Posted tagged ‘Bolgatanga’
March 18, 2023
The morning is damp from last night’s rain. It is already 46°. The sky is light grey cloudy and is supposed to stay cloudy all day. I have an empty dance card.
Today’s chores are the same as yesterday’s chores because I was a sloth the whole day.
I am watching a science fiction film from 1958, It, the Terror from Outer Space. If tradition had served me, I’d be sitting on the floor in my pajamas eating my cereal and watching the movie. I wouldn’t notice the cheesy painted backgrounds of Mars and of star-studded space or that the rocket ship is as big as a house with huge rooms and several floors. The movie takes place in 1973. The two women crew members are serving coffee and sandwiches to the male crew sitting at the table eating lunch and smoking cigarettes. This is a rescue mission. Only one of the first Mars’ space landing crew has been rescued. He is accused of killing his shipmates. That’s the plot so far.
When I lived in Ghana, in Bolgatanga, the only seasons were the dry and the rainy. When the rains started, green shoots began to pop out of the once dusty ground. They reminded me of spring but a dramatic spring. Behind my house, in the field beyond the fence, the tiny, green shoots of millet appeared. Everything came alive, fed by the rains. The growing season was in full array. Millet covered the whole field, and when it grew tall, the compound at the far end of the field would disappear behind the stalks.
The first crocus gives me the same elation I felt when I saw the tiny millet plants. Back then I was saying good-bye to the dry season while here it is a less than fond farewell to winter. The first crocus this year was yellow followed by purple. Each new flower is a renewal, a hopeful sign.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, dry season, millet, Peace Corps Ghana, rainy, spring
Comments: 8 Comments
December 16, 2022
Today is warm but ugly, rainy and now windy. The dogs are sleeping on the couch, one on each side of me. I have to go out this afternoon as I have PT. Tomorrow I have an appointment with the surgeon at 8 o’clock. I hate it, too many finger events.
The first year I was in Ghana and Christmas was approaching I was a bit sad. It was my first Christmas away from home. The decorations from my mother helped, but I still missed being there until one night still bright in my memory drawer. I was lying in bed under my scratchy blanket. It was cold, harmattan cold. The night air was clear. The stars were so many everything seemed to shine. All of sudden I heard a boy singing We Three Kings. I didn’t know where he was. I figured he was in one of the compounds close to my school, and the night air was carrying his voice to me. He sang every stanza. He brought Christmas to me.
I remember the impromptu Christmas party that year. Some Peace Corps volunteers were in town waiting to travel north so I invited them to my house, to my house in Bolga. Patrick, another volunteer in my town, and I went to the bar at the Hotel d’Bull. We begged for beer, for Star Beer. We had to promise to bring back every bottle. Bottles were precious. I made sugar cookies for the first time. My mother had sent a few cookie cutters. The cookies actually tasted good. I was a bit surprised. As per Peace Corps custom, the volunteers brought food or gave money as you never showed up empty handed to another volunteer’s house. They also contributed to the beer fund. We sang Christmas carols. I remember someone saying just don’t sing “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Later in the evening, we went outside behind the wall of my house and sat and talked. Stars filled the sky. A couple of falling stars made the evening almost magical.
The next morning I found a 20 pesewa coin in the tiny stocking my mother had sent which I had hung on the wall. Back then 20 pesewas, about 20 cents, could buy bananas and oranges and even a taxi ride around Accra. It was a wonderful surprise present.
.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, Christmas, Falling stars, Ghana, Peace Corps, Star beer, sugar cookies
Comments: 4 Comments
September 18, 2021
The day is already 71˚, today’s high. The weather report says partly cloudy. That’s pretty accurate as the sun is in and out of the clouds, and I can see the blue sky here and there between the branches of the backyard trees.
