The wind is blowing, the air is humid, the sky is cloudy and it will be hot today. Thunderstorms are predicted for late this afternoon. Last night there was rolling thunder. Henry looked up from the bed but decided he was in no danger so he went back to sleep. Nala never noticed.

I have more trash than I have room for in my car so I’ll take a trip to the dump this afternoon. I have an appointment in Hyannis after which I’ll do the dump run. The rest of the trash is upstairs and is from the kitty litter boxes in the cats’ room. The pile gets bigger every day. The bags get heavier. I’m too old for this.

I remember how awful the barrels smelled when I was a kid. Flies were inside those barrels and circling around the covers. When my mother asked me too empty the kitchen basket, I groused. I knew when I lifted the barrel cover the flies would escape, and I’d be in their flight paths. We did have a garbage container in the backyard, what today would probably be a compost pile, buried except for its cover which was metal and flipped open when you pressed the pedal. The flies were even worse there, and I vividly remember the maggots, crawling white gross little worms all over the bananas peels and half-eaten apples. I used to watch them for them a while. They never attacked me the way the flies did.

In Ghana, flies were ubiquitous. At first, I was grossed out, but later, recognizing a losing battle, it didn’t take long for me to stop caring. I’d just wave my hands to keep the flies off me and my food. The market was fly heaven. The aunties, the local entrepreneurs who sold produce in the market, used straw fans to keep the bugs at bay. My house had screens so few flies could broach the interior. Other bugs could but not flies.

Every Saturday night was entertainment night at my school. Houses competed in plays and singing competitions. Tribal dancing was my favorite Saturday event. Sometimes we’d watch a movie. My favorite was a cartoon about the dangers of flies carrying disease. The large cartoon flies, about the size of birds, flew into pit toilets, covered their legs with feces and then stopped on food. My students were grossed out as was I. Solutions were offered, none viable. My favorite was to put screen covers over the food, but few Ghanaians had screens in their houses so this was totally impractical. I didn’t have covers for my food either. I never even thought about having some made.

When I went back to Ghana, I easily fell back into ignoring the flies. I guess it had become inherent. I’d notice them when they landed on food, but I’d just waved my hand as a matter of course, and the flies would leave for the meantime.

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