Posted tagged ‘Ghana’

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”Ah! Christmas, old friend!”

December 9, 2025

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.

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“Every snapshot is a reminder that the moment was real.”

November 2, 2025

Today is a perfect autumn day. It is 51° and sunny. The sky is blue everywhere. We have a breeze, but it mostly sways only the tallest branches. The dogs are in and out. They hate to waste a day like today.

The mouse count is now 7. Only one trap last night held a wee beastie.

Last night I went through all the pictures of my two years in Ghana. It is a journey I love taking. My memory drawers are filled with the stories behind those pictures. I can close my eyes and still see it all. The first picture was taken on the bus from the hotel to the airport. I am wearing a white top. What you can’t see is the skirt I’m wearing. I remember it was pink and filled with flowers, and I always wore it with that top. I didn’t know the names of most of the people on that bus, but I came to know them all. The next picture was of Kotoka Airport in Accra. As we got ready to land, we all crowded together to look out at Ghana below us. I remember standing in the airport and being welcomed by Peace Corps and by Ghanaian officials. I remember we stood, on the second floor with a bank of windows behind us overlooking the tarmac. We were toasted with Fanta, which meant only the orange drink. I remember seeing the plane’s crew buying souvenirs at a kiosk in the airport. One of them bought a spear. We boarded busses.

I took pictures from the bus windows. A couple are of the kiosks lining the sides of the road and of women standing waiting to cross the road. Each woman is wearing clothes made from colorful cloth and some had babies on their backs. That first look had me in awe, had me realize I was in a place I didn’t recognize in any way. I remember gawking out the window until I fell asleep. Later that view became commonplace, and sometimes I too would be waiting with the women on the side of the road.

I know why I remember so much. Though I came to feel at home and had daily routines, I never took living there for granted. My memory drawers worked overtime capturing every experience, every trip to the market, every walk across the school compound, every lesson in a classroom filled with students I remember, every rainy season and every greeting.

Those pictures are really a newsreel holding on to visuals vibrant and alive, the sights and sounds of my life in Ghana.

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“The train is a small world moving through a larger world.”

August 16, 2025

Today is a lovely day. It is pleasantly warm. The sun is bright and glistens through the leaves on the backyard oak trees. The house has a bit of night chill, and my den is still dark. The dogs are napping.

The other night I was sitting with Jack. I had given him treats, filled all his bowls and cleaned his litter. I was reading, and he was getting pats. That was when I noticed the mouse. It came from under the bed across from Jack and me and went right to the snack bowl. The mouse looked as healthy as any I’ve seen. Cats snacks can do that. Jack noticed, jumped down and checked under the bed. He didn’t catch the mouse. I need another have a heart trap.

I grew up as part of the wandering generation. The world seemed so safe back then. I could go anywhere without fear. I’d leave in the morning and, if I brought my lunch, I’d be gone all day. I had no route, no idea where I’d go. I just went. My mother didn’t worry. I’d ride and keep an eye out for adventures and for treasures like the golf balls I’d find across the street from the golf course. I’d sometimes have my lunch on a bench under the trees by the town hall.

I had favorite places. I am a lover of trains, and it started back then. I loved sitting and watching the trains at the station the next town over. I imagined the trips I’d take. I’d ride across country on a sleeper train. I’d eat in the dining car. I’d sit and watch the world from the observation car.

I have had some wonderful train rides. My dreams came true. In Ghana, I’d go first class from Accra to Kumasi. I’d sit in a compartment with big easy chairs and a door which slid open. Usually I was by myself. I’d always sit and look out the window. I never wanted to miss anything. I was on a sleeper train in Ghana which derailed. That woke me up and I had to get off the train. No one was hurt, and, for me, it was an adventure, a tale to be retold. I slept in a couchette in Finland. It had six bunks, but there were only three of us, my friend and I and a Finnish woman. She and I spoke by using the Finnish-English dictionary and pointing at words. I woke up at a train station in the Arctic Circle.

I still want to go across country in a sleeper train. It is at the top of my dream list. It always been there.

