Posted tagged ‘Africa’

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When summer gathers up her robes of glory, And, like a dream, glides away.”

August 23, 2012

The morning is sunny and warm. This room, still in the shade, is cool and comfy. The nights have been dropping to the 60’s, perfect for sleeping, and will be as cool for the next few days. Crossing off items on my before-I-go list continues. Yesterday three bit the dust; already this morning one more is finished. At least three more will be completed by bedtime, and I’ll be left with the big one: packing on Saturday morning.

Last night was the final play of the season. I have no idea where the summer has gone. When I was a kid, summer seemed to last forever filled as it was with days and days of play. I was always surprised when we went shoe shopping, the first sign of summer’s end and the encroachment of the school year.

My favorite summers were when I was a teacher and didn’t work. Those were my traveling days, and I traveled all over, mostly in Europe, with just a few clothes in a backpack. The trips were usually 4 or 5 weeks long, and I went every summer. I had always dreamed of traveling to the ends of the earth to see the pages of my geography book come alive and those summer trips fulfilled my dreams.

My most amazing summer was training in Ghana where I stepped into a brand new world, something I couldn’t have ever imagined. I remember so well those first few days. They were like a dream. Everywhere was green. There were palm trees and there were lizards scurrying across the walkways in front of me. Women dressed in beautiful cloths and carried baskets and buckets on their heads. Little kids followed us. I remember standing just outside my room, on the second floor of the dormitory in Winneba, and looking below at the rusted tin roofs of the houses. I could see goats and I could see people going about their business. I was enthralled.

I love my summers now. My friends and I are usually on the deck, eating, playing games and laughing. We try to stretch the deck season as long as we can and usually last well into long pants and sweatshirt cold nights. The saddest part is when I have to close down in the fall. It’s the adult version of buying new shoes for schools.

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“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”

June 2, 2012

5:30 is far too early to be awake unless I’m hurrying to catch a plane. My papers weren’t and still aren’t even here. Gracie has gone back to sleep. It is an ugly morning with dark skies and a cold wind. Rain is predicted for the whole day, even heavy at times; of course, that would be the prediction with my friends arriving later. I had planned a lovely Cape Cod ride by the ocean today.

I should be eating my Rice Crispies and watching cartoons instead of the early news. I guess this is one of the by-products of adulthood. Crusader Rabbit gets replaced by news, sports and weather.

With the rain coming, Ms. Flamingo and Mr. Gnome didn’t make it outside. They are still safe and warm in their winter home here in the den. They can both oversee the weekend festivities.

My friends want one of my famous dinners. I gave it some thought and figured I’d make my curry. I then called my friend Jay, a friend for over thirty years who has partaken often of my cooking. I asked him what dinner he’d asked for if he could choose. Lo and behold he chose curry so curry it is!

The first time I ate curry was in Africa. A doctor and his wife from Fez, Morocco lived in my town my first year. He was a doctor at the local hospital. They came over to my house, introduced themselves and invited me to dinner. I went and they served curry. I’ll never forget that meal. My hosts were amazing telling me all about Morocco and Fez and then they served dinner. It was like manna from heaven, a taste treat I have never forgotten, and one I have made many times since which just about the same reaction every time I eat it.

The first time I served my curry was close to forty years ago, and I invited a houseful of people. They were, at first, tentative. Their eyes and the unfamiliar smell of the curry meant they put very little on their plates, only enough to be courteous. I told them to add the toppings then the chicken. They did then sat down and took their first bites. The room went silent. The only sound was forks on plates. The food disappeared quickly and all of them went for second helpings, generous helpings, plate filling helpings. They were now curry fans.

I love watching first time curry eaters. They are amazed by the odd combination of tastes and the heat of the curry then the coolness of the fruit. I expect most of the meal will be silent. I can hear those forks now!

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“Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliar voice”

May 15, 2012

It’s an acceptable day: not too cool, not hot, and varying between sunny and cloudy. Rain is predicted for this afternoon but right now the sun holds sway. I have a bunch of stuff to do today, a listful, and it’s been a while since I’ve needed a list. A couple of the errands are for tomorrow, but I figured I’d add them anyway while I was listing, so to speak.

I need a little excitement. Over the winter, my life was a bit humdrum. Okay, it was hugely humdrum. I didn’t go anywhere. Even my night out for trivia was sporadic. The one social event I could count on was on Sunday nights when my friends and I had our Amazing Race evening together. We’d play games before hand and eat dinner while watching the race, but that was the sum total of my excitement.

In Ghana, there was little to do at night. The occasional movies were shown at the Hotel d’Bull and many of them were Indian with all the singing that goes with them. It wasn’t Bollywood back then, but all the pieces for it were in place. Mostly we played games, but I was never bored. Life was never humdrum. All around me was Africa with sights and sounds I never knew existed. I couldn’t have dreamt them as I had no idea what Africa was like. I had to experience those sights and sounds, absorb them and etch them into my memory so I could draw on them and bring them back.

