Posted tagged ‘Ghana’

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“Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.”

July 2, 2012

Monday still carries a bit of gloom about it even though I’ve been retired for so long. The Monday horror of the alarm abruptly pulling me from dreamland after two glorious days of sleeping in, the tiny Monday papers and the start of yet another work week dissipates slowly. It took 35 years for the weekday resentment to build, and the older I got, the more difficult  it was to drag myself out of bed. I loved my job but, on Mondays, I loved it the least.

I am not a morning person. I love the late nights when I am the only one awake, and everything is quiet. When all the houses around me are dark, I feel as if the night is mine. I’d probably be a great vampire if they really existed. I’d have no problem sleeping all day; however, the biting and the blood would be drawbacks. In Ghana, I actually liked the mornings and didn’t need an alarm clock. The roosters worked just as well, maybe even better as they didn’t need electricity or batteries. It was in the mornings when my school compound came most alive. I could hear the swishing sounds of brooms as students cleaned and swept the grounds then I’d hear the water from the taps splashing into their buckets and the clangs as the students hauled their buckets to the stalls where they’d take their bucket baths. Little kids walked by on their to the primary school and greeted me as I sat outside to drink my coffee. The morning air was always the sweetest and the coolest.

I love mornings in other places, wherever I travel.  I remember Santa Fe and getting to the square early in the morning where I sat and drank my coffee and  watched the Indians set up their wares in front of the Governor’s Palace. I watched store owners sweep the walks in front of their establishments and realized sweeping is a universal. In Portugal I watched trucks unloading fish and produce in front of shops and stores. I ate fresh rolls and drank strong coffee as I walked. Most places are best seen in the early morning when people are going about their business and the day is unfolding.

 

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“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach”

July 1, 2012

The line outside my Sunday breakfast spot was long. I even had to put my name on a list. The air conditioning has been on since early yesterday afternoon. Gracie pants every time she goes outside. Barely a leaf moves, just the few every now and then at the tips of the branches. This is a summer weekend!

I remember weekends at the beach when I was a kid. Nothing tasted better after swimming and playing in the sand than a cold cup of Zarex and a sandwich with a gritty crunch. The Oreos my mother always packed tasted best with an ocean view. We always went shell hunting and came home every time with a pile of them. Our house should have been filled with them, but after a while they disappeared, finally tossed by my mother when she cleaned. After a day in the sun, I don’t think I ever stayed awake on the ride home. I remember going to bed with my head on the pillow and having hot water trickle from my ears, water the result of diving in the ocean, mostly at the sandbar where the water, when the tide was out, was warm enough to enjoy.

I remember an Easter Sunday at the beach in Ghana. I don’t remember which beach, but it had clean water, a place which sold food and few people. We walked a long way on the sand and played ball with a palm tree branch bat and a coconut ball. I got the worst sunburn.

In Togo, the beach sand was so hot your feet could barely stand the walk on it. We always hurried to the small thatched cabanas here and there on the sand. They were usually empty. Very few people went to the beach. The water there was wonderful though I remember one time when I was swimming and a dead pig floated by me. I wasn’t all that grossed out-I had been in Arica over a year and was just about beyond being grossed out by anything. There was a hotel with a restaurant across from the beach, and we often stopped there to eat after an afternoon swimming and lounging under the cabana. We usually ordered bifteck and pomme frites with a coke. The restaurant wasn’t fancy, but I can still see it in my mind’s eye. It was white with a blue trim, had outside tables and a view of the beach.

Beaches fill so many of my memory drawers it is no wonder I live on the Cape.

 

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What’s right is beautiful: what’s beautiful breeds joy: what breeds joy is goodness.”

June 29, 2012

I can feel the warmth coming. It’s that sort of a morning, a morning still and dark, a humid morning. Sounds seem louder: a dog barking from down the street, cars going by the house and the clicking of Gracie’s collar when she runs around the yard. Every now and then she comes into the house usually panting from her run. Gracie just wants a pat and the assurance I’m still here then she goes back outside.

Tonight is a play and that’s it for my weekend dance card, but I’m just fine with indolence. I figure the deck is as fine a place as any to spend my time.

I seldom watch TV in the daytime, but today I made an exception. The Brink’s Job is offered On Demand. I love that movie because it takes place in Boston and a couple of scenes are in the town where I grew up. They chose it because the uptown was frozen in time, a perfect 50’s time. Since then, however, uptown has changed, but in the movie I get to see my town, the one I remember from my childhood.