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“Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.”

August 14, 2025

The morning is overcast and humid. Nothing is moving in the thick air. Even noises are dulled. It is already 80°. The weather reports for today disagree. Some say spotty rain while others say no rain. I’m pinning my hopes on spotty rain as it has been so long since it last rained.

My mood matches the weather. I have no energy. I think I’ll spend the day reading. Turning pages is about all I can manage.

When I was a kid, my favorite hamburgers were made by Burger Chef. There used to be one in my town. I don’t know what it was about them or how they differed from Carroll’s, which also sold burgers, 15 cent burgers, in my town around the same time. I just know I liked them better. I don’t know when but both of them disappeared and were replaced by McDonald’s and Burger King. My mother loved the burgers at Friendly’s. They were served on toasted bread, not rolls. I am a burger fan, well a cheeseburger fan. Burgers are my favorite out to eat foods. Fill the rest of the plate with fries, and I am a happy woman.

In my town in Ghana, there was a butcher and a meat factory though calling it a factory is a stretch. The butcher was in a building in the market. I bought beef there, mostly tenderloin as that was how it was cut. The meat was tough because it was from old cows. I always ate it in some sort of a gravy so it could spend some time over the fire. I didn’t compliant though as my fresh beef, well sort of fresh, was only sold in the area where I lived, not in most of the rest of the country. At the factory we, my friends and I, could buy hot dogs. We’d pack up the small charcoal burner and the hot dogs then have an adventure. We’d ride our motos into the bush and then stop for a picnic. Once we stopped by a village watering hole. I’m sure the small boys carrying buckets and fetching water wondered what the heck these three white people and a toddler were doing sitting on a blanket by their watering hole and eating. I think that was our oddest picnic spot.

Years ago I was an English teacher. Even now I take umbrage at poor grammar in scripted TV programs. The correct case for the object of a preposition seems to be out of reach. I is used instead of me. I suspect people think it sounds more sophisticated as in give it to John and I.

We were interviewing a woman for a secretarial program. She prefaced one answer by saying we had hit the nose right on the head. I just heard a man say you could knock him over with a brick. Yes, you can!

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“While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.”

August 7, 2025

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.

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“Then came July like three o’clock in the afternoon, hot and listless and miserable.”

July 29, 2025

It is summer hibernation time. The air conditioner is blasting to keep the torrid heat at bay. Right now it is 87°. Every report gives 90°as the high. I am no longer singing Oh what a Beautiful Morning. I am now singing a bit of an off key rendition of the Heat Is On.

When I was young, the heat never really bothered me. I was out every day sometimes to the playground where I played softball and did crafts while other times I was on my bike. We didn’t even have a fan, but that didn’t matter. After a full day, I fell sleep. The treat of the day was a popsicle bought from Johnny the ice cream man. My favorite was root beer followed by wild cherry.

Our living room was always dark. My mother pulled all the shades down to keep the sun at bay. The kitchen was hot, no shades and an open back door. Suppers were quick meals. The oven was seldom turned on as it heated up the small kitchen. If we opened the fridge to check around, we’d hear my father, “Close the fridge. You’re letting all the cold air out.” I remember the freezer had layers of ice. Our cold drink was Zarex, mostly orange Zarex. My father called it bug juice. I remember it was always in a blue aluminum pitcher which had a set of aluminum glasses (an oxymoron) in different colors. The glass always felt cold in my hand, and it was wet from condensation. After the sun went down, it was a bit cooler, and we stayed outside until my mother called. We had no set bedtime in the summer.

I didn’t know what hot was until the dry season in Bolgatanga. A cool day was in the low 90’s. The only saving grace was the heat was dry. I remember I’d be sitting in a chair in my living room, and when I got up, a sweat outline of my body was on the cushion. I had only a cold shower, but it was a delight in the dry season. I always took my shower just before bed. I’d not dry off, throw on a robe, hurry inside, take off my robe and go to bed. I fell asleep being air dried and feeling cool.