I brought them back often. I’d close my eyes and remember. I’d see the road to town and all the stores across from the post office, and I’d remember market day with all the bustle and noise and the stalls filled with fruit and vegetables. I remembered the beautiful colors and patterns of the cloth and how women carried babies on their backs and baskets on their heads. I kept my memories vivid.

Last summer I saw all of those things again. My town was huge compared to forty years earlier, but its essence hadn’t changed. The market is enormous now but still filled with color and with women carrying baskets on their heads and babies on their backs. I heard the sounds of FraFra, the local language, everywhere I went. I greeted people just as I used to but in Hausa, the language the Peace Corps taught me, and the Ghanaians always greeted me back. I didn’t have a TV, and there is no more Hotel d’Bull with its Indian movies, but none of that mattered. Just as before, I wasn’t bored once.

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“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

March 31, 2012

Finally we have some rain! After our snowless winter, they are predicting possible drought conditions this summer so any rain is welcomed. For some reason, though, the rain makes me lazy. In my imminent future I see movies about climatic upheavals and a nap in the darkness of the afternoon. The animals are already asleep.

It’s cold this morning, but I don’t care. The house is warm and cozy. When I was young, this was the sort of day I’d stay in bed and read by the light of the bed lamp hanging off my headboard. It was a quiet time when I could be by myself. I’d follow Nancy and Trixie as they solved cases and feel bad for Heidi looking for her grandfather. One of the joys in life is finding and reading a great book for the first time. Sometimes I’d read the whole book in one sitting hour after hour. I’d close the cover and hold the book for a bit still savoring every word. My mother used to tell me to take my time, but that was never possible. Once a book grabbed me, it didn’t let go until I’d read the last word.

My love of books and reading has never changed over time. When I was younger and backpacking through Europe summer after summer, I’d bring 3 or 4 books. When I’d finish one, I’d carry it until the next stop. Staying in a hostel was the best opportunity to trade, and I found myself trading for and reading books I probably wouldn’t have otherwise read. That was the fun of it.

In the old days, Peace Corps used to give volunteers book lockers, cardboard boxes which opened into small bookcases. They were filled with paperbacks. In mine, left by a previous volunteer, was The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I devoured all four books and would never trade them to any of the volunteers passing through town. I knew I’d go back and read them again. Before I went up-country to live after training, I visited the university bookstore and stocked up with more paperbacks, all of them printed by Penguin Press. They were trade material. My town had a library and most of the books were by British authors. I read Ngaio Marsh, Ruth Rendall and the wonderful Dorothy Sayers for the first time. Such joy!

Despite having and using my iPad, I still cherish the printed word and love holding a book in my hand, and I still sigh when I’ve finished a book I loved.

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“Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, / And moon-struck madness.”

November 15, 2011

It is another warm day, but this one has sun and blue skies. Rain is possible later so I need to get out and about before the rain starts. I want to take full advantage of the wonder of a warm day this late in November.

My deck is filled with piles of leaves as is my lawn. I couldn’t help myself this morning when I went to get the papers. I shuffled through those leaves the same way I used to when I was a kid on my way to school. I’d walk in the gutter beside the sidewalk and kick the leaves as I walked. I loved watching the leaves scatter and hearing the sounds they made underfoot. It was the same this morning.

My brother-in-law Rod called me from the road last night to chat. He, who lives in Colorado, is in Minnesota for business. He travels at least two weeks a month. I told him I was in a bit of a funk, and he laughed and wondered how I could be as I had just returned from my trip to Africa. I whined and complained that it was nearly three months ago. Save my pennies was his advice. I think he’s right. I have a bug, a bit of African flu, and it can only be cured by returning to Ghana. I’m setting my sights to return in a year and a half which will give me time to collect enough of those pennies he mentioned.

Yesterday was a nothing day. I didn’t even make my bed. I did brush my teeth and changed from one set of cozies to a clean set of cozies. Today is different.  I’ve already showered, done laundry, gotten dressed, polished a couple of tables and made my bed. I think of it as fit of frenzy. Maybe I need medication.

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” If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there’d be bodies hanging from every tree!”

November 12, 2011

The dampness has gone and so have warm days, but nicer weather will be back later in the week. This fall has been beautiful and really doesn’t deserve a complaint just because today is seasonably cool, but it seems weather is always worth a complaint or two and a piece of most conversations. It’s either too hot or too cold, too windy or too damp. Today is too overcast.

