Posted tagged ‘Peace Corps’

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“My first car was a motorcycle.”

July 23, 2015

Today is lovely with very little humidity and a cooling breeze. I slept in until nearly 10 o’clock. Last night I was tired so I went to bed early (for me) but was still awake at 3. To pass the time I watched a movie on my iPad, A Foreign Field. I kept thinking I’d finish it in the morning, but I watched it through to the end.

A flicker, a bird I haven’t seen in a long while, and a huge woodpecker were the stars this morning at the bird feeders. The usual complement of birds also dropped by, but they, especially the chickadee, looked tiny compared to the flicker. The red spawn hasn’t been by in a long while. I think it has to do with the spawn having gotten caught a few times inside the wire feeder while the full brunt of the jet spray of the nozzle was directed at it. The spawn just couldn’t escape fast enough to avoid the spray.

In Ghana, during my second year, Peace Corps relaxed its rules and allowed us to buy motorcycles. I bought a small motorcycle, a Honda 90. It was designed for modesty, with no middle bar, perfect for me as I had to wear dresses all the time. I learned the gears and the brake when I bought the moto, as it is called it in Ghana, and then rode it over 100 miles from Tamale to Bolgatanga. It was exhilarating. I loved the road and the wind on my face. The bugs were not so welcome. I learned to be exhilarated without smiling. A few inhaled bugs and a choke or two taught me that lesson. I rode along singing out loud to pass the time. I figure a few villagers told stories later about the crazy baturia (white woman) on the moto screeching as she rode.

The road home was a good one, paved all the way. It was called the road to Bolga and it went straight there so I never worried about getting lost. The ride was a long one so I stopped to stretch my legs and once I bought a warm coke at a store along the road. Kids from villages beside the road followed a bit and waved. I was even comfortable enough driving by then to wave back. When I got to the school gate, I honked so the gateman would let me in. He smiled a toothless grin and pointed to my bike. I smiled back and nodded.

I would love to have another motorcycle, but I dare not given how often I bang my leg or fall up or down stairs. Traffic here goes far too fast and hugging the sides of the road is a recipe for disaster. I’m liable to hit a giant rock or branch or have something from the sky fall directly on my head, such is my luck.

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July 17, 2015

Ryan 2-91

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“Are we not all actors playing parts in another person’s play?”

July 17, 2015

My house was only 66˚ when I woke up. In the winter that’s cold but during this time of year it’s a pleasant, lovely morning. Today will be in the 70’s, but tomorrow the humidity will return with stifling air which will make moving uncomfortable and sweaty. No one is attractive in the humidity. We all wilt. Sunday will be the same but with a probability of rain.

My mother was always cold. She kept her house in the 70’s during the winter. The rest of us wore t-shirts and sandals and light pants. Her house was almost tropical. We complained, and she hated it when we did. Now, as I get older, I understand. Each winter I am colder than I had been the winter before. I keep the house at the same temperature it has been for years, but I need a sweatshirt. Long sleeves used to be enough. I think I am becoming my mother.

The other day my former Ghanaian student Franciska called. She likes to check to make sure I am doing well. She calls me her mother though I am only seven years older than she, but motherhood, to her, is a matter of principal, not age. I was her teacher, and that is enough to bestow motherhood on me.

When I am with Franciska, I notice she talks to anyone she can. She also introduces me to her new friends as her mother. They look a bit bewildered until Franciska explains I was her Peace Corps teacher 45 years ago. I cringe at the 45 but love that Peace Corps gets into the conversation. Anything that promotes the Peace Corps is just fine with me. Franciska often tells me she is still bewildered as to why volunteers actually agreed to go to Bolga. She says even Ghanaians don’t like Bolga. It is flat, almost treeless and hot, really hot, in the dry season. Back in my day there were no creature comforts, but I always figured that was just part of the Peace Corps experience: you take, even embrace, what you’re given.

My list is long today-errand day. I have four stops and not a single one of them is fun or exciting. Where’s the Ferris wheel when you need one?

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“I’d rather be a little weird than all boring.”

February 28, 2015

The day is sunny with a blue sky but it looks cold even from the window. The dead leaves at the end of the branches are blowing and making it look worse. Today is a bundle up in many layers sort of day. Right now it is 19˚, a bit warmer than last night. Some snow showers are coming tomorrow, but they don’t even count as anything but an annoyance.