Now I hurry from air conditioner to air conditioner. I gasp when I get into my car, but luckily, it only takes a few minutes to get cold. I let the dogs out, but Henry often turns around and comes back inside. Nala stays out longer, and I keep watch. I don’t want her out long. They sleep deeply in the cool house.

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“If you give bad food to your stomach, it drums for you to dance.”

July 26, 2025

I am running out of adjectives to describe the beauty of these summer days. This morning is pulchritudinous ( straight from Roget). A few clouds share a cornflower colored sky. It is cool at 74°. I can feel a strong breeze on my back from the north facing window. It is morning nap time for the dogs, not to be confused with early afternoon, late afternoon, early evening or later evening naps. Henry is always to my left and Nala to my right. We are creatures of habit, the dogs and I.

The rest of today’s blog is a bit different. I have the very first aerogram I sent home from Ghana. I thought I’d share some of it. It is dated June 30, 1969, my first full day in Ghana. We had arrived in Accra at 11 the morning before. We went through all of the official airport stops then drank a welcoming toast given by Ghanaian officials. We rode the busses to Winneba down coast where we would be staying for two weeks. I slept much of that ride.

In Winneba they gave us 30 cedis, our spending money for those two weeks, and then gave us a welcoming lunch: deviled eggs, a bottle of Star beer, a tomato-onion mix and some meat on a stick. We were entertained by villagers playing drums and dancing highlife, a truly Ghanaian dance. We walked to the beach where the waves were tremendous. We were warned about dangerous undertows. Later in the week, one of our language instructors drowned. What was a surprise as I was reading this letter was how much I described the food. It must have made a big impression. Dinner that first night was cocoa, some kind of a stew with thick broth, beans and fish. I wrote it was pretty good which makes me laugh, so descriptive. That first day after breakfast, eggs and toast and juice, we walked through town and met the chief of Winneba.

Next I wrote about how friendly the Ghanaians were. They knew we were part of Peace Corps. In town we were met with handshakes and hellos and many stopped to talk. I’m sure you are eager to know about lunch. Here are my exact words: for lunch we had plantain and a second dish I described as looking like matted seaweed and barf. It was made from leaves, palm oil, fish and a few other ingredients I didn’t name. I said if I closed my eyes it didn’t taste as bad as it looked.

In one paragraph I described how beautiful Ghana is with all its greenery and a beach lined with palm trees. I wrote about how I heard drums from one of the houses and how amazing the sound was. Somehow, though, I missed describing dinner.

The rest of the aerogram describes that first week, the meetings, the language training, the shots, and an hour by hour schedule of my day. I’ll save that for another day, but I do want to leave you with this: “Now I look around and find it really difficult to believe I am actually in Ghana, in Africa. Everything is so different but becoming so usual. I can’t wait for more.”

She wata rana (goodbye in Hausa, the language I learned)!

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“Let the rain kiss you, Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops, Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”

July 25, 2025

The wonderfully cool days and nights are done, kaput, over. We now have that heat wave which has been working its way across the country. It is already 84° and will get hotter. The only saving grace is the possibility of thunder showers in the late afternoon. It has been a long while since rain.

I love dramatic rain with its thunder and lightning. I love the sound of the pouring rain hitting the doors and windows. It’s raining cats and dogs comes to mind. There seems no connection between the rain and the cats and dogs, but we all know what it means. I even have a night light of cats and dogs falling in the rain. I am hoping to see those idiomatic falling animals late this afternoon.

I loved the rainy season in Ghana. It rained almost every day. Some storms were heavy, but most were light, the sort which don’t interfere with going to town to the market. In the market, women sat in the rain under umbrellas to sell their wares, but I never saw Ghanaians walking under an umbrella. I didn’t either. Getting wet was cooling.

My classrooms and my house had tin roofs. I wish my house now did. When it rained and hit the tin roof, the sound seemed to have a beat. It was soothing, relaxing, Mother Nature’s white noise, but it did make teaching a bit complicated. The rain was louder than I was.

