I swear I saw what looked like an elf running through the backyard. He was fast. The dogs barked. He was gone in an instant. It is 16° and cloudy. When I woke up, we had snow showers. On the ground are almost two inches of snow, just enough to cover paths, roads and driveways. The sun is taunting us. It appears for a while then disappears behind the clouds then reappears. It is light, not warmth.

When I was a kid, I attended mass every Sunday, but I wasn’t all that invested. I was just avoiding the prospect of mortal sin, represented by the black milk bottle in my catechism. Sometimes I would smuggle in a paperback to read, or when the pews were filled in the downstairs of the church, and I had to stand in the back, I would read all the pamphlets on a small bookcase against the wall. The downstairs was small compared to the main church upstairs, but it was quick and popular, no sermon.

In Ghana, I was the victim of some crimes. On my first weekend during training, I hitched to Accra. I was walking on a bridge with a couple of friends when I felt someone pulling one strap on my pocketbook. I looked and it was a guy pulling with both hands trying to take my purse. I grabbed the other strap and pulled it with all my strength. His strap broke off, and he took off. The two guys I was with just watched. When I complained about the watching, they said it didn’t appear I needed help. I felt triumphant, not scared. I wasn’t the target. My bag was. The next crime happened at the railway station. I loved the train in Ghana and usually took it upcountry. I was on my way to Kumasi. When I sat down, I noticed my bag had been picked. My money was gone. The thief was slick. Peace Corps reimbursed me.

The last theft was right out of my house. I had visitors, and the three of us slept in the yard because of the heat. When we woke up, my back door was being held open by a stone, and my friend’s pants had been taken off his mattress and thrown on the back wall. Inside the house, my desk and wardrobe had been rifled. My camera was gone as was my wallet. The camera was useless. You couldn’t buy Instamatic film. It was the end of the month, and I had very little money so stealing the wallet was a bust. What was amazing was how deeply I must have been sleeping. I had locked the house doors and put the key under my pillow. The thief took the key, and I slept through it. I found my camera outside of my yard. I never found the wallet. I thought about that key and figured someone who was close to me knew it was under my pillow. I reported the theft to the police. They had a couple of thieves in jail cells and the police officer asked me if they were my thieves. I was sleeping and never saw the “perp.”

I never felt unsafe in Ghana. I hitched rides and took rides when offered. I walked home from town even at night. The thefts were just a small part of the backstory.

This entry was posted on February 8, 2026 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.