I need to get a couple of passport pictures so I can send for my Ghanaian visa. Last year the visa ran out before I left, but, just as I expected, no one noticed when I was leaving. Ghana takes a lackadaisical approach to both entires and departures. No one checked my yellow shot record when I arrived, and they took only a cursory look at my passport. All of that reminded me of a re-entry when I was in the Peace Corps and returning to Ghana after traveling. I was at Kotoka International and was denied re-entry despite my resident’s visa and my re-entry permit. A cholera epidemic had started while I was gone and without a shot I couldn’t enter. I explained I wasn’t a casual visitor: I lived in Ghana and wanted to go home. No was the answer. I then asked the official if he’d let me in if I raised my right hand and swore to God to get a shot. He said yes so I swore to get a shot and off I went right to Peace Corps where I got the shot just as I promised.

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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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“Where is the good in goodbye?”

April 26, 2012

Yesterday was a bad day all around. A friend died in the morning. She had been sick a long while, but I had come to think of her as Superwoman surviving against all odds. That was the worst part of the day. Later I heard from my dog sitter that she can’t stay when I go to Ghana this summer. That one I’ll put away for a bit as it is four months until my trip. The last was Gracie jumped the rail off my deck, landed in the herb garden and started a fight with a dog being walked on the street. There had been a bamboo barrier on the top of the rail to heighten it, put there just in case, but it had fallen apart the other day. The deck is off the second floor of the house so the jump is a long one, but that didn’t faze Gracie. I could see where she had landed: she left a similar mark in the herb garden to a long jumper’s mark in the sand, and I half expected two guys out there with a tape measure. I ran out front when I heard yelling. The woman had Gracie and one of her two dogs by the collar. It seems Gracie had attacked one and the other had attacked Gracie. I grabbed Gracie who wanted nothing more than to go after that dog and dragged her into the house. I called Skip, my factotum, who came right over to help. Luckily I had boards, all the same size, and Skip constructed a wall to replace the bamboo. It is mighty ugly, but I dare Gracie to jump that one.

The one bright spot in the day yesterday was Grace Awai, one of my favorite Ghanaian students, called me from Ghana. She was not in Bolga last summer so I didn’t see her though I asked about her. They told me she lived in Accra and they didn’t know her number. A while back Grace visited Bolga, was told I’d been there and took my number. We talked a long while. Grace says she’ll meet me at the airport and come north for a while. I reminded her how I used to visit her mother’s pito house and have pictures of one of my visits. Pito is a wine made from millet and always served in a gourd. I thought it a bit sludgy but drank it any way being the courteous type that I am.

Well, I have high hopes today will be a better day. Gracie is still in the yard though she has taken to digging in my newly planted vegetable garden. I’m thinking she needs to be hobbled.

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“Clothes are inevitable. They are nothing less than the furniture of the mind made visible.”

April 3, 2012

Today is a perfect spring day on Cape Cod: a bright sun, a deep blue sky and a bit of a chill in the air. My grass is turning green. The forsythia has yellow flowers as bright as the sun. The springs bulbs have all bloomed, and the green tips of flowers are appearing in the front garden. The male goldfinches are almost brilliant yellow. All of the signs say spring.

Even when I was a kid, I didn’t love pouffy dresses for Easter. I remember one year I had my mother buy me a Lois Lane sort of suit. At my grandmother’s I overheard my mother tell my aunt that’s what I wanted when my aunt questioned my choice of an Easter outfit. My sisters and my cousins were bright in pastels with pouff, and I guess I seemed out-of-place.

When I worked, I wore dresses and skirts every day. One time at lunch in the cafeteria, a student came up to me and said she wanted to wear clothes like mine when she grew up. I was thrilled by her compliment. Most of my clothes back then came from small shops which sold dresses from Mexico and India and countries with similar styles. Afer I retired, I seldom visited those shops as I didn’t often have an occasion to wear a dress, but I did buy a new one for a wedding last October. The dress had the same look as back when especially when I added Ghanaian beads and matching earrings.

The clothes I wore in Ghana, always dresses, were mostly made in Ghana. The cloth was beautiful and the colors amazing. I’d sometimes have a dress made with elaborate stitching around the neck called jeremy in those days. Tie-dye was another one of my favorite cloths for a dress. The patterns were intricate with stripes or squares or dots and back then the die was natural. I also had dresses made from batik., and I still have batik I brought back forty years ago.

For Easter this year, I’m wearing the dress I bought for the wedding. It’s a green color which reminds me of spring. I’ll wear the necklace and earrings. I think together, the dress and jewelry, are  smashing!

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

March 30, 2012

Today is beautiful, sunny and bright. A few white whispy clouds give the blue sky a bit of character. A strong breeze is shaking branches and whirling bird feeders. It makes the day feel a little bit cooler than it is. I’m glad to see the sun.

