Today I have another concert, my fourth of the week. It is up cape and early so I don’t have time to write Coffee today which usually takes at least two hours and sometimes closer to three. I don’t like to miss Coffee, but time doesn’t stretch.

We are still in North Pole weather. The sun is bright but useless. The high today will be in the mid-20’s. I would love to let my inner sloth loose, but I am stuck going out, back to bundling against the cold. 

I’ll be back tomorrow!

The early morning was sunny with a blue sky. Since then, the clouds have taken over, darkening clouds. Snow is predicted starting this afternoon. The paper says three inches while Alexa and Google both say an inch. I figure the paper’s prediction is an older one so I’m hoping for an inch.

Today is my only uke-less day so I’m doing errands. The dump tops the list, then gas, a few groceries and a blood test. I figure to beat the snow. 

Yesterday I saw another robin on a branch near the feeders. The goldfinches too were back as were my usual birds. I’ll fill the feeders this afternoon. I wouldn’t want to disappoint the birds.

My favorite grammar school teacher was Miss Quilter, my sixth grade teacher. She wore mostly suits. She had thick glasses. Unlike some of the nuns, she didn’t have favorites. On the bulletin board in the back of the room, she’d place names on lists like best speller and highest grades in history. I wanted to be on every list. She encouraged learning in all of us. She made me want to do my best. My name was on every list because of her. 

In Ghana, during training, we were divided into language groups based on where our posts would be. The Twi group was the largest as that was the most common language other than English. My group was learning Hausa, and we were the smallest language group. Our posts would be in what was then Upper Region. There were nine of us. First came learning the greetings, and there many greetings. Our language instructor was Lawal, from Bawku. He was gentle and sweet. He was patient. 

We had language almost every day we were together, but I stopped going after a while. A couple in our language group still had trouble with greetings so language lessons were a waste of my time. In Koforidua, where we started our 7th week of training, I found out Lawal was no longer my language instructor. Three of us, more advanced in Hausa, were assigned to Bosco Alhassan. He was brutal. Lawal could be distracted by questions, but not Bosco. He was a task master, but I do admit I learned so much more.

When I went back to Ghana after 40 years, I stayed in Bolga, my town. On the first night, I went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. As I passed a table I greeted them, ina wuni, good evening in Hausa. It was the first time I used Hausa since I had lived there. They looked shocked at this random white lady who had greeted them in Hausa. I was both thrilled and surprised I had remembered. While I was there, I remembered and used so much more of Hausa and was able to greet people, introduce myself and ask questions. Lawal and Bosco had trained me well.