway through were having spirited discussions of well thought out ideas.  As I mentioned above, the exercise was to kick off a process of culture change…and every presentation included a point on changing culture with many presentations including specific actions they would take.  Here are a couple pictures from the day.

 

The room, while having air conditioning, was warm and combined with my nervousness resulted in this unflattering picture.

 

All in all, it was a personally rewarding and more importantly successful day givevn the purpose of the exercise.  The big mistake I made was not having one of the staff from our Accra SEED office join me because they could have picked up many of the nuances of the discussion I missed because of poor acoustics and what my ear hears as an accent.  Next time I’ll be smarter.

Here are a couple pictures of my Saturday morning drive to the airport which is typical of most major roads in Ghana–there are lined with shops selling all types of merchandise imaginable.

I was back in my apartment Saturday morning by 9:30 ready to begin thinking about this post.

An Easter Weekend Ghanaian-Style

It was a Happy Easter in Ghana and I hope you were able to spend an enjoyable weekend with your family.

I think these 2 cuties enjoyed their Easter….or maybe they were just happy the church service was over.

Easter is a major celebration in Ghana.  Good Friday is a holiday as is the Monday following Easter, giving the Ghanaians an extra-long weekend.  This is a time when Ghanaians return to “their village”, which means they return to their ancestral home.  It doesn’t mean they ever lived there.  Family is huge in Ghana and “family” is defined very broadly.  You could be a 7^th cousin and you’re considered as close a family member as a 1^st cousin.

I spent Easter morning at a service at the Asbury Dunwell Church, a church Clinton, one of my fellow coaches attended before returning to the US.

The service lasted almost 2 ½ hours—it was scheduled for 1 ¾ hours–which may be on the shorter side of many church services.  I went with my roommate Robert.  The service was held in a very large air conditioned (fortunately) tent as the church does not have a permanent building.  Only about 15% of the seats were occupied when the service began which was a disappointment because I heard so much about the church.  Foolish me, like so many things in Ghana, there’s a difference between the formal start time and when people arrive.  “Fashionably late” Ghanaian-style means showing up the same day.  In the case of the church service, all 300 or so seats were full an hour into the service.  We spent much of that first hour singing, led by a group of teenage girls standing at the front.  Songs were long (think 10 or 15 minutes each plus which felt longer because we were standing) with a lot of repetition in the words.  There was no hymnal, the words were projected on a screen that dropped down from the ceiling.

The service was very informal.  During the first hour, new attendees were asked to raise their hands and introduce themselves.  Not wanting to call attention to myself (really? come on Terry!) I wasn’t sure what to do, but then I got it.  The only other white-skinned people in the audience were a couple.  So I raised my hand with vigor and a microphone was thrust in my face.  I told them I was from Stanford SEED—doesn’t hurt to wave the flag.  Well it turns out the white couple were Stanford alumni also.  The man is a professor at Ashesi University, a private secular university, located near Accra which is an impressive story, while his wife works for an NGO.  The university was founded in 2002 by a Ghanaian who attended Swarthmore, worked for Microsoft as an engineer and program manager for a number of years, got his MBA from UC Berkeley, and then returned to Ghana to provide greater educational opportunities for Ghanaians.  In spite of being relatively new, the university is highly acclaimed throughout Sub Saharan Africa.  A great example of how one person with a vision and perseverance can make a difference.

The offering service was an experience.  Offering envelops had been put on each chair.  But the collection effort was no boring watch the ushers move the offering plate from aisle to aisle.  Our offering began when someone in the audience jumped up, and led all of us as we paraded and danced up the center aisle to African music and singing.  Music was a  big part of the service which included a trumpet, keyboard, multiple drummers, plus a couple other musicians I couldn’t see.

The most powerful part of the service was the sermon given by a visiting woman lay minister.  The first part of it was about love.  Preceding the sermon, there was a scripture reading from 1 Corinthians 13 that I recognized because my parents who were my 7 grade Sunday school teachers made us all memorize it.  At the speaker’s urging, a young married couple game forward standing in the front looking at the congregation.  The speaker talked first to them and then to us all with tender, yet inspiring words about love and marriage.  She didn’t sugar coat the difficulty of maintaining a long loving marriage, but she but did it in the most beautiful way I’d ever heard…she told the couple “love is difficult work but the rewards are many”. That was the first part of her sermon.

The second part was fire and brimstone about how special the “believers” in the audience were.  This was as unsettling to me as the first part on love was beautiful.