The snow and cold do give me excuses to vegetate a bit although I don’t really need any. After a while, however, even the joy of doing nothing is wearing. Winter has become boring. I haven’t had a cent in my wallet for two weeks. Granted, I did use my cash card but only for food. I bought nothing else because I didn’t go anywhere. This week so far I have amassed a total of 13 miles. It’s embarrassing, but that ends today as I am going to the Multi-Cultural Festival at the college. I’m going to breathe fresh air! I’m breaking free from staying home. I’m getting dressed and am even taking to the highway, okay only three exits, but it is the highway. The Peace Corps has a table there which I organized and have to man for a couple of hours. Other returned volunteers are also taking turns.

I know this is a short entry today, but I have to get ready to leave. I have a list. I always have a list. The music will come later this afternoon after I get home. I’m excited about having a place to go, a different place. I may even double my mileage.

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“It is a rare and beautiful moment when you find love among people and in places that are so completely different from anything you’ve ever known.”

October 25, 2014

We have sun for the first time in days. The morning is chilly the way fall mornings are. The rain and the wind blew pine needles and leaves off the trees so the lawn, the driveway and the deck are covered. The leaves are yellow.

I hope my memories of Ghana and the Peace Corps don’t make you yawn. They appear here often because they are still so much a part of me, even after all these years, and much of what I think, love and respect came from those years. Living for a little more than two years in Africa is mind and soul expanding and that never disappears.

I think I was destined to be a Peace Corps volunteer. When I was eleven, I made a vow to travel. When I was in high school, I joined groups like SNCC believing we all had social responsibilities. In college, among other things, I picketed for the grape workers, marched against the war and tutored Spanish-speaking kids in English. The Peace Corps seemed a perfect fit.

I applied in the fall of my senior year in college. The application was multi-paged and took what seemed forever to finish. When it was sent to Washington, all my hopes and dreams were in many ways attached. The answer didn’t take long. In January the all important letter came inviting me to train to be a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, in Ghana. I sent my acceptance the very same day even though I had no idea where Ghana was. The worst part in the process would be next, telling my parents.

I called home.

My mother said little. My father said it all: no more money for school if I choose to go, Africans stink, and he forbade it. Okay, that last one gave me a chuckle. The phone call ended when I hung up on my father because of his anger. It would take a while but he did finally accept my choice.

I remember how nervous I was leaving home on the flight to Philadelphia to staging and then on to Ghana. I was twenty-one.

Training wasn’t easy. Coupled with homesickness, eating strange foods and suffering from a variety of ailments I sometimes had the urge to leave, but I didn’t. I chose to stay. During training, after our live-in, we had to make our way to the next training site by ourselves. That was when I started feeling like a Peace Corps volunteer. I was on a bus with mostly Ghanaians and traveling for hours to go south, and I got there with no problems. I ate food sold alongside the road, drank water from dubious sources and peed in a hole.

I thrived in Ghana. I came to love Ghanaians, sweet, warm people always willing to help. Teaching was difficult at first but then got easier as I learned to teach. If I needed to, I could travel anywhere by myself and often did to get to Accra, 16 hours from where I lived, to Togo, the country to the east of Ghana, and to what was then Upper Volta.

I was at ease in Ghana, confident in myself, and loved being there. My homesickness disappeared. I felt at home.

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“A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”

October 23, 2014

The visit was spectacular. We laughed and reminisced. We ate the great food Peg brought and I had made. We went up Cape sightseeing, stopped at the Coast Guard Museum, the Old Jail and in Sandwich for lunch. The weather cooperated, and we missed rain everywhere. They left yesterday afternoon and the house got too quiet. I miss them. Gracie does too. She loved her walks with Bill.

We always easily connect. I think it is the friendship of years and the experience we shared in Ghana. The other night we listened to a song called Poop in a Hole about being a Peace Corps volunteer. The country wasn’t Ghana, but it didn’t matter. It was a universal experience we all accepted and mastered. The three of us laughed several times. I have no other close friends who would think that song funny, gross maybe, but not funny. Bill, Peg and I are experts at pooping in a hole.

Last night the rainstorm and the wind were tremendous. As I was going to bed, I saw lightning through the windows on the front door. The thunder was next. It was loud and it rumbled often. The rain was heavy and I could hear it hitting the windows and the roof. When I woke up this morning, it was sunny, but now it is cloudy again. It is warmer than I expected.

