Our Daily Bread

In Ghana, dancing days were my best days. I scheduled my first dance lesson for a Tuesday morning. Yahaya told me I could meet the head dancer of Korye Dance Theatre group, Filomina, at Oasis bar at 11 o’clock. He said he would come as well. Scott was home that morning so he could watch Elle. Dakota, of course was in school. So this was my first outing to Kotokraba on my own. I had been to the market several times by now with Scott, and I’d already broken in  Oasis bar, so I felt only a little bit anxious about the solo excursion. What I felt most nervous about, as always, was the unknown.

I had no idea what to expect from the dance lesson. Where in Oasis Bar would I be dancing? What should I wear? Would I be outside, dancing in the hot midday sun? Could my body hold up in the heat? To what music would I dance? Would Yahaya drum while Filo taught me the steps? What dance would they teach me? Would the dance be a fast one or a slow one? Would I look like an idiot? Or some old white lady with no rhythm? Could I even do this?

I knew Filo was an expert dancer. I had watched her that first night at Oasis, tirelessly hitting every step. She and the other dancers remained in sync throughout every jump, stomp, arm wave, hip thrust, chest pop and head bob. Routine after routine, with not a moment’s rest in between, I watched the athlete’s energy, body control and stamina with awe. All of the dances were packed with choreography and, simultaneously each part of their bodies mirrored the various, thunderous drumbeats.

I also knew that I was not a dancer by any other standard than buzzed-up bar freaking and Zumba classes at the YMCA. I fretted the one-on-one private lesson. Alongside Filo and Yahaya, I would undoubtedly look ridiculously clueless. There was no way around it. I wished, if there were only a few other people taking the lesson, there would at least be one dancer who would look dumber than I did. The thought of their eyes examining my every attempted step egged on my negative inner voice. You can’t do this. You’ll look like a fool. What makes you think you can move like them? They’ll laugh at you behind your back. You’re no athlete. You’re too old. You’re too white. I had confidence in one thing. That was my desire. I wanted to do this, as much to broaden my mind and learn some Ghanaian culture, as to prove to myself that I was strong, able, courageous and independent. I dressed for my first dance class reminding myself, it wasn’t about being an amazing dancer, learning all of the steps without fail. It was about having the balls to try it.

I decided to treat the lesson like I would an aerobics class at the gym. I wore my running shorts, a jogging bra and a tank top. I knew I’d be dancing barefoot so sandals were fine for footwear. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail and smeared only sunscreen on my face.

Big John drove along the seaside road, overlooking miles of deserted beachfront, interrupted only by staggered palm trees and fishing canoes. Every so often we passed a large group of dark men in a line facing the water. They heaved a rope in time, swaying as one, back and forth. Between each pull they each lifted one arm, swung it back then forward again to grip the rope. They chanted as they rocked, and their arms waved simultaneously before they rocked forward and back again. Big John told me the men were pulling in their fishing nets. “They have a song they all sing while they pull. They sing together so they know when to pull. It’s like they are dancing together,” he commented.

“I’d like to come to the beach sometime with Elle and watch the fisherman someday. Do you think you could bring us here to do that one day?”

“Why not?,” he assured. “What I will do is stop and talk to some of the men and ask which day will be best to come.”

Big John dropped me off at Oasis and Filomena arrived only a few minutes later. After the standard, “How are you? I’m fine, thank you. And you?” She pointed up to a pavilion-like second floor above the bar. “We will do our lesson upstairs.” I followed as Filo climbed the spiral stairs, wooden and staggered. Nerves had loosened my knees and it took extra concentration to guide them up each wide step. At the top, there stood a circular area with a linoleum tile floor, empty besides two wooden benches and a white dog snoozing beneath one. Wind from the ocean swept through the rectangular open window frames and swirled through the shaded pavilion.

Filomena posing in front of our "dance studio" view

Filo slipped off her flip flops and I did the same. She stood in the center of the room. She said, “I am going to teach you a dance called opatempa (I’m spelling it phonetically). It is a traditional welcome dance of the Fanti tribe.”

I didn’t see any sort of music player, and Yahaya had not come. Filo beckoned me to stand behind her. “I will do the steps for you and you follow.” The only sound was that of the ocean waves crashing on the shore below. Filo slapped both hands on her thighs then began singing. Her voice was high and soft, melodic and sweet, “Yabbay brah nah nah yabbay. Yabbay brah nah nah yabbah.” She lifted her left leg twice, then her right twice, leaning forward and swaying her hips side to side. “Coryen ketay see yah brah nah nah yabbay. Coryen mbrentay yah brah nah nah yabbay.” At the same time her hands slapped her thighs twice, then she clapped once followed by two, right-handed beats to her chest. “Yabbay brah nah nah yabbay. Yo bizee gur ah cher un.”

“Now you follow.” She urged. I honestly saw no connection between the rhythm of her legs and her arms. I heard no obvious beat conducting either movement. But somehow her song and her choreography matched. She began singing the first verse of the song again. I attempted the thigh slaps, clap, chest beats at the same time as I lifted each foot twice. I felt no guidance from the music and her body flowed so naturally with her singing that I couldn’t mark a concrete time when each foot should move, or when each slap or clap should connect. I couldn’t even attempt the swaying hips yet.

“Let’s try the legs first,” she suggested. She began singing the first verse again, stomping each foot twice. She had slowed the tempo of the melody to emphasize each step. I followed with no problem. I saw, heard and felt the beat leading my feet. “That’s good. Now let’s try just the hands.” This time when she began singing, her feet stayed planted and she slapped her thighs twice, clapped once then beat her chest with her right hand twice. Throughout the first verse she repeated the pattern. Again, I saw, heard and felt the beat. Easily, I picked up the clapping combination and continued to mimic her. “That’s good. That’s right. Now let’s put the legs and the arms together.” She began singing. The rhythms I had mastered individually didn’t overlap. I urged my legs and arms to move to two different beats. With no music, the rhythms I was supposed to follow were abstract to me at this point. Filomena was patient and positive as I bumbled my way through the first verse.

“Let’s try the next part.” Thankfully, the next combination had my whole body moving to the same beat, as did each new section she taught me. But between the combinations, we returned to the enigmatic routine from the first verse. It was the connecting thread that wove through the dance. Filomena remained positive. She high-fived me and praised me between each combination and encouraged me when I stumbled awkwardly through the basic beat. “You’ll get it. It will come. With practice, a woman becomes perfect.”

After an hour, during which I had to stop several times to rehydrate and sop up my sweat with a washcloth, the lesson was over. Filo generously told me, “You are a good dancer. You learn fast.” I didn’t care that her words were probably flattery. I was proud of myself for trying. I inwardly celebrated the courage and strength it took for me, on my own, to pursue this personal goal. She agreed to meet me for my next lesson on Thursday morning. I left her feeling energized and confident, unstoppable. The hour of dancing fed my soul.

