If I just look out the window, I’d see a lovely day, but the sight of the sun and blue sky doesn’t take note of the cold. It is a sweatshirt or even a fleece day. There is a frost warning for tonight.

Yesterday I decided to face the closet in here, the den, to look for a frame. This closet is chock full of puzzles, games, photo albums, bric-a-brac and so much more. It is a giant junk drawer. I found neat things, including the frame, but I also found treasures. I found my Peace Corps passport. It has my residency permit and is filled with visas. I almost don’t recognize the picture of my young self, my so very young self. One page has writing on it. I remember being at the border between what was then Upper Volta and Ghana trying to enter without a visa. It had expired. The border guard let me in and wrote I was only going for the weekend in my passport. I also found the passport I had during my South American trip. It too is filled with visas. I can follow my route through my visas.

The best thing I found was an aerogram I had sent from Ghana, and my mother had saved. The pages and the sides are numbered and filled with tiny writing. In the first paragraph I mention that this is my first full day in Ghana. The date is June 30, 1969. It was 1:30 PM Ghana time. The letter is a chronicle. I write about the beauty of Ghana and about a walk I took through Winneba where we were staying and the surprise of hearing drums from one of the compounds. I gave a schedule of my first days of training starting at 6:30 with language and ending at 6:00 for supper. I love we had a tea break at 3:30. I do remember the tea and giant rolls. I talked about the first supper dish which looked like matted seaweed, even barf. It was made out of the leaves of a tree, palm oil and some sort of fish. I suspect it was kontomire. Later I found out they were cocoyam leaves. I never did have a fondness for kontomire. I mentioned I had been given my assignment in the far north and was going to learn Hausa.

So many memories flooded back as I read and reread this letter. In my mind’s eye I could see it all, the school, the town and the palm trees, my first ever palm trees, but most of all I remember the people, my fellow trainees and the Ghanaians with their welcoming kindnesses.

This entry was posted on April 25, 2024 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.