This was one of those put a mirror under her nose to see if she is alive mornings. My mother would have said I must have needed it. The dogs slept in with me then they waited on the stairs to make sure I was up and moving. I was, barely.

The weather has been amazing, but today starts a bit of a heatwave, a Cape Cod heatwave. It was be in the high 70’s and low 80’s through the weekend. The nights have been in the 50’s, but that too is disappearing. Nights in the mid to high 60’s will make a comeback. I know those of you living in states with 3 digit temperatures are probably thinking how silly it is that I am complaining, but weather is relative. If we hit 3 digits here, it would mean the end of the world.

In two years, I will be 80. I hope. My plan is to visit Ghana that year for what I figure is the last time. Starting in a few months, I have to live frugally to save my money. I was asked why I go back to Ghana. It isn’t as if I lived there long, only two years. I tried to explain. I talked about how Ghana became home, how Ghanaians became my friends. It was there I found my love of teaching. I was as comfortable in Ghana as I had been anywhere. I woke up happy every day. I found life-long friends among the volunteers. We shared the same feelings and experiences in Ghana. They get it. I wrote the following a long while back. Maybe I should have read it to her.

It didn’t take long after training to realize the best part of Peace Corps isn’t Peace Corps. It is just living every day because that’s what Peace Corps comes down to, just living your best life in a place you couldn’t imagine. It is living on your own in a village or at a school. It is teaching every day. It is shopping in the market every three days. It is taking joy in speaking the language you learned in training. It is wearing Ghanaian cloth dresses and relegating the clothes you brought with you to the moldy suitcases. It is loving people and a country with all of your heart from breakfast to bed and forever after. Peace Corps doesn’t tell you that part, the loving part, but I expect they know it will be there.