Agnes and I had planned for her to pick me up. She said she would be in town shopping so she’d pick me up from Oasis and take me to the seamstress where my dresses were ready. I called her to tell her the lesson was over. She told me, “I’m coming. I’ll flash you when I get there.”

I walked down the spiral stairs. My tank top was drenched. Every strand of hair dripped. I sat at a wooden table balanced on a rocky ledge beside the restaurant, overlooking the shore. I collapsed in the chair. When the ocean wind hit my sweaty skin, the cool sensation was a relief. I ordered a cold pineapple juice and caught my breath.

I still hadn’t heard from Agnes. I reached for my cell phone to dial her again only to find that my phone was dead. I thought I should head out to the front of Oasis to meet her. She said she was coming, so I figured it shouldn’t be long now. This was my first lesson in a phenomenon called “Africa Time,” or “Ghana Time.”

I waited and waited and waited, helplessly. With no phone I couldn’t check on Agnes’s whereabouts. In my sweaty work-out clothes I paced the dusty parking lot, melting in the sun. Oasis’s entrance was recessed from the main road and I worried that perhaps Agnes had stopped at the Oasis sign near the street rather than pulling all the way down the steep declining dirt path. Maybe she’d come for me already, waited at the sign, attempted to call me and left when the phone was dead. I climbed the sandy lot toward the street, weighing my options. I could risk standing Agnes up and go home now. Of course, I couldn’t call Big John so I’d have to go to the street and hail a taxi. Or I could wait.

Smarty Pants and Shoeless Joe

Two boys sidled up to me as I walked. One boy was 10 years old, the other 6 or 7. Their dark brown skin carried a layer of lighter dust. The small one wore a school uniform shirt that had been orange at one time. Now it was closer to dingy tan, darkening sharply at the seams. The older one was enthusiastic to share his English. “Hello, How are you?” he recited.

“Fine, how are you?” I replied, smiling to welcome their company.

“I’m fine. Thank you. What is your name?” He continued proudly.

“My name is Molly.”

“Where are you from?”

“I am from the U.S..” I answered, wondering how many more questions the boy knew.

“The United States of America?” he displayed his knowledge.

“Yes. Good job! You are clever.” I told him, using words I’d heard from other Ghanaians.

“Thank you.” I realized the boy really knew English; he wasn’t just reciting.

I pointed to a large stone mansion across the street. It didn’t fit in with the shack-like dwellings and shops around it. It was three stories tall and took up the space of the entire block. It was painted a cleaner white than any other building I’d seen here. A wide stone staircase twisted behind the white stone partition surrounding the property. Shiny golden lions guarded the entrance on either side of the gate. I asked the boy, “What is that big building?”

The king's palace on the left

“That’s the king’s palace. You should go see it.” I knew Ghana had a president. This must be a tribal king, I guessed.

I doubted someone could just knock on the door of this impressive building. “You can go in and see the palace?” I asked, unsure what to believe.

“No, I can’t. But you can. You are white. White people can visit inside. You should go in and see a lot of beautiful things inside.” 

I was immediately infuriated by the injustice of it. Not only because the boy believed he didn’t deserve the honor; only white people could enter the king’s palace, but because this selfish, uncaring leader could reside lavishly in a huge, pristine mansion. Meanwhile his people struggled to survive in the overcrowded streets, lucky if they slept on the stone floor of some shanty, shack or hut. I imagined this king draped in ceremonial cloth and gold jewelry, stuffing his mouth with mounds of food piled across a gold-trimmed table, while children in the street begged. I could see him sitting on his royal stool with servants wiping his cuticles clean while his people squatted in the dirt, licking fish stew from between their grubby fingers. I didn’t want to see his beautiful possessions, worthless and meaningless to me, compared to the suffering their monetary equivalent could have eased outside of his ivory tower. At the same time, these two little boys from his tribe wandered the town aimlessly.

“Why aren’t you in school?” I asked the boys, pointing to the patch on the younger boy’s shirt.

The older boy spoke for both of them, “We can’t go to school today because we don’t have shoes.”

I looked down at their feet. The 10-year old had flip flops. The younger boy wore one bedraggled running shoe. The shoe was at last three sizes too big for his foot. It had once been light blue, a girl’s shoe, but now it was a grayish-red dust color. His right foot was covered by only a filthy sock. I noticed that his socks matched, each with faded British flags bordering his ankles. The older boy apologized for his friend’s grimy shirt, “When he goes to school, he will wash his shirt so it looks lovely.”

“When will you get your shoes?” I asked.

His face lit up hopefully, “You will buy me my shoes?!”

My heart sank. “I can’t today. I have 5 cedis to get a taxi home.”

He moved on to another subject, talking and asking questions. He really was a smart little guy. “Come,” he started walking to the street. “Come sit over by the tree in the shade.”

I followed him toward a concrete half-wall bordering the roadside gutter. As we walked, a man called for him and he turned to go. “My brother is calling. He has a shop by the castle. You should come.” He jogged a few yards away then turned and came back, “When you come back here, will you bring me some bread? I like to eat bread. Tomorrow when you come back will you bring some bread for me?”

“Next time I come, I’ll bring some bread in case I see you.” He smiled, waved and ran off.

I sat on the half wall watching the traffic pass. It had been an hour and a half since I spoke to Agnes and I hadn’t yet devised a new plan. So I waited. The small boy had followed me and pulled himself up to sit beside me. He hadn’t yet gotten in a word. Now that his friend was gone, he took the chance. He placed his little hand out, palm up, then used his other index finger to touch the outstretched fingers one by one. Each time he touched a finger he recited a word. “Tree.” “Goat.” “Car.” “Sea.” “Gutter.” He started over, counting off each finger with a new word, “Sun.” “Moon.” “Star.” “Boat.” “Water.”

I didn’t know what else to do so I placed my hand out to him, palm up. I smiled and touched my index finger, “Medasi  (Thank you).” His eyes brightened. I touched my middle finger, “Ensu (Water).” He smiled, nodding his encouragement. I touched my ring finger, “Et-te-den (How are you?).” The old woman sitting beside him joined him as he laughed gleefully. I touched my pinky, “Boko (Good).” They nodded and giggled. I touched my thumb. “Wo fro en den (What is your name?).” We clapped happily for each other. How quickly I could fall in love with these children!

"WELCOME" Billboard entering Cape Coast

My focus shifted back to the passing cars. Just up the road from where we sat was the famous slave castle. Tourists didn’t leave Cape Coast without seeing it. Barack Obama had visited it when he was in Ghana a few years before. Whenever a taxi filled with white people whizzed by, the little boy would tap my arm and point. “Friend?” he wondered. Of course every white person in Ghana must be my friend, right?

I laughed and shook my head each time he pointed excitedly. “Friend?”

“No. no. Not my friends.”

