Six months into my sabbatical year in Ghana, I've met new people, seen new sights, and had LOTS of new experiences, like getting malaria, going to a leprosarium (as in, a place where doctors treat leprosy) to see a dermatologist, and swimming in the ocean, etc. I've approached many of these new encounters with preconceived ideas about what they must be like. Yet, over these months I've found that I've had to keep letting go of my preconceived ideas, the things I thought I knew, to keep up with what I've been learning in real time through actual experience.

As you listen to episode 19, "What I Thought I Knew", I invite you to reflect alongside me! How has your experience talking to a new person going into a new place or encountering a new situation led you to rethink something you thought you knew in the past few months?

Feel free to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley, on Linkedin, or you can email me at [email protected].

Don't forget to rate, subscribe, and share, if you're enjoying the podcast ;)

"Every time I look around, I see something that can be done. And it just really excites me that Ghana is so ripe for not only business, but investments, collaboration with with local people." - Kindra Parker, Entrepreneur and Founder/President of MentorHer Ghana.

Episode 18 features my fourth interview in the series "I Want to Change the World...So I Moved to Africa?!". My guest, Kindra Parker is a true "Renaissance woman"! Her personal and professional background has been shaped by her passion for music, philanthropy, marketing, event production, and entrepreneurship. As I talked to her I started to see how she channels her wealth of skills, experience, and passion to see and create opportunity both at home in the US, in Ghana, and across the African continent.

In fact, the thing that strikes me most about Kindra is her ability to see opportunity around her - in people and in places and also in herself. Listening to her story kind of felt like an invitation for me to think about how my own ability to see opportunity is sometimes limited by my fears, doubts, scarcity thinking, and biases.

The second thing that really stands out to me as I think about my conversation with Kindra is her willingness to move towards the opportunities that she sees. Her story reminds me that it takes ideas, vision AND action to make changes around us - however big or small. As someone who can lean towards abstraction and intellectualizing, I appreciate her willingness and ability to bring visions to life (a quality that she shares with the other guests I've interviewed - see Ep 13, 14, & 16).

Last but not least, the third thing that really stands out to me from my conversation with Kindra is that while yes, I heard her talk about the opportunities that she sees in Ghana and in Africa broadly, one thing I never heard her do was to discount the idea that there can be opportunities at home.

I sometimes speak with other diasporanas in Ghana who talk about their homelands as if they were a lost cause. I also have the chance to speak with Ghanaians who live abroad or others who wish to live abroad who talk about Ghana as if it were a lost cause. In both cases, they can only see opportunity elsewhere.

As you listen to episode 18, I invite you to reflect alongside me on the following prompts:

Is seeing opportunity really about the place where you are as

What's the opportunity for you or for me to support the vitality and flourishing of the people or the community around us right now?

What if it's not a coincidence that you've been planted where you are right now -whether you chose to be there intentionally, or you just happen to be born there? What if that's exactly the place or a place where you can contribute the unique gifts and skills and perspective that only you have to offer?

Want to learn more about Kindra and MentorHer Ghana?

As always, I invite you to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley, find me on LinkedIN, or send me an email at [email protected] to share whatever reflections this episode brings up for you.

At the end of episode 16, "Black. American. In Africa.", I said that I'd be sharing a bonus episode with a few more more gems that came out of my interview with Noelle Ojo, author of The Blaxit Effect: The African-American's Guide to Relocating to Africa and US Foreign Service Officer. This snippet, which was just too good for me not to repurpose, is about how reading fiction from a culture can be a way to gain insight and feel a sense of connection to it's culture.

See below for the reading list that Noelle drafted for anyone interested in checking out some contemporary African authors. She even included links to where you can find the books on Amazon! I also recommend seeing if you can find the books on a library app like Libby or Hoopla OR to purchase from an indie bookshop in your town or via bookshop.org.

Want to learn more about Noelle and her book?

“I think sometimes it's just as a society, they try to box us in, especially in the United States, you can only be you have to be this to be black. And when you

Episode 16 features my third interview in my series called “I Want to Change the World…So I moved to Africa?!”. I had the pleasure of interviewing Noelle Ojo,

Given her background as a Brooklyn native, FAMU grad, and "professional expat" who has lived in 5 African countries and spent nearly 20 years working overseas at an NGO, private sector, and as a Foreign Service Officer, I knew our conversation was going to be juicy. But what I didn't know and couldn't have known is that our conversation would turn into such a beautiful meditation on what it means to be Black American in Africa, but also Black and American, both in Africa, and at home.

It's not something I stop and consciously think about every day, but both of those things - being black and being American - shape my lens how I view and show up in the world in very powerful ways. And my being both of those things shapes how I’m viewed and responded to as I move through the world in equally powerful ways.

As you tune into this amazing conversation, whether or not you’re Black and/or American, I invite you to reflect alongside me on what forms your sense of belonging, of identity, of community. What shapes how you’re seeing and being seen – and how do you want to show up in relation to each of those ‘hows’?

Want to learn more about Noelle and her book?

Also, stay tuned for a bonus mini-episode with Noelle next week! During our conversation she talked a little bit about connecting to culture through literature and through language. She spoke with such eloquence and also such insight that I decided to capture that content and release it as a bonus. I’ll drop the bonus next week.

As always, I invite you to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley or send me an email at [email protected] to share whatever reflections this episode brings up for you.

