Last night I fell asleep on the den couch. Thunder woke me and the two dogs who were sleeping beside me. It was a rolling thunder which just kept going and going. Both dogs checked the ceiling then the window. It started pouring. The top of the couch was already wet. Both dogs took a seat, one on each side of me, and leaned. Neither one moved until the thunder stopped. It was five and still dark. The three of us, Nala, Henry and I, went back to sleep to the sound of the rain on the window behind the couch.

The rain is intermittent, and more thunder showers are predicted. The morning is chilly and damp at 67˚, the high for the day. I had planned a dump run, but I’m postponing that until tomorrow. Nothing about the day is inviting. The only item on today’s dance card is a nap. Now, that is inviting.

Yesterday I watched a video of a ride through Bolga, my town in Ghana. I named the places out loud I recognized as the video played. The Hotel d’Bull is still a hotel but has been renamed, air conditioned and reconfigured including a small internet cafe of sorts, maybe four computers, in what was once part of a bar. In the courtyard the blank, white wall on which movies were shown is gone as are the tiers of concrete seats facing the wall. The Hotel d’Bull was my night out. I’d buy a roof seat across from the screen. I sat at a round metal table with matching chairs, almost patio chairs except they were on the roof of a hotel in Africa, in Bolga. During the evening I bought dinner and a couple of Cokes. Dinner was a kabob for 20 pesewas, about 20 cents. The Coke was the same. I was brought a basin and water before and, later, after dinner so I could wash my hands. It still is the custom in some places, mostly on the Road in chop bars, what they call local eateries in Ghana.

The video went a bit down the Bawku road, to the east, and up the Navrongo road, to the north. I had spent part of my training in Bawku teaching middle school and living with my Ghanaian family. I had friends in Navrongo, and I passed through the town on my way to what used to be Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, and Ougadougou. The road from my house to Navrongo is still my favorite road in all of Northern Ghana. It is lined with trees. I was told mahogany trees. They were planted and are equally distant apart. In the rainy season they are covered in leaves which shade the road. People walk on both sides. Women carry goods to market. Old men walk with canes. Every village, even small ones, have a market day so people are always walking.

I want one more trip to Ghana. Economic austerity begins now.