Steve Wallace went to Ghana, in West Africa, in 1978 for a summer as an AFS exchange student. Now, thirty years later, he is the owner of The Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company (pronounced OH-mahn-HEE-NEE), which buys and processes all of its cocoa in Ghana. As a direct result of his AFS experience, his company has grown and flourished, bringing both economic development to Ghana, and delicious, high-quality chocolate products to his customers.

Steve’s AFS experience began in 1975, when Steve’s family was host to Ecuadorian student Miguel Betancourt, who went on to be a world-renowned artist, staging exhibitions across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

After the experience of being a host brother, Steve wanted to go on an AFS exchange himself and he knew he wanted to go to somewhere in Africa. “That was the greatest adventure,” Steve remembers. “I was embarking on something and I didn’t know where I would be going. I wanted to go to Africa because it was a place I thought I might not make it to otherwise.”

In the summer of 1978, Steve lived with a traditional family in the town of Sunyani, an 11 hour bus ride from Accra, the capital. His host father had three wives and 21 children. Of that summer, Steve recalls, “It was an extraordinary time. My family treated me well. They found a bed for me—everyone else shared a bed—and provided me with good food. It was not an easy summer, but it was formative.”

Steve also stayed for a short time in the capital, Accra, with a host family who had a Lebanese host father and a Ghanaian host mother.

By the early 1990s, Steve knew he wanted to return to Ghana, and he found his way back with the help of a small bean called cocoa. “Chocolate was my vehicle to get back to Ghana,” Steve recalls.

There are 600,000 small cocoa farms in Ghana and 9,000,000 people rely on the trade in one way or another, so Steve saw a great opportunity to bring Ghana’s cocoa to the rest of the world, or at least back to his home country, the United States.

Steve had kept in touch with his AFS host families, but when he returned to Ghana to start his business, he went out on his own to find business contacts. He navigated through numerous government bureaucracies in both Ghana and the US and finally, after four years of preparatory work, was able to get Omanhene off the ground.

There were many people that said his project was too ambitious. Steve’s goal was not just to buy raw cocoa from the government and export it, but to do what no one had ever attempted: process the cocoa entirely in Ghana. For Steve, it was the challenge that was driving him, not the profits he might make from his venture.

The most important skill Steve took away from his AFS experience is patience. Everything in Ghana moved at a slower pace than what he was used to in the United States. In Ghana, Steve says, “people’s willingness to endure the depravation of a tough economy and a tough political situation” imbued them with an indefatigable patience. “The AFS experience gave me a sense of humility, humanity, and a great sense of patience.”

He had to convince people of his earnestness, in a place where many people come to start projects, but may leave after a year, or not even get their business off the ground at all. Steve’s persistence and patience are what allowed him to not just survive, but to grow his chocolate business.

Steve had to learn to be “curious, not furious” when he came up against barriers and challenges in Ghana. He had to examine and learn from every interaction he had and learn why he was eliciting such reactions. By learning from each interaction and each relationship, he moved forward, became more culturally competent en route to his success.

He learned from his AFS experience that people and businesses work differently in different places for good and legitimate reasons, and that the emphasis on efficiency that dominates business in the United States is not the only way of conducting affairs.

By cultivating compassion and patience, Steve “learned the verbal cues, the physical cues” of the people he met and examined his own place based on his age and gender in the matrilineal culture of Ghana.”

The Omanhene factory is 45 minutes east of Accra by car. Raw beans brought to the factory are roasted and kibbled (chopped into small pieces), then pressed and liquefied. Three products are derived from the pressing: cocoa butter, which rises to the top; the (non-alcoholic) cocoa liquor, which is bitter and aromatic and contains the 300 compounds from which chocolate gains its reputation as an aphrodisiac and a stimulant; and cocoa cake which is pulverized to make cocoa powder, used for hot chocolate mixes and other powdered products. The cocoa butter and the liquor are then reconstituted to form chocolate bars.

Omanhene products are distributed in the USA and Japan. By coincidence, the AFS connections are continued, because Omanhene’s distributor in Japan is also an AFS returnee!

Do you know an AFSer who has taken their AFS experience and done something fascinating and inspiring? Send us an email and you might see that person profiled in a future Find An AFSer Newsletter!