Given that I've now officially been in Ghana for two whole months AND I just applied for my one year residency permit a few days ago, it seems like a good time to pause and reflect on what my major takeaways from my time here have been, so far.

What reflections come up for you as you listened to mine? As always, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley or via email at [email protected].

“For me, I the way I view the bakery is really important. I view it as like a tool, or a step, which the people use. I picture the bakery as being like one rung on a ladder for them. Whereas I think a savior mentality is more of like, I personally am the ladder. And I think if you keep in mind that your what you're doing is just

Episode 14 is the second in my series called “I Want to Change the World…So I Moved to Africa?!”. As you can tell from the episode title, my guest Casey Kempton takes us all to school in her interview on what not to do if you, as a foreign worker in Africa, want to avoid a trap that she believes most white people in the field of humanitarian work have probably fallen into at times, whether in small or big ways: white savior mentality.

After 5 years living and working in the the charity/missionary/NGO space in Nigeria - and prior that even more years spent moving in that space through various mission trips- Casey, who is one of the most introspective, self-aware, and candid people I've ever met, certainly has the creds to teach us all a few things about how to show up in ways that affirm the agency, dignity, and humanity of people to whom we might be in a position to offer help whether we're in Africa or anywhere else.

Although the title says “ How to Not Be a ‘White Savior’”, I think of it more broadly as "How to Not Be a 'Western Savior'” because I find on my own journey that I bring a Western gaze and sensibility with me wherever I go. When I look around here in Ghana, I see people who look like me and who look like my cousins. I know the only difference between us is that my ancestors wound up on the [slave] ship going across the ocean, and theirs didn't. Yet, because of where I'm from, how I grew up, and where I grew up, sometimes I can find myself projecting expectations onto them that just don't fit. So even though I'm not a white girl from Grosse Pointe like Casey, per se, as I listen to her story- the story that led her to Nigeria, and of how she's navigating life now that she's there, I can see myself in the story. I invite you to see yourself in it as well.

As always, I invite you to drop me a line on IG @missjanaiashley or send me an email at [email protected] to share whatever reflections this episode brings up for you.

Want to learn more about Casey's work with Milk and Honey? Check out ⁠https://givebutter.com/milkandhoney⁠  for Casey's contact information, to read about the school, and/or to support with a donation.

“I have no concept of privilege shame. It’s that I’m blessed. I recognize that I am blessed, and I am blessed for a purpose. And that purpose is to be a blessing to other people. So, my life, if I think about it, is framed by this. [When] I go to Ghana, and I see the poverty around me in my village, I ask myself, “How can I be a blessing in this?” - Eunice Cox, Owner of The Beach House, Ankwanda

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a month since I arrived in Ghana! Where has the time gone? Every day as I look at the calendar, I’m reminded that I need to start wrangling my paperwork to extend my stay.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to stay beyond June. I’m learning here. I’m growing here. I’m so very glad that I came.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve grown oblivious to the things that I mentioned in last episode – the poverty, inequality, and all that seems broken and unjust that I see when I look around in Ghana.

It means that I’ve seen that that’s not the WHOLE story of the Ankwanda, the village where I’m staying, or of Ghana, or of Africa.

I see beauty and resilience in the people here just living their lives. And I know there are people here doing incredible work to create opportunity, improve people’s quality of life, and build a brighter future for the next generation.

In season three, which is dedicated to the topic, “I Want to Change the World…So I Moved to Africa?!”, I’ll be talking to some of the people who’ve moved/moved back to Ghana, who are cherishing the good and beautiful here, even as they navigate challenges to chase their dreams here.  

I’m excited to be kickstarting the season by interviewing my friend Eunice Cox, owner of The Beach House, Ankwanda, and overall force to be

Note: I need your help! As I navigate my own journey, I would love to talk to more people who’ve chased their dreams to Ghana (or Africa,

When people ask me why I wanted to move to Ghana, I usually say that I was going there to rest (in spite of the weighty to do list and the stack of books that I've brought along with me!). I would say I was going there to feel the same lightness and serenity that I'd felt on past trips here to visit my friend, walking along the beach, looking out at the ocean. I was going to be transformed through time away.

In other words, I was thinking of this time as a kind of sabbatical. Looking back, I came here with a desire to retreat into my own little bubble here by the ocean for a while.

But my experiences during a recent whirlwind tour of a slice of Ghana (and Togo:)) reminded I’m not in a bubble; I'm in a place where many people are struggling and hustling to survive.

Poverty, injustice, and inequality are real everywhere in the world, and yet, they seem especially visible and visceral here.

Thankfully, as I started to spin out on frustration, despair, and privilege-shame in the face of all that I saw that seemed broken and unjust at an overwhelming scale, an incident happened that reminded me that the actions of a single person can lead to injustice being challenged.

I'm still trying to find my place in this new place. And as I do so, I'll keep asking myself questions that move me towards understanding, compassion, hope, empowerment, and action. I invite you to reflect alongside me:

I made it to Ghana! I woke up this morning (March 7, 2023) amazed and in awe to find myself here. In this episode, I share some reflections on the journey that's led me here. I invite you to think about an idea that's been knocking at the door to your heart asking you to partner with it so it can, in the words of Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, "be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual." 

I know from personal experience that it's a journey. As a coach, I apply the tools that have helped me navigate the internal obstacles that for so long held me back from partnering with the ideas calling to me to now support my clients as they navigate their obstacles to make their ideas reality. Let's talk about how I can support you! Email me at [email protected] or find me on IG @missjanaiashley.