Hey, I'm Yames.

So this is my story I guess.

I wanted to share a part of my life with the people I'm far away from; physically, mentally, ect. I've kind of always been a distant person, and I guess this part of my life has literalized that. I've been traveling a lot in the past 2 or 3 years, ever since I moved to New York City when I was 18 to go to school. It was one of those things I knew I would always do, because I lived an hour away from the city my whole life, and when I was a kid I would go up on the train, and think to myself like this place is more home then home is. It was a matter of necessity. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey, and a place like that needs to push down anything different to sustain itself. So, likewise, to survive I had to leave.

So I moved to New York for art school. I was (and still am) a pretty big dork. I kinda thought art school would help turn me from this:

into this

But really art school just makes you want to party and have fun. So after my freshman year of party too much and spending all my free time making art and having fun I needed a change. I had had this dream for a long time to go to Africa.

I had never left America. I lived with a big family, and traveling together was always difficult. So when I got the chance as a 19 year old to study in West Africa I just went. That was it. So I spent like 4 or five months in Ghana in 07. It was one of those things that make you think differently, but you dont really know how because its gradual and really happens time. Not like falling off your bike and breakovering your arm. Its all on the inside. When its over you look exactly the same, but everyone still says "your so different when," when you get back.

I met my friend Francis there. He is Ghanaian, Fanti really. He lived in a town called Mankisem, which was about 10 minutes north of El Mina castle, where probably 1,000,000 Africans were shipped out of during the slave trade. He was really friendly, but it was hard to be friends with him some times, because he was maybe to friendly. Like I would come home sometimes and he would be sitting in my living room on my computer surfing the internet, like a little to friendly. But he showed me a lot of things I never would have seen without having him for my friend. So it was really good most of the time.


Overall it was a pretty intense experience, and its really too complicates to recount in an interesting way here. Besides, that was a long time ago, and I'm doing new stuff now.

It was a little like this though:

So now I'm living in China, and I thought some people might want to know what thats like too.

Check it out,
Yames