“If things are getting easier, maybe you’re headed downhill.”
Today has exactly the same weather as yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Poor Gracie goes out, tries to get comfy on the deck lounge but finds the breeze far too cold and comes back inside. She sits at the front door and lets the sun coming through warm her fur, and she watches the neighborhood but sees very little. When I’m done here, we’re going for a ride down cape. Maybe that will remove the ennui the weather is causing the both of us.
When I was a little kid, very little grossed me out. I’d see classmates picking their noses and checking out their finds, but I won’t even describe but some them did with their bounties. Once in a while someone would get sick in class, and it was an event to be described over and over at recess. As I grew older, though, my tolerance for the gross disappeared. I’d get car sick on even short trips. At dinner once, someone’s milk got spilled into a plate of spaghetti, and that sent me running to the bathroom. It was Ghana which finally cured me.
I remember going into a market for the first time. The stalls in front sold goat patties for fuel and they didn’t smell all that great. I ran outside to be sick. I was embarrassed, but I was stuck with a sensitive stomach. That lasted about two more weeks. I stopped noticing the smells. Some, like wood charcoal burning, became a favorite smell, a sweet one which still never fails to bring me back to Ghana. Public toilets, here a term loosely used, could be smelled blocks away. My neighbors in the field behind my house squatted in the millet adding their own fertilizer. I learned to aim perfectly at the hole in the public toilet and to squat when forced by necessity. When I visited Morocco, my skill returned quickly. I figured it was like riding a bike, something you just don’t forget.
I am going to Ghana in late August. I have the dates and am hunting for a flight which won’t exhaust my bank account. I figure it might take me a day or two to get acclimatized to those smells I remember. The one thing I know is my aim is still good.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings Both comments and pings are currently closed.
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 29, 2011 at 11:29 am
It is good to have you back- and feeling well enough to try to satify your wanderlust!
Here is a youtube primer on cheap flights-
Be sure to watch clear to the end. A couple of times it looks like the end, but isn’t.
March 29, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Wonderful, wonderful! 🙂
March 29, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I so agree, Christer!
March 29, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Pat,
I loved, loved, loved this and waited as you said for the end, the sad verse. It was just hysterical and even true!!
March 29, 2011 at 1:27 pm
It´s been warmer here today and now the sun shines through the clouds, but that only means the night will be cold instead.
Thankfully I´ve never seen one of those hole in the ground toilettes here in Sweden 🙂 🙂 But I have used them before and it´s always a bit tricky to aim right 🙂 🙂 🙂
But very few things have ever grossed me out. There is one thing though and that is when people eat with an open mouth and I can see the food rolling around in their mouth 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I really can´t stand that gorging sound they make either 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
March 29, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Christer,
We hit the 40’s every day but it goes back to the 30’s each night. For later in the week they are predicting a combination of rain and snow for here and snow in Boston. ENOUGH!!!!!
I’m with you about people who eat with open mouth. Just as bad is chewing gum with open mouth and accompanying noises.
I hope all goes well for Nova tomorrow.
March 29, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Glad you’re not in Morocco now!
March 29, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Rick,
I would go back there in a heartbeat. It is a peaceful country with a king who rules gently. Free enterprise is the key and the country appears prosperous.
March 29, 2011 at 7:13 pm
My cousin and his wife arrived back from Morocco today! Will see them and get a report on saturday. Like you- they have to satify their travel itch. Also like you- they are both Peace Corps alumni!
March 29, 2011 at 4:08 pm
This post too is a keeper for the Coffee book. I laughed at even the thoughts of your experiences and Ghana, My God, why go back there in August? Is it the Peace Corps 50 year thing or what? That’s like asking me to go back to Saigon.
March 29, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Z&Me,
August 30th marks the 50th anniversary of the swearing in of the first Ghanaian Peace Corps volunteers. It is also a good time to go as it is still the rainy season and not as hot. I have wanted to go back for the longest time, and I have the money now so it seems that the stars are aligned.
March 30, 2011 at 7:34 am
I agree a true keeper, and i am so happy you are returning to Ghana. i would love to see more pictures if you have them, how brave you must have been to just go! thanks for the hilarious video Pat!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo
March 30, 2011 at 10:47 am
splendid,
I am really excited to go back after 40 years away. I know it will be very different but it will also be the same in many ways.
March 30, 2011 at 10:55 am
Pat,
I have always believed that all my trips should be tax deductible. It was the Peace Corps, a government agency, which filled me with wanderlust, and I consider that a psychological condition brought about by living in the most amazing country, Ghana.