He pointed, “Friend?”

“No. Not my friend.” Every time he pointed I laughed and told him no, but each time he pointed he was just as sure as the time before that those white faces must be my friends.

He pointed, “Friend?”

I laughed, throwing my head back. I wasn’t even looking at the faces anymore, “No. No…wait…” I snapped my head back to focus into the front passenger seat where Scott’s arm hung out the window. I jumped down from the wall shouting, “SCOTT! SCOTT!” The taxi, driven by Big John, u-turned and pulled into the drive leading to Oasis. My little friend followed me to the car, where Scott, along with three American students piled out. They were on their way to the castle.

I used Scott’s cell phone to call Agnes. “I’m coming,” she said. I was pretty sure I understood “Ghana Time” now.

I told Agnes not to come because I was tired and heading home with Big John. She understood. No problem. Scott and the students walked the last few blocks to the castle. I waved to my one-shoed companion and he called, “Bye Bye. Bye Bye.” Later that evening, Agnes stopped by. She had picked up my dresses from the seamstress for me since we weren’t able to meet. Before I went to bed that night, I eyed the half loaf of bread resting atop our mini-fridge. I made a mental note to put it in my backpack before my next dance lesson.

To Do List

Elle loves being the little helper.

Harmaton passed gradually. Day by day the filmy yellow sky brightened to azure. I recognized my own redundancy each time I announced, “Wow, it’s hot today.” Without the sandy fog dulling the sun, the bearable 85-degree waking hours rose by at least 10 degrees. Wet rings lived under my arms and breasts. Sweat droplets traced meandering paths down my dingy legs. The pits under my knees dripped perspiration onto the floor when I crossed my legs like I had wrung out a damp cloth. My hair line, perpetually soaked, seeped salty liquid, collecting in the contours of my face, dribbled into my eyes and lips, and created sweat sideburns. Lines of dirt collected in the creases of my neck and armpits. I incessantly scratched at my irritated jaw line, an apparent thoroughfare for grimy perspiration. If I removed my sunglasses, I felt the brightness of the cloudless sky dry out my eyeballs, and no amount of squinting eased the blinding sunlight. Needless to say, I didn’t need a thermometer to gage this kind of heat. I could only measure it by the bottles of water I had to consume constantly just to keep my head from spinning with dehydration.

The energy required to physically accomplish anything in this heat easily trumped Jillian’s “Last Chance Workout” in my tasks as a stay-at-home-mom in Cape Coast. Scott reported to work most weekdays and Dakota had school from morning until dinnertime every day. Elle and I then, were left on our own.

I found security in domestic responsibilities as those first weeks passed. My fear had been grounded in the unknown, the unexpected. So as I established routines throughout the week, my nerves eased, and swallowing and breathing became unconscious again.

I loosely designated Mondays and Fridays as house work and shopping days. Our to-do list looked similar to one in the U.S.: laundry, dishes, dust, mop, grocery shop, cook, fill water bottles, bathe Elle.  But with no washer/dryer, dishwasher, one-stop grocery store, car, or hot or clean running water, each task was like a new puzzle.

LAUNDRY: True, we hired a man named Alex to take our dirty laundry every Friday. For 22 cedis, he returned our clean clothes clean, ironed and folded on Sunday evening. This included on-call ironing for Dakota’s school shirts (the school counselor had offered to pick up an iron for me next time she was at the market…I understood her suggestion). Most of our dirty clothes went with Alex, but there were clothes throughout the week that needed washing. Elle was having accidents an average of three times per day, so she invariably ran out of dresses and panties. Dakota had only two shirts for his school uniform to last the whole week. My locally-appropriate wardrobe was not large enough to sustain a full week, plus my underthings couldn’t be sent out. So I hand-washed all those items a few times per week using a bar of laundry soap and water. The bar was slimy red and had a kerosene, paint-thinner smell.

I learned through trial and error that it was easier on my lower back, and cooler to wash clothes on the back porch in a bucket rather than in the bathtub. I filled the bucket in the bathtub and hauled it to the back porch. Then I dunked, sudsed, dunked, scrub-brushed, dunked, sudsed and rinsed each piece. After a few loads in which the clothes dried stiff and crunchy, I added a second bucket of water dedicated only to rinsing. Soon, I noticed that the wide-ridged seat on the plastic porch chair made a fine washboard, so I added a step between suds and dunk. Once I wrung each item dry, I draped them on the chair while I dumped the soapy water across the driveway (Scott had suggested wetting the dirt driveway cut down on dust drifting in the windows). Next, I used the kettle to haul the clean clothes to the front yard, hanging them on the clothesline. By evening, the sun’s heat would dry the clothes through.

DISHES: Our kitchen had one shallow sink and minimal counter space. Without a drain plug, I stuffed a washcloth in the drain to fill the sink with soapy water. I stood as far away from the sink as possible, and leaned precariously reaching into the sink. You see, the drain empties into a short pipe that simply runs through the wall then empties into a cement gutter just outside. One day, Scott, Elle and I returned from the market. As always, Big John had gotten out of the car to help carry in our bags. As we swung the flap-flap door open to cart in the bags, Scott stopped short. He pointed to the gutter beside the drain pipe from the kitchen sink. In the cement gutter crawled a shiny, black scorpion, its stinger curled over its back. Its small size allowed it to hide its head in a crack in the foundation beside where the kitchen sink emptied. “We have to kill it!” Scott reasoned. I pictured Scott trying to stomp the scorpion like a bug only to be stung when it jumped onto his exposed ankle.

“No, no, don’t go near it!” I cautioned.

Big John, in the meantime had found a long stick in the brush beside the house. By this time, the scorpion had wiggled almost completely into the cracked foundation. Big John stuffed the stick into the hole, attempting to kill the poisonous crawler. Its evil little body disappeared into the hole directly under where the sink drained.

“Is it dead? Did you kill it?” We asked him.

“I don’t know. To be sure, we should do this.” John completed his rescue by plugging the hole with a walnut-sized rock then retrieving a hammer from his car. He pounded the rock into the hole.

For the moment, the scorpion seemed taken care of, but whenever I approached the sink, I imagined it climbing through that hole straight into the dark corner under the kitchen sink and stinging my unsuspecting feet. So I stood as far away from the sink as possible for those first weeks. I washed each dish on the way into the water. That way, I ended up with a sink full of clean dishes. I pulled out the dishcloth and heard the water falling into the gutter just under the window. When the soapy water was emptied, I turned on the faucet to rinse each dish, turning it off to dry and put away.





One morning, when I was stacking the dishes about to be washed, I turned on the spigot only to hear an ominous hiss. The parched faucet sputtered impotently. Scott lugged our bucket and kettle back and forth to the Polytank, a large cylindrical water reserve tank across the road. I met him on the porch with the dirty dishes, a towel, dish cloth and dish soap. The bucket became my washing sink, the kettle my rinsing sink, a towel spread on the cement porch became the drying rack. Elle was my rinsing girl. She dunked each dish twice then placed them gently on the towel to dry.

