Our Return to Bagli

It has been six years since we left the village we had learned to love. Six years ago, with tears running down my face, I leaned out the window of a Land Rover and gave a gigantic two-handed wave to friends I didn't know if I'd ever see again. Then we were gone, John and I, after two years of living in the village of Bagli, northern Ghana. 

And we didn't see any of them again until this past week. In fact, we had lost phone contact as well so we had no way to inform them of our arrival. This time we weren't alone. In the backseat of our pickup were two children peering out the windows and asking questions like, "Mommy, why are you and daddy giving high-fives?" 

"Because we're getting close to the village we used to live in. This is a happy day for us." 

New trees were growing, blocking off the path we used to use to get to our former home in the teachers' quarters, a cement house the government had built to host teachers who weren't teaching in their home village. We detoured through the old market place, which, sadly, has been abandoned in the last few years and entirely discontinued. We drove past the pump where hours were spent hauling water. The women working there stopped and stared. They looked in the windows and suddenly recognition dawned as one woman said, "Mr. John." Her voice held disbelief and surprise. It broke the hush at the pump and they all started coming alive. 

"Woh! Mr. John! Madame Sayda!"

It was us. We were home. 

We parked the vehicle in front of our old rooms and walked to our neighbors' house. Their excitement and surprise mirrored the women's at the pump. Greetings were given. Everyone delighted in seeing our two children, Tyler especially. I had been pregnant with him when we left six years ago, so to them, he is a Bagli child. 

I cannot tell you how much fun it was to finally be back in our village. We greeted old friends, laughed at the surprise on their faces and joyed in the warm reception they gave us. We showed off our children and were amazed over theirs. The babies when we left were now school age children grinning shyly at us. One little tot had learned to walk in my room seven years ago. Now Sherifa was waist high and grinning at me. I knew she couldn't remember me, but apparently had been reminded of our friendship until it felt like we were still old friends. She stayed with me for most of the day. 

We took a gift to the chief's palace, accompanied by the school teachers as our mediators. It was here that I nearly cried in my gladness to finally be back in Bagli. The chief was the same as he always was, so glad to see us. We squatted on the floor in front of him to show due respect. Even Tyler lightly clapped his hands like we adults did, giving honor to the chief as he greeted us. Then, casting aside some of the formalities, the chief immediately launched into his favorite tale of when we lived among them:

IT WAS during rice harvest. John spent a lot of time out in our two-and-a-half acre field. I was walking through the village and came across the chief sitting by a friend, chatting. I greeted him politely and then he asked me something. I thought he wanted to know where John was, but then he ended with a sentence that included the phrase "rice field."

I knew enough Dagbanli to know that the word for a regular field was "pooni" but the word for a rice farm is "baani." The chief used "pooni" for the rice farm, possibly not expecting me to know "baani." But it confused me for a second. Was I missing something? Had he asked if John was eating rice in a farm? The chief clarified his question, definitely asking where John was, and in my relief to understand him I said, "Oh! 'Shikaffa baani!'" (Rice farm) For some reason my response struck the chief's funny bone. Maybe it was my tone or the emphasis I placed on "baani." Whatever it was, the chief never forgot that little conversation and would tell it to friends or remind me when he got half a chance.

Now as we sat under his royal pavilion after a six year absence, he related the story, laughing.  We chatted a bit, felt the warmth of his welcome, and promised to come back in the morning per his request. During our morning visit, the chief grinned at me and said, "Sayda! Where is Mr. John?" I knew what he was getting at and gave an exaggerated, "Shinkaffa baani!" as my response which delighted the chief as much as the original had. 

I wish I had a good picture of us with the chief, but this is the only one we have. We were all pleasant folks in real life; not sure why so glum on here.

Walking away from the chief's palace, I kept hearing our names. I'd turn to see little groups of shy teens looking at us, faces of women peering over their compound walls, or John's friends expressing their surprise at seeing us again. We heard our names and greetings of welcome at nearly every compound we passed. We sat in homes of our friends, me in the women's round rooms with thatched roofs and John with his friends under sitting places. We sat in our old compound and had handfuls of friends come to greet us there. We met up with children John taught in the school. Some of the six grade girls were married with a child. Others had learned English in our absence and were fluent enough in it for us to hold extended conversations with them for the first time ever. 

The chief gave us the largest yam I have ever seen in my life (so far it has provided three filling meals for 5 adults and 1-2 children and still a quarter of it is left!).

One dear friend of mine gave me a bag of black-eyed peas she had grown and her husband gave me some cash. We talked about the time she taught me how to make tizet, their staple food. Another friend gave me about a gallon of dried okra. 

Even the night sky felt like an old friend. In a place where there are no electric lights to run competition with the heavenly ones, the stars shine brilliantly and beautifully. We talked about sleeping outside under the stars like we used to when our rooms were much to hot to sleep indoors, but this is the cool season when it must get down to 70 at night. We were shivering and cold; not exactly conducive to sleeping outside. 

Bagli.  It was incredibly good to be 'home,' even for a too-short visit.

The Theft

We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with friends and spent the night at their house. Late the next evening, we arrived home. The lights in our neighborhood were off, which is not at all unusual, and our house and compound were completely dark. Our son was sleeping on my lap, so John told me to wait in the truck while he unlocked the house. I watched him open the door and disappear into the house. I waited, thinking he would be back with a flashlight to help me unload the children fend off our hyper dogs in the dark. But he didn't come back right away. I saw the beam of his flashlight glancing off odd places, like in the garage and off the wall in the back of the house and I thought, "Whatever is he doing? Opening all of the windows before bringing us inside?" Just when I gave up on him and decided to maneuver the sleepy children by myself, John showed up on the porch and said, "We've been robbed."

Suddenly staying in the truck felt like a really good option. "Is anyone still inside?" I asked, a cold knot tying my heart, stomach, and throat altogether. John wasn't completely sure, so he, bless him, went through the ransacked house searching for the perpetrator. Thankfully, no one was there.

We guided the children through the house, their sleepy brains much too tired to question the mess, and tucked them in bed where they innocently fell asleep almost immediately. Then together, John and I walked through each room all strewn with belongings and tried to assess the damages.

