Posted tagged ‘Peace Corps Ghana’

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“Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations.”

September 4, 2022

Today is hotter than it has been. It is already 81° and will get a bit higher, but the humidity is low making it a fairly pleasant day. The breeze is every now and then, but it is a strong breeze. I have nowhere I need to go today. I’m not even going to get dressed. I have a few chores in the house to do, and usually those lead to other chores so it could be a busy day. I hate busy days.

Oh! No! Last night I heard a chewing sound from the hall. Nala was beside me on the couch so for once she was innocent. It was Henry. He was tearing a box into small pieces. He was pulling a Nala. I’ll go crazy if he starts stealing things and sneaking them outside.

When I was a kid, my mother did everything around the house. She cleaned, did the laundry, made the beds and cooked all the meals. On cold school mornings she often made oatmeal or eggs. I loved her soft-boiled eggs. I was only a fan of oatmeal if it had milk and sugar on the top, lots of sugar. The oatmeal back then wasn’t quick-cooking oatmeal. I remember sometimes it boiled, and it looked a bit like lava bubbling in a pool. I had cocoa. My brother had tea. My mother used to put the bags in a tea pot and put the tea pot on the table. I always thought it looked fine, even elegant, having a tea pot on the table. My cocoa unceremoniously came in a cup.

When I was in Africa I had two eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast every day. That is the standard because wherever you stay still serves you the same breakfast. The eggs were fried in ground-nut oil, peanut oil. They had the most amazing taste. The toast was made from sugar bread sold everywhere by small girls carrying trays on their heads. It was delicious. You couldn’t buy butter, only margarine in a can. After a while, though, my taste buds never noticed the difference. It was the same with the milk. It was evaporated from a can.

I love mornings in Ghana. The roosters crow and greet the new day. You can smell charcoal fires as people cook their breakfasts. The air smells sweet. Women are sweeping using small hand brooms made from stocks of grass or branches. You can hear the back and forth swishing. They leave broom lines in the dirt.

Every time I visit Ghana, I love just sitting outside, drinking my coffee and taking in the mornings. They are filled with the sights, sounds and aromas of Ghana which are always a part of me, highlights in my memory drawers. They are a delight.

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“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”

October 15, 2021

Today is cool at 63˚ though it is supposed to get a bit warmer. The forecast is partly cloudy, but the sky is covered in clouds. The breeze is slight. I think it is a sweatshirt day.

I made a list of stuff I want to get done, and I’ve already crossed off one of the biggest tasks: bringing the bags of litter to the car. Gwen, being diabetic, uses the cat box to the extreme. I clean it every day and empty it far sooner than I used to. The used litter bags are heavy. I almost fell down the stairs the last time I carried some to the car. This time I used my cart. It was filled and so very heavy I could only take it one step at a time down the stairs. I pushed it near the car where it sits until I can load the car later.

Today is shot day. I’m getting flu, pneumonia and shingles. They are my first pneumonia and shingles shots. The flu I skipped last year. I was in the house all flu season.

When I was a kid, we only went to the doctor if something was wrong or when we needed shots. The doctor’s office was right beside the driveway to the school parking lot and was in a big old house. His office was on the first floor. I remember sitting and waiting on a bench and looking around the hall outside the doctor’s office. There was a tall stairway with wooden stairs and a carved newel post. I remember how shiny the wood looked. The doctor’s office was at the front of the house. I remember he had a complete skeleton hanging off a hook. His desk was huge as was the doctor. He had one of those giant bellies men sometimes get. I remember he wore a vest and a doctor’s white coat, a coat so small I figured he could never button it across his belly. When I was around 10, I went to see him after I had fallen down the stairs. It was the morning after the fall. He wasn’t gentle. He cleaned the cut by scrubbing it with a gauze pad. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I was thrilled when I didn’t get stitches as the cut was already infected so the doctor slathered something on the cut, covered it with gauze and sent me on my way.

In Ghana, I had scratched an itchy mosquito bite on the top of my foot until it bled. It got infected. I went to the Peace Corps doctor in Accra. He was a good guy. He gave me two options: he could cut it and drain it or he could put antiseptic on it under a gauze pad. He told me the gauze pad would take 5 or 6 days until the cut was healed. Draining it would only mean a few days until it healed. I had him drain the infection. It hurt. Afterwards, he told me it would take 5 or 6 days until it was healed enough. I was a bit surprised as he had told me a few days. He admitted he lied figuring that was the only way I’d have it cut and drained. He was right.