When I was a kid, summer rain was fun. If the storm was heavy, the rain quickly flowed into the gutters beside the sidewalks. There was white water close to the drains. We used to walk in the gutters kicking up the rainwater and getting soaked. Now, when that happens, I always think of It and keep an eye out for Pennywise and that red balloon.

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“Make the world a better place. Leave the country.”

February 27, 2025

The morning is damp and chilly. It must have rained during the night. The clouds are dark. More rain is coming. It is in the 40’s. When I went out to watch the dogs, I wasn’t so cold this time.

This morning I sat on the couch to drink my coffee. The paper was on the table in front of me. I wasn’t ready to read it. I just sat there remembering. This is Peace Corps week. Peace Corps day is Saturday which commemorates the day President Kennedy established the Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. My Peace Corps years were a life time ago, but all of it, from training to close of service, sits bright in my memory drawers. I can close my eyes and see it all. 

Training was long. It was difficult. It was wonderful. On my very first morning in Ghana, in Winneba, I stood on the balcony outside my room seeing the rusted metal roofs of the compounds where people lived. I saw palm trees, my very first palm trees. I could smell the aroma of the lush greenery. I was amazed. I was actually in Africa.

Training was in variety of places. We had more language and student teaching. I remember in Koforidua there were days when I hated training, my why am I here days. Other days I couldn’t imagine being somewhere else.  

I learned Hausa. My name is Lahadi, one born on Sunday. I used my Hausa all the time and remembered enough forty years later to greet people in Bolgatanga, my Ghanaian home.

The last week of training was at Legon, at the University of Ghana. We were all there, all of us who had completed training. We stayed in dorm rooms. We had real coffee every morning. We took language tests, saw kente weavers and watched traditional dancing. Our last day of training was our swearing in ceremony. It was just us in a large room with the ambassador who gave us our oath. We were official, no longer trainees. We were Peace Corps volunteers. 

I wrote and posted this long ago on Coffee. It is time to post it again. “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.”


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”The dry grasses are not dead for me. A beautiful form has as much life at one season as another.”

February 8, 2025

Snow is predicted starting tonight, our first real snow of the winter. Five inches are possible. I have pre-snow chores and errands before I hunker down. Mostly I need animal stuff, things like bird seed, ice melt safe for the dogs and a few of cans of dog food. As for this human, I only need cream for my coffee, but I’m also thinking a bit of chocolate, maybe a whoopie pie. 

I wouldn’t have thought snow is predicted. Today is pretty with a light blue sky and muted sun. It is cold, but it is February, our coldest, snowiest month. 

Where I lived in Ghana was the hottest part of the country. We had two seasons, the rainy and the dry. This time of year, the harmattan, had the worst weather. The days were the hottest, the nights the coldest. The air was dry and dusty from sand blown down from the Sahara. It looked like brown fog and made for poor visibility so even driving was difficult. I remember getting a deep cough from all that dust. My students called it a catarrh. My lips and feet cracked. I’d line my shower room walls with filled buckets of water for bucket baths as the water was often turned off. The nights were cold. I loved feeling cold and snuggling under a wool blanket on my bed. That same blanket is folded on the back part of my couch. I never realized back then how really scratchy it is.

The harmattan had some advantages. The mosquitos disappeared. Laundry dried quickly. There was less humidity and less sweat. I remember passing compounds and seeing corn and onions spread out so they could dry and last longer. 

The disadvantages outweighed the advantages. It never rained. Everything was dried and brown. The surfaces in my house were covered in dust, always, even after being cleaned. The market had fewer fruits and vegetables. I had my fill of tomatoes and onions. I’d have to take bucket baths as there was often no water for my shower. I did get quite adept at using only half a bucket. 

There were family compounds in the field behind my house. During the dry season, with no farming, they worked on the compounds fixing the clay walls and the thatched roofs. During the night, we could hear drums and sometimes the stamping of feet as they danced the traditional FraFra dance. I always felt lucky to live in the Upper Region where tradition was always respected. Once in a while I’d even dance.

I always felt lucky to live in the Upper Region where tradition was always respected. Once in a while I’d even dance.

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