Here’s the technical low down from NASA’s Science News:

Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012
July 23, 2014

Extreme solar storms pose a threat to all forms of high-technology. They begin with an explosion–a “solar flare”—in the magnetic canopy of a sunspot. X-rays and extreme UV radiation reach Earth at light speed, ionizing the upper layers of our atmosphere; side-effects of this “solar EMP” include radio blackouts and GPS navigation errors. Minutes to hours later, the energetic particles arrive. Moving only slightly slower than light itself, electrons and protons accelerated by the blast can electrify satellites and damage their electronics. Then come the CMEs, [coronal mass ejections] billion-ton clouds of magnetized plasma that take a day or more to cross the Sun-Earth divide. Analysts believe that a direct hit by an extreme CME such as the one that missed Earth in July 2012 could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.

When Bob told me this morning about the near miss two years ago I wanted to think it was a fluke. But actually an event like this is entirely in the realm of possibility. Later on in the NASA story they quoted a study in which the chance of an extreme CME hitting our beloved planet in the next ten years was calculated at 12%.

On July 23, 2012 Bob and I were in Kumasi and might be there still had the storm knocked out Earth’s electrical grid. “It’s not like they have millions of transformers in stock,” Bob pointed out. We stood on the back porch for a few moments, trying to imagine our life if the timing had been different. Wondering how we would have survived and how long it might take the world to recover from this level of destruction.

“Our civilization is a house of cards,” I said “Good thing we’re growing some of our food,” Bob replied. And we vowed to stay put, counting our lucky stars that we didn’t get stranded in Ghana.

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

I learned an essential life skill from BJ. She didn’t set out to teach me anything, I just learned from being around her. Nearly thirty-five years my junior and she had a handle on something I had yet to master. BJ taught me how to turn any ordinary day, heck, even the worst day into the Best Day Ever.

When BJ first came to live with us at Casa Kumasi we got to know each other while walking to the markets together. Frankly, this is the very best way to get to know anyone. Walk around with them. Look at things, see what each other notice and what you have to say about it.

It quickly became obvious that BJ was in her honeymoon phase and I was fed up with Kumasi. She would draw my attention to some undeniably unique African feature like a mother bathing a child in a tub beside the road and I’d realize I was holding my breath against the stench of the open sewer. I’d see a rooster shitting on the ground, she the incredible sheen of his tail feathers.

We’d laugh about it and I’d apologize for being so negative. She waived my guilt away with “I’m sure I’d feel this way if I’d been here as long as you have.”

The first time she exclaimed, “This is the Best Day Ever!” I was taken by surprise. But then I went with it. “Wow, you’re right! This IS the best day ever!” As I repeated the words, my day was suddenly promoted from drab to magnificent. This, I realized was alchemy! The key to turning shit into shiny.

I used to think a positive outlook was a sign of intellectual shallowness but BJ dispelled this mistaken assumption forever. She was/is very sharp – well-read, articulate and full of deep thoughts and theories. During the months we shared a home we enjoyed many wonderful conversations. BJ sees the dark side of life yet chooses to highlight the bright side. She taught me by example that it’s one thing to notice the unsavory aspects of daily life, but we don’t have to dwell on it.

I now have the magic potion to transform each and every day. Regardless of what the day entails, there comes a moment of bliss worth commenting on and as soon as I say the words, that day becomes The Best Day Ever.

Q. So, how does it feel to be leaving Kumasi?
A. It feels like the end of a play I’ve been acting in, like curtains drawing closed across dirt stage littered in plastic, slowly pinching off the sound of the roosters, taxis, chain saws, crows, bulbuls and Muslims. It feels like a sigh of relief.

Q. Kumasi was that bad, huh?
A. Yes and no. Like any big city, Kumasi was loud, crowded and dirty, although as a friend pointed out the other day, it’s really more of a village than a city. A huge sprawling village of two million people all striving to survive. All outside cooking, sleeping, peeing, laughing, yelling, burning trash, carrying impossible burdens on their heads.