P.S. I went to the deck a bit ago, and there was my stolen African statue just lying there. It didn’t even have bite marks. I hope Nala brings back the tagine next.

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“Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same.”

October 8, 2021

The morning is another pretty one with lots of sun, blue sky and the tiniest of breezes. The house was colder than outside this morning, a sure sign of fall. I put on my sweatshirt. I’m comfortable now.

Nala stole deodorant off my bureau yesterday. I knew she had contraband when she rushed out the dog door and wouldn’t turn around when I called her. I ran out to the deck, but she was already in the yard. I threw my slippers near her. It worked the other day, but not yesterday. Luckily Henry chased her so she dropped her prize. Nothing is sacred.

When I lived in Ghana, I was close to the northern border with Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso. We used to go to Ougadougou, the capital, for the weekend. The day before the trip we’d go to Bolga’s lorry park and arrange for a car heading to Ouga to stop at the school and pick us up on the way. The driver wedged us in so he could carry more people. The road was tarred at first then it became a dirt road, a big dirt road with lorries streaming by. I remember during the rainy season having to get out of the car so it was light enough to pass through the muddiest parts of the road without getting stuck. I thought it was an adventure. I knew when we’d be close to Ouga as the paved road started again.

French is the national language, and I knew enough French to ask questions, to bargain and to order food. Ouga was a small city back then. The market was steps down from the center in the middle of the city. We stayed at a nice hotel with AC about a block from the center. I remember the hotel had an empty pool in the back. I’d walk to get breakfast each morning. Boys on bicycles with huge baskets in front sold baguettes, fresh wonderful baguettes. I’d buy Yucca soda, either green or red. It didn’t matter. They both tasted the same.

One of the joys of Ouga was French food. The only places to eat in Bolga back then were chop bars, little hole in the wall restaurants which offered only fufu or t-zed and soup, traditional dishes. The chop bars bordered the lorry park and had only a rickety table or two. In Ouga, my favorite part of the meal was always the fresh vegetables. I ate green beans, massive helpings, at one restaurant. They were lip smacking good mostly because the only veggies I could find in Ghana were tuber yams, onions and tomatoes.

I never had a visa to get into Burkina. I’d tell the border station I was going for the weekend, and they’d let me in. The guard only wanted to know if I had bam bam, which they mimed as a gun, and if my dress was long enough. I always passed.

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“Vexed sailors cursed the rain, for which poor shepherds prayed in vain.”

July 13, 2020

It is a new day but seemingly the same day. The small breeze, the clouds and the humidity were yesterday and are now today. Henry and I had business outside. He did his. I did mine by collecting the last two chair covers and bringing them inside. I had left them out to dry. They had, but rain is coming. All the covers are piled in the kitchen. The storage bins are under the deck maybe. They could be downstairs. I’ll look tomorrow. As for today, I need to go out, two stops, maybe three if the rain hasn’t yet come.

Standing out in a rainstorm was one of my favorite things when I was a kid. Downpours were the best. I’d stand there with my arms spread, my face to the rain. I’d get soaked. Sadly, downpours never lasted long. The sun always made a comeback. I’d stay outside and dry.

In the dry season, everything turned brown all around me. I walked on hard ground cemented by the dryness. My lips chapped. My feet became calloused. I used a lot of lotion. I adjusted, but I hardly liked the dry season. It was so hot every day. Its only saving graces were the bugs disappeared, and the hot air was actually dry. We kept eye. In April, the humidity started. The rain wasn’t far behind. The first rains were downpours thicker than I’d ever seen. The dry ground had rivulets. The rain on the tin classroom roof was so loud I couldn’t be heard. I used the blackboard to teach. Sometimes I got soaked running to class. I didn’t mind so much. It rained most days. Everything in the fields turned green. The women walking to market were hidden by the tall grass. Millet grew high in fields behind my house. The rainy season, though, didn’t seemed to last near enough. In September, the rain came less frequently. By mid-October it had stopped. It was the dry season again. I had come full circle my first year in Ghana.

Here, the rain can come any season. I like it best in summer.

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“Trains tap into some deep American collective memory.”

July 5, 2020

Today is is dark and damp, grim looking. Nothing is moving in the thick, still air. I’m going nowhere today. I’m not even getting dressed today.

I got to celebrate yesterday. I spent the afternoon with friends. We sat outside around the table and talked, caught up with each other. We dined on cheeseburgers and potato salad, the perfect July 4th foods. It was quiet yesterday, no firecrackers, but I had heard the bangs the night before, late the night before. Neither the cats nor the dog were bothered by the bangs. Henry slept right through.

When I was a kid, summer days felt endless. I was up and gone early, sometimes on my bike, but most summer days I walked down the hill to the playground. I had tennis lessons, played horseshoes and checkers and was on the softball team. I did crafts. One summer I painted a tray for my mother. I was so proud because I, the artless, had perfectly painted the flowers and even the tendrils. I made gimp lanyards for everybody but gimp bracelets for only a chosen few. One Christmas my mother put gimp in my stocking. It had been many years since my gimp days, but my fingers remembered. I made two lanyards.

I love train rides. All of the ones I love are somewhere else. I rode the auto-bus from Quito to Guayaquil. My friend and I were in the first seats. I think that was first class. Anyway, I had to shut my eyes when the driver ran over a chicken and then a few more animals and finally almost a human. If one blow of the horn didn’t get them off the tracks, they were goners. The part of the trip I loved was the ride itself. We went through the banana growing region. We rode a switchback up a mountain. We saw the Andes capped with snow. We rode until the tracks ended, and we had to take a ferry across to Guayaquil.

The train hardly runs in Ghana now. I am sorry for that. I took the train whenever I could, usually from Accra to Kumasi where the train line ended. I always took a first class carriage. It wasn’t expensive. The day cars had stuffed chairs, four of them, and glass doors you slid to open like they did in old movies. I once took a night train from Kumasi to Tema. I was on my way to our mid-term conference. At the first station, people peered in my window. I put down the blinds. During the night, the train derailed. I was jolted out of bed. We were told to pack up and get off the train. We walked across a trestle bridge where the gaps between trestles was huge. People passed kids across. We waited a while, probably a long while based on experience but I don’t remember, and then a train came. We got on and got off in Tema. That was the end of the excitement.

My favorite rides of all were the subway trains into Boston when I was a kid. We took a bus to Sullivan Square where we boarded the subway. I remember the whoosh of the train as it came into the station. I’d wait right by the door for it to open. My mother sat in the middle of us. I’d turn around to look out the window. I’d stay looking until our stop. We were in Boston. We got off at the Jordan Marsh stop.

I still love trains. I love the sounds and the smells. I remember the jerking to start and stop. If I were rich, I’d have my own train car or even cars. I’d pay to attach my car to train lines. It would be glorious.

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“Sup with the sudden harmattan weather anyway? Making my beard feel like those iron sponges.”

June 27, 2020

The morning is lovely, but the day will be hot. It is already 78˚. I expect to have the AC cranking so the house will be nice and cold when I get home from errands.

The weather in Bolgatanga, Ghana was extreme. It was divided into the rainy season and the dry season. The rainy season was hot and oppressively humid. The dry season was sweltering. Strangely enough, though, it actually got chilly in early December, down to the 70’s at night from around 100˚ during the day. I needed a blanket for my bed. The worst of the dry season, the harmattan, began after Christmas. The Harmattan is a dry, dusty wind that blows from the Sahara desert. It hangs around for a couple of months and envelops everything in a cloud of dust. The sand covers the sun. I remember chapped lips and split heels on both feet. The Sahara sand, looking like a large brown cloud, has been blown here. It is the Harmattan.

Halleluia!! I have a list. I needed a list to get me moving. This morning I used the back of my t-shirt to dust shelves in the kitchen while the coffee was brewing. I haven’t done that in a while. Most of my list is for outside, for the deck and garden. I never did my errands yesterday; instead, I stayed home and did stuff around the house and on the deck. The errands are first on my today’s list.

When I was a kid, my father was in charge of outside while my mother ruled inside. The outside was easy: cut the grass and water the flowers in summer and shovel the steps and free the car in winter. My mother cleaned, cooked, washed clothes and took care of us. She was always busy. She was the one who had to discipline us. When we got older, she threw things at us. I remember the dictionary whizzed by my head and hit the wall. Next were her slippers. She’d throw them at us and tell us to bring them to her. We knew better. The slippers weren’t just projectiles. She wanted to whack us with them. She seldom caught us.

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“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

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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“I don’t take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.”

February 24, 2019

The rain is heavy at times. It beats against the roof and windows. The wind is getting stronger. The pine trees feel it the most, and their tops bend and sway.

The Hotel d’Bull, the best place to stay in Bolgatanga during my Peace Corps days, had a huge courtyard. I saw a boxing match there once. They erected a ring right in the middle of the courtyard. The boxers had names like Kofi Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Atiah. Mostly the boxers just danced around the ring throwing only a few punches, but in one bout a boxer got hit more than a few times. All of a sudden from the corner came a towel thrown into the ring. I always thought throwing in the towel was a metaphor.

The back wall of the courtyard was white so they could show movies. I saw my first Bollywood film on that wall. I don’t remember the name of the film, but I do remember how awful I thought it was, but awful didn’t matter. I stayed for the entire film. Entertainment was a rarity in Bolga. The scene I remember the most was a shower scene. Our hero was lathering and singing. I had no idea what he was singing. The songs had no subtitles.

The most expensive seating for movies was on the roof where a few small round metal tables and chairs were the orchestra seats. The roof overlooked the courtyard. The seats didn’t cost much, maybe 10 or 20 pesewas, so we always sat there. We’d order drinks and some food. The waitress would bring us water and soap in a small bowl so we could wash our hands before dining. I always ordered coke. The Hotel d’Bull was one of the few places where they served cold coke. We’d eat kabobs: some were beef and a couple were liver. They were cooked over charcoal, as was most Ghanaian food, but I figure I can call them barbecued anyway. I didn’t even mind the liver.

My outdoor movie nights remind me of Ghana. We have the best seats, and we’re sitting at a round table. As in Ghana, the movies are sometimes really awful, but we love them. The big differences are I never serve liver, even barbecued liver, and clean hands are up to you.

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“Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.”

January 29, 2019

Winter is supposed to be cold, but I think we’re on overload. Single digits are predicted for tomorrow night and on Thursday night it will be 11˚. Today is 37˚, and it actually feels warm.

Today is a lazy day. I slept until close to eleven. I took my time reading the papers and had a couple of cups of coffee. The kitchen smelled wonderful between the grinding of the beans and the brewing of the coffee. I am watching television as I write. I admit that I actually stopped watching two science fiction novels on tubi, something I almost never do. One was about the San Andreas fault and the big quake and the total destruction of LA, and the other was about a glacier from Iceland heading toward North America and causing a new Ice Age, but I just found what may be the worst one of all. It is called Star Leaf. The description says, “Three friends fight to stay alive after finding extra-terrestrial marijuana deep in the woods and accidentally provoking the alien forces guarding it.”

Last night I went to get my mail around 11:30. The street was dark except for my outside light. No cars went down the street and no dogs barked. I could have been the main character in a science fiction movie about the world after a cataclysmic event left few survivors.

When I was in high school, I used to walk home at night after evening events. I remember the silence. I remember the circle of light under each street lamp. I could hear my footsteps.

In Ghana, in Accra, the capital, I used to walk back to the Peace Corps hostel at night. I could have taken a taxi, but I liked the walk. I remember men sitting outside on wooden chairs talking in hushed tones. They seemed always to be smoking. We greeted each other as I passed.

I love to sit outside on summer nights. I watch fireflies flit through the trees. From the small pond at the end of the street, I can hear the croaking of frogs. The Katydids add to the chorus. Summer nights are the most glorious of all, nights so filled with life.

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“I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday.”

January 27, 2019

It’s cold but it is winter after all. The sun was bright earlier this morning, but clouds are in and out, white clouds, though, which don’t hide the light. Snow has a remote chance later in the morning.

I’m watching the send-off for the Patriots. Thirty Five Thousand people are in Gillette Stadium. Most of them are wearing Patriot’s gear. Send-offs aren’t unusual around here. Crowds even gather to send off the Red Sox equipment trucks to spring training. Even more than robins, those trucks are a sign that spring is coming.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a boring day, the most boring day of all. Nothing was opened. We had to stay around the house. My father monopolized the TV to watch football. None us watched with him. He was always a screamer and sometimes rose out of his chair to yell at the team as if they could hear him. When I was older, my mother and I would sit at the kitchen table and play word games. We didn’t need to watch the TV to follow the game play. We just listened to my father.

My mother cooked my favorite Sunday dinner on Saturday, the day before I left for Peace Corps training. She served roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy and baby peas. We didn’t talk all that much. My parents were sort of still in shock that I was leaving for two years, and I was going to Africa, a totally unknown place to all of us. That scared them. I was more excited than scared. My parents drove me to Logan Airport. My father had purchased a plane ticket for me. Peace Corps had sent a bus ticket to Philadelphia, and my father said no way. We walked together to the gate where my parents and I said goodbye. I looked back once and waved. My mother was crying. I know I’ve told this story before, but it is a favorite of mine. I found my seat and started to put all my carry-ons away. There were so many my seat mate asked me if I was running away from home. I told him I was headed to Peace Corps training in Africa. He bought me a couple of drinks. That memory always gives me a chuckle.

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