Babycatcher

The rain has come. Usually, conveniently, it rains in the evening or at night. Often moments after the rain starts the power goes out as though everyone should be silent and appreciate the down pour.

In the States, the silver lining, the sunshine after a particularly heavy rain storm, is a symbol of hope but here the hope is rain itself. The heat seems to build in intensity until you feel the power of the sun wringing all moisture from your body and withering your skin with the smallest of its rays. Then at its climax the skies break open and release all the stolen water with the same intensity. The rains have not started in earnest yet this year but we have had a couple of storms and I have been caught in three of them. Warm, instantly drenching, restorative. Moments before the storm, the wind lifts the dust, coloring the sky a smoky red and carries ubiquitous plastic bags high over head. Then the drops fall and any one without shelter is soaked running home through warm rain and newly formed rivers. Today I’m waiting for the rain. The past few days have been hot. I try to avoid going outside and for my walks to and from the hospital I wear a hat, sun glasses, and a long sleeve shirt always arriving at my destination - even at 8 in the morning - dripping with sweat. In the hospital I don’t notice the heat much – distracted by tasks and conversations but I notice the patients without fevers sweating in their beds in sunny patches on the wards. In the afternoon on my way back to the trotro I often buy two sachets of water and drink the entire liter with little pause - my need for water more urgent than my need for air. When I arrive at home I head directly for shower, peel off the sweaty clothes off plastered to my skin and step into the flow cold water. During the weekends we sweat constantly in the house and avoid the bedroom in the middle of the day where the sun’s rays are most intense even through the curtains. The heat is debilitating. It steals away all motivation and shortens the slide into lethargy. On nights following days like these I am often asleep by eight o’clock. Now I am eagerly awaiting the wind which blows through the house before a storm, making the curtains puff like sails and then dance gracefully into the rooms from their rods. I am eager for the deafening sound of the rain on the roof. Mostly of all I am ready for the cool which follows and the clouds.

We have moved out of our dorm room into a real little house. Our Cameroonian friends, Ethel and Ernest, will move in with us next month. We live on Mango Road across the street from the University farm where they raise chickens, cows, and pigs. Clement met a cow and her calf outside our gate one morning. Our landlord lives next door with his wife, he is a very sweet man in his 70s who calls me Anna despite a few attempts to correct him. It’s a basic little house with cement floors and old deteriorating cabinets in the bedrooms and kitchen but it is freshly painted and filled with light. There are two good sized bedrooms and a third small study, three bathrooms, a common room, a small kitchen, and a covered patio. It feels like a palace compared to our room. The first few nights we spent here we found ourselves just hanging out in the bedroom and had to remind each other that there was more space for us past the bedroom door. It is sparsely furnished but that suits me just fine. We bought a bed and our landlord, Mr. Owusu lent us an old table, chairs, and a sofa set. Since we moved in I have been consumed by the task of turning the space into a home. I spent a weekend with Pamela sewing curtains on her sewing machine from 1912. She ended up doing most of the sewing on the first set of curtains but then Mrs. Owusu lent me her sewing machine (also hand powered and almost as old as Pamela’s) and I made pillows for the sofas and covers for the kitchen chairs, another set of curtains, and even a dress. We both feel more content here in the space and quiet. The closest evangelical church with loudspeakers is far enough away so that when they speak in tongues the sound is more like a large wasp flying outside the window and their all night prayer services do not wake us from sleep. [In general, the noise pollution from these churches is a real problem, several friends live so close that during services, which last up to eight hours, they must yell to communicate within their own homes. I suppose it adds a perk to power outages because when you lose your electricity they do too and off go their loudspeakers.] I hope we can live here for the remainder of our time in Ghana. Usually medical students live on this side of town for the first three years of their program and then move closer to the hospital for the last three years so it’s up to Clement and Ernest to find a way to commute. I am so happy with our home and can at last envision a life in Ghana for the next several years.

We are now ready for visitors if anyone is tempted to come.