Each time I walked outside our compound gate onto the rutted dirt road I felt as if I were stepping into the pages of National Geographic. It was fascinating and often an affront to all of my senses. I was intrigued by the childlike innocence I saw in nearly everyone, a strong desire to please, to see the bright side of life, a prayer on their lips for someone bigger and stronger to hold their hand and walk them over to the good life.

Q. Do you think your African experience would have been different if you had lived away from town?
A. Definitely, yes. After living in a small farming community for nearly five years, we found Kumasi a bit outside our comfort zone. It helped that Bob had grown up in Accra when it was roughly the size of Kumasi and that we had lived both abroad and in cities with populations well over two million.

Q. Why did you agree to the move?
A. I have been keen to visit Africa since I was a young girl. When the opportunity presented itself, I encouraged Bob to take the job. I don’t think we would have moved to Africa had the job been anywhere other than Ghana. I had long wanted to experience the place of Bob’s childhood with him. Also, the pay was sufficient for us to pay off our debt and put a little savings in the bank. We hoped to share the adventure with our daughters and so connect them to their father’s African experience. In addition the project – research involving sanitation – fit our values.

Q. Are you glad you went?
A. Yes, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Bob and I experienced Ghana together, topped up our bank account and shared five months with daughter Amy. Not to mention we saw wild African elephants!

Q. Why are you leaving Ghana?
A. The project goals have been accomplished, Bob’s contract is finished and our house, property, friends, family and neighbors await our return.

The street outside our house and our next door neighbors.

Q. What will you miss about your life in Kumasi?
A. I think I will miss life without A/C which was reminiscent of my childhood growing up in New Jersey without air conditioning. When the windows are open the sounds of an active neighborhood make me feel connected and alive in a way that sealing myself up in a quiet house does not.

I’m definitely going to miss my friends. Expats bond quickly, forming fast friendships based on need and circumstances. Adrift in a culture that often seems incomprehensible, I reached out to a great variety of individuals and was welcomed into the fold without reservation. We all joke that we probably wouldn’t be friends if we met in our native countries. Like war, the act of surviving adversity in a strange world creates strong bonds between a wide range of individuals.
Predictably some of those alliances blossomed into deep friendships with people we may never see again. Which hurts. Fortunately we have the technology to stay in touch.

Kat and Camille with Kat and Agye’s Land Rover. Camille, Elodie and BJ whipping up a pre-Alliance Francaise movie meal.

Q. How will you describe Ghana to your friends back home?
A. Ghana is essentially a nation of five-year-olds, irrepressibly eager, happy, playful, rough around the edges, irresponsible, unruly, naive and often deceitful. The culture is the product of Colonialism, Christianity, corruption and tropical malaise. Ghanaians or at least the majority of people we interacted with in Kumasi are not problem solvers. The educational system encourages submission and suppresses independent thought. We see that most Ghanaians are happy to make do, not adverse to taking hand outs, have difficulty saying no, and often miss commitments.

Religion is so important that they eagerly attend all night services at the cost of their day time performance. Many are convinced that their big financial breakthrough is right around the corner as long as they continue making the church their priority. Many go to church several times a week, to services in which the collection plate is passed several times.

Q. What were the highlights of your stay?
A. Our trip to Mole National Park with Amy was highly rewarding. I really enjoyed the walking safaris, seeing elephants and other animals in their natural habitat and learning about the diverse ecosystem. We made enough trips to the beach, Lake Bosumtwi and to parks and botanical gardens with enormous old growth trees to balance out our time at home in Kumasi.

I also enjoyed tending to our home, compound grounds and gardens, walking to market for food and cooking in our windowed kitchen. I loved looking out at our neighbors and listening to them throughout the day. We lived in a quiet neighborhood a few blocks from a busy road with an eclectic mix of people. I settled into a quiet rhythm of writing, yard work, walking around greeting people in Twi and housework.