Yesterday I was rummaging around in the eaves and found a bag filled with Ghanaian cloth and a few smocks, called fugus, all of which I had brought back forty years ago. One piece of cloth reminded me of a few dresses I had had a seamstress make for me. In Ghana my style of clothing wasn’t in the sort of dress but in the patterns and colors. The cloth market was one of my favorite places. I’d roam through the lines of sellers looking for just the right piece of cloth for my next dress. The cloth was sold from carefully built piles composed of rolled cloth, each rolled piece usually being three yards and placed in the pile first in one direction then in the other. The colors were easy to see, and it was easy for the seller to retrieve a single roll.

I am not a seamstress yet I made curtains for my bedroom in Ghana. I figured out how many yards I needed and bought the cheapest cloth I could find. It was brown with patterns in beige, pretty enough for curtains but never for a dress. I cut the cloth to fit across the three windows about halfway up then turned over the edges and hand sewed them. I then threaded strong twine through the edges and tied the curtains to hooks on the windows. They looked far better from the outside than the inside.

I even made a lamp shade. The one light in my living room hung down on a long wire from the high ceiling. It looked pretty ugly so I went to the market and bought a basket. Similar baskets, called Bolga baskets, are now sold for big bucks in the US., but in Ghana they were and still are fairly inexpensive. I took off the handle and cut a hole in the bottom of the basket then used pieces of a metal hanger to make a holder for the lightbulb. It worked wonderfully except during the rainy season when it became a bug magnet. In the morning, below the lambshade in the same size circle as the bottom of the shade, was always a pile of dead bugs. No big deal in Ghana.

I learned so much when I was in Ghana but I don’t count home decorating as one of them.

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“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”

October 30, 2011

The rain was torrential last night,. I could hear the wind whooshing through the trees and I turned on the backdoor light to watch the wind blow the pine branches nearly to the ground. It was a nor’easter, the worst of all storms be it rain or snow. Many other parts if the state got snow and over 600,000 people were without electricity. Over the course of the morning, the day has lightened and the rain has finally stopped, and the wind has abated but is still strong at around 35 MPH.

My house has the smells of a Ghanaian kitchen. The kelewele is cooking on top of the stove and the Guinea fowl is in the oven. We are also having jollof rice with beef which was cooked last night. Its sauce was so tempting my one little taste became several tastes.

My table is set with the napkins I had made in Ghana from the same cloth as my dress, and I am using the  napkin rings I bought. They are in the shape of Ashanti stools, the symbols of the powers of the chiefs. The table looks colorful and festive. I will, of course, play only Ghanaian music during the meal and my guests will eat with their hands.

I am going to wear my new Ghanaian dress. I’ll take pictures!

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It is strange, but I have never camped anywhere in Africa where I have not felt, as I left it, that we all have left something of ourselves behind.”

October 9, 2011

The day is simply gorgeous with the bluest of skies and a summer warmth. It has been a different sort of Sunday as I didn’t go out for breakfast, but I did sit outside to drink my coffee. I closed my eyes and let the sun warm me, and I listened to the birds greeting the day and to Gracie wandering through the backyard grasses. Every now and then a car went by, but it only disturbed my reverie for a moment. Around eleven, I dragged myself back inside to call my sister in Colorado, a call I make every Sunday, and now I’m still inside to write Coffee. It will be a quick post. The day is calling me.

Gracie is on the bad list. Last night I heard a rustling sound, the sort a package makes, and looked from here in the den down the hall to the crate on which Gracie’s food and treats are kept but saw nothing. Later I went to give Gracie one of her Happy Hips treats and the package, the newly opened package, was gone. This morning I found the empty package in the yard. That noise I had heard was Gracie stealing the package. She then sneaked outside with it. No question she knew she was doing something wrong.

I have a wedding to go to today at four. Receiving the invitation meant I needed to buy a fall dress to join my summer dress, the dress which came with me to Ghana. I told my sister my new dress is in the pink family and has a jacket with a scalloped edge. I also told her I bought new black shoes. The dress came Wednesday. It is green. The shoes are brown. Now I’m thinking I’ll look like a tree.

I never should have gone to Ghana. Now all I can think about is getting back there for another visit. When I first came home from the Peace Corps, the feeling was even more intense. It took months before I stopped longing for Ghana, but I never stopped thinking about it. I have it all figured out. I need to replenish my savings to the pre-Ghana level then I can start saving for the next trip. I’m guessing two years max before I get back there.

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“The desire to reach for the sky runs deep in our human psyche.”

October 8, 2011

The weather is absolutely gorgeous. I haven’t seen Gracie all morning. She’s been on the deck and roaming the back yard. The cats are in the sun. I’m the only one holed up in a dark room in the back of the house. Soon enough I’ll remedy that!