At night, Scott did the evening dishes because I cooked. He chose to heat up soapy water on the stove in the big kettle then pile all the dishes in it. “I just can’t see the dishes as clean without hot water. The hot water kills the germs.”

DUST and MOP: I have to give most the credit for mopping to Scott. I swept the floors through the house and mopped with dish soap and water once per week. Within a day, the floor was dusted with a fine layer of sand and dirt. The breeze we encouraged by opening every window brought with it the fine red sand kicked up on the dirt roads surrounding us.  Before mopping one morning, I tidied up, tossing my sandals into the bedroom closet. When I opened the door, a tiny lizard popped out and stared up at me. He was so small, I had to squint to be sure he wasn’t a cockroach. When I leaned toward him, he skittered into the middle of the room. I sprung to action, grabbing a laundry basket in which I planned to trap him. I chased him around the room with the awkward pink basket bouncing against my leg. He slipped under a chair. When I slid the chair away, he looked up at me again before scurrying away and wiggling into a crack in the floorboard.

Scott became uncomfortable quicker than I did when his bare feet smeared the sheets upon climbing in bed. He didn’t complain to me. He simply made time to mop more often. I would say, between the two of us, we mopped the floor at least three times per week even after the Harmaton passed. Sometimes we had one more person helping us mop.

One Saturday morning, a young boy, probably 9 or 10 years old climbed up to our back porch, carrying a long black-handled machete. Scott was on the porch as he peeked his head over the wooden rails. “Hello, Hello?” he called.

“Yes?” Scott answered, opening the gate so the boy could join him on the porch.

“I want money. Can I do a job for money?” He bent down to place his machete by the steps then walked up to Scott.

Scott put out his hand to meet the little entrepreneur. “Wo-fro-e-den?” Scott asked in the Fante he’d picked up.

“Quabenna,” the boy answered, delighted in Scott’s attempt at his own mother tongue.

Scott called in the house for me, asking if we had any jobs the boy could do. I shrugged, conflicted. I really didn’t want to put this child to work. On the other hand, I didn’t want to turn him away empty-handed either. Scott must’ve felt the same way.

“Do you know how to mop?”

Quabenna nodded. As Scott motioned him into the house, he saw the rusted, steel blade of his machete lying on the ground. He reached for the heavy wooden handle, blackened with labor, and set it on top of the porch railing.

“Come look at the floors. How much to sweep and mop all the floors?”

The boy looked at the ceiling for a moment, then at his feet. “40 cedis.”

Scott guffawed, “That’s too much! What do you the money for?”

The boy thought for a moment. “I need money for food, and for a school book.”

“How much does the book cost?”

“5 cedis.” The boy answered.

Admiring the boy’s gumption, Scott made a generous deal. “I’ll give you 10 cedis now. Then when you buy the book, bring it back here to show me, and I will give you 5 more cedis.”

The boy eagerly agreed and began sweeping then mopping each room in the bungalow.

A few days later, Quabenna called from the back porch. “Hello? Hello?” Scott wasn’t home so I answered the door to find him holding up a soft-covered workbook entitled “Christian Morals.” He opened the cover and pointed to a neat cursive signature. “That’s my signature so no one can steal my book.” I read the name. SAMUEL. I assumed his teacher addressed him by his Christian name in school. I optimistically gave him his 5 cedis. He smiled, “I will come back Saturday.”

GROCERY SHOPPING and COOKING: Big John drove Elle and me to the market in Abbra a few times per week to replenish our food supplies. Prepared food and boxed dinners are not an option so I had to buy those foods that were familiar to me until I could find someone to teach me how to use the unfamiliar vegetables, sauces and fruits available. I soon had a standard grocery list. I bought green peppers, red or yellow onions, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and mangoes form a woman named Effui. Her crooked wooden stand was on the outside back corner of the market. I liked Effui immediately because she asked what else I needed, then walked me to stands nearby her own where bananas, roma tomatoes and pineapples were sold. I sensed her trustworthiness as she conversed with each vendor to get me a fair price.

I bought my eggs in the same market, so fresh the shells were dotted with sticky afterbirth, dirt and down feathers. I would walk back to Big John’s taxi and drop off my fruits and veggies, grab the puckered egg carton waiting in the car, and choose a stand near the front of the market. I soon established a standard price of 7 cedis for 30 eggs per week.

Juiceboxes, pasta, Laughing Cow cheese, rice, mayonnaise, mustard and tomato paste were other shopping list standards. For those, Big John drove to several open shops along the road. Chances were I’d stop at at least 3 such stores before I found everything. When Elle became friendly with Big John, I could leave her in the backseat as I quickly ran in and out. Some items on our shopping list were treats. I couldn’t ever depend on finding them but if I did, I’d certainly buy them. Those were shortbread or chocolate chip cookies, canned tuna fish, sliced cheese singles, refrigerated EVEN butter (the only kind that didn’t taste like strait shortening), ramen noodles (which became a culinary celebration due to their familiarity and simplicity) and a chocolate dairy drink that was the closest thing to milk I could find. It held the consistency of 2% milk and I saw the word “crème” on the ingredients list. But the expiration date was one year out and I didn’t always find it refrigerated. I told Big John how much I missed real milk. He said, “Don’t worry. My brother knows a guy with a cow. I will take you there to get fresh, warm milk, nice and thick.” O.K. so I didn’t want real milk. I tried to explain our pasteurized, homogenized, watered-down, refrigerated version of milk I craved, but to no avail. On the way home from the market, we stopped at Goyle, a nearby gas station where I bought bread and water bags.



Who knew fresh eggs should have white yolks



The very first meal I made in Ghana was a lunch of egg salad sandwiches and orange slices. You think you could picture that, right? Wrong. The egg yolks here were white, and the orange peels green. Later I noticed that the longer the eggs sat before I used them, the yellower the yolk became. After a week, the yolks took on a creamy, off-white and yellow hue. I’ve yet to see an egg yolk even close to the dark yellow that we buy in the U.S.. Frankly, based on my hypothesis, I don’t think I’ll eat it if I do.

Green oranges...what the...?

Other favorite meals I concocted were pasta dishes with veggies, tuna melts, grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade coleslaw and vegetable stir-fries with rice and tomato-based sauces. If I wanted to insure a thumbs-up on a meal, I just had to top the dish with Laughing Cow cheese, a soft white triangle that tastes like a combination of Velveeta and cream cheese (I’m hoping I can find it in America).

Having meat with our meals became a specialty as well. I split the broiler chicken I bought with Agnes into two dinners. I de-boned the breasts and thighs for a stir-fry one night then fried the legs and wings the following night. When I tried the same plan with one of the layer chickens, it was inedible. Scott attempted to bite into the flesh on a drumstick and couldn’t even tear it off the bone. He pulled and gnawed with no success. Agnes warned us it would be tough. I decided I must’ve prepared it wrong, and I would need a local girl to show me the proper way. In the meantime, I would only buy broilers.