All in all, it was a wistful time for me.  I reflected on my parents, and then when new parents brought out their very young baby girl for something I assume was similar to a Christening, the father’s “football” hold of his new daughter reminded me of both by daughters’ first weeks and my granddaughters’ as well.  I saw in that couple Kathy and me holding our daughters.   I am blessed.  The entire experience reminded me of how important my family is to me and how I miss them.

Well enough for the words that went on too long.  Today, Monday, I took a break from work and visited the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum with Jim, one of my fellow coaches.  There were a number of student groups who wanted to have their picture taken (this is a first for both Jim and me as most Ghanaian’s won’t allow us to take their picture.)  Kwame Nkrumah was the first democratically elected president of Ghana, elected in 1960.  Many credit him for leading the drive that forced the British to give Ghana independence on March 6, 1957.  I will never forget Ghana’s Independence Day because that was the day I landed in Accra.  Ultimately, Nkrumah was overthrown by a military coup instigated by our CIA because Nkrumah was moving closer and closer to the Soviet Union.  His final years were spent in exile in Guinea where he was elected co-President.

Two sisters who waited patiently to have their picture taken.

My first 48 Hours in Lagos, Nigeria

I began this Sunday morning in Lagos, Nigeria and WILL finish it before I go to bed.  I flew in from Accra Friday night with Corinne, one of my peer coaches.  This weekend was to be my cultural introduction to Nigeria.

Connections went smoothly and since the 1 hour flight took off at 6:30 PM we were served a snack.  This sure beats Southwest’s peanuts.

Airport taxes and service charges are huge throughout Africa as anyone of you who have traveled to Africa know.  My plane ticket cost a total of $265, of which $170 (65%) was a “tax—personal service charge”.  This makes it expensive to travel between countries which is a must to expand the Pan African working relationships.

My only challenge before cleaning the airport was adding a Nigerian sim card to my dual-sim phone which would allow me to use the Nigerian telecom network.  I thought it all went smoothly (but more later) and finding the ATM as I had to get Naira since credit cards are not generally used in Nigeria.  The most I could take out was N20,000 ($120), but our driver cost N16,000 a day and the hotel room is N30,000 night.  I’ve made 4 trips to the ATM since arriving and now have the equivalent of almost $500 in a money belt I wear—first time I’ve even actually used one.

Our hotel, the Blowfish is on Victoria Island where real estate is one of the priciest in the world  Victoria Island is also one of the safest places in Lagos.  The Blowfish is a modern hotel with faster wi-fi than you get at most American hotels.  But you quickly become accustomed to power outages in Nigeria as they happed frequently—all you do is wait a few seconds until the generator kicks in.  Chioma, one of my clients who I discuss below says she will go a week at a time without power.  This forces her to use a diesel powered generator which increases her utility bill 4 fold.  But back to the hotel pool,

We met up with Kweku, another business coach, at the hotel.  They were my trainers for the weekend to get me comfortable with navigating Lagos.  Here is what Saturday consisted of, mostly in pictures.

As you’ll see from the rest of this post, Nigeria even more so than Ghana, is a country of contrasts.  The poverty is extreme, but as you can tell if you’ve been following my blog, there is a wealthier class of people in Ghana and Nigeria who care about improving the conditions of the poor, and a growing educated diaspora who are returning to their home countries.  I’m so fortunate to be meeting and working with these people.

Corinne and I began the day at Lekki Market while Kweku worked.  Lekki Market is large market of mostly arts and crafts.  The adventure began with Corinne meeting a young high school student, Christian, she met on her first visit to the market two months ago.  She befriended him in part because of his love of physics and his interest in bettering himself.  We learned yesterday his younger sister and he live alone in a very low income area near the market.  His parents who are poor live in the outskirts of Lagos.  Some of the people in the market are looking out for him.  It was Christian and “Remmy”, one of the people that watch out for Christian that took his through the market.  Corinne uses Facebook to communicate with Christian.  When Corinne first met Christian, she asked him a couple physics-related questions to convince herself he was for real and he passed with flying colors.  Yesterday we learned the only question he missed on his last exam was a question about boat displacement in water.  Before we left, Corinne wanted to give Christian some money but didn’t want others to see, so Christian drove with us beyond the market before exchanging the money and saying their goodbyes.

Here’s a picture of Remmy at his shop where I bought a couple art prints.  I’m disappointed to realize I didn’t get a picture of Corinne and Christian.  Scratch photo journalism from my career aspirations.

These prints are made with butterfly wings.

Here is Corinne negotiating the purchase of a table cloth for her apartment.

To give Corinne time alone with Christian, I went exploring in the neighborhood outside the market.  Here are a few pictures.