Q. Do you have any advice for others headed to Kumasi to live and work?
A. Yes. Don’t expect too much! Get out of town on a regular basis. Start a garden and a compost pile, it will keep you grounded. Walk to market at least once a week. Join the facebook group, Kumasi Expats or find another way to connect with other expatriates. Get used to living with ants. Learn enough Twi to show you care about the people and their culture. Don’t touch people with your left hand. Keep antibiotics and a regime of malaria treatment in the house. They are cheap, easily purchased over the counter from any chemist. Check out Alliance Francaise near Ahodwo Roundabout. Embrace the adventure!

Bob leaving Lapetite Chemists with a bag of over-the-counter antibiotics. Amy with the elephants.

Religion is not the taboo conversational topic here that it is in the States. Ironically, it’s the Ghanaians preaching Christianity to the White Folk these days whereas 50 years ago the country was overflowing with White Missionaries hell bent on converting heathen Africans into sainted Jesus freaks. Obviously, they did a real good job.

Bob, BJ and I had gone to Kumasi’s Cultural Center to buy a few more African mementos to take home. As we left one vendor’s stall to mosey over to the next, the artist siphoned me off and herded me in the other direction to look at some more of his stuff. Since I was essentially done shopping and not so invested in following Bob and BJ, I politely followed him.

“Do you go to church?” he asked and my chest tightened. I should have seen it coming but I was blindsided and needed to make a quick decision. Would I diss him by saying something lame and walk away or would I humor him and let him have his say? I saw the earnestness in his eyes, a glint of pleading need to bounce his thoughts off of an old Obroni and decided to pick the middle ground. I decided to talk with him while backing slowly out of his stall. Kill a little time while waiting for Bob and BJ to finish shopping.

“Not so much” I answered. And we were off. He professed to a strong belief in the way of Jesus and I told him that I believe in being nice to other people. And as soon as I said that the irony hit me. Being nice in this case meant subjecting myself to an awkward conversation. One in which a Christian would try and convince an Atheist that the high road to salvation involved religion. And in which the Atheist was convinced that the simple act of engaging with the Christian WAS the high road.

He told me that if there was a chance that embracing the law of God would get him into heaven, what did he have to lose. If there were no heaven, no problem. If there were, he’d have done the right thing. “Can’t hurt.” I said amiably.

Next, I shared a story my brother Joe tells about working with Mother Theresa. Joe’s job was to bathe the sick and he found it very difficult. One old man in particular was covered in putrid sores. Day after day Joe gritted his teeth and attended to the man, gagging on the odor, until one day, noticing a sign that said something like “Jesus lives in all of us” Joe suddenly saw the sacred core of this man. After that, he found his work much easier.

Before I left the artist’s stall, he told me that one condition of his agreement with the church was that he spread the word. That’s when I realized that by simply not walking away I had given him the chance to fulfill his contract and earn some points.

The young man was glowing as I left him to follow Bob and BJ to the car. Which made me feel good about my decision. I had scored a win-win by humoring his need to talk about Christ while fulfilling my own desire to be nice to others.

It was just barely light out when Eric dropped Bob, Amy and me at the station to catch a bus to Cape Coast. Amy had been with us for three months and it was time to get out of town and go to the beach. As we walked into the nearly empty station we noticed two white women sitting on a bench across the room. I smiled and waved. After we checked in we headed for that bench. “May we join you on the Obroni bench?” Bob asked and we were graciously received. Introductions ensued.

We soon learned that Nauzley was spending a year at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital as part of her training to become a doctor. Her mother Nahid, was visiting from the States. They were winding up her visit with a trip to the beach.

Nahid was a little sketched out by Nauzley’s living situation downtown where a beautiful young lady walking alone was an easy target. In fact, Nauzley confirmed that men often grabbed her arms or worse when she went to market. Nauzley wrote her contact information in my little note pad and Bob gallantly promised Nahid we would stay in touch.

