this is the 3rd in a series of my republished accounts of my trips in Ghana from January- February of this year, as a warm-up for my Ethiopian trip this September . . . more on that later!
For a cold-adapted guy like me, something more ominous than storm clouds is on the horizon, in fact it is already here. Each day is hotter than the last, and although these gains in heat and humidity are small, the fact that I've got a month of the same to look forward to is looming over me now! I'm now implementing the opening of windows in the evening once it is cooler, and then the closing of them again in the day once it starts to warm up. Every little bit helps, but the trend is undeniable. Fortunately my new clothes will be ready tomorrow evening as I'm sure I will sweat my way through at least one outfit a day, and I only have 3 or 4 light cottony outfits. V will have close to a continuous stream of laundry from me as S's washing machine broke down quite a while ago and V is its replacement. I sure do get nicely ironed clothes back from her!
Speaking of V, she is now learning her numbers from me: practising writing them as well as their visual recognition. Her English is also improving rapidly. We are able to communicate well enough that I now know that she likes the boy in Eremon who keeps calling her, that he is working, and that she's known him for about five years. He's a nice boy, smaller than her, but that's what she likes. I teased her about wanting to be the boss in her family, as this is a very patriarchal culture where the men still traditionally call all the shots. She liked the tease.
With the boys, I am the respected, loved and feared Uncle who supports their learning: so far I have helped K memorize his times tables, showed P how to ace exams, and helped R develop his soccer skills), and of course, at the drop of a hat they are being tickled or thumped, sometimes for no reason at all. S is now onside for the rough-housing, understanding the benefits for the boys in the development of their masculinity. P and S will also be taking some instruction in meditation and breathwork from me, as P had put together a meditation practice for himself based on what he found on the internet, but had been dissuaded by S because of the biased psychological and christian perspectives she had been fed. Fortunately she has a PhD in psychology and religion staying with her with a lot of experience in meditation who's all to familiar with the tendency of religious christians and religiously-biased psychologists to pathologize and demonize stuff they don't understand.
S and I have been working together a lot on her ideas for an NGO and what I'm finding in internet research, as well as going deeper into the spiritual direction, counselling side of what I do. She's encouraging me to think about setting up a counselling practice in Ghana; I'm encouraging her to think about a solar energy business since there is a UN NGO called AREED that supports the development of entrepreneurs in the renewable energy field, and my friend T's Dad has developed a really nice solar energy package viewable at wwww.solarfire.com. F has been away working this week, but when he's around we tend to focus a lot on guy stuff like watching soccer games and discussing bible translation, religion, and the country and its issues. At meal times, I've been telling them all about Holland, China and India rather than sitting listening to P and K extol the merits of one of their video games. Most evenings, S and I go out for a long walk in the cooler evening air, and I've had a couple of Skype computer to computer phone calls with T and A from Holland and L from Ottawa.
S and I met yesterday with a parishioner from St. John's (my church - Elgin and Somerset St. in Ottawa) and received some much appreciated support for our key perceptions and ideas, as well as some helpful networking contacts and general advice. He's acting head of the CIDA branch of the Canadian Embassy in Ghana, and a former international development professional, so he's being very helpful to us in many ways. Tomorrow we will meet with S's cousin, who's a senior bureaucrat in Ghana's Agriculture department. "Bit by bit the river grows, till all at once it overflows" is a line from an old song that comes to mind.
So I continue on living a day at a time, enjoying the walk, the company (both earthly and heavenly) and the scenery, if not the climate.
heating up in Ghana, but not sweating it too too much
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment