The rain was loud on my roof when I first woke up this morning. I decided to get comfy and go back to sleep. The dogs and I slept another hour. When I go to bed all is well. I have my side of the bed, and the dogs share the other side. During the night they move. I am the loser. They take most of the room, and I have to save myself from falling off the bed. Some mornings it’s close.

When I lived in Ghana, I loved the mornings. My rooster greeted the day from the backyard. From the compound behind my house, I could hear the pounding of the mortar and pestle as the women prepared fufu. I could smell the smoke of the charcoal fires. Students cleaned the school compound with hand held grass brooms. They had to bend over to sweep. I could hear them in front of my house. I always had neat dirt. After, the students lined up at the bath stalls carrying buckets filled with water. Fourth years were first in line. I had my first mug of coffee. I liked to sit on my small porch in front to watch the littles walk through the compound to their primary school just outside the gate. They usually stopped to look at the white lady. I greeted them. They returned the greeting. In Ghana greetings are important. I ate breakfast, fried eggs cooked in groundnut, peanut, oil and two pieces of toast. It was the same breakfast every morning, but I never tired of it. After breakfast, I’d walk across the school compound to the classroom block to teach my first class of the day. When I finished, I went home and had a second cup of coffee, the last piece of my morning ritual.

My mornings still have rituals. I am at times a creature of habit. I have two cups of coffee in a mug but no eggs though sometimes I have toast, always two pieces. I read the paper. If it is a warm morning, I go out to the deck with my coffee and take in the day. The mornings smell sweet. The birds are singing. They always sound so joyous, but I do miss the rooster.