Mornings in Ghana

I had very little exposure to roosters growing up. My family started
raising chickens after I'd already left for college, so I imagined
that they crowed like they do in books or movies, one nice big mighty
crow when the sun comes up over the horizon. Imagine my surprise when
we moved here! Roosters (and chickens) are just part of life here, and
even though none of the families that live in our apartment building
own chickens, there are always a few families wandering around the
building and courtyard. And roosters crow all day long. They begin
crowing at about 3 in the morning (seriously!) and don't stop until
about 6 in the evening when the sun goes down. We are fortunate to
have a fan blowing in our room so they don't wake me up anymore, but
their persistent cockadoodling used to wake me a lot. Now they just
join the familiar noises of the morning

Mornings are my favorite time of day, and here they are especially
nice. The sun comes up very early, with the sky starting to lighten
about 4 am, so not only do you have a nice beginning to your day, you
get a beautful sunrise, which I can always see from my dining room
window. Even mornings without electricity aren't so bad, since there
is light to see by and the house is cooler than the evening will be.

My alarm is set for 4:30, so I get to see the sky turning from black
to pink to light hazy blue as I read my scriptures. The sounds of
roosters crowing punctuates the quiet sounds of sweeping and breakfast
preparation from the kitchen staff around our home. No one is talking
or yelling yet. The cars aren't honking and the trucks rumble past the
road like far off thunder.
Now Dante is waking up, rubbing his eyes and padding out to sit on my
lap while I finish studying. He tells me "Good Morning" in a croaky
voice, and begins to ask for a drink of water or breakfast. Iris joins
him a bit later and I get up to make breakfast. Breakfast is always
porridge of some kind. Oatmeal, rice water, tom brown, cream of wheat,
Koko de dede (corn porridge with sugar), all with bread or biscuits
(crackers) alongside, so it's easy to prepare. Now, if it's "light
off" (no electricity) I take a large plastic bucket from the corner by
the washing machine, unlock the door and go around the corner of the
house to the polytank used by the kitchen staff for washing water. The
water is clean enough to wash with, but not clean enough to cook or
drink. My bucket lands on the cobblestones under the tap with a hollow
thud and the water trickles and flows in. Now the sky is a beautiful
light blue, with cool fresh air and clean smells of water and soap
blowing past. This is one of my favorite moments, as I wait for the
bucket to fill and feel the quiet and calm fill me.

Carrying the dripping bucket with one arm (and leaning the other arm
out for balance), I bring it slowly back inside, getting it ready for
my husband's bath and my breakfast dishes. Now the stove can be turned
down to a simmer, and I begin to dress Iris and encourage Dante to
dress himself. I know he can do it alone, but he likes to have my help
and company, and I don't mind so much.

Breakfast is eaten with the curtains closed because the sun is up and
streaming in through the diningroom windows right in my husband's
eyes. We eat, and I set the timer to help us get out the door in time
for school. All the hustle and bustle of the rest of the day begins in
earnest, and I hurry to help it along. In the middle of the day, when
the sun is hot and the traffic is smelly and the cooks are yelling
outside my door I still feel like I have a little morning quiet inside
me.

Black Outs

Lately we’ve been having a lot of black outs. I know it’s the dry
season, so I wasn’t really surprised. But I found out on Sunday
there’s a much better story to explain these “light off” times.
Apparently, part of the electricity we use here comes from
hydroelectric power in the Akosombo dam over the Volta river. But a
large portion is also from a natural gas source harvested off shore
and shipped around the West African coast via underwater pipeline
(This sounds cool already doesn’t it?). Well, apparently the Somalian
pirates are causing trouble again! Do you remember hearing about them
in the news a few years ago? I remember they were described then as a
few terrorists in a rowboat trying to declare war on America for
killing one of their fellow pirates. Well, apparently they are back,
and on our side of the continent this time (I’m kind of impressed they
made it all the way over here). I guess the Togolese navy (Togo is a
country next door to Ghana) was chasing them and somebody got too
close to the underwater pipeline. Next thing you know, the pipeline
has a leak, and now we get power only 60% of the time. Isn’t that a
great story! Way better than the boring old “water is low in the dam”
explanation.

And since there is some power available, we can almost predict when it
will go off. If we’ve had it all day, it’ll probably go off in the
evening. If it went off at night it’ll come on in the middle of the
night or the morning. If we had it all weekend (Awesome!) it’ll be off
the next few days. The tense times are right around 6 or 7 am or pm,
since that’s when the lights will go if they are going to go. So you
get as much as you can done since doing it without electricity is much
more difficult.