Pine needles cover my grass. They are all brown and would have fallen eventually but they were rushed by the wind. For some people on the Cape, pine needles are their front lawns. They buy and spread them mostly at seasonal homes. Crushed white sea shells too act as lawns. When I was young, there were very few lawns. Keeping them healthy and green was just too much trouble. The house I lived in had a weedy front yard so it was a lawn of sorts, the same with the back. I don’t know remember when grass reared its ugly head and having a beautiful lawn became a matter of pride. It was like importing suburbia. I do have a beautiful lawn now, but I also have a landscaper who takes care of it. I write a check and take compliments on how green and lush my lawn is: that’s my only contribution.

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“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”

September 27, 2014

Yippee! It is a deck day, warm and lovely. Summer just isn’t ready to leave yet, and I’m glad. Both doors are open and the air smells like cut grass. Early this morning it smelled like the ocean.

When I went to get the papers this morning, I noticed yellow leaves on the bush across the street and red leaves on my burning bush by the driveway. It seems fall is making its presence known a bit at a time.

The best part of being a kid was taking delight in so many things. I mostly remember being happy. Many adults see the world through darker glasses and have learned to be cynical and sometimes distrustful. A kid is wide-eyed. Snow is a joy not an inconvenience. Rain means puddles to run through. Grass is soft and cool and lying on it gives the best view of the summer’s night sky. A bicycle takes us away. A nickel is a king’s ransom, a treasure. Finding a bottle is another nickel, another treasure.

Being a teenager was a lot of work. I had to endure those horrific rollers in my hair, sometimes even overnight. The right clothes and shoes were a necessity. Boys got important. I seldom noticed the weather except for rain. It ruined my hair. School meant hours of homework. I did have fun with my friends and I was out most weekends, but the future was always looming.

College was work but it was fun. We partied a lot. Some weekends passed in a daze. I was far too busy with classes and weekends to notice much about the world. I had choices to make my senior year. I chose the Peace Corps, and I am forever thankful for that. All of a sudden it was a new world and I was wide-eyed again. I stopped and looked and slept outside under a billion stars. I was a little kid again.

I still stop and notice. Once relearned, it isn’t ever forgotten.

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“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

August 17, 2014

My dad used to tell me the story of my birth. The hospital was in the same town where my mother’s family lived so my father kept driving back and forth with updates. My aunt was getting married that very day and was not happy her beauty sleep was being interrupted by my dad. My grandmother told her to deal with it. After all, this would be the birth of her first grandchild. Later, back at the hospital, my dad was sitting in the waiting room, the only one there. Finally a nurse came in and asked for Mr. Ryan. My father, after a hectic, exhausting night, said, “Who in the hell do you think I am?” She had him follow her, and they were just wheeling my mother out when he saw her and me. That never usually happened. Most times the father first saw his wife when she was in bed and the new baby in a bassinet in the nursery. My mother always complained she looked awful and should have had time to clean up. “What is it? was his first question. The it was girl. The it was me. It was around 3 AM when I arrived. I still like a good entrance.

I have been most fortunate. My life is filled with loving family, the best of friends and countless adventures. I have lived in Africa. Who could have predicted that? In Ecuador, I stood with one foot in each hemisphere. That is just so cool. I have the best aim when it comes to holes in the ground making me an overachiever in such an important skill. My friends make me laugh and give my life joy. My two sisters are amazing. They love making fun of me, but they’d be here in a heartbeat if I needed them. My friends and I have traditions like celebrating the first day of spring by watching the sunrise over the ocean, playing Sunday night games before The Amazing Race, Saturday night movies on the deck, Easter at the Ocean House and impromptu nights with munchies and games. My Peace Corps friends are back in my life and I am so much the better for knowing them. My former Ghanaian students too are back in my life. Two called and wished me a Happy Birthday today. KTCC has given me close friends for whom I am always thankful.

Okay, there have been ups and downs and bruises, but they never soured me on life. They made more grateful for what I have and taught me resilience and how best to land with the least amount of injury.

This morning my friend Clare left a mum on my front walkway. She does this every year, and it is one of favorite birthday traditions. Yesterday afternoon my friends took me to the Ocean House for a late lunch by the water. The food was scrumptious, the view spectacular and the drinks mighty tasty. They went down far too easily. They also gave me a Sharknado t-shirt I’ll wear with pride. When I got home, I took a nap. It was 6 o’clock. I woke up at 8. Tonight another friend is taking me to dinner. I expect it will be an early bedtime.

Every morning I am thankful for the new day and for whatever surprises it will bring.

