Day 1: Friday 16 October – The Longest Day

Gatwick Airport: Manitu, Obi, Patryk & Tim

Arriving at 5am in the morning at Accra airport the last thing you expect to see is a crowd of a dozen or so welcoming yogis! But there they all were, absolutely beaming with joy at our arrival and this heart-warming welcome set the tone for the whole tour. Not only that, they had all stayed up all night at the airport waiting for us. Wow – and we thought we had had a rough night!

Unfortunately our plans to rent a collective house in Accra had fallen through, so we all headed to Vinayaka’s house to freshen up, drink chai and get to know each other. All in all, gathered together were yogis from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and UK (a day later two joined from Austria). We had a collective meditation together and from the off the vibrations were flowing like a Ganges river. Meanwhile, after a number of phone enquiries, we managed to find a place an hour outside Accra in a town called Tema – a guest house that was owned by a local yogini of German origin called Christa. While the ladies and some of the men went on to Tema to prepare the house for the collective, a few of us launched our media campaign by visiting radio and TV stations.

The Ladies: Christa, Kiran, Olivia, Amina & Mabel

One of the Accra yogis called Aaron is a taxi driver and spent most of the two weeks dedicatedly ferrying us around from one place to another. Our first port of call was Peace FM, a long hot dusty ride to the edge of the city on an under-construction highway consisting of deep red earth that looked as if it had been air-lifted from Ganapatipule. Looking out the window of Aaron’s taxi, the lush tropical trees and vegetation immediately made you think of Maharastra and India. And again this comment of Shri Mataji’s echoed through our minds:  Ghana is the land of the Ganas.

Having picked up Peace FM’s rate card for advertising, we headed over to three more stations Joy FM, TV3 and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and attempted to do the same. It took so long to get around in the heaving Friday traffic that by the time we got back to Vinayaka’s we were all pretty exhausted and as night closed in we were keen to get to Tema to do a havan and put down some roots.

That evening the Ghana under-20 football team the ‘Black Satellites’ won the world cup and the whole country was in a jubilant victorious mood (Well, with the possible exception of Manitu, who saw his Brazilian brothers beaten 3-2!)

Tim, Koby, Patryk, Abraham, Mabel, Michael & Aaron

Shri Saraswati Miracle

Aaron had already gone on ahead while we were still at the GBC and was by now going to pick up Abraham. Abraham was beginning to get a little afraid as he waited in the dark crowded streets for Aaron to arrive and drive him to Tema for the havan that we had planned to do that first evening. As he stood there waiting,  a well-dressed lady was standing uncomfortably close to him in the street, so he tried to move away. Surprisingly, She maintained a close distance, as if tyring to protect him. When he arrived, Aaron invited the lady into the taxi, which he would never usually do. As the lady left, She gave them a huge smile and wished them a Happy Diwali. They were astonished, as there was no way that an ordinary Ghanaian would know about Diwali and they both showed no outward signs of being Sahajs Yogis. Spontaneously they both felt that Shri Mataji had been with them in the car and that She had taken the form of Shri Saraswati.

Shri Saraswati

When we had finally all gathered at Tema at around 10pm, we celebrated a havan to Shri Durga to remove all the negativity from our path and to bless the tour with Her protecting vibrations. Only later did we hear that Shri Saraswati Herself had already done so! After punching through some heavy left side and some truly chronic fatigue, the vibrations were amazing. Needless to say that after a wondeful dinner cooked for us by Mabel, Amina and Olivia, and the longest day imaginable, we slept wonderfully!

Shri Durga Havan

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