Aside from security features being compromised, our belongings weren't vandalized, only rooted through mercilessly and left lying where they had been tossed. Worse than the many things taken were the feelings of our home being invaded. I couldn't decide if I was grateful we were gone when it happened, or if I wished we hadn't left at all in case our presence would ward off the thieves. But it was done now and we are left to deal with the aftermath. Part of that included putting things back into drawers and cupboards and sorting through piles of papers that had been scrambled together in the office.

But more than that is dealing with the internal aftermath -the fear of thieves returning, the distrust of humanity, the fight to keep my heart at peace. Kind fellow-believers have sent us encouraging notes that have bolstered my courage. Many have been praying for us, giving me a remarkable level peace I never expected. I went to bed that first night and, to my amazement, slept soundly. And the second night. In the third night following the robbery the dogs woke me up with their barking and a chill ran through me. But the dogs quieted, God gave His peace through prayer and meditation, and again I slept solidly.

People have been asking me how we are doing. In some ways I almost dislike telling them how much peace I'm living in because I don't want them to take that good report as a reason to stop praying. I fully believe that the prayers of God's people are what have been keeping me at peace, the ventilator that keeps this girl alive. Good doctors don't remove the ventilator just because the patient's chest rises and falls, they wait until the patient as reached a certain level of health and are sure to breathe on their own. Prayers have been that ventilator to me.

I am grateful for the almost effortless level of peace I was able to stay in these past days. I sang and it wasn't forced. I slept at night. I stayed alone after dark and, though I heard more sounds and noises than normal, I wasn't much afraid.

But I'm overly sensitive to the unusual, as was demonstrated last night. It started when John was brushing his teeth and came out of the bathroom saying from around his toothbrush, "Did you hear that?" I had. A metallic noise in the kitchen. It was probably dishes that shifted in the dish rack and, just as a precaution, John took the large silver bowl that was balanced on top and set it aside lest it fall onto the tiled floor at midnight and give us both heart attacks. The bowl taken care of, we soon fell asleep.

At 2:20 in the morning, I heard two little beeps and woke up with a start. I knew John had set a motion detector several nights before and had commented that the battery was weak. This must be what sound it makes when the battery is low. Then cold fear gripped me. The wall hanging at the foot of our bed was illuminated. Even as I watched, the light moved off the wall hanging and the room grew dark. (Even as I write this now, goosebumps have broken out on my body.) My mouth went completely dry and I shook John awake. "I heard a couple of beeps and a light moved on this wall."

John leaped out of bed and I, so certain that the intruder was back, dashed into the bathroom to dress and prepare to meet him. John checked each room of the house but found no one. "I know I saw a light," I said confidently. The wall it shone on was untouchable by traffic on the road. Together we went on another hunt through the house but found nothing amiss.

I was confused. We went back to our room and, now fully awake, John asked what time it was. He punched the button on my cell phone and a low battery notice was the first thing we saw. Ah. That explained the beeps I heard. My phone battery was dying. I laid down on my pillow and John lit up the phone screen the second time. Yes, the picture on the wall was illuminated and the light would have changed when it went to half power before turning off. Nearly weak with relief and feeling bad to have gone on a spook hunt over my own phone's low battery light, I started half-laughing, half-crying as an outlet for my stress. It would be a while until sleep came.

Peace? Yes. Sometimes peace wraps itself effortlessly around you, bandaging raw nerve wounds with the prayers of God's people. Other times peace is a result of sheer choice to trust God and His word. We cling to verses like this one, shared via a text message by a friend:

"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night. . ."

Psalm 91:4-5

And we choose to believe that all things really do work together for good to those who love God. In his book Touching the Invisible, Norman Grubb suggests that since this verse is true, even the bad things that happen to us are really good things to the eyes of faith. Somewhere, then, is a vein of good in this robbery. 

If you think about us in these days, pray that the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep our hearts and minds free from fear. 

How much do you need to be happy?

One day John was doing some errands and had with him a young man who does odd jobs for us. Because they were in the vicinity, Asher* asked, "Would you like to see my place?"

John would. 

Asher stopped the truck outside a small, one-room house. Upon entering the cement dwelling, John kicked off his shoes as everybody does when entering a home. Asher laughed. "You don't need to take off your shoes for this house. This is a local house."

Then his demeanor changed as though he suddenly grew embarrassed to have John see how he lived. The room's only bed was for his mom and sister to share - his dad had walked out on them long ago. There was a thin mattress for Asher on the floor. There was a television and a radio and a few odds and ends pertaining to cooking. That was all. 

Asher glanced at John to see his reaction. Maybe inviting a white man (who lived in a large, multi-roomed house) into your house (a single room you shared with your mom and sister) was a bad idea all around. 

But John was kind and smiled. "I'm familiar with local housing; we lived in a local house up in the north for a couple of years."

Asher relaxed visibly and said, "I know this is a local house, but I am thankful because there are so many people who have less than we do."

He seemed content.

*name has been changed

Pot holes

Back in the States we called little places chipped out of the top layer of asphalt "pot holes." But we were wrong. Very wrong. Pot holes are not saucer-like places of missing asphalt kindly spaced six miles apart. Pot holes better resemble canning kettles lined shoulder-to-shoulder like they do in my kitchen when it rains. And those bone-jarring, wheel-thumping, kettle-sized bumps are the babies. The granddaddy pot holes are more like washouts that hold enough water to choke up cars or (worse) damage them. 

Our friend was exiting a washout when the radiator of his truck hit the asphalt on the edge of the pothole. It was damaged enough that they limped it home and relied on public transport until it was repaired. That story was fresh in John's mind when he picked his way through the hole below and thumped both bumpers on its edges at the same time.  For one dreadful moment, he thought his radiator was the next to be cracked but a quick assessment assured him that his was fine.

This same puddle choked a car this past Sunday. We were on our way home from church and saw the road blocked by a car in the middle of the puddle. The unfortunate driver, his trouser legs rolled well up his calves, motioned us to take a detour. A group of men had collected to help push the car out. That was the second car we saw stalled in a bad section of road that day. The first was abandoned entirely and left to rest by the side of a deep puddle, a warning for all other motorists to navigate the puddle at their own risk.