This is a “road” on one side of the market where I watched this 4-wheel vehicle serpentine through a maze of water-filled holes and grasses.

And a picture from a road on the other side of the market.  The area may look dirty, but the people have dignity and want to look good.  The dark area you see running from lower right is the open sewer system.  Fortunately, most homes do have septic tanks.

Here are a couple pictures of the shops.

And lastly a picture I took from the car as we were driving from the market.

We returned to the hotel to meet Kweku for lunch with one of the clients from the first group of companies that Corinne and Kweku knew.  Look what we passed on our short walk from our hotel to the Indian restaurant where I had a great chicken peanut curry.  It’s not quite a 7-11, buts looks pretty close.

The three of us then went shopping in a high end shopping center as Corinne was looking for a dress to wear to church on Easter.  We are planning to attend a church service at a church one of our former coaches attended regularly.  My fear is I may have to wear my suit in this heat.  Kweku and I got distracted while Corinne was shopping—It was better than home and less expensive.  I could start to gain weight if every day is like today.

After returning to our hotel, the 3 of us met with Dr. Kenny, a UOP educated PhD in Pharmacy who is one of Kweku’s clients.  Dr. Kenny’s company, Bio Organics Nutrient Systems, customizes and supplies vitamin and mineral premixes to the Nigerian food, beverage, animal-health and livestock industries.  Applications range from providing minimum sustenance to the desperately hungry and ill children to give them a chance to recover, to supplements for juice and other drinks.

The 4 of us had a long discussion about a problem that we see in both Ghana and Nigeria—no capital to grow a business and in many cases, the companies don’t even have enough working capital to buy raw materials to make their products.

There is money available from the NGO’s to help the very poor, but no capital to scale a business.  Banks won’t lend to smaller companies.

Kweku and I then accepted Dr. Kenny’s invitation to dinner.  Part of the experience included stopping at the Lagos Country Club that was just finishing a 5 day fund raising tennis tournament for members.  It was party time!

Our last stop for the day was a buffet dinner at the Protea Hotel where we ran into one of the other CEO’s in our program.  Here we are after dinner–Kweku is on my left in the picture, Dr. Kenny is on my far left and the second entrepreneur is with his family are in between.

Sunday morning came way too early as far as I was concerned.  Actually we didn’t have anything planned until leaving for lunch with my client, Chioma, at her home, so most of the time was spent working on this blog.  The pace we’re following is definitely pushing me.

Chioma is a fantastic cook.  Here’s our spread—note the avocadoes with the huge shrimp on them.  Chioma mixed in slightly over ripen plantains and the avocado and the combination is delicious.  It’s definitely worth trying with bananas.  I commented in an earlier blog about the Ghanaian cooking.  Well, it looks like I’m in a pattern—lose weight in Ghana and gain it back in Nigeria.  Fortunately, I’ll be coming to Nigeria at a minimum of once a month.

Here are the three coaches with Chioma

We met Chioma’s daughter who has returned to Nigeria after attending university in the UK.  Her masters degree is in process engineering from Imperial College (thinking of you Steve).  She worked in the UK as a process engineer a number of years before returning to Nigeria in a similar role.  We also met Chioma’s husband who is an architect.

On the way home we stopped at the mall as we were all having problems with our one or both of our cell phones.  My Ghanaian based iPhone wouldn’t work at all and my Samsung wouldn’t access the internet or accept text messages, both a must.  Turns out I was out of minutes on my prepay iPhone and couldn’t easily buy them in Nigeria for my Ghanaian phone, and I didn’t have the magic code for the second sim card in my Samsung phone.  Now that both are working, it’s amazing how much better you feel being connected.

I’ll close with a promo for a new youtube series “An African City” about the new West African women—well educated and returning to West Africa after working in the US or UK.  Think of “Sex and the City” meets West Africa.  The Executive producer is Nicole Amarteeifio who was originally from Ghana, has degrees from Brandeis and Georgetown, and has returned to Ghana to work for the World Bank.  I met Nicole at Kweku’s a few nights ago.  The first episode has been on youtube only 6 weeks and has 87,000 plus views, up 20,000 from when I watched it 5 days ago.  It’s quite funny and based on real experiences You can find the first video (13 minutes long) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg7hUuWKe2U.  Don’t know if you’ll get all the humor, but it will give you a sense of one strata of people I am meeting.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

I’ll return to Ghana Tuesday evening but I’m not sure life will slow any..

Last week I said the posts would be shorter.  I think this has fewer words but with the pictures, I think I failed.  There’s so much to say and show and I’m sure you can sense my enthusiasm.  I’m just need to share less while letting my enthusiasm show through.