I know I sound casual about this, believe me, frequent black outs were
a source of major frustration when we first came. But I’ve learned I
can’t do anything about the power being off, so I have to just switch
my focus from what I wish I could be doing to what I actually can do
(thank you Stephen R Covey and highly effective habit number one!).
There’s so much of life that is unpredictable and out of my control
here that I can see why people here are more laid back and less
willing to try and make life better. Storming the government here and
demanding better power…that might bring about less black outs…but they
may just look at us and say, “I’m sorry, I can’t control when Somalian
pirates are going to burst a natural gas line!”

Family Update

Hello friends and family!
I am sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted, we’ve had lots of
black outs lately, so I’m now taking advantage of a few hours of
electricity to update on the family.

Iris: Turned two recently! I know, I can’t believe it either. She’s
growing very tall lately and a little bit skinny, so I’m trying to
make sure there’s plenty of butter on her bread. She’s also more and
more obstinate about who she is friends with. Here the culture is very
friendly, especially toward little children. So, when we walk Dante to
and from school many people say “Hello baby!” to her. Her usual
response is to look away with a stubborn frown, or even better declare
to them, “I’m not a baby! I’m a big girl!” I’m pretty sure that’s a
rude response, even though everyone has been good natured enough to
smile and laugh at her pluck. I’ve tried explaining that it is more
polite to say hello back, and even went to the extent of saying “When
they are calling you baby, it’s just because they don’t know you and
are trying to be friendly, like when people call Mommy “Obroni!
Obroni!” To this she responded “I’m not Obroni! I’m Iris!” I guess
she’s picked up on how I feel about the term as well…and really, I
didn’t have any more argument after that.

Dante has now officially turned four! He was a little antsy for his
birthday after Iris had hers a month before him. He’s also gotten so
big, but is still a sweet little boy in many ways. Still loves to
cuddle with mom (which is good for me), and enjoys stories together
(Emmanuel has mentioned that I might be reading to him too much…I
guess too much of anything is bad, but the thought had never occurred
to me!) We are especially happy I have access to library books now, so
he’s enjoying hearing the Magic Tree House series and the Little House
books. He’s also been enjoying classical music lately! His grandmother
sent me home with some great books on classical music for kids, which
we have been loving (go to www.funwithcomposers.com, it’s really
excellent). He’s also hit this drawing spurt, where he just wants to
draw all day long. It’s fun to see his artwork evolve, especially as
it includes things we’re learning or reading about (like giant
octopuses or dinosaurs). He loves school and his teachers really are
doing a great job. I’m very happy he is in the class he’s in.

I had a great birthday too lately! Emmanuel was so sweet, we had a
whole 24 hours without interruption together. He took me out for a
night’s stay in a local hotel. A very interesting experience, I’ll
have an entry about it soon… Thanks to so many of you for the happy
birthday wishes! I was shocked when I opened my email to see all the
notifications from facebook! I wish I could reply to them all but
facebook is particularly tricky for me to load, all the pictures and
things slow my modem so much. But, I’m ecstatic to have Library
access! Our public library back in Idaho still allows me to access my
account and now they have a collection of e-books! Hallelujah! I can
download them right to my kindle. I love that thing. In other news, I
had a small miscarriage a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t far enough along
to need serious recovery interventions and now I’m doing fine. I also
have a new friend here in Ghana with me! Jaclyn is an American who has
just moved back here and married a Ghanaian! Congratulations to her!
I’ve been enjoying the American influence she brings, even though
everyone else makes fun of us when we talk (Africans have very deep
voices, and our voices go up another octave when we get excited, so
they say we sound like birds twittering).

Emmanuel is doing well also, and we’re both surprised we’ve been here
8 months now. He’s started a new curriculum at the school that would
allow students to get credit with international schools. This is a big
deal here in Ghana, since many of the students here, when they finish
school want to head overseas for secondary education. Not to mention
we’ll finally be attracting people who are ready to move beyond the
style of education that we find here in Ghana, which is pretty
archaic. He’s finally been seeing good results to the systems he been
putting in place, which is of great relief to both of us! Many times
when he puts a system or process in place he gets a lot of resistance,
with comments like “That won’t work here in Ghana,” or “the old ways
are best.” So any kind of acceptance or follow through has been really
exciting for both of us.

All together we are still doing great! I’ll write future posts on our
hotel visit recently, living without electricity, going for water, and
other details of life in Ghana.