You might notice the piles of dirt beside the holes in the picture above. (There are actually three holes; the mounding edge of the first hides the other two.) Earlier when we four-wheeled our way through this series of holes in our pickup, I used to wish someone would be inclined to fill them in. Then dump trucks came and offloaded giant piles of filler. It isn't dirt, exactly. Do you see the chunks of debris in them? It almost looks like it contains trash from a construction site, hopefully only broken cement blocks. 

Hello, nails? Please be kind to our tires.

Guests and Totes!

We love guests. I suppose that is a good thing for our home is a pit stop for travelers of our mission heading to or from northern mission outposts or for missionaries on business in Accra. Travelers coming from the States often arrive on a flight that gets them to our house anywhere from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. (Midnight snack, anyone?) Often those same guests leave again in the morning around breakfast or before. The other common flight is an overnight one, landing in Accra at 7:50 a.m. which produces bleary-eyed guests who fight sleep and jet-lag for the duration of their time with us. But whether their time with us is short-lived, fraught with jet-lag, or both, we love all our guests.

In our first two months of being here, we have hosted nearly 40 of them. Half of those were a group of 20 students heading to a school in the north for 13 weeks of training and discipleship that, Lord willing, will motivate them to go preach the Gospel of Jesus in every nation.

The arrivals gate.
"Akwaaba" means welcome in Twi.

The Team arrived safe and sound, but 21 of their 47 checked-in luggage pieces didn't. They were delayed in America thanks to not fitting in the smaller plane that shuttled them from Philly to JFK. The airline was apologetic and sent the remaining totes on their next flight to Accra which came two days later. The Team went north before the belated luggage arrived, grateful for everything they had tucked into their carry-on baggage.

Loading the bus to leave for the North

The children and I went with John to the airport to pick up the remaining totes. Everything was there, including a cooler whose contents were still surprisingly cool, praise the Lord. The airline kindly paid to fly the baggage up to Tamale and the team was reunited with their totes later that day.

Waiting with the totes while Daddy
counted, organized, and shipped totes North

We benefited from the totes, too, thanks to an excellent packer in the States who did shopping for us and also to generous friends who surprised us all with gifts. I loved watching the children's uninhibited delight over everything with their name on it. They did happy little jigs and Sophia was half-laughing, half-crying with excitement. 

After everything was unpacked, I reviewed and organized the contents of the totes. My shopping lists were completed: my children have clothing for the next sizes up and new sandals to fit now; we now have everything we need for Tyler's schooling; I have a happy pantry, thanks to a few things like molasses, yogurt starter, cereal and lots of snacks for the children. Friends sent along birthday gifts (love those books!) and even all we'll need for a Thanksgiving meal, decor included!

There were notes and cards. It was so sweet to hear from home, to realize the effort so many kind people had put into this tote, and to feel so well taken care of. 

I couldn't help it; I sat down in the middle of all that love and cried.

Tyler with his gifts

We love guests, as I said, even the kind that comes with totes of treasures.

The Mystery Fruit

I recently saw a picture of a produce stand advertising rubarb. The misspelling (there is an H in rhubarb, folks) took me back to the day I nearly made a fool out of myself at a Lancaster County produce stand.

In the summer after we returned from Africa 5 years ago, I was driving through the countryside and saw a sign at a small produce stand that read, "Lopes. Buy 2, get 2 free." And I, with my love of ethnic foods, thought, "Whatever it is must be imported and isn't a hot selling item." 

I didn't know what a 'lope' was. Perhaps it was Spanish in origin and the local Mennonite population wasn't familiar with how to use it. I imagined a medium-sized green fruit, similar to a papaya. Did you peel it, cook it, or eat it raw? And I was pretty sure the country of its origin didn't pronounce "lopes" in a single, clipped syllable. It was probably "LOH-pay." Or possibly "loh-PAY." There was even a slight chance that it was "loh-PEZ" but certainly not "lohp." 

If I wasn't so short on time, I would have stopped and inquired. I could imagine the gratitude from some poor farmer who was stuck with a bin of "LOH-pays" and was selling them off at bargain prices. (Maybe they were small, considering he was selling them "Buy 2, Get 2 Free," and I'd want a dozen. Maybe they'd make a great jelly and I'd relieve him of a full bushel.)

It must have been a week or more later when I discovered the truth. "Lopes" was only an abbreviated form of cantaloupe, that luscious summertime melon grown prolifically in our area. Only, who can spell that correctly without spell check, right? I've seen other signs advertising cantelope, cantaloup, or, my favorite, cantalop. Settling on 'lopes' was definitely an easy way to avoid having to second guess your choice of letters every time you drove in your drive and saw yourself advertising canterlops. 

Suddenly I stopped short. Imagine how awkward would it have been if I had walked up to the stand and said, "Excuse me. I saw you are advertising LOH-pays. Can you please tell me what they are?" 

Or, "I saw your sign advertising -how do you say it? Loh-PEZ?" I can already see the blank stares and me trying to redeem myself with a loosened tongue rambling, "I've recently returned from Africa and am interested in ethnic foods. Can you tell me where these. . .LOH-pay. . . come from?"

My mother reminds me occasionally not to look for zebras when you hear the sound of hooves. Most likely it is horses. In this situation, looking for the exotic on a Lancaster County farm was probably a far-fetched, zebra-like idea. 

But, hey, how I was supposed to know? I don't remember my science books talking about lopes. 

What is in my bed?

It was evening and the children were already tucked into their beds. From that point on, we usually hear very little of them until morning, but this time my name was being called. There is a window from the children’s room into our hallway, so I stood outside that window and said, “What do you need?” I expected to be told something that Sister said and I was prepared with one of my canned answers—probably my most-used, “Alright Sophia, time to be quiet.”

But this time Tyler said, “Mom, come.”

“Just talk to me, Son. What do you need?”

“I can’t tell what is in my bed.”

In the States, I would assume that one of his large family of stuffed animals got shifted under the blanket forming a hump he didn’t recognize. But in Africa the question, “What is in my bed?” takes on a whole new perspective. There are creepy crawlies in Africa.I went in his room to check.

There, clinging to the inside of his mosquito net about a foot from his head was a tree frog. I have no idea how it got into their room in the first place unless it came in through the little hole where the sliding window and screen meet. During Sophia’s nap, I had slung the net onto the top bunk to try to let her better feel the breeze from a tired ceiling fan that spins weakly on the ceiling. Maybe she napped with the frog.