The farm where I could buy chicken or pork was about a half-mile down the street. Agnes called early one morning, “Molly, I am at the farm. They have broilers today. You should come soon before they run out.” I asked her to request two broilers for me and I would pick them up once we got out of bed. The street on which I walked was a paved one. The cars whizzed by so closely, I could’ve reached out and touched them. With no sidewalks, I had to carry Elle the whole way on my hip. My empty backpack hung off my shoulders.

The butcher had two broilers ready for me when I arrived. On a long shot I asked if he had any pork (the previous few times I asked he informed me, “Next week”). This time, he told me he had ham and chops. I asked for two hams, expecting a familiar round roasting ham. Instead he brought out two mid-sized chunks of white-pink flesh, each under a thick layer of gelatinous fat and rough skin. Course pig hairs poked through the skin. I shrugged my shoulders, “Do I boil it?” I asked the man.

He laughed at my cluelessness, “You can boil it. Or you can cook it like a chicken.” I shrugged and he wrapped them up for me. I could figure it out, right? I loaded the two chickens and two slabs of ham into my backpack and started our walk home. Carrying 15 pounds of meat on my back and Elle on my hip, I walked the half-mile home in 95 degree heat. It wasn’t funny, but I had to laugh out loud as I heaved my load home and Elle asked, “Mommy, will you sing McDonald for me.”

So I sang and I walked and I sweat, “Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm, he had a…” I paused for Elle to fill in her animal of choice, as was customary.

“A LIZARD!” she yelled excitedly.

Giggling and panting between each syllable, I continued, “He had a lizard. E-I-E-I-O. With a …” I stuck my tongue in and out, making a slurping sound, “slurp slurp here and a slurp, slurp there…” The melody served as motivation for each foot to move forward until we turned onto our sandy road and I could set Elle down to walk the last half-block home.

Elle drinking her water sachet

FILL WATER BOTTLES: We had saved our water bottles each time we ate at Sassakawa restaurant during the first three days of comped meals. We knew it would become quite an expense to continue buying bottles of water after our free meal plan ran out. Once it did, we began buying large bags of water. Each bag contained 30 half-liter sachets of water. We could drink a sachet of water by biting a hole in the corner of it then sucking the water out of the pouch.

We could also empty the pouches into large water bottles. We kept some in the fridge and stored the rest beside the small ice box, replacing them one by one until all the stored bottles were empty again. It took three small pouches to fill one large water bottle. With a bag of 30 pouches costing under 2 cedis, we could fill ten large water bottles, which would have cost over 2 cedis a piece. If we refilled the bottles every few days, we’d save hundreds of dollars. Scott and I filled the first batch. After that, Scott delegated the chore to Dakota. He delightedly discovered that the empty sachets could be blown up and popped like a balloon. When we heard loud gunshot-like bangs echoing from the kitchen, we knew Dakota was completing his household chore.

BATHING: I soon found that the morning sun heated the kitchen faucet’s exposed pipe so the water flowed hot by late morning. This became Elle’s bath time every second or third…or fourth day. I could fill one large kettle with the hot water straight from the tap in the kitchen then empty it in the bathtub. The bathtub faucet’s cool water could be combined with the solar-heated water to make a lukewarm bath for Elle. I gaged which parts of her body were the cleanest and washed those first, saving her blackened feet and ankles for last.

By 5 o’clock, Scott returned from work and Dakota from school. Scott would tell me how his classes went. At first he was discouraged and frustrated. The students didn’t seem to understand him but they wouldn’t ask questions. They would talk amongst themselves as he lectured, and when he attempted to lead a class discussion, the students disrupted each other with raucous laughter.  I felt honored when he asked for my advice. I thought of how I handled my incoming seventh-graders each school year back in the United States. I reminded him that it wasn’t personal. The students here weren’t used to his style of teaching yet. I asked if he could observe some other classes to get a feel for what the students were used to. I suggested he use some roleplaying with the students to model his classroom behavior expectations. He could also write his key lecture points on the white board to help students follow along despite his difficult American accent. Scott called a colleague and friend in America to get more advice. Talk slower, distribute an outline of his lecture, start with fewer class discussions and work them in more as they became more comfortable with them. Within a week of applying the suggestions, he became more positive about his classes, and shared stories about what the students discussed with him each day.

Dakota in his University Practice Secondary School uniform

Dakota’s return from school was always unpredictable. Some days he would begin chattering before he was through the door. He described the funny or odd things teachers said about reproductive health or marriage, “The teacher told the boys that when we get married, we need to let our mother-in-law know immediately that she isn’t the boss, ‘When you go in the car and your wife’s mother tries to sit in the front seat, you say no and tell her to sit in the back so your wife can sit in the front!’” He told us about bizarre films they watched, in which homosexuals were shown holding hands, or American rock musicians were pictured pumping their fists, holding up a pinky and forefinger, “The teacher said it was the sign of the devil and to beware of satanic worshippers and homosexuals.” Or he told us about friendly propositions he had received, “This one boy said, ‘You will meet me here in the morning to tell me your favorite bible verse.” He also shared interesting discipline techniques, “This one boy laughed while the teacher was speaking so she called him in front of the class and smacked him as hard as she could on the back three times while the rest of the class laughed at him.” Or he smirked, “I want to buy this girl Esi a bracelet.”

Other days, Dakota avoided us completely by entering the door closest to his bedroom. He strode strait to his room and slammed the door. He was frustrated and angry. He wanted to go home. “These teachers don’t know how to teach. They teach some things wrong. I can’t understand their English. Sometimes they don’t even show up and we just sit in class talking for an hour while another student tries to teach the subject. I don’t understand their goal in this school. I’m gonna fail because they expect me to know everything from first semester. I’m sick of everyone calling me ‘Obruni’ and ‘white man’. I have a name!”

Needless to say, we all had some adapting to do, and we all had our ups and downs. We had our good days and bad days. On good days, I enjoyed my family’s closeness and felt proud of our adventurous teamwork. On bad days I tearfully second-guessed myself and apologized to Cody for bringing him here. With each passing day, we were bound to adjust. I was sure the good days would soon easily outweigh the bad. The everyday routines I’d established had already made me feel more at home here. I predicted that now we could venture out into the community. We’d each find some kind of niche in which we fit and begin enjoying, maybe even loving our lives here.





Answered Prayers

God sent Agnes to me. It’s a funny thing for me to say. Only two days ago, I was talking with Dakota while we walked home from dinner. It was dark and we hugged the side of the road to avoid the oncoming cars whizzing by. We heard music, singing and prayer in the distance. The sound of praise and prayer and preaching seemed to belong to the evening air. From all directions, every night, full voices and rythmic beats spilled from homes, churches and open fields, worshiping. “Cody, doesn’t it seem like we’re always hearing praying or singing wherever we go here?”

