On the night of October 23, 2019, just close to 10 pm when I was about to go to bed, I received an email notification so I opened it and it read:

Congratulations!

Thank you for submitting your application for the State of the Map Africa2019 in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast. It is our pleasure to inform you that based on the results of the reviews by our scholarship committee team, you have been selected to receive a full scholarship that will…..

I was beaming while I read the mail, I was so happy. I wonder how I managed to sleep that night. It was going to be the first time I left Ghana in so many years, to a place I had fond memories of as a kid and a chance to meet people who share the same interest and are passionate about what they do. You could not blame me for being that happy, could you?

A few days to the conference I booked a bus ticket ahead of my travel from Intercity STC Coaches. Yup! I travelled by road from Accra to Grand Bassam. I was joined by Victor Ezwugu who was coming from Nigeria and we both travelled from Accra to Grand Bassam. I enjoy long journeys but this one got tiring and long for me, maybe I just couldn’t wait to arrive. After about 10 hours we arrived at VITIB (venue for the conference).

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