“How did you know it was there?” I asked Tyler. I could imagine how startling it would be to have a frog jump onto you when you are nearly asleep and was surprised that his only response was, “Mom, come.”

“Well, I heard this noise and I didn’t know what was making it. Then I saw something here.” 

Aw, his own lullaby. He was fortunate it was mostly the singing that raised questions. We put the little brown songster outside and the children went to sleep. 

God, Our Protector

I am especially thankful for God’s protection these days. I believe sometimes He intervenes from behind the scenes and miraculously saves us from harm. And we, finite creatures that we are, don't see the full picture and come away saying, "Wow. That was close." How humble God must be to intercept a danger and remain anonymous. Maybe in Heaven we will be able to look back across our life and see how many times and in how many ways God protected us.

Several incidents occurred recently to give me this renewed gratefulness for God’s protection:

#1: The children and I rode along with John on his errands one day. We could see the ticket counter from where we were parked, so we voted to stay in the vehicle and wait while John purchased tickets. Because we would be in the truck, John didn’t bother to lock doors or roll up windows –both mandatory safety procedures when leaving a vehicle unattended in town. Those neglected gestures were not lost to some men standing nearby. Hardly did John have his back turned until two opportunists hurried towards the truck. One rounded the front corner, heading to the driver’s door and the other came towards the back door where the children and I were sitting. It was he who noticed us first and quickly said a sentence in Twi to his pal. I understood the word “Bruni” (white person) and the two of them whirled around and soon disappeared in the busyness of the bus station.

I knew they weren’t after us, but it would have been scary if they had boldly stolen something from the truck with us sitting there.  God knew that. Wasn’t it kind of Him to cause the man to see us before he opened the door? And wasn’t it good of God to make a woman and two children enough of a deterrent for the men to hurry off? Instead of a big scare to talk about for months to come, the children never knew anything about it.

#2: This week John took the motorcycle to town. Good wife that I am, I worry a little bit about him in the traffic on that thing and found it no comfort when he sent me this text: “Almost rammed a bolt thru rim. At fitter.”

He had been driving on the freeway, a busy road where traffic makes really good time for two reasons. One, it is new (which means it is smooth) and, two, it has limited access enforced by cement walls and jersey barriers. On this busy stretch, John felt terrible bumping and stopped the motorcycle along the edge of the road. There he discovered he had picked up a large bolt in the rear tire and knew he could go no farther. John climbed over the wall and guardrail and found four men willing to help heft the motorcycle across the barrier. He pushed the motorcycle a mile to get to a mechanic where they found the rend in the tube was irreparable and the rim was dimpled, but safe to use.

Can you see the large hole?

God was so good. A puncture on the busy highway was not a good thing but it could have been exponentially worse if it had been the front tire instead of the rear. I have heard stories of front tires bursting and the motorcycle becoming an uncontrollable beast that thrashes around the road and often overturns.

#3: God is our protector in other ways as well. This week there were children at our gate. Again. I stood at the front door trying to discern if I was needed or if they would tire of their game of Make the White Man’s Dog Bark and go away on their own. It looked like they were growing bored and leaving, so I turned around, grateful I didn’t need to bother parenting someone else’s children. Just then there was a BANG like that of a small firecracker or a pop-gun that sounded loudly in our living room. John was walking towards me just then and stopped, startled.

“Did you hear that?” John asked, wanting to know if it was all in his head. We definitely had.

The noise had sounded beside John but the only thing close by was a tote that had nothing in it but curtains, candles, and coffee mugs. None of those items spontaneously say “bang.” We checked light and fan switches, thinking maybe those had blown, but nothing was amiss.

There simply was no explanation for the bang.

We told our director and his wife about it and they, people of great experience and wisdom, determined it to be a disturbing ghost. We had a time of prayer to dedicate this house to God and offered it to Him for His glory.

I assume the goal of the noise was to strike fear and, indeed, it had that potential in me. I fought fear and turned to God for my assurance. I know God is our protector. The righteous can run to him and be safe, the Bible says, so I ran to Him and found refuge from the fears.  

I love Psalm 18:2 for it details the provision He is for us:

The LORD is my rock 

(never changing stability),

My fortress 

(a place of security from the warfare raging around us)

And my deliverer. 

(Think power and the potential for miracles.)

My God is my Rock in whom I take refuge, my shield. . . 

(safety)

The horn of my salvation. 

(salvation = deliverance)

My stronghold. 

(A safe impregnable hiding place.)

I stand amazed and so grateful to God, our Protector.

My husband's job description:

Hurry up and wait!

Wait in the traffic with rain pouring down in torrents and cars clogging the circle so badly that no one is moving. The problem is simple: The right lane tried to merge left while the left lane did its best to merge right and traffic perpendicular to them all tried forcing its way straight ahead. A bus wiggled over. The blinkers blinked. The horns honked. The wipers wiped on their fastest speed. The lorry mates waved their arms out of windows for added emphasis. We in the blue truck hurried up and waited. The little buses called trotros squeezed through, not offering a foot of grace for the little blue pick-up that daringly inched its nose rightward. Then, seizing its chance, it scurried into a little space behind a trotro and in front of a little white car that honked loudly in protest as it took its reluctant turn to hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and Wait!

The paperwork trail was started. But the queues were long and only inched forward. The whole process could have been completed in twenty minutes if there were no lines. But there were. And it might not take long if things moved efficiently. But they didn’t. So they hurried up and waited while the officials behind the counter left their posts to go outside and do marching practice. The band played, the officials marched, and the men waiting on their paperwork had no choice but to hurry up and wait for another two hours until the practice drills and routines were done.

Hurry up and wait!

A mistake was made on the paperwork so the process needed to be started over. But the man they needed to see just left for lunch and would be gone for two hours, they said. There was nothing left to do but hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait!

Stand in this line only to be told you need to go to the next. Go to this office, then on to the next until you have been through 14 steps in all. Wait in queues full of clients who are doing a fine job of waiting like yourself. Sit and listen while the officials try to figure out what to do with your driver’s license that was issued in the North but you are trying to renew it in the South. It is a puzzling process, so hurry up and wait.

Hurry up and wait!

They said the container they are building for you will be done this week. But then the Boss traveled, so go ahead and wait. They’ll get it done “tomorrow,” of course, which literally translated simply means “not today.”

