Missing

I was asked recently, "What do you miss most and what don't you miss at all?" I found it an interesting question and one I hadn't really considered. So I considered it - and decided to include it here, but I've added a bit. This entry will be on what I miss from home and what I will miss from here when I leave. The next entry will be what I don't miss from home and what I won't miss from here when I leave.

What do I miss the most from home?

I miss many many people most - but that probably goes without saying, so I'll give a more "thing-ish" answer.

I miss long, hot bubble baths. When at home I like to read until I prune - and I have not had what I would consider a "proper" bath since arriving in Ghana. We have only a shower stall in our residence, from which water does generally spray - with great pressure one day a week when the city water is on, and with pathetic pressure on all the other days when we are using water from the "PolyTank" on our roof. Occasionally, the knobs turn but no water comes out at all, and then I have a faucet bath.

We have a hot water heater (tiny), but when there is no pressure, there is virtually no hot water as it depends on gravity and is barely higher than the shower head, so most showers are cold or cold-ish. So, when the water starts bouncing off the bottom of the kitchen sink, it means the city water has come on (usually Thursday or Friday) and I get so excited anticipating my next warm shower and actually getting all the soap out of my uber-thick hair.

While traveling - a couple times to Accra and on my vacation with Leslie and Pam, I have had a tub a couple of times in hotel rooms, but usually with little or no hot water - definitely not enough to fill the tub. Most places are like ours - shower only, no hot water. At Mole National Park, we had two very large buckets in our bathroom and a smaller bucket to use as a scoop - to rinse after soaping and to pour water in the toilet to make it flush.

And that's what Tim and Shika (solidly upper-middle-class) have in all their bathrooms, since someone diverted the city water line and stole their water and since the neighbor who agreed to share a bore hole (well) with them kept a lot of Tim's money, by installing 2" pipe only at the point where Tim's line attached and where he could see it. He used 1" pipe leading up to it, burying it before Tim could see it, so there is not enough water getting through to supply the household. Tim discovered it when they had to dig for something else and found the 1" pipe, but digging it all up and replacing it would be expensive. Tim has tried to dig his own bore hole, but on the first try he went 40 meters and hit granite. After 60 more meters he still had not a drop of water and had not yet cleared the granite. He decided to wait for an engineer's survey to continue.

So, who needs GDP or per capita income? Let's make bubble baths the next index of economic development. But, seriously, for now we have much to be thankful for. I am beginning to agree with experts who argue that water will be the next natural resource to fuel the wars of the future.

What will I miss most from here?

Again, I'll mostly miss people - like Shika and Tim, and some of the kids downstairs (including Precious, of course), and some of our agents, who are just wonderful people. But, as above, I'll also include the "thing(s)" I'll miss most.

I'll miss fresh fruit. Since arriving here, I have realized that most of our fruit at home is really pretty tasteless. Fully ripened, brought to market within a day of harvesting - that's the way to eat fruit. I've enjoyed pineapple, oranges, watermelon, bananas, plantain, tomatoes, garden eggs (small eggplant the size of a goose egg), mango, and papaya (paw paw). All delicious when ripe - raw or in cooked dishes.

Plantain is the new "favorite" fruit I'll bring home with me (figuratively). Ripe plantain is served roasted on a barbeque and served with peanuts; fried and served with bean stew (a dish called Red Red because ripe plantain are called "red plantain" and the bean stew is made with red beans); spiced and fried (kelewele); and made into plantain chips and sold on the street. I'm not so fond of un-ripe plantain, also called green plantain, which is also made into chips or boiled and served alongside many different types of stew.

Oh, and peanut soup is also yummers. I need to learn to make it, too, but mostly I'm praying I'll be able to find ripe plantain when I get home.
XO