I asked Nauzley about her project and within minutes she had cut through the small talk and was delving into the cultural conditions surrounding infant jaundice. She spoke about her interviews with mothers who close their eyes in trusting deference to the almighty power of the medical system and God. Nyame Adom (by His grace.) When the driver opened the doors to the bus, I was so entrenched in conversation I practically had to be prodded up the steps.

Halfway to Cape Coast the driver pulled into the shaded courtyard of a modest hotel. As people filed down the aisle I realized this was a bathroom break. I quickly located Nauzley and Nahid and we wandered over to a pair of what appeared to be changing rooms. “I think they’re urinals” Nauzley said, “See that little hole in corner of the floor?” I handed out tissues, we agreed to get brave and Nauzley and I stepped in. As I relieved myself with my skirt over one arm, crouched as close to the corner as possible, clutching my tissue and trying not to splash, I wished the floor had a bit more of a slope to it or that I had let Nahid go before me.

When we were done we looked for a place to throw our soggy tissues and a water source so we could wash our hands. We found a bucket of water. Wiping our hands on our skirts we joked that we had now officially pee bonded. The whole business was embarrassing and awkward but entirely unavoidable given the circumstances. Nauzley laughed and shared a story about her first experience with an African urinal which involved a circular trough over which women crouched while facing each other. She recalled thinking, “I can’t do this.”

During her last four months in Kumasi, Nauzley became part of our family. She joined us for meals and movies, helped cook and often spent the night. She even went to the zoo with me, something my other friends had no desire to do. Since her return home we have shared many intense emails. Her journey down the path to repatriation illuminates my own impending transition with helpful insights. I have found a true friend, a guiding light and soul mate purely by accident.

It seemed like there should be a better way for expats to connect. I try not think what would have happened if we hadn’t picked the same bus to the shore. We wondered how many other obronis were out there, isolated in Kumasi. In fact, we met other expats who found each other the way we did and it became a joke that if you wanted to meet other expats all you had to do was hang out at the bus station.

Two months after meeting Nauzley I started a Facebook group called Kumasi Expats. With so many Facebook users out there, I figured it would be a good alternative to hoping you run into another white person before your assignment was up. Somewhere you could ask where to by a can opener, for example, something which took us 6 weeks to figure out.

Indeed, the group has flourished. Many of the posts begin with “I’m moving to Ghana” or “I’ve recently moved to Kumasi.” With 120 members Kumasi Expats has organized meet-ups and tours and given members a platform to share hundreds of tips about everything from shopping to healthcare.

Ironically, when I logged into Facebook this morning, the first item on my news feed was this quote on Nauzley’s timeline: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” – Mother Teresa. As per usual, Nauzley is on my wavelength.

PS- As of February, 2017 the Kumasi Expats group has 850 members and they are still playing nice, organizing get-togethers, sharing resources, and helping each other find stuff.

The clock is ticking louder these days. We leave Ghana exactly five weeks from today, spend five nights in Morocco and land in Raleigh December 7th.

No matter how much you plan, transition takes its toll. The sorting, packing, winding up projects, checking off the last things on our ‘must do before leaving Ghana’ list, selling furniture, saying goodbye to friends we likely will never see again. The yearning for our old life back in the States, knowing that things will have changed, people will have moved on, that it won’t be the same life we left – all of it is hard on the soul. I feel like my life is unraveling.

Bob and I have been through this many times before and yet still face the same challenges. We are doing our best to suppress panic at what lies on the other end of our journey. We struggle to turn off our racing brains at 2am and return to sleep. Wondering how many weeds will have moved into our gardens and what we’ll do for money on the other end. Trying not to think about how much we’ll miss the tropics and the good friends we’ve made over the past 16 months.

When I’m out on the streets of Kumasi I find myself bouncing wildly between moments of pre-departure nostalgia and intense irritation. “Oh, look at that!” I said to BJ yesterday, pointing at a black man sitting high atop an overloaded truck of raw lumber, “We won’t see anything like that in the States.”

