“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
The door bell woke me up this morning. Henry jumped off the bed and flew down the stairs. I took a bit more time. I don’t fly. When I opened the inside door, I saw my two bags of groceries on the top step blocking the storm door. I had requested delivery between one and two, and here it was at eleven thirty. It took me a while to move the bags from blocking the door, but once I got them inside, I carried them to the kitchen in one trip. $88.00 worth of groceries in two paper bags don’t weigh a whole lot.
I was in Ghana from June 1969 until July 1971. During that time, I missed what was going on at home even though Peace Corps sent us The NY Times Week in Review. It all seemed so far away, even surreal. I was more preoccupied with learning a new language and figuring out how to traverse Ghana from top to bottom. I was eating strange foods and shopping in markets with goats, sheep and more chickens than I’d ever seen in one place running around. I was tolerating bugs and the rainy season and humidity. I was homesick and discouraged. That was my world and the world of all the other trainees (PCT’s in Peace Corps jargon) that summer.
We got together after the day’s training. We’d walk to the local spot (bars in Ghana) at the end of the dirt road right near our training site. We sat outside in the cool evenings drinking beer, laughing, singing and complaining. Beer was 50 pesewas. I hate beer but the 50 pesewas (about 50 cents) made it appealing. We played drinking games.
My group of trainees numbered about 125. We were all strangers that Sunday in June when we met in Philadelphia, but here in a spot in Koforidua, 8 or 9 weeks later, we were friends. We were nearing the end of training. We would be on our own in a couple of weeks. We were nervous and we were scared. We ordered another round, my friends and I, and we played one more drinking game then sang our way home as we followed a trail through the tropical rain forest. I slept well that night.
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May 11, 2020 at 2:55 pm
Yea, yea, yea, I read this stuff about homesickness and beer and other trainees…but where is the really story ? Playing your Joni Mitchell tape to the large reptiles down the croc pool of paga …come on Kat, the full story !!!!
May 11, 2020 at 4:25 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I took an oath of silence which I dare not break. The full story will remain a mystery.
The crocodiles in Paga liked music about reptiles, especially about crocs and their cousins the gators.
May 11, 2020 at 5:30 pm
Hi Kat,
Although you were on an adventure to show Ghana the best of our country, the rest of us were living through some of the most divisive times in our history. During the last three years I have felt similar feelings of them against us that I felt in the late 60s. Instead of this pandemic bringing us together, Trump and his minions have been dividing us to help him win in November. Hopefully, the great American public will finally see him for the fraud and charlatan that he has always been.
At least you got the groceries. Same weather different day.
May 11, 2020 at 9:13 pm
Hi Bob,
I did miss much of what happened. Reading about it didn’t bring the same feelings, the same sense of horror. During my college years I was an activist. I continued after I got home but not at the same level. Gradually I settled into being home.
After the last election, I do not trust the American public so much, but I still grab on to a bit of hope. I just can’t let it go.
Good groceries too!
May 11, 2020 at 8:29 pm
I hope that traveling will be possible again soon, distancing from people is okay in pandemic times but not distancing from nations. We are one world. Unfortunately Trumpism spreads in politics and society here too and we’ll probably get a big second corona infection wave.
May 11, 2020 at 9:19 pm
Birgit,
Places have opened despite recommendations to the contrary. Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only New England hold outs. The governor here will decide what to do in a week: whether to stay closed or begin to open based on the number of cases.
Everything through the summer is cancelled. My Cape Playhouse Theater was among them. It will be a quiet summer.