When I put the coffee in each of the dog’s dishes, Henry went for his and Nala went out the back door. That is her MO when she steals so Henry and I went on the deck to check for the felon and her spoils. I was glad to be outside. The late morning was pleasant and warmer than I expected. Nala, always true to form, was in the yard carrying an empty cookie bag in her mouth. She dropped it, and I asked to bring it to me for a treat. She totally ignored me and started to tear apart the package and the empty papers inside. I just stood and watched and listened. I could hear the crackle of the paper. Nala totally destroyed the bag by chewing it apart into small pieces. I’ll do a clean-up later. My sister is right. I do need one of those sticks with the nail at the end you see orange jumpered prisoners using when they clear the litter on the sides of the highway. I’d like the half bag too. I just won’t wear orange.
When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I got asked that by relatives I didn’t see often. I guess they thought it was a conversation ice breaker. They were wrong. I had no answer because I had no idea what I wanted to be. Little kids live day by day, and I was a little kid. Big plans were made for Saturdays, the break-out days, and as far in the future as I ever looked, because the rest of the week was already taken: weekdays were school and Sunday was church and dinner. I could do whatever I wanted on a Saturday. I could go wherever I wanted. Sometimes I made plans, a couple of days before were long range plans. I’d pick a movie in winter, but on warm days I’d pick my bike or my feet and go exploring. The one sure thing on a Saturday was our supper, always hot dogs, baked beans and brown bread from the can.
Even in Ghana, my Saturdays were mostly unplanned, open days, but if I was home in Bolga and it was a market day, I’d go shopping. I remember amazing weekends in Accra, the capital. I always stopped there on my way to and back from somewhere else during my vacations. It was too far for just a weekend. I stayed at the Peace Corps Hostel, cheap with breakfast. I ate in a variety of restaurants. I remember one restaurant with red booths, dimmed lighting and real napkins. It was an anywhere restaurant, but one, which happened to be, within walking distance of the hostel. I always thought it was a treat to eat there with its real napkins and leather booths. Sometimes I went to a Saturday night movie. In Accra I had choices. The best part of Saturdays in Accra was walking around the city, aimlessly. I’d stop at stalls and small markets and buy food and fresh fruit from the aunties along the sides of the road. I’d revel in the beauty of Accra and especially in being fortunate enough to live in Ghana.
Today I have no plans. Let serendipity reign!
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Accra, Bolgatanga, dogs, Ghana, growing up, movie, Peace Corps, Saturday supper, Shopping
Comments: 10 Comments
July 16, 2019
The air is still. The leaves just sort of hang off the branches. It will be hot and the humidity is returning.
Last night we had a wonderful movie night. The air was cooler than it had been. We feasted on cheese and crackers: Kerrygold Cheddar and mango ginger soft cheese on a variety of crackers. We had movie candy and a cake to celebrate opening night. The movie, Capricorn One, was excellent, so was the cake.
In Ghana, I went to the movies. There were two theaters in Accra. The sitting areas were outside. The entries and the refreshment counters were inside. One was close, walking distance, from the Peace Corps hostel. My favorite time was when it rained. We’d move our chairs under the overhang and stay dry. I remember watching Is Paris Burning and West Side Story.
During my live-in in Bawku, I saw a couple of movies. The local theater was owned by my host father. It was outside, right near the house where I lived. I remember a spaghetti western when reel 3 was showed before reel 2. I think I was the only one who noticed.
In Bolga, the Hotel d’ Bull was the entertainment center for the whole town. It had the cold room, one with air-conditioning, and drinks though I didn’t drink liquor because all they had was whiskey and gin. I did have coke with ice, a treat. The hotel showed movies, really bad movies, but I didn’t care. I loved sitting in the expensive seat, on the roof, and eating kabobs and drinking coke. They’d bring a bowl of water before I ate so I could wash my hands. That was common in Ghana as most people used their hands, not utensils, to scoop their food.
