The morning is damp and chilly. It must have rained during the night. The clouds are dark. More rain is coming. It is in the 40’s. When I went out to watch the dogs, I wasn’t so cold this time.

This morning I sat on the couch to drink my coffee. The paper was on the table in front of me. I wasn’t ready to read it. I just sat there remembering. This is Peace Corps week. Peace Corps day is Saturday which commemorates the day President Kennedy established the Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. My Peace Corps years were a life time ago, but all of it, from training to close of service, sits bright in my memory drawers. I can close my eyes and see it all. 

Training was long. It was difficult. It was wonderful. On my very first morning in Ghana, in Winneba, I stood on the balcony outside my room seeing the rusted metal roofs of the compounds where people lived. I saw palm trees, my very first palm trees. I could smell the aroma of the lush greenery. I was amazed. I was actually in Africa.

Training was in variety of places. We had more language and student teaching. I remember in Koforidua there were days when I hated training, my why am I here days. Other days I couldn’t imagine being somewhere else.  

I learned Hausa. My name is Lahadi, one born on Sunday. I used my Hausa all the time and remembered enough forty years later to greet people in Bolgatanga, my Ghanaian home.

The last week of training was at Legon, at the University of Ghana. We were all there, all of us who had completed training. We stayed in dorm rooms. We had real coffee every morning. We took language tests, saw kente weavers and watched traditional dancing. Our last day of training was our swearing in ceremony. It was just us in a large room with the ambassador who gave us our oath. We were official, no longer trainees. We were Peace Corps volunteers. 

I wrote and posted this long ago on Coffee. It is time to post it again. “It didn’t take long after training to realize the best part of Peace Corps isn’t Peace Corps. It is just living every day because that’s what Peace Corps comes down to, just living your best life in a place you couldn’t imagine. It is living on your own in a village or at a school. It is teaching every day. It is shopping in the market every three days. It is taking joy in speaking the language you learned in training. It is wearing Ghanaian cloth dresses and relegating the clothes you brought with you to the moldy suitcases. It is loving people and a country with all of your heart from breakfast to bed and forever after. Peace Corps doesn’t tell you that part, the loving part, but I expect they know it will be there.”