Neris, from Benin, is our portrait for today.
Enjoy!
Neris is an engineer at Melcom Head Office in Accra. He is 28 years old. His hobbies are playing basketball, watching movies and reading books.
He did not have the ambition to travel to Ghana. However, his dad convinced him of the importance of learning new languages, especially English, and the opportunities that come with that. He wanted to go to Nigeria but chose Ghana because he preferred Ghanaian English
Neris loves the food in Ghana and the availability of dishes from different countries. He likes the clubs, the restaurants, and places like East Legon, Osu, Labone, Cantonments “where you get to see nice houses, the beautiful shopping malls and get to meet new people, learn and explore different cultures from different parts of Ghana”.
Ghana from a Beninois perspective
In terms of the similarities and differences between Ghana and Benin, he had this to share:
“I will say we can’t compare Ghana to Benin because Ghana is more developed than Benin in terms of infrastructure, the roads, house designs. Ghana is very costly to live in unlike Benin”.
He emphasised that Benin is much smaller than Ghana and draws our attention to the stereotypes about the religious practices in his country.
“Benin is one country Ghanaian people refer to as a juju country we have that religion but I will say it’s not everyone who is into that religion that’s what Ghanaians have to understand. Benin is a very small country compared to Ghana”.
Although he did not know much about Ghana before coming, he knew Ghana would be a nice place from watching Ghanaian movies dubbed in French with actors like Majid Michel, Yvonne Nelson and others.
He may not have had many cultural shocks but he found it hard to understand why Ghanaians pour water on birthday celebrants.
Challenges
His greatest challenge had to do with expressing himself in English and adjusting to the cost of living.
“It was difficult for me to express myself in English when I arrived. At my residence, I was the only francophone among Ghanaians. When I started university, it was very difficult to learn maths, and physics in English. The cost of life too was too much. Sometimes you wake up, you don’t have money to go to school or to eat and there would be nobody to help you out”.
Despite the challenges he faced, Neris seized the opportunity in Ghana to learn as much as he could.
Finding a way out
“I learnt a lot of things, I learnt how to save, how to cook, how to manage when you don’t have enough money, how to think differently and it’s here, in Ghana, that I have learnt this mindset of setting up one’s own business”
He began by selling clothes through drop shipping, using his Facebook page and WhatsApp to attract customers. Through the internet, he learnt about freelancing, trading on the stock market and content creation for YouTube. He began to mingle with business minded people who he learns from.
I have learnt one thing that people take for granted which is to never neglect anything no matter how small it is.
He learnt about cryptocurrency – how it works and how to invest. With the internet, he learnt how to have different sources of income and not depend solely on his job.
“Every day, I am on the internet to learn something new. I have learnt one thing that people take for granted which is to never neglect anything no matter how small it is. Even if today that particular thing does not have value, you don’t know tomorrow. I take every little thing seriously and I advise people to plan ahead of their time.
Even if I am not there one day, my generation will benefit from it.
Like in 10 years where will I be? What are the things I can do now so that I will achieve it in 10 years? Or I will build this, what am I doing? You work on yourself, you plan ahead. That’s how I think. Even if I am not there one day, my generation will benefit from it”.
recommended places to visit
For tourist sites, he recommends Boti Falls, Cape-Coast Castle, Cape-Coast Forest, Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, and Kuntuse National Centre. “Other places just to see beautiful sites are East Legon, Kokrobite Beach, Labadi, Osu, and Dzworwulu.
He regrets that he has not been able to volunteer for an organisation yet and hopes to do that at least once in his lifetime.
Our trotro stops here today. But before you alight, I hope that you were inspired by Neris’ story. We must all learn to invest in ourselves and use the resources around us to improve every day. I learnt the need to network and stay close to like-minded people, leverage the internet and invest in myself for here and now but also towards my contribution to future generations.
Mate, bus stop!!!