Watching a movie on the deck reminds me of those movie nights in Ghana. We often see a really bad science fiction movie. We don’t care. It is the fun of sitting outside in the dark munching candy and laughing with friends.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Bawku, Bolgatanga, crackers and cheese, Ghana Peace Corps, Hotel d'Bull, Kerrygold cheddar, movies, still
Comments: 8 Comments
March 18, 2019
The sun and the blue sky are still hanging around as is the chill. Every day this week is predicted to be in the 40’s, spring on Cape Cod.
St. Patrick’s day was wonderful. Dinner was superb though I’m not sure superb is the right adjective to describe corn beef and cabbage, a hearty meal. Everything cooked perfectly. The Irish soda bread and the Kerry butter completed the meal. Dessert was scrumptious. I didn’t eat it last night, but I had a piece for breakfast. I wonder if it is still called dessert if you eat it in the morning.
I found more shoots popping their heads above the ground. I count them as wonders. I watch their progress every morning. I saw a bit of yellow yesterday. I’m thinking a daffodil.
I am always thankful to Peace Corps for having assigned me to Bolgatanga. Every day was amazement filled with sounds, sights and feelings that I ever knew existed before living in Ghana. It was all a wonder of unexpected beauty.
I loved sleeping outside in the back of my house. My mattress, dragged from my bedroom, was a necessity as the backyard was concrete with a few big rocks which weren’t removed when the house was built and the concrete laid. I slept outside mostly during the dry season. I’d lie on my back and look at the sky. It was always spectacular with so many stars the nights were never dark. They were filled with shadows. Not a night went by without a falling star streaking across the sky. I oohed and ahed every one of them. They were never commonplace.
I have the same sense of wonder when there are meteor showers here. I take out a chair, something to drink, usually coffee, and I watch the sky. I still ooh and ah.
I can’t imagine a life without a sense of wonder, without seeing the joy of every day.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, Ghana, Peace Corps Ghana, shadows, stars
Comments: 10 Comments
December 20, 2018
Today is a beautiful winter’s day. The sky is a bit overcast, but it is in the 40’s anyway. I’m glad I have a few errands to get me outside, including the dump. Henry needs food, both canned and dry, biscuits and bully sticks to keep him busy. I also need to fill the bird feeders and wrap a few presents. My friends and I are going out for Thai food then we’ll exchange gifts, usually a January event for us.
Last night I sat in the living room just to look at the tree and all the decorations. I decided the room was beautiful. It is gently lit. Light comes from the tree and from a huge basket by the fireplace in which sits a plastic fifties light-up Santa and a decorated gourd with white lights shining through small holes. Two trees sit on different tables. One is a driftwood tree on the big table and the other is a stark white branch tree on the table behind the nativity. Both have white lights. My dining room too is lovely. Most of the light comes from my scrub pine tree in the corner and another fifties plastic Santa in front of it. A small set of lights is in the centerpiece among the ornaments and the pomegranates. The small red ornaments shine.
At Christmas in Ghana where I lived in the Upper Region, in Bolgatanga, it was harmattan time. Hot, dry dusty winds blowing off the desert left every surface gritty. The days were usually in the high 90’s or even over 100˚. The nights were cold, down to the 70’s. I had a wool blanket on my bed, the same one which hangs from the couch back in the living room. My mother had sent decorations and a tiny tree. She even sent a paper brick fireplace for my wall. I hung my stocking on it. I was not looking forward to Christmas, my first away from home. Patrick, another volunteer, and I decided to have a party on Christmas Eve. Bolga was not on anyone’s list to visit except during school holidays when volunteers were in town looking to go north into what is now Burkina Faso and Niger. I baked cookies for the first time ever. We bought Star beer. The other volunteers also bought food, a tradition when visiting another volunteer, and beer. We sang carols. We celebrated together. It was a wonderful Christmas.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, candles, Christmas lights, dinner, Ghana, harmattan, presents, Upper Region
Comments: 6 Comments
September 1, 2018
Today is again glorious, cool and dry. The sun is strong. The sky is blue and unmarred by clouds. I’m going to sit on the deck and take it all in because by Sunday the ugly humidity will be back.