“Yeah?” He answered, tonally asking, What’s your point?

 “Well, it just makes me wonder about God,” I continued.

“Why?”

 “Well, with all the praying going on here, wouldn’t it seem that if God answered prayers, He would give these people easier lives?” I had seen how every aspect of life here, down to the smallest convenience I had taken for granted, took time and planning and constant physical effort. “They have to work so hard for everything here.”

I thought of one of my neighbors for three days strait, laboriously laying corn out on a big green tarp that covered her driveway, then waiting in the scorching sun for the corn to dry. Sometimes she’d sleep in her red dirt driveway. She lay on her side, her back pushed against the house where the sun was shaded.  I suspected she had to stay with the corn to shoo away hungry chickens scavenging around in the brush. Cars drove by, kicking dirt from the rode into the air around her tarp. Throughout the day, she rotated the corn on the tarp. She funneled the dry corn into a huge, metal basin, then heaved it above her head. She stood with the basin held in the air, waiting for the right moment. Instants before a small breeze began, as if she had sensed it coming, she began pouring the dried corn into an identical container standing at her feet. The corn cascaded to its place below her, dust puffing away from the stream of falling corn before hitting the metal of the other bin. Countless times during her corn vigil, she patiently completed the steps. Over and over I heard the echoing, ssssssssshhhhhhh as the corn fell into the metal pots. After watching her science over and over, day after day, the sssssshhhhhhh sound softened as the dried corn had disintegrated into some kind of flour or cornmeal.

Dakota turned my question about God and prayers over in his head for a moment then responded, “Not really. If you think of all the prayers in the whole world from the beginning of time – because there were Christians praying even before Jesus was born, ya know? – you can imagine how many tons of prayers God hears. He answers some, but the odds of a single prayer being answered must be small.”

Fishermen and awaiting vendors

He had more faith than I did. I continued, “Just seeing this place, and how hard people have to work just to survive here, and how those kids in the market live, I have a hard time believing there even is a God out there.

Children in Abbra market, their dwellings behind them

Look at Big John. He’s so genuinely faithful, and believes so strongly and lives his life for God, but he doesn’t even have a stove or refrigerator, or running water. What does he eat?”

Dakota had gone to church with Big John the previous Sunday so my mention of Big John and praying launched Cody into one of his flawless impersonations, “In church, there was about ten minutes when everyone just prayed out loud. I closed my eyes and put my head down, but I could hear Big John, ‘I wan to shank you God for breengin ush, shafe to church…I wan to shank you God for bein weeth me when I wake und the shun eez wahm…” We both burst out laughing and our deep spiritual conversation was over. We giggled together the rest of the way home as Dakota continued his perfect imitation of sweet Big John.

So, that afternoon when I discovered myself thanking God for Agnes, it surprised me. Less than 48 hours earlier, I was sure there was no God, and now I was 100% sure that God sent Agnes as an answer to a prayer I hadn’t even addressed to Him.

Agnes is the wife of Sam, a history professor with whom Scott works. They met yesterday and found that we lived just across the street from each other. Scott arranged for us to visit their home so I could meet his wife. I know he must’ve still been feeling helpless from when I told him I was lonely for a female friend. True, Sam and Agnes are probably older than my parents, but it didn’t make a difference to me.

We arrived at their home, set down a small hill across the paved road intersecting ours. Two  white-washed wood bungalows- one L-shaped and the other a smaller rectangle- made up their property. A rust-colored stain seeped up the sides of the aged walls from a cement foundation. Corrugated metal rooves slanted atop each long, narrow structure. Grey, cinder blocked walls extended between both sides of the two dwellings, creating a courtyard between the main house and extra sleeping quarters. Two slatted wooden doors served as an entrance gate.

A young man in his 20s, wearing an African cloth shirt, sat reading at a desk outside the gate. When we approached, we saw Sam standing beside him. Sam is a petite man, with salt and pepper shaved hair and watery eyes, dark brown but with a bluish film reflecting in them. He wore a colorfully-printed button-up shirt and dress pants. He shook our hands and gestured to the seated figure, “This is a boy staying with us.” In our subsequent visit, we deduced that the young man was their houseboy. He did household work in exchange for a place to stay and a monthly salary in hopes of paying for school. At this point, he was on trial employment, and Sam whispered, “He’s trying to show how clever he is by reading a book.” If the trial period was successful, Sam and Agnes would grant him a place to stay and financially help him complete his education.

Sam pushed at a stick budged in the doors’ slats, a make-shift latch, sliding it to the side and allowing the right side of the gate to swing open. On our left stood the extra rooms unattached to the house. White undershirts hung from a clothesline draped from it to the main house.  We followed the length of the clothesline through the courtyard on a narrow cobble path shaded by an eave above. A half-dozen small goats bleated in a pen under the swinging shirts.

Agnes greeted us at the door and showed us in. She led us past a dining table to the living room and offered us a seat in one of eight wood-framed chairs with sagging cushions, creating a cozy visiting area. Eight-by-ten framed snapshots hung scattered around the paneled walls. A wood bookshelf with ceramic knickknacks stood on one wall, and a T.V. stand with a heavy, box TV stood on the opposite. Yellowed linoleum with a 1980’s design covered all the visible floors. Sam sat with us and explained as Agnes disappeared into the kitchen, “It’s tradition to serve guests water before you begin any business of your visit.” On cue, Agnes returned, balancing a tray holding four glasses in one hand, then stopping to pour bottled water into each glass before us.

Agnes sat with her own glass of water, “Now days, you may not be offered water first, but we thought you’d like to learn that tradition. “We small-talked with Sam and Agnes for about a half-hour. Both spoke perfect English, as they are both highly educated. We found out that Agnes had once been the headmistress at the school Cody now attended. She also told us she sits on the board of the church preschool where we hoped to enroll Elle. Delightedly, I found that Agnes spoke her mind as well.  She was an intelligent, strong and funny lady.

The first chance I got, when the men stepped away to make a phone call, I hopped over to the chair beside Agnes and leaned toward her. “Agnes, could I ask you a woman question? I haven’t had a chance to speak with another woman since we got here and I have a concern a man wouldn’t understand.”

She smirked knowingly and leaned forward conspiratorially, “Of course, what is your question?”

“Well, a man does our laundry and we send it out once a week. But this week I have my…I’m menstruating. So, do I send my underpants out if they have blood on them?”

She had already started swinging her head, “No, you should do your own underthings. All the time. Some men don’t respect women and when they see your underthings, they…” she mimed a man pinching an imaginary pair of panties between finger and thumb, pushing it away from her face and swinging it back and forth, then turning her nose in the air, “they won’t wash them properly. I never send my underthings out to be washed. You can send the kids’ and Scott’s but you should wash your own.” She concluded by qualifying, “Of course, I may be conservative and old-fashioned, but that’s what I do.”