I have never been one for domesticity. My house is always kept clean, but I don’t always make my bed. I never learned to crochet or knit, and I’m sorry for that, but I can do crewel and needlepoint but haven’t for a long while. Sewing a button is about the best I can do. In most situations, tape or a stapler work just fine. I do love to cook, and I sit and look at recipes imagining menus and how the foods fit together, and I’m good at it. I am a utilitarian dresser with comfort being the over-riding factor. What goes best with what is way out of my fashion zone. My house is a hodgepodge of styles and I think I did a good job of putting everything together. The walls are bright with color. There’s red, pink, lilac, blue and yellow. This room is the only one untouched. It’s too filled with so many collections like books, DVD’s, hats and so much more which makes moving everything to paint the room an almost endless task so I live with the drab white wall. I think my house is cosy, and I love dressing to match it and leisurely taking in the day.

My house in Ghana had four rooms inside: two bedrooms, a living room and the eating area where the fridge and kitchen table were. All the furniture came with the house. In the living room I decorated with posters from home. The bookcase was the same sort we all had in college: bricks and lengths of wood. I made a bed spread which meant buying enough cloth to cover the bed. I did get fancy and make matching curtains. I measured the wall of windows, cut the cloth the right length then cut string a bit longer than the cloth and finally sewed a hem so it covered the string. I tied the curtain from one side of the windows to the other. From the outside it looked better than from the inside. My lightbulbs hung down from the ceiling and weren’t all that attractive so I made a lampshade from a Bolga basket for the living room. You can now buy Bolga baskets from catalogs, and they are pretty expensive. I probably paid a cedi (like a dollar) or less for mine so cutting it for a shade wasn’t a big deal. I’d probably do it again if I lived in Bolga now as the baskets there are still cheap, but I’d give the curtain job to a seamstress or I’d bring my stapler.

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” If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?”

March 23, 2012

A damp, cloudy day has replaced our two days of summer. It is 57° which is still quite warm, but it’s no deck day. From my window, I can see pine trunks and branches dark against the light grey sky. A slight breeze flutters the dangling dead oak leaves. It’s a sweatshirt day.

Yesterday TCM was b&w 1950’s science fiction day. I watched a behemoth rise from the Thames and a glob of radioactivity melt people. The best of the films was THEM!, the giant ant movie, one of my all time favorites. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I still remembered some of the dialogue. “Make me a sergeant in charge of the booze,” is one of its memorable lines. At the beginning of the film, the regular size ants eating the sugar on the floor of the destroyed shop is a great scene and the only hint of what is to come. Pat Medford, the lady PhD, got off the plane wearing a suit, a hat and white gloves while Robert Graham aka James Arness, the FBI hero, constantly complained about the desert heat but never took off his fedora. Before the Big Dig, as you went through the South Station tunnel in Boston, you could hear, bouncing off the walls, the exact sound the ants made. I always listened for it as I drove through.

In Ghana, some of the ant hills are taller than people. They always looked like something out of a science fiction movie to me. The hills, made out of sand, are different shapes: some look like the sand castles we used to build on the beach while others resemble stalagmites which rise from the savannah like conical sand icicles. I never stopped to see the ants by the hills, but once during training an army of ants marched across the school grounds. The column was about a foot wide, but I have no idea how long it was as I had to pull myself away to go teach. I watched as long as I could. Some of the ants carried leaves while others carried food of some sort. We’d put a leaf in the middle of the column, but it never deterred the ants who’d move around it on the two sides then regroup when past it. It was fascinating.

I have a full dance card today.

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“Forget about being world famous, it’s hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.”

March 3, 2012

Gee, it’s raining. What a surprise! I was shocked when I woke up and saw yesterday and the day before and the day before that outside my window. The difference is today is warmer at 50°.

It’s sci-fi Saturday when I get to watch a whole day of TV filled with creatures whose main diet is man. Right now Manticore is picking out his entrée having already enjoyed several appetizers, nearly a whole village full.

I have to grocery shop today, my least favorite thing to do. I’ll go up and down the aisles filling my cart while in a stupor hoping to avoid conversation and the carts parked willy-nilly in the middle of the aisles. My list of what I really need is even boring, mostly household cleaning items. I can barely wait for the dishwashing liquid aisle.

You might have figured I am feeling a bit languid today. If my fridge weren’t empty, I might postpone the shopping, but I’m stuck hitting the aisles if I want lunch or dinner. Where is that housekeeper I ordered?

I used to love to shop in the market in Ghana. It was filled with colors and sounds and chattering in a language I didn’t understand but loved hearing. First, I’d make my usual stops: the beef meat market, my vegetable lady, the egg man, the pick out your chicken line-up and then I’d wander. I never knew what I might find. Some days I’d buy cloth to have a dress made. Once I found a watermelon. Usually I’d just fill my bag with onions, tomatoes, maybe garden eggs and a yam. I’d  greet everyone,”Sanda kasuwa,” (I greet you in the market), and they’d return the greeting. I was a usual sight so no one took special notice of this white woman wandering the market.

I loved market day. It was every third day, and I’d go if I could. Now I get stuck shopping in the dullest of places: Stop and Shop. I know their meat will never turn green and I won’t find a partially formed chicken when I break an egg but where’s the adventure?

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