The Beginning of Goodbyes

It’s Saturday, 8:12am Ghana time. It’s a cool 80 something degrees (I estimate), and raining. I have my cup of French press coffee. Delicious. Our roommate, Ruth, is sweeping. This place is different from the village. 2 weeks ago we moved here to the district capital, in medical village housing built for hospital staff and their families… so I guess we’re Ruth’s family for now. The place has a large living room with some borrowed furniture, and a mattress for guests propped up against the wall. There are 2 bedrooms, both have a large built in closet. There’s a kitchen WITH a kitchen sink and running water (when the guy who turns on the pump remembers to do his job). We have a shower room, a western-style toilet room, and a sink. Three rooms have ceiling fans, including our bedroom - my head lies directly under it, bliss! When electricity is off (more often than in the village) and the fans don’t turn, we still get a breeze through the huge windows. Just one of the windows in our new room is bigger than all of the windows in our village house combined.

Not only is the house different, the setting is too. We’re no longer in savannah terrain, we’re in semi-mountainous forest, which means it’s generally cooler here (!). The weather drastically changes when it rains, which this time of year is about every other day. Living in the medical village is a lot different from the village. Not everyone sees what time I woke up today, or when I went to the outdoor latrine. They don’t know that I tossed out a squishy half-rotten tomato (or try to take it and eat it). They don’t know my hair has been on the fritz and looks like a frizzy Chewbacca monster. People don’t come to my house to greet me, children don’t shout playfully “Ama, Ama, Ama” outside the courtyard wall. Instead, the food vendors smile back at me when I greet them when passing by to and from the hospital buildings. Nurses greet me in English: “Good morning.” The only Likpalnpaln I speak is when I walk around the hospital and try to find a patient or visitor (or occasional staff) to greet in Konkomba “Aa doon poah.”

“Change is hard,” I should probably trademark that quote before someone else goes and says it. Yesterday we went to Jumbo for a visit. Aside from having visited briefly to get some of our things out of the house, I hadn’t been there for 7 weeks. People were so excited to see me. My heart was warmed by their questions in Likpalnpaln of “Where have you been?” “Where from you?” “How is the road?” “Will you come back here to live or go again?” There were also a lot of “I’m happy to see you.” “God bless you.” And “How are your children?” (thrown in for mutual amusement). I was pleased that I knew what they were asking and could respond correctly, which received plenty of praise. The children ran up and offered to carry my limp purse containing little more than a handkerchief, today I regret declining their respectful offer. I had missed all of it. I had a tearful goodbye with Kwame, the boy we befriended so early in our time at Jumbo. He’s now in senior high school, and will miss our going away party. I told him we’d come back to visit after some years, once he’s working as a nurse at the district hospital in Kpassa, which doesn’t yet exist. I hope we can both hold true to that promise. Following the goodbye with Kwame, we greeted the chief, he looked happier than I’d ever seen him before while describing the party they are planning for us. This party will be our final goodbye to Jumbo. 

Kwame and the Rasmussens!

After greeting the chief, we made our way into Kpassa, our market town for the past 2 years, to say some goodbyes there. Our favorite chop (fast food) lady was delighted to see me, shaking my hand with both of hers. She changed her tone and asked when we would go finally. When we said 3 weeks she exclaimed, “Oh God!” as though her chop bar was on fire. I ate all of the joloff rice and salad she prepared for me, not only because I was hungry and her food is awesome, but to make her proud and happy. We then greeted our favorite carpenter, who wasn’t very happy that we were leaving. Once we reached mutual sadness he said, “when you’re in the US, flash me, and I’ll call you back.” Flash here means call, let your number “flash” on my phone’s screen, then hang up. I think I’ll take him up on the offer just to hear his booming laugh. Maybe he’ll continue to teach me Basaare over the phone. The old lady I bought vegetables from each market day doesn’t speak much English, but she understood when I was saying goodbye, her face told me she wasn’t happy about the idea. I took a picture of her selling and looking happy, which lifted her spirits. Her daughters joked that they’d come back with us, we joked that they should.

We got one last mineral (soda) in a spot (bar), then headed back to our latest new home in the district capital. We rode in a Peugeot wagon with the usual 9 passengers, the driver, and 3 chickens. Maybe I won’t miss that. We stopped in a small village to load 2 heavy, feed-sack bags filled with charcoal on the top of the car. Again, I will not miss that. By the time we arrived back in Nkwanta, it was 5pm and dusk was approaching. We picked up our bicycles and rode out to the medical village. We arrived very dusty (won’t miss that grime). We showered, and once squeaky clean we rested from our busy day.

Again, change is hard™. But change is necessary. We’ve done our time, so to speak, living in a village for almost two years. Now I am helping the nutrition department do outreach for a few weeks, making a recipe book for fortifying local recipes and conducting surveys for the district in remote villages. A new PCV has come to live in the village, and is ready for her own village experience, sure to make her own impact along the way. The village is ready to work with her. We must move forward as well - it’s time - we’re moving on, back to the US where change will be waiting for us. Until then, we’ll cherish our last few weeks in Ghana, in our “neck of the woods,” our home for the past 2 years.

**Side note: my editor (Kris) says I need to say something about how I feel about this…truthfully, I don’t know yet. I’m excited to be going home, while nervous about the responsibility of it all. I’m sad about leaving my home for the past two years, knowing that there’s a good chance I’ll never visit (while making promises that I will). Even if we do come back for a visit, some of my friends and (Ghanaian) family may no longer be around, this makes me want to cry. I also feel proud of the work I’ve done here, and anxious to see its long-term impact/sustainability. In a word: basket case. I guess that’s two words. I’m sure once I’ve had a bit more time to process this huge change in my life, I’ll be more eloquent, until then, I’m coming…