And then folks back home ask, “What does your husband do all day?” 

Go ahead and wait. 

I’ll tell you. . . “tomorrow.”

Critter Intrusions

It began in the early hours when I was barely awake enough to make sense of what I was hearing.

“A chicken?” I said in my early-morning voice. “In our compound?”

John was more awake than I and laughed lightly. “No, you hear the neighbors’ chickens across the wall.”

Oh well. It was, as I said, early, and in my groggy cognitive state it sounded for all the world like the thing was strolling past our bedroom window.  And would you know, I happened to be right. Later that day, Tyler came racing inside, eyes shining. “Dad, come quick! There is a big pile of feathers out here.”

Turns out it was more than feathers. It had been my chicken. (Notice the past-tense.) Apparently it met the dog before it met the humans and was killed instantly.

It was only the next afternoon that Tyler came running inside again (he practically lives outdoors these days), telling me to come. There, under the orange trees were two chickens. Live ones this time, and the dog was nowhere in sight.

“Quick!” I told Tyler quietly. “Open the gates so we can shoo these things out before the dog gets them.”

The squeak of the gate called the dog and before we had a chance to rouse the chickens to safety, the dog was in full pursuit of the first one it got to.

“Sassy!” I hollered. “No! Come here!” But Sassy ran with laughing eyes after the squawking hen and I was sure I was about to witness its death.

The chicken must have sensed it was in a race for its life and flew over the wall, clearing the wires so narrowly that a handful of feathers were left clinging to the razor wire. Sassy turned and galloped back to the remaining chicken. With a mighty squawk, the chicken ran past me, the dog bolted after it, and the chase was on.

Poor chicken. I’m sure it hated being the center of the drama. The dog was closing in on her; I was six feet behind the dog hollering at it the whole time; and Tyler was following me as fast as he could. The wild-eyed chicken made a lap around the palm nut tree (a good choice as it could do corners faster than the dog) then headed down the south side of the house (a bad choice for the dog gained ground on straight stretches). The dog won, slapping a paw onto the chicken’s back, seemingly pleased to have stopped in the intruder.

“Sassy, let it go!” I gave the dog one swat on her backside and she released the chicken, apparently hoping this would provide an opportunity for another chase, a pleasure I denied with an authoritative word. The chicken limped for cover and cowered behind a wok left by the man who did some plastering on our wall until we caught her and tossed her out the gate with Sassy leaping up to snag the tail feathers as a final goodbye. The chicken, wisely, didn’t come back.

If they were going to come anyway, it was too bad that the chickens didn’t coordinate their visit with the termite invasion since chickens love eating termites and we would have been more than happy to share. Chicken farmers also love termites as they add great protein to their chickens’ diets and make a cheap and easy meal. Termites come boiling out of the ground like little tornadoes following the first rain of the season. Apparently Accra hasn’t had a good hard rain in a while, for the termites came out of hiding following a gully-washing rain we had this past week.

On the evening of the invasion, Sophia was quietly playing on the floor with fake bugs and animals, lining them up and making them sing in her squeaky animal voice, “Joy to the World.” (A fitting choice, I thought, when her critters reached the end of the verse singing “and heaven and nature sing.”) And then, abruptly, her fun ended and she stood up, crying hysterically.

“Sophia. Why are you crying?”

She was almost incoherent, but managed to gulp out, “Because there are things in here.”

The “things” were winged termites that wiggled their way into the house from between the windows and screens and came over to join the insects singing in her church service. From the sounds of things, they weren’t invited.  

Outside every window of our rooms with lights on, you could hear the beating of termite wings as they fought to gain access to our indoor lights. We had termite invasions in the villages where critters were just a normal part of life. (We even ate termites with the village schoolchildren who fried them on my charcoal brazier for a snack.) But here? Somehow having termites drunkenly dive at indoor lights of a city house seemed like a clash of worlds.

So instead of collecting them for food or letting them make themselves at home, we plugged their entrances on the window ledges and killed the dozens that were already in. Fortunately the crumpled water sachet bags effectively blocked the holes and the invasion was short-lived. Termites shed their wings on the night of their emergence. Evidently a whole host of them chose to do it on our back veranda for abandoned wings blew into my kitchen from under the door. Even now, several days after the termites came, I still find stray wings when I enter the kitchen each morning.

Not all things are fixed as easily as cramming water bags into holes or ushering a chicken out the gate. Sophia came to me yesterday with her fuzzy blanket wrapped around her head and shoulders like a shawl, a sure sign she is feeling insecure. “Mommy, will you hold me?” she asked.

I snuggled her, hating the blanket that added heat to the little body already peppered with signs of heat rash. “Mommy, do you remember the big airplane?”

Ah. So she was homesick. I held her against me, talking soothingly and wishing I could “make it all better.” For the most part, she is doing so well that I know this little hiccup of homesickness is only part of these transition days. I was glad that little bit of extra love I gave her yesterday must have been what she needed, for she is playing happily again, singing and chattering on a toy phone. The purple and white blanket is nowhere in sight.

Homesickness isn’t relegated to little people. I felt a twinge of it on Sunday when I missed our church folks back home. I also felt it when John reminisced about farming rice by hand in our old village, a time when we felt connected with our community by farming like they did. City life isn’t as community-oriented and I miss that. I realize that these unsettled feelings are an expected part of the transition and that someday soon city life will feel normal.

But right now I could use a big ol’ blanket slung over my shoulders. Only I don’t want one of fleece. I’ll take one of God's patchwork quilts made with grace and endurance and joy and hope and love all stitched up together.

Cooking is an art.

That truth was drilled into me when I was fourteen and making pudding for the first time in my life. I hadn’t cooked much at all previously, and certainly not with cornstarch and hot milk. Nobody told me I needed to mix the cornstarch with cool liquid. So I didn’t. I dumped it in and stirred. Vigorously. The inevitable lumps formed almost immediately. In desperation, I alternated my frantic stirring with smashing the lumps against the edge of the kettle, but it was an obvious no-go. I admitted defeat, learned from my error, and the pudding was carried out with the slop.

Then there were the pancakes that weren't becoming pancakes at all but were little discs that brought new definition to the phrase "flat as a pancake." I double checked my recipe to make sure I had included all the ingredients that work miracles in batter, and I had. Whatever the cause, the ‘things’ we ate for breakfast tasted (and looked) much more like humble pie than pancakes. 