An article in the Boston Globe this morning mentioned that the Pan Am World Wing International congress is in Boston this year. It’s a reunion of women who flew as PanAm flight attendants. The article mentioned that the women think the new show PanAm gets everything right except the pilots who weren’t young but rather mostly in their 40’s and 50’s, veterans of WWII. They said girdle and weight checks were done regularly so they could fit into the tight skirts which were part of the uniform.

I flew PanAm several times including back from Africa. That was the flight which had a buffet under the stars, tables set up in the back of the plane with meats, cheeses, salads, breads and  rolls. At one point the pilot asked people to sit down and take turns at the table as the tail of the plane was dragging from the weight.

I always thought of PanAm as a modern magic carpet which could take you anywhere. I flew on it when few people flew to Europe or any exotic destinations. I remember going to the back of the plane, putting up the seat arms and lying down to sleep across a row of empty seats. Back then it was the only US airline which flew to Africa. The flight started in East Africa then made its way to West Africa with stops in Lagos, Accra, Monrovia and Dakar. We could get off at each stop and stretch our legs. I remember walking around on the tarmac in both Monrovia and Dakar.

I know I’ve mentioned before that if I could go back in time I’d ride the PanAm Clipper. I’d go to Singapore and have a drink or two at Raffles Hotel. I’d fly all over the PanAm world; of course, I’d also be rich enough to do that. It is, after all, my dream!

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” See you later, alligator. After a while, crocodile.”

September 16, 2011

This morning is close the windows, put on warm slippers and a sweatshirt cold. The house was 69° when I came downstairs. As if it were winter, I clutched that warm coffee cup between my hands hoping to stave off the cold. I woke up at 7:30 today so it seems my body is finally recognizing it’s home.

Today is Paga day. Paga is the last town in Ghana before Burkina Faso. In my day it was the last town before crossing into Upper Volta. Paga is famous for its sacred crocodile ponds. I visited there forty-two years ago, and it hasn’t changed a bit except for the price. It was 3 cedis for Ghanaians and 6 for non-Ghanaians. I protested that it was wrong to charge white people more, but the man claimed he also charged Africans not from Ghana the same 6 cedis. I asked him how he could tell Ghanaians from non-Ghanaians and he just shrugged. The biggest pond, the Chief Crocodile Pond, is supposed to have around thirty of these sacred crocodiles. No one is allowed to eat the meat or harm the crocs in any way. The pond is lovely with lilies all around the edges and in the middle. A donkey was to one side munching grass. It looked almost idyllic. I tried to see any crocodiles lurking on the surface the way they do in movies but saw none. These beasts are lured from the water by a whistle and the promise of a live chicken which we had to buy. Thomas and I went as close to the edge as we dared, and the man whistled. Out of the pond came one of the biggest crocodiles I’ve ever seen. He ran out of the water on all four legs, and we stepped back, a bit nervous I’ll admit. The croc stopped close to the chicken man and just stayed there immobile for a while. He didn’t look real. The man threw the chicken and the croc grabbed it and ate it in about a minute. A second croc, far smaller than the first, came out of the water to the right of us and started making his way toward us. A small boy scared it away with a branch but it stayed by the edge of the pond and I could see its head above the water. The chicken man then went and held the croc’s tail and asked if anyone else wanted to do the same. When no one was the first to brave the tail, I said yes and up I went and grabbed the end of the tail. After that the men did the same. Thomas wanted his picture taken for posterity. I’ll send it by e-mail to him when I upload my pictures out of the camera. As we were getting into the car, an old man approached us and showed us pictures of the museum like collection of huts and artifacts across the street from the pond. When I asked how much, he said whatever you want so Thomas and I drove across the street.

It was wonderful. The old man was our guide from hut to hut. We were followed by two of his grandchildren. The huts were old and many of their walls had large painted figures. The biggest hut had clay figures that had been dug from the area and were dated to be at least 1000 years old. The old man showed us how the young boys hid on the roof from slavers, other African tribal men who sold their captives to the whites. In the birthing hut the man played a gourd and the music which announced the birth of a son or daughter. He said the hut was still used by some of the local villagers. He had a few local goods for sale, and I bought a beautiful hand-woven cloth and a large calabash which had figures etched on it. The man and I bargained a bit, and I think I got a good price for both. When we were leaving, I left 5 cedis in thanks.

Paga has a slave camp, but I noticed the cost and decided that this non-Ghanaian wasn’t going to pay again. Thomas and I headed back to Bolga.

The road between Paga and Bolga was one of my favorite rides. Lines of large trees periodically appeared on each side of the road and shadowed the road as if you were on a small country by-way. I remember riding to Navrongo, the town between Paga and Bolga, on my motorcycle. I remember the shadows falling across the road from the tree branches covered in leaves. That road has not changed and the ride back to Bolga was a joy.

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