One minute I’m tearing up at the sight of a mother washing her naked children in a steel tub beside the road, the next I’m cursing the insistently honking taxi drivers. From ecstatic over my new custom tailored skirt to cringing from the body funk of someone passing me on the street a moment later. I’ve become schizophrenic. Unstable. Unraveled.

A scene from the movie “Like Water for Chocolate” keeps flashing through my mind. Tita, denied her true love, has put her energy into knitting a scarf. She finally has a nervous breakdown and is taken away in a wagon, the scarf rolling out of the wagon and trailing behind covering the road between her old life and her new one. Whenever this image of Tita’s scarf comes to me, I imagine myself pulling the yarn out of it as I prepare to make a new scarf. Indeed, I feel as if I’m pulling apart my life here in order to create a new life on the other side.

And so with only 5 weeks to go, Bob and I cling to our routines. Getting up at dawn to check email, big bowls of pineapple, Kentucky Fried Tofu on Sundays, walking to market on Mondays, moseying about in the garden, dinner at sundown with some old TV show or a portion of a movie and reading in bed with chocolate. All of these things help us stay grounded enough to disassemble our household without getting totally unraveled.

There’s ants in the toilet paper again. No tellin’ what they get out of it but you can bet we make damned sure we shake them off before we wipe. It’s 10:14 in the morning and Bob and I have happy bellies full of premium leftovers, scrambled tofu, pineapple, bread and cheese. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that we love to eat.

Life is good here these days providing we rise above ongoing annoyances. Like daily power outages, dry taps and waking up at 4:30 to the sound of Muslims, Christians and roosters.

The religious zealots (and boy, does Ghana have more than their share of those) use loudspeakers to guarantee no one sleeps through their wake up call for salvation. Once in awhile I sleep through it but usually I lay there thinking, “The only thing I need saved from is this ungodly yelling!”

The roosters have no need of loudspeakers. Theirs are built-in and they are also savvy enough to choose perches with amplification potential – sills and cubbies backed by concrete walls. They crow all hours of the day and night, but are usually quiet between sundown and 3am when they have a little say and then settle back down. The 4:30 call to prayer gets them really going though and they’ll go on for an hour or two.

I used to think they were saying, “These are MY hens!” but lately it sounds more like “Cook the ROOSter!” Or kick the rooster, I’m a rooster, In the stew pot, who can know what their four alarming syllables of noise means.

It is very likely that all three groups are saying, “Pray to MY god!”

So anyway, I usually lay there for half an hour or 45 minutes before I stop trying to fall back to sleep and start my day with rich Ghanaian cocoa and warm emails from long time friends; tangy Cape Coast pineapple, a trip to the compost pile, some yoga with the NPR news, and about 10:00 something delicious.

Like I say, life is good.

If you’ve ever been in Ghana for more than a week you are already snickering because you know that Ghanaian customer service is an oxymoron. However, I’m here to tell you that there are exceptions to the abysmally bad service one usually receives.

My experience with MTN this morning is a good example of stellar customer service. I had gotten into a bit of trouble with my pay-as-you-go cell phone service yesterday. In my haste to scratch off and enter a 14-digit number, I grabbed the first hard object I saw and managed to rub three of the numbers into near oblivion.

I was in the middle of a phone call with Mano when the recording came on to tell me I only had one minute of credit left so I hung up with a promise to call back ASAP. The straight edge of my house key certainly looked smooth enough to rub off the silver coating and might have, if I’d taken more time. I was yammering on about nothing to Bob, scraping away, and the next thing I knew little bits of paper are beginning to fly.

To make a long story short, after multiple incorrect guesses, the MTN computer banned me from further attempts, advising me to contact their customer service. I decided to give it a day and see if I’d been forgiven in the morning. But finding myself still shut out this morning, I went to their website and filled out the online help form and also sent an email. To be honest, I didn’t have much faith that the problem would soon be fixed.

Half an hour later I went to my email to send all of my Kumasi friends a message that they could call me but I couldn’t call out until this problem was resolved so look for more emails and fewer calls. What a surprise to see an email in my InBox from MTN asking for my phone number!