Since the days of the lumpy pudding and crepe-like pancakes of my teens, I’ve done just enough cooking to have the truth reinforced to me that cooking is still an art.

Part of this art is being able to creatively use ingredients on hand, a virtue which was sadly lacking in the first weeks after our move. Then, I paged through five cookbooks and ended up with pancakes served with alligator tears for dinner. At least it wasn't pasta or rice; we had that every day until our son finally admitted to being tired of rice. I could hardly blame him; I was tired of it, too. About then, one of my fellow-Americans told me they survived on fried eggs for the first three days of being on their own in Ghana. Knowing that she has become a creative cook since then gave me hope that I’ll get my wings back in the kitchen. 

Cooking begins in market, of course, where I buy nearly all my ingredients. Open-air markets are delightful places, as you know if you’ve been to one. Just today I was at there to purchase ingredients for shito (SHEET-oh), a spicy fish sauce that you eat with rice and stew, boiled yam, hard boiled eggs, and about anything else that could possibly work as a conveyor.

Today’s purchases were made at a stand comprised of three tables. Gigantic silver bowls were heaped with grains, spices, and dry ingredients. Using a well-worn evaporated milk can as a measuring cup, the merchant poured fish powder, shrimp powder, and red pepper powder into plastic bags and tied them up for me. It wasn’t that she leveled that little can off every time she filled it. Oh no. She heaped it up like the Biblical measurement described as “pressed down and running over.” She is not unusual. Often when the women measure dry ingredients, they use their forearm to form a higher rim on the container they are filling, generously giving you more than the amount you agreed to purchase.

At the same stall this morning, I purchased chicken bouillon, tomato paste, and oil, declining the fresh ginger and garlic she wanted to sell me since I had those at home. While I chose the cheaper oil for my shito project, I was pleased to see sunflower seed oil along with the vegetable oil, a new product for the local market stall.

It was just down from this stand a couple of weeks ago that I heard a commotion and turned to see several grown men chasing something just out of my line of vision. They whacked at it with boards, dashed back and forth, and whacked again. Suddenly one of them grabbed a large rat by its tail and thwacked its head against the cement. Twice. The kill was made, the market drama ended, and somebody probably had good eating for dinner.

I have eaten rat in the past, but would prefer purchasing my meat in market, like I did earlier this week. I had only walked in the direction of the butchers when they recognized a purposeful step and surrounded me, saying, “Do you want cow or goat? Okay, come here, come here. This is the fresh one.” “You come here!” “Come over here for the fresh one!”

I chose the stand on the edge of the meat market and watched with gritted teeth as he used a gigantic meat cleaver to cut a half kilo from the chunk of beef on the chopping block. His precision was perfect, but to me it looked like he narrowly missed his fingers with each whack.

“Can you reduce the price for me?” I asked.

He was relentless. “No. That is the price. But if you come back next time I will reduce for you.”

“Okay, then. When you see my face the next time, you can remember that is the day to give the reduced price.”

He grinned and I left, hopeful that from “now going” I will get cheaper meat. There are benefits to making a friend of the sellers in the markets; often they cut you a deal when you make your purchase.

Like the vegetable lady. I told her I wanted lettuce. She brought out a bin of lettuce that had been sitting in the shade of her stall and picked out several nice clumps. Then when I agreed on an amount, she tossed in one extra, “For a dash,” she said generously. (“Dash” is the word to describe the items tossed in for free.) She also dashed me a cucumber and a pepper, sweet seller. I’ll be going back to her the next time I’m in market.

I told you that cooking begins with purchasing food items in markets, but shopping isn’t done solely in markets. Accra is an up-and-coming capital where supermarkets are becoming more popular. These fancy grocery stores remind me of ones in America, especially when I stumble across a brand I recognize like Jiffy peanut butter. Unfortunately, import fees and taxes launch many of their prices well beyond the reach of our budget. Like the celery a friend told me about with her jaw gaping. “Did you see the celery? It was 12 American dollars for one stalk!” I certainly hope somebody buys it before it goes bad, but it is equally as certain that the somebody won’t be me.

Other things in the grocery stores are actually better deals than you can find in the markets which means shopping in these supermarkets can be a good idea. At least financially, if done carefully. 

But I still love supporting local economy. 

I love the markets. 

I love going stall to stall, selecting a smoked fish cross-section at one 

and stopping to take in the scent of spices in bulk from another. 

I love finding the unexpected, 

like bulk chicken bouillon in a heaping headpan, 

or quick oats at a tiny shop you’d least expect them in. 

And I love the interaction with the merchants.

Marketing complete, however you do it, “all” that remains is to create healthy meals for the family. Now that we’ve been here a month, my pantry feels well-stocked and my creativity is slowly coming alive again. Finally. Homemade yogurt helped to crack open the door of cooking possibilities. 

We had a mouth-watering Chicken Curry with a yogurt sauce from Bangladesh;

 Shawarma chicken served with a yogurt sauce and 

a tomato-cucumber salad from the Middle East; 

and granola and yogurt for breakfast. 

Plantain and yam give us delicious lunches and snacks, 

like the Plantain Donuts even the dog liked. 

(Hey, she was begging so hopefully and it was only a little one. . .) 

We made tacos one night by purchasing beef at market and 

chawing it to hamburger with our hand-crank meat grinder. 

Having a freezer also opens a world of options like the Orange-Banana drinks I made last night using our very own frozen orange juice.

Variety and creativity, much to my children's relief, are finally starting to reappear on the menu. Usually, that is. But right now it is time for dinner, John is still gone on an errand, and I have nothing started. Got any suggestions? 

"Today is the day."

I greeted the woman at my door with a happy, “Madame Salome, you are welcome!”

I had invited her over so she could teach me how to make southern-style fufu. And, no, that doesn’t include hot sauce, fried chicken, or salsa. It is the difference between the pounded yam fufu of the north and a mixture of pounded cassava and plantain as it is made in the south. Fufu is a heavy, filling meal of the vegetables being thoroughly pounded with a mortar and pestle until their consistency is that of (very) stiff mashed potatoes with elasticity similar to bread dough. There is no salt or seasoning in fufu, so it is always eaten with a flavorful soup. The fufu, mounded into a round, doughy island, dominates the bowl while soup floods the edges and invites all to dig in. Literally. We eat it with our hands, cutting off pieces of the fufu with our fingers then dipping them into the soup.

