I feel grateful.

When I started writing this post this morning it was going to be called "I feel gypped" but today has been a bit humbling in gaining a greater understanding of the many things that I have been blessed with. I'll save the original post for another day.

Yesterday was our first day of teaching. It went differently than I had imagined but overall I think it went well. The Self-Employment Workshop started with 13 people and in under 15 minutes we were down to just 12. I remember the guy leaving but I thought he was just going to answer a cell phone call or something. I guess he decided that this workshop was not for him. Our class has nine Ghanaians, two Liberians, and one Ghanaian-Lebanonian. The Liberians are really hard to understand but they are both so nice. Some of the interesting names we have in the group are Nawel, Rancy, Ali, Godfred Ghandi, Rufus, and Sledge (and in case you are wondering Hammer would be a PERFECT nickname for him). They are a very diverse group but have so many interesting questions and comments to share with the class.

Today's discussion made me grateful to live in America in a way that I had never thought of before. We were discussing ideas of how we can set our business apart from the competition. They kept making comments about how you need to come up with an idea, make lots of money from it, and then walk away from the business. I was so confused by this sentiment and was really struggling to understand why they all seemed to think that this was a great idea. It all become clear when one of the participants raised his hand and explained that in Ghana they have intellectual property laws but they aren't enforced. If someone designs something new the government will not protect their idea. The barriers to entry are so low that it's almost not worth inventing something new because others will just copy you and make just as much money with a smaller initial investment. I had never thought about being grateful for patent laws and protections but this whole discussion really opened my eyes. Government in America may have its good things and bad things but overall they are doing a pretty decent job at giving Americans opportunities to succeed.