“The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we’re not apologetic about it.”
Posted February 28, 2023 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: Peace Corps Ghana, Peace Corps staging, Peace Corps Week, training
Oh, what an ugly morning! We had a dusting of snow which began around 1:30 as we, the dogs and I, were going to bed. When I woke up, I could hear dripping off the roof. I opened the front door and saw a wet mess. The rain and the snow had merged into slush. I had no choice but to go out for yesterday’s mail and today’s papers. My footprints made a wet trail from the house. My slippers got wet. The road has slushy ruts. I just hope it doesn’t freeze.
My daffodils have buds. They got suckered into growing during the warm spell, but they are hardy. I expect they’ll survive. My father used to say snow this time of year is poor man’s fertilizer, and he was right. The snow, when the ground is frozen, acts like mulch and insulates the plants. It also brings nutrients like nitrogen and sulfur. I have no idea how he knew that.
This is the longest musing I have ever written. I couldn’t make it any shorter. It describes the turning point in my life. The start of my Peace Corps journey.
This is Peace Corps week. On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps. I was in the eighth grade, but I knew even then I would join the Peace Corps. When I was a junior in college, I went to listen to a recruiter on campus. I took a language test. I signed up for an application. In October of my senior year in college, I sent in my completed application. In January I got a special delivery package. It was filled with information about Ghana and had a timetable of what training would be. I figured I was accepted which then became official when my special delivery acceptance letter came the next day. Training would begin in June with staging in Philadelphia. That seemed so far away in time. I started planning.
My mother and I shopped using the suggested packing list. My luggage had to be no more than 80 pounds. I was packing two years of my life into a couple of suitcases and carry-ons.
I remember the day I left. My parents drove me to Logan Airport. My father had bought me a plane ticket. Peace Corps had sent a bus ticket. I can still see in my mind’s eye my parents standing at the gate as I waved and went down the jetway. Their sadness is what I carried with me.
We were in Philadelphia for five or so days for staging. We had lectures, individual appointments with psychologists, visits to dentists and yellow fever shots. I met Bill and Peg the first day. I recognized their kindred spirits. We skipped a few large group sessions and toured the city together.
We were all supposed to make our way to New York to catch our chartered flight to Ghana. Luckily, though, the powers that be realized it made sense for us to leave from Philadelphia. I remember the flight. Herbie, the Love Bug, was the movie. Alcohol free flowed. I remember looking out the window at the Sahara. It was jaw dropping.
Training was all over the country. We had extensive language classes. I was learning Hausa. My group had its live-in, 3 weeks with a Ghanaian family, in Bawku. We visited our schools. Mine was in Bolgatanga. We made our way down country to Koforidua for the rest of training. It felt familiar though it was all new. I had fallen in love with Ghana.
The rest of training included student teaching and more language. I felt brave enough one weekend to hitch to Accra. On the first night, when a few of us were wandering the city to get to know it better, I survived an attempted purse snatching. He got the strap. I got the purse.
Our last week of training was at Legon, the University of Ghana. We mostly had free time except we all had to take a language test. We wandered Accra. We drank real coffee. Our last event was the swearing in. We were no longer trainees. We were Peace Corps volunteers. I felt joyful.
Nobody In Town Can Bake A Jelly Roll Like My Man: Bessie Smith
Posted February 27, 2023 by katryCategories: Video
“You can spread jelly on the peanut butter but you can’t spread peanut butter on the jelly.”
Posted February 27, 2023 by katryCategories: Musings
The morning is sunny with a partly cloudy sky. It is only 32°. Snow showers are a possibility. Tonight we’re predicted to get around an inch of snow. That will be our biggest snow storm to date.
My dance card for the week is pretty much the same as my dance card of last week and the week before and before that and on and on. This is a slow, quiet time of year.
Nala is a clever dog. She knows when to run away with her pilfered goods, and the dog door provides a quick escape. I joked a few days ago about the Creeping Garland. It moved, and I never saw the how though I knew the who. Yesterday afternoon Nala was busy in the hall. I should have been suspicious. Later, when I went through the hall to the kitchen, I saw the garland stretched out its full length in the hall. Nala had brought it through the dog door from the yard. I was amazed. She had to have pulled it through the door, and I never saw or heard her. I figured she did it during the nap I took yesterday. Nala is a tricky dog.
Yesterday I had a fluffernutter, a peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwich. The peanut butter was chunky. I remember when I was a kid my mother once bought chunky peanut butter instead of smooth by mistake. The taste was a divine revelation.
In Ghana, groundnut (peanut) stew is a staple. I used to buy groundnut paste, the stew’s main ingredient, in the market, not for stews but for sandwiches. It was thick, natural peanut butter using an alias. I had to make do with jelly for my sandwich.
When I was a kid, by the time I’d get home from school on a winter’s day, it was too cold to play outside for long or even at all. We’d watch TV. My mother would be cooking dinner. The kitchen was small. I can close my eyes and see my mother by the sink peeling potatoes. I remember the steam on the windows from the food cooking. The table was beside the big kitchen window near the back door. The kitchen was open to the living room, a construction detail way ahead of its time. After my sister was born, we moved down the hill to the house with one more bedroom, the house where I grew up.