Today is the meteorological end of summer, and Labor Day is the unofficial end but none of that matters to Mother Nature. She will continue to blast us with heat and humidity until fall can finally work its way past her. I’m hoping it will be soon. Fall is my favorite season.
In Ghana we had the dry season and the rainy season. I lived where the dry season was hotter than any other place in Ghana, but now it is the rainy season there so the temperature in Bolga, my other home town, is the lowest it will be all year. It has been in the high 70’s and the mid 80’s there, and rain has fallen just about every day. It is odd to see it cooler in West Africa than it is here.
During my early Peace Corps days, I missed fall, the snow at Christmas and the freshness of spring. I missed flowers. But the longer I lived there, the more I came to love the changes in Ghana’s weather. The rains came intermittently in September. The fields and grasses began to turn brown. Every day seemed hotter than the previous one. By the end of September, it was the high 80’s. In October it was the high 90’s. The worst months, February through April, usually reached 100˚ or more. My favorite month was December. The days were hot, but the nights were cold in comparison. I needed a blanket. It was Bolga’s snow at Christmas. In May the rains started. The grasses turned green. The fields were filled with the young shoots of millet, maize and sorghum. The trees were green with leaves. It was spring, Ghanaian style. The market was overloaded with fresh fruits and vegetables. The tomatoes were luscious.
It has been a long, long while since I lived in Ghana so I have forgotten the horrific heat, those days over 100˚. Back then I seldom complained. I took my cold shower late, jumped into bed and fell asleep. Now I complain and moan and turn on the air conditioner.
That’s the way it was there, and now that’s the way it is here.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, Bolgatanga, dry, dry season, end of summer, Ghana, heat, humidity, maize and sorghum, millet, Mother Nature, Peace Corps, rainy season, Upper Region
Comments: 6 Comments
August 30, 2018
The heat is still horrific. This is the worst it’s been in my memory. My friend Bill wondered if it is hotter here than in Bolgatanga, Ghana where we both lived. Some days I believe it is.
This is the rainy season in Ghana, but it isn’t the rainy season here. We haven’t seen rain in a while, especially that drenching rain I remember in Ghana. Luckily my irrigation system has kept the lawn and garden green. The plants in the deck pots have to be watered almost every day or they wilt. I understand wilting. I wilt every time I go outside. It is not a pretty sight.
When I was younger, I could tolerate the heat here in the house far better. I didn’t even have a fan. I used to sleep downstairs on the couch, and I kept the back door open all night. That was enough. Now, it would never be enough.
When I was a kid, I slept through the hottest nights because I was exhausted, because the swelter of every summer day didn’t matter, didn’t slow me down, didn’t stop me from having fun. I rode my bike, played softball, walked to the pool and hung around outside with friends. I was a kid so being sweaty and dirty was no never mind. The sprinkler was my summer shower. That it was cold water was the best part.
My mother always had a pitcher of ZaRex in the fridge. It was cheaper than making lemonade and tasted better than Kool-Aid. The pitcher she used the most was blue aluminum. The glasses were also aluminum but were a variety of colors. She had a couple of glass pitchers, one smaller than the other. I found their duplicates in an antique store and bought them both. I’m heavy into nostalgia.
My mother didn’t use her stove or oven a whole lot in the summer because the small kitchen held the heat. Sandwiches were acceptable supper food. My dad barbecued on weekends but my mother never did during the week. Everyone knew barbecuing was a man’s job. That my father sometimes set himself on fire was just an acceptable risk.
I have a doctor’s appointment in Hyannis today. I’m not happy with going outside. That my car has AC doesn’t matter. It’s just the idea of it.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: aluminum glasses, aluminum pitcher, Bolgatanga, cold food, cold water, Ghana, heat, hose, plants, small kitchen, sprinkler, sweltering, watering, wilt, Zarex
Comments: 10 Comments
August 6, 2018
Help!! I am a prisoner in my house. Going outside could mean certain death. Okay, I admit to an exaggeration here but not by much. It is so hot and humid it took my breath away when I went to get the papers. I didn’t even stop to admire the garden. I am now safe and comfortable in my cool house. I will admire the sun from the inside out.