I appreciated her candid advice, and continued my query. I asked her anything I had been unsure of (which was basically everything) since arriving in Cape Coast, including which shops in town I could find what, if she had a regular vegetable stand she used, where to find chicken that didn’t look like it had been sitting in the sun amidst buzzing flies all afternoon, standard prices I should pay for everyday expenses, how to know if I was being cheated, where to buy a cheap table and chairs for our empty dining area, how to find someone I can trust to help with Elle a few days per week, and on and on. She answered every question patiently, clearly and animatedly then suggested, “Let me take you with me to the market tomorrow. I can do any shopping you need to do with you, and I can show you where to find whatever you will need.”

She picked me up in a shiny, silver sedan and waited while I strapped Elle in a seatbelt in the backseat. She asked me what I wanted to find and told me she also had some errands in town. On the way, she tsked tsked the crazy, honking traffic around her. She’d honk and point and predict, “Now watch this driver, he will pull out in front of me…Look at this man, he’ll turn in front of that other car…Now look at this car, he is blocking the whole road.” I laughed when each vehicle did exactly as she said they would. Then I laughed some more when Agnes proceeded to complete the exact maneuvers she had criticized the other drivers for doing. There weren’t any clear guidelines or signs to follow. I couldn’t ascertain which car had the right of way. There were no lights or speed limits. Honks and nods from driver to driver seemed to be the only thing conducting the heavy traffic. Somehow a honk from one car could have meant, “You go ahead of me,” while an exact honk a moment later could have meant, “Watch out. I’m coming through!” Only the drivers understood. The inadequacy of the international driver’s license I’d gotten from AAA in the United States crossed my mind. I wouldn’t be driving here. That’s for sure!

When we arrived in town, Agnes parallel parked near a crowded hovel of shops situated behind the main street. The stands and shacks stood so close to one another that their tin roofs overlapped creating a labyrinth of enclosed tunnels. Agnes walked through an entry path into the dark, narrow passage. She glanced protectively over her shoulder, “Follow close.” Then she shot off. On a mission, she navigated through the people and over any protruding baskets of goods. She turned at random intersections, left then right, then right again, deeper and deeper into the maze. The heat of the sun was blocked, but crowded bodies, human breath and sweet, baking, rotting fruit and fish hung in the thick air. I couldn’t swallow a full breath, for fear of gagging. I hauled Elle on my hip and a backpack hung on my shoulders. I tried to keep Agnes in sight as she scurried knowingly ahead. I would turn a corner just in time to see Agnes disappear behind the next turn. The thought of losing her tensed my abdominals as I shifted and bent and tiptoed to avoid knocking anything over. Stands balanced with dried fish, vegetables and globular fruit crowded either side of me, and oncoming shoppers had to lean around us, so I couldn’t shift or rotate thoughtlessly. Finally, we turned onto a relatively empty dead end. I felt like we had spiraled in and around until we landed in the dead center of the mass. This was the vegetable stand Agnes was recommending. On the way out, we took the same journey, this time a bit slower. At each turn, Agnes stopped and pointed behind us, “See you turn right at that fabric hanging…See, we turned left at those dried fish…Remember to go straight past the palm oil bottles.” The cavernous market spit us out in front of Agnes’s car. Agnes nodded to me, mission accomplished. “Now, next time you come, you’ll know how to get to the best stand.”

She had more faith than I did.

Next we stopped at a fabric store. Agnes explained she had to pick out some fabric for a shirt she wanted made. We would go to her seamstress’s shop after this. She added, “Then when you are ready to find cloth and a seamstress, you’ll know where to go.” I heard the diplomatic suggestion in her words. In fact, it wasn’t surprising. Nearly everyone on the UCC campus I’d met had offered a seamstress’s name. Agnes just had the ingenuity to actually stage a trip to the seamstress. I had no excuses for my immodest tank tops and shorty shorts anymore. I chose two prints I liked, and I asked how many yards I should buy in order to make a simple, sleeveless dress. 3 yards was the answer. I bought 6 yards total; 3 of a swirly red cotton cloth and 3 of a jagged striped blue and green print, a total of  40 cedis.

Agnes’s seamstress was named Lucy. Her shop was tucked in on a narrow, side street, near the girls’ school in Kotokraba market. The two-story stone buildings butted right against the road. No curb, no sidewalk; just the stone buildings, edging the street. Arched openings here and there announced entry into small, recessed courtyards shaded by the high stone walls. From here, one could access the wooden doorways into several one-room dwellings. We walked through an archway and down two stone steps. Two ancient, wrinkled women sat on the dusty cement ledge perimeter of the square courtyard dipping and scrubbing and dunking clothes in washtubs. Their curious, rheumy gaze followed me into an open door on my left, which was Lucy’s shop.

I wasn’t sure how this process worked. I supposed I should look at some sort of catalogue or pictures of dress styles then I would point to what I wanted. There was one poster on the wall displaying a dozen, extremely ornate, floor length skirts and dresses. None of them appealed to me. They looked old fashioned, too long and very hot. Without any other reference, I simply described to Lucy what I wanted. I pointed to the plain cotton, sleeveless shirt I wore. I had bought it premade in the market the week before. “I want two dresses that are plain like this shirt. I want them to come to my knees.” Lucy nodded then bent forward, marking a spot at my knee with an outstretched hand. I marked a spot a few inches above hers, and Agnes tsked tsked, jokingly.

“Hey!” I laughed, “It’s only a little above the knee.”

Agnes placed a hand on my shoulder, “Oh Molly, I am just having fun with you.”

My new red dress

Next I placed my hands around my waist, motioning with my shirt a cinching-in of fabric. “I want the dress to come in at the waist. I have a skinny waist so I want to see it in the dress.” Lucy understood.

Agnes  very animatedly stood tall, pushing out her chest and placing her hands proudly on her hips. “When I was younger, I measured 36,” She framed her breasts with her hands, “26,” she traced them to her waist, “36,” she posed, arms akimbo.

I threw my head back, guffawing, “ME TOO! EXACTLY!...WHEN I WAS 22!”

            Our last stop was the University farm. Agnes explained, “This is where you’ll find the freshest chicken and pork. It may be a little more expensive than at the market, but it’s more healthy and you know it hasn’t been sitting out anywhere.” I soon discovered that by fresh, Agnes meant alive! After introducing me to the head man on the farm, Agnes spoke in Fanti to him explaining what I wanted. We passed a large fenced-in area toward a wide white barn. Another tall, skinny man emerged. A thin cord of some kind dangled from one hand, and a live chicken hung from the other. The man grasped what I would describe as the chicken’s armpits, forcing its wings behind its neck. Its body hung passively and his white head turned side-to-side, its beady eyes oblivious to its fate. Elle was beside me and a panicked vision popped in my head. My eyes snapped wide open, I grabbed Elle’s hand and hurriedly repeated three or four times, “I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see it. We can’t see it. Do you understand, I CAN NOT see it!” Each protest became louder, more panicked.

