We’re still in the cold belt. Today the high will be 29°. I wish there was another way to say that. High seems sort of silly when it is 29°. Even the dogs are not enjoying the cold. Nala sleeps under my covers and huddles beside me. She keeps me warm, almost like a hot water bottle.

I know I have written before about my first Christmas in Ghana, but I figure it is worth the retelling.

I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas, my first ever away from home. December is harmattan weather in Northern Ghana. The winds blow sand in from the Sahara. The days are hazy. They are also dry and hot, extremely dry and extremely hot, in the low 100’s many days. The dryness chapped my lips and the heels of my feet cracked. I walked on tip toes. The furniture in my house was dusty. Cleaning it didn’t matter. The dust always came back. The insects, even the mosquitos, disappeared. I stopped taking my anti-malarial pills, just for the season. I remember I’d sit on a chair in my living room, a chair with a couple of thin cushions, and when I got up, the outline of my body was left, an outline in sweat. The relief came at night. It got cold, down as low as 70°. That may not sound cold but sometimes it was a drop of 30°. I snuggled under a wool blanket, the same one which is on the back of a chair in my living room.

I got a package before Christmas from my mother. It had been air-mailed at the cost of a fortune. The note inside said she, my mother, and my aunt had split the cost, and my mother hoped this would bring Christmas. Inside the package were cookie cutters and different colored sprinkles for decorations, Christmas ornaments which had been hung on our tree, small stockings, brick looking paper so I could make a fireplace, Christmas candy, hard-candy, which stuck together but survived the heat, and some wall decorations. I was thrilled and amazed and teary. Immediately, I decorated the house. I hung the stockings on the mock fireplace I had made on the wall. I even think I hummed Christmas carols.

My town was a jumping off point to go north, to Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, Niger and the Sahara. Volunteers on Christmas holiday were in town. Patrick, another volunteer and I, decided to have a party. I made cookies, took a round trip of 200 miles, to get gas for the stove. They were my first cookies. They were perfect. We haggled at the bar in the Hotel d’Bull in town to get beer. They were worried as often Ghana ran out of beer only because they had run out of beer bottles. We promised our first born children if didn’t bring them all back. Every volunteer who came brought food. That was the Peace Corps way. You always brought something.

That was the best party. We sang Christmas carols, though someone said not I’ll be home for Christmas. We laughed. We sat outside behind my house. The stars filled the sky. You could see the Milky Way. It was spectacular. Someone mentioned that probably this was the same weather and sky on the first Christmas.

One night I was lying in bed under my blanket loving the feeling of being cold when I heard the voice of a young boy singing. He sang We Three Kings, every verse. The sound echoed across the still, cold night. That sound was the greatest of Christmas gifts.