John and I love fufu and I imagined a happy morning working together with Salome (SAH-loh-may) and learning the art well enough to repeat it for our family in the future.  

But things didn’t run as smoothly as they did in my imagination.  Salome went to the mortar where I had piled my cassava and plantain. “You have only two cassava?” she asked. I could see light amusement dance in her eyes and threaten at the corners of her mouth.

“Yes.”

“These two small, small ones?”

“Yes.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I had guessed poorly on the amount of cassava. Salome lost the battle with her amusement and began grinning broadly.

“Do you generally use more cassava than plantain when you pound fufu?” I asked for future reference.

“Yes.” She gave a quick nod, still grinning at the cassava and the equal portion of plantain lying beside it.

I got the uncomfortable feeling of having made a mistake. It has been a while since I have been the newbie making a fool of myself out of little things that “everyone” knows how to do. Immediately it took me back to the days of living in a northern village where I was laughed at on a regular basis until I learned the ways of my village friends who had only one right way of sweeping their compound or cutting up a chicken or washing a garment. The small cassava staring up at me now and Salome’s undisguised amusement made me feel like a child again and one who knows very little.

Part of the problem was that I knew the cassava were small, but I had done the math while standing at the market stall. “I looked at the size of this cassava and thought it was big enough to feed Mr. John and I looked at this other one and saw it was enough for me and the children. So if we add the plantain, I think we will have plenty of fufu.”

That was very true but even the small quantity was a laughing matter for Salome. Africans can eat double the portions of these heavy local food as we Americans so even that explanation wasn’t going to expel her amusement.

Salome sat on a low stool and started to peel the cassava and plantain. Her grin stayed wide.

When the vegetables were on the stove to boil, Salome turned to me. “Shall we make light soup?” I wanted her to make it like she would make it for her own family, but another glitch was just ahead.  

“Okay, so which meat do you have?”

My spirits drooped. With Salome barely over the humor of my small portions, I hated to break it to her that I didn’t have meat. I dearly wished I had thought through this scenario while at market and purchased a smoked fish or a hunk of beef. But I hadn’t. All I had was sardines and they seemed like a poor excuse for meat in light of Salome's expectations.

Salome’s amused look returned. “We can do it with no meat,” I suggested lamely and started peeling an onion.

In the middle of pressing a garlic clove, I suddenly remembered that I was out of Maggi (bouillon cubes), a necessity for soup. When I told Salome, she stopped short. This cooking experience wasn’t turning out like she imagined either, what with my small cassava, meatless light soup, and now no Maggi as well. I felt she almost pitied me as she said matter-of-factly, “Then today is the day.” She squared her shoulders as though she was going to make the most of it and pitched in to help me. 

I assume she meant 'today is the day things go wrong' and felt that way myself when I quickly ran to a tiny shop up the street for bouillon --and the banana bread I was baking nearly burnt in my absence. 

When we were on the porch pounding the fufu until my arms felt like jelly and blisters formed (and I had to call John to take over for me, much to Salome’s amusement), the soup on the stove boiled over, creating a gigantic mess across stove, kettle, and counter.

And then the lights went off.

And then our child who hates mashed potatoes and anything remotely close to that texture had a rough time with our hard-earned lunch.

“Today is the day,” yes, but tomorrow is another. And I’m imagining a happy day because Salome is coming back and is bringing her 5-year-old to play with Tyler. Maybe that means Tyler will finally have a friend. 

John pounding fufu while Salome turns the 'dough'

Happy Things

1.  The Boy and his bike
   He had a bike in America but no good place to ride it. Occasionally I took him to the church parking lot or to a park so he had a smooth surface, but that didn't happen often enough for him to gain his independence on two wheels. Still, leaving his bike behind was sad.
   
   
   And then we arrived in Ghana and there was a little bike just his size waiting for him. The decal on the bike is a rocket, the perfect choice for the child who loves space things, and he fell in love with the bike immediately. It doesn't matter to him that the one pedal has been replaced with a piece of wood and that the other pedal is in half; he has a bike to ride!
   
   
   

   
   Not only did he gain a bike but also a beautiful place to ride, and within four days of us being here, he was riding it without training wheels. Now when he starts his day he says, “Guess what I’m going to do! I’m going out to ride my bike and catch a lizard.” And he’s off for another happy morning.
   
   I noticed his skill is improving daily. There is a little slope going to a storage garage and instead of following the slope, he thumped off the side, dropping off six inches for the sheer adventure of it. He also called me out this morning to watch him turn tight, fast circles, leaning hard enough as he did so to scrape his pedal on the cement. This “mother of boys” thing is getting scarier all the time.
   
2. Hot water!
   
     We showered in cold water for days and then I happened to notice a ‘thing’ on my kitchen wall.
    “Hey, what is that?” I asked John.
   “It looks suspiciously like a hot water heater.”
   And it was. We need to turn it on each time we use it (which isn’t often), but at it is nice to know we have one if I really need a warm shower instead of a cold one.
   
3. Playing in the Rain -something that doesn't change by a move overseas.
   The water ran cold from the downspout, but Tyler loved it anyway. Sophia didn't get brave enough for the downspout shower, but ran around in the rain until she was drenched. This is rainy season, supposedly, but we've only seen one rain since we are here. Wells in our area are drying up and the leaves on our orange trees are curling. The rain, then, was something worth dancing in.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Bogiant Bakery
   On the edge of Achimota Market is Bogiant Bakery. It is clean, inviting and modern enough to give you a printed, itemized receipt. The only thing missing is coffee, tables, and a power source for my computer. But what it does have almost makes up for its lack. They sell beautiful wheat bread, an item you never see sold along the streets. They also have tea bread which makes delicious egg sandwiches. Tea bread is shaped like French bread but much softer with a powdery top and a hint of nutmeg. In northern Ghana six years ago, tea bread was plentiful and was one of the foods I was looking forward to this time. I was disappointed, then, not to find it sold all over the place; the Bakery is the only place I’ve seen it, thus my deep appreciation for Bogiant.
   