PS:  In the 2 hours it’s taken to upload this, I’ve lost power at least 6 times and am now wearing a head lamp to complete this.

Tags:  Ghana, “An African City”, Lagos, Nigeria, SEED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration abounds!

Sunday morning, April 6, 2014

It’s been a very full 2 weeks.  The prior week was an inspirational week spent in training for the new group of companies and coaches, all led by the Stanford Faculty as I mentioned before.  At the end of the week we expected to be paired with specific companies which we were.  In this past week, I actually became a real “business coach” having had initial meetings with two of my new companies.  Since I know this will already be a long post, I’ll comment on “my” companies in a later post.

Here is the post about the training I started after the 3^rd day of training.

Drafted Wednesday, March 26, 2014:

I found today so inspirational, I started this post because I wanted to record my feelings and thoughts before they began to blend with so many other powerful experiences.  I may not finish it until the weekend or later [actually it’s 10 days later as I finish this post].

Doing business in West Africa is hard and to be successful you have to be resilient.

“I feel like too many lemons are thrown at you from every angle—you

can give up or you can make lemonade.”

This is a quote by a young dynamic entrepreneur in the SEED program.  After earning his degree from Stanford and playing professional soccer 2 years for the Seattle Sounders, he returned to his birth country, Nigeria, to make it a better country and to be a role model for others.  He started a lemon drink company.  My bet is he’ll make a whole lot more than lemonade before he’s finished.

Here are some examples of why it is so difficult to be a successful entrepreneur:

• Power is so unreliable that all companies have to have a generator which can be a major investment depending on the business’s power needs.  A kilowatt of electricity generated by a diesel powered generator is over 3 times as expensive as electricity.  In Nigeria the power grid is down more than half the time.  It’s not as bad in Ghana, but all companies still have to have a generator as the grid is unpredictable plus there are rolling cut-offs of electricity.
• Interest rates on cedi denominated (Ghana) or naira denominated (Nigeria) loans are at least 27%.  You can borrow in US dollars at 8%, but the cedi has depreciated 40% in the last year so the amount you owe just increased by 40% if you’re doing business in cedis
• Depending on your business, “small-scale” theft by employees working in collusion with suppliers can represent a major portion of your cost.  I heard one story of a chicken farmer who was having unaccountable losses of his chickens.  He knew how many chickens he had ready for market, counted the chickens as they were waiting to be crated (live) for trucking to market, yet ended up short.  Eventually, the farmer realized that his workers, in collusion with the truck drivers, had poked a whole in an exterior wall in an “out-of-order” bathroom.  The workers had hidden some ready-for-market chickens in the bathroom prior to pick up.  While the farmer was loading the crates of chickens, some of his workers were “shoveling” the bathroom-bound chickens out the hole to be picked up by the truck driver after “leaving” for the market.
• Government policies can change overnight and wipe out an existing business.  As an example, to reduce the government deficit the Ghanaian government recently added a 15% VAT to all home mortgage payments.  Think what impact that has on the housing development market.

Every one of the entrepreneurs in the SEED program is inspirational and has quite a story to tell, as rich and interesting as anything you’d see on a TEDx talk.  I’ll share just a few.

One of my new clients, Chioma, was trained as an MD and worked as a doctor for years before she realized her passion was to help women become empowered.  She started a business that offers women job opportunities they would not otherwise have.

Another one of our new entrepreneurs is a minister from Liberia who after falling one night in the dark of his home as he was recovering from a horrible auto accident decided his “village would be dark no more.”  He decided he would bring electricity to his village.  He now runs only the second electric utility in Liberia, hoping to break the monopoly power of the first and only Liberian utility company.  His utility company now provides electricity to more than 1000 homes in 5 rural communities.  He spoke with pride about the school children who can now study at night and the fact that crime has declined in those communities.  This minister told us he’s going to use his new found platform to get even with his enemies—Poverty, Illiteracy, and Disease.  He has also set up the Liberia-Ghana Missions Inc that has supported education of over 10,000 children since 2006.  Here is a link to an article from “All Africa.com” about the man and this organization http://allafrica.com/stories/201311151209.html

As part of this week’s training, we changed the name of the group of entrepreneurs from “cohort” as the first SEED class was known to “transformers” to be consistent with the core objective of the program—transform people, transform companies and transform communities.

Here is a picture from a presentation prepared during a breakout session in which the” transformers” were to describe what transformation meant for them.

