Kumasi

Clement and I are back in Ghana and as we wait - life again paused by the great force of bureaucracy – I have to remind myself occasionally that this is not a torture designed especially for us. Clement’s classes resumed today but after visiting administrative offices daily for weeks he is still not registered. I spoke with the Nurses and Midwives Council when we arrived and was told that in order to register I must take an exam in December and then after the results are out, I will have to do an orientation of several months before I can practice as a midwife. And so we wait. At present the water has been turned off for five hours and the power has been off for three days. I just finished my daily excavation in the fridge, tossing half of our remaining vegetables and washing out the mold that appeared over night.

Thich Nhat Hanh says happiness is accessible right now. Presumably that means without running water, without electricity, and without a job. Love exists and can flourish without those things. At times metaphor of a prison comes to mind but I consciously exchange it for the image of a cocoon. I am in a cocoon awaiting metamorphosis. I realize the world will remain the same but I’m encouraging and waiting for something within me or my life to shift so that the world will be available to me in a new way. Inside the cocoon I have little but still much beyond the basic necessities; I have my husband, food, some books, often water, a few movies, and then of course the true source of both my torture and joy – my own spinning mind. I have my freedom and when the entropic forces begin climaxing I can step out.

From the balcony at dusk, the world invites me to quite my mind. Immense sky, supporting thick purple cumulus clouds, is lit by tendrils of pink, the ends of the sun’s rays inviting night to bloom as they follow their mistress below the horizon. The calls of a few dozen birds reach my ears from different distances and directions. A choir warms up for an all night prayer service and from somewhere beyond their church, the adhan begins, “Allah Akhbar” calling Muslims to prayer. Just in front of the gate a woman walks by, flip flops tapping the Earth, her baby on her back, a small package on her head, her young son trailing a few steps behind with a package on his shoulder. Downstairs on the pavement my neighbor is out of sight but I can hear her grinding pepper – the sound of a clay pot rolling on the ground - and smell the faint aroma from her cooking. On the other side of the fence men chat while they pound fufu – the methodical deep thumping a familiar sound - one man raises and pounds the giant pestle, the other squats at the mortar dexterously turning the yam and plantain in between the thumps. Enormous leaves of banana trees cast even larger shadows in the dimming light. A few televisions and radios talk unintelligibly and a car door closes is in the distance. Our individual dramas diminish to a handful of colorful stories set against the enormity of the universe; the proximity and pulse of life is reassurance.