Categories: Musings
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Comments: 32 Comments

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

August 17, 2014

My dad used to tell me the story of my birth. The hospital was in the same town where my mother’s family lived so my father kept driving back and forth with updates. My aunt was getting married that very day and was not happy her beauty sleep was being interrupted by my dad. My grandmother told her to deal with it. After all, this would be the birth of her first grandchild. Later, back at the hospital, my dad was sitting in the waiting room, the only one there. Finally a nurse came in and asked for Mr. Ryan. My father, after a hectic, exhausting night, said, “Who in the hell do you think I am?” She had him follow her, and they were just wheeling my mother out when he saw her and me. That never usually happened. Most times the father first saw his wife when she was in bed and the new baby in a bassinet in the nursery. My mother always complained she looked awful and should have had time to clean up. “What is it? was his first question. The it was girl. The it was me. It was around 3 AM when I arrived. I still like a good entrance.

I have been most fortunate. My life is filled with loving family, the best of friends and countless adventures. I have lived in Africa. Who could have predicted that? In Ecuador, I stood with one foot in each hemisphere. That is just so cool. I have the best aim when it comes to holes in the ground making me an overachiever in such an important skill. My friends make me laugh and give my life joy. My two sisters are amazing. They love making fun of me, but they’d be here in a heartbeat if I needed them. My friends and I have traditions like celebrating the first day of spring by watching the sunrise over the ocean, playing Sunday night games before The Amazing Race, Saturday night movies on the deck, Easter at the Ocean House and impromptu nights with munchies and games. My Peace Corps friends are back in my life and I am so much the better for knowing them. My former Ghanaian students too are back in my life. Two called and wished me a Happy Birthday today. KTCC has given me close friends for whom I am always thankful.

Okay, there have been ups and downs and bruises, but they never soured me on life. They made more grateful for what I have and taught me resilience and how best to land with the least amount of injury.

This morning my friend Clare left a mum on my front walkway. She does this every year, and it is one of favorite birthday traditions. Yesterday afternoon my friends took me to the Ocean House for a late lunch by the water. The food was scrumptious, the view spectacular and the drinks mighty tasty. They went down far too easily. They also gave me a Sharknado t-shirt I’ll wear with pride. When I got home, I took a nap. It was 6 o’clock. I woke up at 8. Tonight another friend is taking me to dinner. I expect it will be an early bedtime.

Every morning I am thankful for the new day and for whatever surprises it will bring.

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Comments: 32 Comments

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”

August 16, 2014

The sun is in and out of the clouds. The day goes from strikingly sunny and beautiful to cloudy and dark. The weather in the paper said partly sunny. I guess I didn’t think about the other part.

On Saturday, the day before I left for the Peace Corps, my mother asked me what I’d like for our last family dinner together for a long while. I answered right away: roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas and gravy, all my favorites, and that’s what we had. It is still one of my favorite meals. Mashed potatoes are the height of comfort food for me. My mother’s mashed potatoes were always fluffy and lump less. She used a hand masher, one of those metal ones with a flat grill bottom. I sometimes watched her. She wielded that masher as if it were a weapon in the hands of a master swordsman. She’d add butter and milk and keep mashing. I even remember the bowl she always used to serve the potatoes. It was a wide, not tall, bowl. She’d add the potatoes and put a few pats on butter on top. It was a thing of beauty.

My favorite ice cream changes. When I was a kid, we didn’t have all the choices and exotic flavors we have now. Back then my favorite was a dish of plain old chocolate made exquisite by adding Hersey’s syrup. When I was in high school, it was mint chocolate chip in a sugar cone with jimmies all over the ice cream. I used to buy it at Brigham’s. Mocha chip was my favorite for a while, and I still sometimes buy it, but lately I have been into coconut topped with dark chocolate sea salt caramel sauce. It tastes as superb as it sounds.

I like vegetables, quite a change from when I was growing up. Back then I ate potatoes, peas, corn and French green beans, all of which came from cans. I also ate carrots but they were disguised and hidden in the mashed potatoes. In Ghana I couldn’t get many vegetables. I ate garden eggs which are small egg plants, okra, tomatoes, yam, onions and one year I had green peppers grown from seeds I got from home. I really missed vegetables which I wouldn’t ever have imagined when I was a kid. My favorites are still peas, but corn on the cob and summer tomatoes are on my list of favorites. Just no beans ever!

Traveling gave me the chance to try new foods, and I tried all sorts. I didn’t even know the names of some of them. The food didn’t have to look good as I had grown out of the stage of judging foods by its appearances. I think maybe it was Ghana which taught me that.

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