A king from a West African tribe has returned to Canada to resume his job as a gardener in order to raise money for healthcare in his village.
Eric Manu, who became royalty following the death of his 67-year-old uncle, Dat, last year, had been living in Canada with his wife and young son for three years before returning to southern Ghana to take up his birthright as the chief of the Akan tribe in the village of Adansi Aboabo no. 2.
Reflecting on his new role, Mr Manu said: “It’s a huge experience. You have to embrace it with passion. It’s something of my heritage, my culture, and traditions.”
However, despite his royal status, Mr Manu has returned to British Columbia, where he is working as a landscaper and gardener in order to raise funds for his tribe, which has a population of 6,000.
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“Sometimes we go to the job site and they say, ‘You are the chief. I saw you on TV. Why are you doing the landscaping?’” Mr Manu told CTV News. “This is humbleness, you understand. Anytime I’m in Canada, I’m proud to work for my boss.”
When Mr Manu first moved to Canada, his boss, Susan Watson, started a foundation called *To The Moon and Back*, which sent him off with a shipment full of school supplies, clothing, laptops, and medical supplies for his village.
Ms Watson, the owner of The Landscape Consultants, also travelled to Ghana to attend the ceremony, where she was struck by the villagers’ warmth and poverty. She said: “They’re beautiful inside and out, and they have absolutely nothing. And you come home here and most of us are miserable and we want something more.”
The funds Mr Manu hopes to raise during his several-month stay in Canada will be invested in improving healthcare in his village. His aim is to return with another shipment of medical equipment to help address the community’s lack of proper healthcare facilities.
“The whole village was quite poor,” Ms Watson added. “The clinic only has a midwife and a few nurses. There is no doctor on site.”
