Not in Ghana

Sometimes I wake up and think for a moment I’m still in Kumasi but that notion vanishes as soon as I begin listening to the sounds of the pre-dawn day.

You know you’re not in Ghana anymore when:

1. The first pre-dawn sounds are tires on asphalt, not half a dozen roosters
2. Its freezing outside and our windows are closed
3. There are no ants on the counter, floors, toilet paper, etc.
4. You can see your breath on the back porch
5. You smell fire but there’s no plastic in it
6. There’s ice on the laundry line
7. You have electricity 99.9% of the time
8. There isn’t any razor wire on our fences
9. None of our friends live in razor wire compounds, either
10. The road outside our house is paved and pothole free
11. When your car is spoiled you have to get it repaired ASAP because there aren’t any taxis
12. You can’t just pay three guys $5 each to push the car the seven blocks to the repair shop
13. You can call for a tow truck, it arrives in twenty minutes and you pay the driver $77 with a credit card
14. Amy can’t hop on a tro tro from Asheville to Pittsboro
15. The police don’t stop you in town, looking for money
16. You go to the DMV and no one is asleep with their head on their arm at the service window
17. You can’t buy plantain chips off a head pan from the car window, in fact no one is carrying anything on their heads
18. Fresh donuts are $2.50 each at the local bakery
19. Not 25 cents from the woman deep frying them over a charcoal fire on the dirt
20. Children are strapped to car seats, strollers and shopping carts instead of riding on their mothers backs
21. The dogs look really well fed, glossy almost
22. The fruit in the shops is pathetic and costs an arm and a leg
23. You’ve got five pounds of nutritional yeast that no one had to carry in their suitcase
24. UPS brings just about anything you could possibly want right to your door
25. You can’t buy antibiotics over the counter for cheap