So I sent it and nearly fell off my chair when my phone rang a few minutes later. “Hello?” I said. The man on the other end said “Hello” back and waited. Oh heck, I thought. I know how to play this game. “Are you from MTN?” I asked, doing my best to conceal my excitement and act bawcaw (calm and smooth).

Turned out he was, and within a few minutes had removed the ban from my account. I said I’d put in a 10 cedi top up and he said he’d call back to see if it worked. It did and he did. And then he really knocked my flip flops off when he asked about the mangled 20 cedi card.

I gave him the serial number and the first and last 3 digits and listened to him clicking away. “Okay,” he said, “Please check your balance and I’ll call you back.” I did and he did and by this time I was unable to contain myself. “I have 30 cedis of credit!” I gushed, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you – you have totally made my day!”

And there you have it. Ghanaian customer service. Unexpected and tongue swallowing wonderful.

And yet, I refuse to stop walking. After I return to the States, I will rejoin the car culture and miss the opportunity to walk down the street for onions. Shopping will involve a series of asphalt parking lots rather than adventurous forays into the pages of National Geographic.

My friends are well aware of my dilemma. Most of them rarely shop on foot and say they can’t imagine exposing themselves to the back alley street life for hours at a time. Linda, who rarely walks says the taxis are her ‘legs.”

Chrissie reminds me that I have not been out of Ghana for nearly a year and a half. “You’ve got to get out!” she says with the breezy air of someone who spent her summer in Australia and Europe.

Kat tells me that it may be a ‘class thing’ because she is working with Ghanaian professionals who are articulate and interesting, refreshing to be with rather than draining. My Ghanaian interactions involve street vendors and taxi drivers and the people who call out to me when I walk down past their cook fires. It probably also helps Kat’s attitude that she recently returned from three months in Europe.

Fortunately, I’ve had a bit of a turn around. The shouting match with the startled boys on the bridge a week and a half ago helped me release pent up frustration and gave me pause. I’ve been rethinking my situation and gradually, begun acknowledging greetings again. A simple wave or a smile is better than nothing. Sometimes I even find the energy to call out “Ete Sen!” Heck, they all know my name by now. It’s not like I can hide behind those sunglasses I bought off one young man’s head.

When BJ and I walk together I realize we are seeing different worlds, she noticing the glitter as I stare at the grime. “I’m still very much in my honeymoon phase.” she says, almost apologetically when it becomes clear that we are having opposite reactions. She is sensitive enough to pick up on my exhaustion regardless of how much I hold my tongue.

But a strange thing happens when BJ exclaims over a spectacular tree or exuberant youngster. I see things through her eyes for a moment. See the beauty beyond the blowing black bags. The innocence behind the cat calls.

I also find it ironic that when I sat down to write about my reset epiphany, I came across this comment on the previous post, “Silence.”

Paula
September 12, 2013
Oh for goodness sake – they are just children.

Once when I was living in Kenya, I stopped one of the groups of children yelling ‘Msungu, Musungu’ (which means white person). I told them my name…after that they started calling all white people by my name.

I actually remember it quite fondly now, though in the two years I lived there, indeed I must have been shouted at thousands of times. How nice to be so admired — without doing anything — that kids yell in happiness when they see us.

I am living in Accra now. I think the children are more used to seeing white people, so there’s little clamoring in joy. They still do give me more honor and respect than I probably deserve, however.

This comment was written on the day of my reset. The day I re-surfaced as the neighborhood Obroni persona.  Paula’s comment might have inspired my conclusion to come back out of hiding had I noticed it before. It seems like too much of a coincidence, making me wonder if on some level, I heard her words.

I’m sure all of these factors helped me push the Reset Button. And although I’m past my honeymoon phase with Ghana, I’m no longer filing for divorce. I’ve chosen to absorb the hope and joy I encounter on the street, screen out the irritations and enjoy the few months I have left. After all, as Paula points out – they’re just children!