            The three Ghanaians all bent over in hysterics. The chicken hung at the man’s hip twitching its head back and forth. “No Molly,” Agnes soothingly insured once she gained her composure, “He will dress it for us in the back. It will be about ten minutes.” Her voice was deep, warm, smooth, motherly. During the wait, Agnes explained “broilers” versus “layers” to me. Broilers were young chickens, about 6 months old, larger and more tender than layers. Layers were older and tougher but had better flavor, “especially if you like to suck the bones like I do.” The broilers cost 15 cedis, while the smaller layers cost 7. I took Agnes’s advice and bought one broiler and three layers. We waited for the four live, clucking chickens to become four plucked, dressed, raw chickens.

Agnes chopping the chicken

            Agnes drove me home and taught me to cut the whole chicken into pieces. Over the sink, she cut through a band of fat sealing the chicken’s chest cavity. Out dumped two puckered chicken feet, a twisted sinewy curved neck and a red ball of a heart. “You should chop the feet in pieces to use to make a stock. Some people eat the heart, some don’t. You can cook the neck in a stew.” Agnes continued narrating as she cut each leg, and wing. She held the chicken by one leg and cut around it’s bulging hip. Then she put down the knife, grasped the hip in one hand and the body in the other hand. In a swift jerk, the chicken’s joint inverted with a sickening crack. Agnes found my expression hilarious and explained, “Now you can see the joint you need to cut around. Here hold this.” I gingerly held the end of the drumstick as she expertly sawed around the bulbous, white joint, “This is how I learned to cut a chicken, holding it for my mom as she cut.”

            “You will do the next chicken,” Agnes informed me. With Agnes reminding me of each step, I cut off the legs and wings, breaking back the bones to reveal joints. Agnes held the legs and wings for me as I sliced through the fat and sinew. I was so worried about cutting her, but she said, “You are fine. You won’t cut me.” She had more faith than I did.

I had to use all my strength to cut and wrestle apart the body cavity, separating back from breasts. “It’s tradition to save the back for the woman to eat.” With the multitude of tiny ribs and narrow strips of flesh, I opted to put the back in the stock pile with the feet, neck and heart. To separate the breasts, I had to balance the curved chicken chest on the counter, line up the knife with the breast bone, then swing the base of the knife down onto the chicken like a hatchet. THWACKs and CRACKs resounded as I chopped away like some crazed far-sighted butcher, until the now ragged breast meat separated in two. I grinned with pride, holding up my handiwork for Agnes to appraise. She laughed uproariously and praised me as a good teacher would. “Molly, that is good. You will be able to cut the other two on your own.”

We separated edible meat and stock cuts into piles and Agnes bagged three of the four chickens to store in her freezer. I, of course appreciated the convenience of freezing the excess chicken. But more comforting, I liked the built-in excuse I now had to visit her if I needed a woman’s company and guidance. I thanked Agnes for all her help and advice. She replied, “That’s o.k., Molly. I don’t want to you to seem green when you go do your shopping.” I walked her to her car.

After placing the plastic bags of chicken in her backseat, I asked, “Agnes, can I give you a hug?” I had missed physical contact from my sister and mother, and my impromptu request clarified that void in me.

“Of course, Molly” She tilted her head to one side and opened her arms. I moved into her embrace, melting in her motherly arms. The tenseness and loneliness I had felt for days drifted away in the hot, gritty air. I held her for a moment longer just to bask in the security of the moment. That is the moment that I knew, God had sent Agnes.

The spontaneous spiritual thought shocked me and I reflected on my sudden shift in belief when Agnes was gone. How had I, in just 48 hours gone from believing God could not exist in the midst of this poverty-stricken place, to thanking Him for blessing me with Agnes’s company, guidance and warm touch?

Sitting on my magic porch in the cool evening air, I thought maybe I understood for a moment. I had spent days wishing for a woman with whom I could connect. I felt helpless and alone. Worse yet, I began to feel hopeless as the days passed and I was no more secure, no more knowledgeable and still hadn’t met one woman to trust. That desperation, that hopelessness, that insecurity were impossible to quell within myself. I had to be vulnerable and faithful and open myself to the charitable heart of another. What did Agnes have to gain by spending her day with me? Nothing, really. Her presence then, must have been a gift.

Elle with her banana

I thought of other moments of clarity during our stay in Ghana, moments when the presence of God was clear. When the unforgiving heat of the sun was suddenly relieved by cloud cover. When I bit into the soft, ripe flesh of a freshly sliced mango, or banana. When first overcome by the soulful voices of faithful praise.

Then why are the people here forced to live such difficult lives? Why doesn’t God answer their prayers?

The prayers I had heard from Ghanaians came back to me then. In church, the pastor prayed for a forgiving spirit when dealing with those who had hurt him. The ladies at the church women’s ministry prayed for power to fulfill the scriptures and desire to follow the commandments. The dancers in the drumming group at Oasis dedicated their songs and dances to God.  I remembered Big John thanking God for being with him when he woke and the sun was warm. He told me that to celebrate his birthday, he testified in church, “If nothing bad has happened to you throughout the year, you thank God for his many blessings that kept you safe.”  Another time, Big John told me he had prayed that morning to be a hard worker and not to be lazy. It occurred to me that God was answering the prayers of his Ghanaian people. Befuddled I thought to myself, maybe they are just praying for the wrong things.

Just then, the small girl from the market in Abbra flashed through my mind. She balanced a white five-gallon bucket of water upon her child’s head and slim neck. But this time, I remembered something more than just how heavy that bucket must have been, or how far she had to walk. I suddenly remembered her peaceful face, secure in her role. I remembered the pride in her eyes for fulfilling her part in her family’s daily struggles. The emotions and memories of the happy people in Ghana flashed before my eyes. Their smiles, their greetings, their helpfulness and generosity, their full singing and chanting voices echoing in the night sky, their loud laughter. I looked out of my magic porch. Across the dirt road, I could picture the neighbor lady laying out her corn to dry. I could see her raising her metal bin over her head. I could hear the gentle ssssshhhhhh as that corn streamed through the air. I could feel the cool breeze blowing dusty puffs through the falling corn. I imagined her face placid and peaceful within her choreographed, methodical movements. Her body bending and reaching gracefully became like a dance. The amount of time, work, dedication and care the woman put into the task became an art form.

Then I envisioned myself in my car, driving 10 minutes to the pristine grocery store, tossing cornmeal in my shopping cart, and somehow, I felt cheated.

Perhaps the people here aren’t praying for the wrong things. Maybe I am.