In case you can’t read it, it says “Transformation is…Quantum Shift resulting in Explosive, Sustainable (Global) Impact”.  It goes on to say “Internal, indomitable spirit—with no limits, no fears”

Now back to new content written today (I hope you can see why I find our transformers so inspirational).

Here are a couple other pictures from the working session:

This above is a breakout exercise.  I will be the “coach” for each of the two people on the right

And this is a break during one of the training sessions.  The gentleman standing in the middle is also a coach.

And they did feed us.

My only comment on Ghanaian food is that Ghana is not the place to be on a low-carb diet.  During the training week we had at least 3 rice dishes at each meal and usually one chicken dish.  Warm tomato sauce is also on the table at lunch and dinner.

But it wasn’t all work, these musicians played for use one evening.  You can see a video of this performance at http://youtu.be/V511pRatTsk

I’ll close this portion of the post with a comment one of the transformers received on his iPad during the training (reminds me of the weekly humor-emails Jak sends out).  The following has special meaning to the Africans because it’s not usual for members of their extended family to expect you to loan them money, even though they have little intent of paying it back:

“Gaining weight while you owe me money is a sign of disrespect.”

And yes, I am experiencing some of Accra.  Yesterday Jim, one of my fellow coaches, and I went to the Accra Arts Center.  It is the largest open air handicraft arts center in Ghana.

Here are some pictures of us learning to pay the Bakita—a percussion instrument consisting of 2 seed filled cords at the end of a string.  Here is a pictures of Jim and Doodo, our driver provided by SEED, as Mohammed Gungo gives Jim a lesson followed by a picture of Jim and me showing our talent.  Jim and I both bought one-now to see if we have coordination and rhythm—NOT for me.  On our return to our apartments while stopped at a light, Doodo took mine and preceded to play it flawlessly.

You can see how the Bakita should be played at this YouTube video of Mohammed, our instructor, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shU_nXxz7ko

Jim and I each also bought a pair of sandals.  Talking to Doodo afterward, we figured we paid about 3 times more than Doodo would pay for the same thing.  Part of the premium is because we were in a tourist market, but the real issue is we have no idea what we are doing.  In any case, we were both happy with what we paid—the equivalent of $28 for very nice leather sandals.

I did find time this week to get a haircut as I was looking pretty shaggy.  My request to the barber was to take it “little off all over”.  “Little” doesn’t mean the same thing in Ghana as it does in the US.  My hair is now as short as it’s been since I was in the Army…oh well, it will grow by June (I hope) when Kathy comes and it is much easier to take care of and cooler now.

As you’ve figured out, I’m highly dependent on consumer electronics during this experience.  Here is what my charging station looks like if I’m charging everything at once (and this doesn’t include my portable pre-charged battery charger that can be used to recharge a computer or mobile phone in an emergency).

Lastly, speaking of TED talks, it turns out there was a TEDx program at Accra yesterday.  It also turns out one of the speakers, Toni, is a local jazz singer who frequently joins the coaches for our communal dinner as she is friends with Kweku, one of my peers who’s been here since last July.

A couple nights ago a few of the coaches went to see Toni perform and she sang “Happy Birthday” to my daughter Robin.  Here is the YouTube link of the video http://youtu.be/uatbRW1cLXs

I promise future posts will not be this long.  I just had to talk about the inspirational experience I am having.  Who knows, maybe one of the readers may apply to be a SEED coach or knows someone who might be interested.

Tags:  Ghana, SEED, Family, Living in Accra

It’s Robin’s Birthday!!!!!!

A birthday wish from Ghana for a super birthday!!!!

For those of you who do not know my daughter Robin, she’s a yoga instructor in San Francisco and other points around the world.

I say “points around the world” because Robin will be teaching in Rivas, Nicaragua with the Coastal Karma Project for 2 one-week sessions from June 7 to June 21.  In July, she will be teaching with Dharma Widmann in Kilauea, Kauai.  And she’s tentatively scheduled to teach in Bali, Indonesia in 2015.  Closer to home, she’s leading a spring retreat this weekend at Mayacamas Ranch in Calistoga.

Robin, I just checked out the event on the website and see that it’s sold out.  Congratulations.  A nice run up to a birthday marked by a year of great achievement.

For anyone interested in yoga in the Bay Area, you can learn more about Robin’s practice at her website www.robinduryea.com or on Facebook at “Robin Duryea Yoga”.  You’ll also see many reviews from her students on Yelp that collectively give her a 5 star rating.  She can also be found on LindedIn where I see she has more connections than I do.

Happy birthday Robin.  Sorry I won’t be able to share your birthday with you this year in person.

Does that look like a proud Dad?

Posted with love in my heart

Dad              xoxoxo