An African King who has returned to Canada to continue his work as a Gardner has attracted the attention of many online users for such rare display of humility.
Eric Manu, a Langley, B.C. man who was crowned chief of the Akan tribe in the village of Adansi Aboabo No. 2 in southern Ghana last year, speaks with CTV News.
The King of Akan, located in the village of Adansi Aboabo in Ghana, Eric Manu, has returned to Canada to resume his job as a gardener in order to raise money to provide health care for his subjects.
Manu became king when his 67-year-old uncle, Dat, passed away in 2016.
After living in Canada for three years with his wife and son, he had moved back to his town in southern Ghana to take up his birthright.
He told
CTV News,
“It’s a huge experience. You have to embrace it with passion.
“It’s something of my heritage, my culture, and traditions.”
But now, Manu has returned to the North American country to take his old job back.
Moving back to the British Columbia area of Canada, he has returned to landscaping and gardening in the town in a bid to raise cash for his 6,000 people.
Hanging up his crown, even temporarily, isn’t a decision Eric Manu takes lightly. He’s using his time in Canada to raise money to improve the health care standards for his tribe of 6,000.
Manu said, “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?’
“This is humility, you understand? Anytime I’m in Canada, I’m proud to work for my boss.”
When Manu first moved, his boss, Susan Watson, started a foundation called ‘To The Moon and Back’, which sent the young king off with a shipment full of school supplies, clothing, laptops and medical supplies.
Watson, the owner of The Landscape Consultants, travelled to Ghana for the ceremony and said, “They’re beautiful inside and out and they have absolutely nothing.
“And you (Manu) came home here and most of us are miserable and we want something more.”
The money Manu hopes to raise from his several months’ stay in Canada will be invested in improving health care, with the aim of returning with another shipment of equipment.
Miss Watson added, “The whole village was quite poor. The clinic only has a midwife and a few nurses. There was no doctor on site.”