5. The eggs from the worms in our oranges should be easily digested by our stomach acids.
   There are six orange trees on our property which are still providing us with oranges. We picked a heaping bushel of them on Monday and juiced them. We tried to be careful to cut out all the worms with their little nest of eggs but the eggs blended in with the color of the oranges and I wasn't sure I got all of them. Apparently I didn’t, for when I opened the container of frozen fruit slush I made using freshly squeezed juice, I found a dead worm lying on the top. If I missed worms, how many eggs are in there? The second batch we strained through cheesecloth. The good news is that this isn’t a species of worms that grows within you, even if you ingest their eggs (or the worm itself).
   
6. The Broom worked!
   We were in town over lunch, which is a happy thing altogether. I love a good excuse to get lunch on the town. This time we needed food on the go so the children split an entire bunch of bananas between the two of them. To go along with the fruit, we stopped by a stand to buy meat pies. Meat pies are interesting because sometimes you find meat in their filling and sometimes you just don't. This time the little stand surprised us by selling hot dog-sized sausages wrapped in the same flaky dough meat pies are made from. While I was overjoyed to patronize the woman's innovation, the dough-wrapped-sausage might have been a bad choice to feed two preschoolers in the back of a truck. When they had finished, it looked like someone had put crackers through a fan and aimed it in the backseat. Upon our immediate arrival home, I took out our broom in lieu of the vacuum we don’t have and swept out the truck. And it cleaned up beautifully.

Children.

They peer over my wall and knock on my gate.

They holler at the white children,

calling their names and garbling the one into, “Tyloh” 

and mimicking the baby’s pronunciation of hers, “Sosia.”

They ask for oranges. Lots of oranges. Today we pitched some over the wall as we were picking them from two of our six orange trees, throwing them to the voices across the wall.

They laughed and stashed them in their clothes.

Then they asked for more, disguising their voices

and lying because they wanted more oranges 

but Madame Sara said, “But I already gave you two.”

“That was my friend asking,” said the same voice. “Give me three orange!”

Children.

There are little ones playing together.

The two little girlies are pretending to make supper and feed their babies.

One, our guest, is blonde as can be. The other is brown-haired and she is mine.

So is the boy who watches them boy-like, then makes some manly concoction of his own.

But not for dolls.

Ho no! His is for himself.

Children.

I wondered what in the world I was doing, taking these children of mine across the world.

Weren’t they going to hate it all?

I looked at them from the comfort of my American home and wondered.

I even cried a little.

Weren’t they going to be hot all the time?

These are the children who fuss about being hot and grow miserable when they sweat.

Wouldn’t the strangers who lean into their faces trying to getting a reaction from them scare my little darling who has such a big personal space and who was timid around her own, loving grandpa she rarely sees?

These are children who thrive in normalcy.

If the crib side was lowered for her nap, it nearly ruined her sleep 

because she always slept with it up.

And he, the big, brave brother, panicked one day when the van got started before his seat belt was fastened. What was he going to think in a land where car seats aren’t?

And the food. Oh, the food.

These are the children who hate mashed potatoes,

and macaroni and cheese,

and cheesy potatoes,

and egg casseroles

and pudding.

Whatever will they do with food of those textures

but that are fermented and served with a spicy soup?

Parents told me children are adaptable, trying to reassure me.

But I hadn’t seen my children be adaptable.

(Unless you count the Little One eventually adjusting to the crib side being down.)

I was worried how they would do.

And then we moved.

You know my children?

The ones in my imagination crying because they had no car seats

are laughing.

They bounce nearly uncontrollably off the seat on ill-maintained roads

where humps have formed new contours and where bumps make the shocks grimace.

They watch each other and laugh.

They are laughing in the taxis and smiling in the trotro (taxi vans).

They wave out the windows, delighted that so many people wave back.

The child who cried in his bed in America because his back was hot

comes to me grinning, asking, “Are my cheeks red?”

“Yes, they are very red. Why is that?”

“Because I’m trying to catch lizards, that’s why. Feel my hair.”

I can see that it is wet from sweat and decline. “Ew, no thanks!”

He laughs, his eyes sparkling. “It is because I’m playing so much.”

There have been no tears because he’s hot.

Not even when his back is forming little red bumps all over.

Surely the people will make the Littlest One scared.

I mean, she cried when her very own uncles pick her up.

 “How ah you?!” someone asked her in that forceful manner of theirs.

She looked away shyly and quietly said, “Doing well.”

The woman didn’t hear.

“Look at her and say, ‘I’m fine.’” I coached. (‘Fine’ is the appropriate answer here.)

She obeyed without crying.

The people cheered.

She looked up at me and I smiled, proud and astonished all at the same time.

There are more hard things to grow familiar with.

The children asked why we weren’t turning the lights on

but we couldn’t; the electricity was off. . .again.

We explained to them that it wasn’t our turn for electricity.

Ghana shares its electricity with its neighbor (Togo) and there isn’t enough to go around.

So we are sharing.

That made perfect sense to a five and three-year-old 

who are learning to live peacefully together.

They took our word for it and went about their day.

The house felt dark and un-homey to me, almost gloomy. 

Then I walked into the room and saw them playing.

He was sitting on the couch, looking (squinting?) at a book.

She was by a window, playing, and talking quietly to her toys.

They didn’t seem to mind the dusky house.

That was the day we bought spring rolls as a treat.

I was drooling over them before we ever got them home.

But when we bit in to them, we were disappointed to find they were filled

with spaghetti noodles and nothing else.

Tyler asked, "Is this cheese?"

It wasn't.

But he thought it was a great way to eat pasta.

And he ate it happily.

(However, I noticed ‘Banku,’ the fermented corn dough didn’t go down so great.

Next time I’ll need to make my own soup that isn’t so spicy it makes our noses run.

Maybe then they can get past the texture and enjoy the soup, at least.)

How are they doing so well?

It could be that all those parents were right when they said God did a little miracle

by making children adaptable.

Or it could be that their adjustments will still come,

that I was looking for their hardest things in all the wrong places.

Or it could be that God has been answering the prayers of all the people

I asked to pray for the children (and their mom).

Whatever it is, I’m so grateful to God for these days

when my children are so happy

--even in Africa where I thought it was going to be hard for them.

Thank You, God, for exceeding my expectations.