When I was a kid, I don’t think we even had fans in the house. My mother kept the shades down. The living room did feel a touch cooler but not by much. Sometimes we’d go through the sprinkler, get cool and wet then go to bed. I used the same trick in Ghana. I’d take my shower, a cold shower as I had no hot water, just before bed then go to bed still wet. I was air cooled and could fall asleep.
Heat never really bothered me that much when I was a kid. I was out every day all summer, even when it rained. In Ghana, in Bolga, it was always hot, even in the rainy season, but that’s just the way it was and life went on.
I have a great memory of Ghana. One of my friends was terminating (Peace Corps argot for finishing service) earlier than the rest of us were. His school was on strike so there was nothing for him to do. During Easter holiday a few of us met up in Accra by happenstance as we always stayed at the Peace Corps hostel. We decided to go out for drinks and toast our departing friend. We went to a hotel, one of the grand old hotels. We sat in the bar. There were chairs and couches with flowered cushions, not uncommon furniture in Ghana. Fans were on the ceiling and were stirring the air a bit. There was a bank of open windows behind us and outside those windows was a garden of ferns, eucalyptus and frangipani. I had been whisked back in time to a colonial hotel, like in some old movie of long ago times and places. I was living in old Accra for just a little while. Even now I can close my eyes and see the fan, the windows and me sitting on the couch, drink in hand. It is an amazing memory.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, Accra, Bolgatanga, colonial hotel, eucalyptus and frangipani, heat, humidity, Peace Corps Ghana
Comments: 10 Comments
December 30, 2017
The deep freeze continues. It is 16˚ and snowy weather is predicted. The sky is grayish white, and the air is still. I have to go out later for the one thing I didn’t know I needed the other day when I shopped, toilet paper, an item as essential as food and water.
My car needed only the oil change. Everything else checked out just fine though I was told to keep an eye on my tires.
In Ghana this time of year I loved the weather. Today in Bolgatanga it was 88˚ but tonight it will be only 68˚, and that’s the way it will continue for the rest of the week, even getting as low as 63˚ at night. That’s one thing I didn’t expect in Ghana, cold weather. I had no clothes to keep me warm. My students every morning were dressed in sweaters on sweaters and layers after layers. I had bare arms and sock-less feet, but I had steaming coffee in a huge mug to get me started, and the mornings warmed quickly.
I watched a movie today which partly took place in Jordan. One scene was of the city of Amman in the early morning light of dawn, and the only sound is the call to prayer. I stayed right near a mosque during my Peace Corps live-in, a three week stay with a family. I was in a town called Bawku which is heavily Moslem. A small mosque was on the street below my room. The pre-dawn call to prayer was live, not recorded. I heard it every morning and still remember so well the beauty of that song. The single voice was clear and powerful. It became familiar. I’d lie there listening then at the end of the song I’d fall back to sleep.
In Marrakesh I also heard the songs to prayers every day coming from a mosque not that far from my riad and also from the Koutoubia Mosque, the largest one in the city which towers over everything. Its minaret is sort of a landmark for the city. I was usually out walking around when I’d hear the afternoon calls. The voice was recorded, but it sounded over everything else and was rhythmic and lovely.
I know smells become familiar and trigger memories. The aroma of burning wood always brings me back to Ghana, especially the mornings, when breakfast was being cooked over the fire. When I was in Morocco and heard the songs to prayer, I was reminded of Ghana, and that small mosque and the beauty of the single voice singing. It seems sounds too carry memories.
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Categories: Musings
Tags: 16˚, Bawku, Bolgatanga, call to prayer, freezing, Ghana, harmattan, Jordan, Marraesh, Muslems, oil change, Peace Corps, pre-dawn, Snow, wood burning
Comments: 4 Comments