Arrived in Accra

Samuel took me to his house. I'm not sure if it's cool or scary that I'm starting to recognize more and more sites on the way. It was wonderful to see Samila and she is looking distinctly pregnant now.

Little Jeanne was not at all frightened of me and in fact came right up to me to hold her!

I unpacked gifts and things that I muled for Sammy & his family. I took a nap for about 2.5 hours. It was glorious. When I woke up the house was quiet. Jeanne came out of her room and ran up to me to be picked up. I read her  the book that I brought her.

In the quiet house I found sounds of an African city are so very different from home. As it was a Sunday, there were sounds of services from churches all over the area. It's not like music from our churches. It sounds more like being outside of a building with a big world music concert going on and on and on.

Jeanne is walking with confidence now. She enjoys rearranging everything. She moves the shoes from over here to over there. She picks up that toy and throws it over there -- then she sits on it. They have to work really hard to get Jeanne to eat. She runs away when she sees them with the food. She's a bit underweight though so they have to go through this dance several times a day.

Samila made us a lovely lunch of yams and mixture I'd call a fish stew. It was fantastic. She is a brilliant cook.

We went to visit Samuel's uncle. He is a wealthy man in a large house between two churches. On Sunday they have to close the windows to hear each other speak.

The first thing I did was fix Uncle's iPhone battery. It's a pretty easy process for me now, I'm happy to say. As we sat in the dim, cool, comfortable room chatting, I started to feel myself falling asleep again. It was embarrassing. Then Samuel's Auntie who recently moved back from California arrived. We only had time for a quick greeting and then it was time to go.

By the time we came out  the sky was dark & very windy. A storm seemed imminent. Remembering the flooding from just a few days ago I was anxious to get inside. It turned out that I needn't have worried. Samuel explained to me that the first rain of the rainy season is always the worst. They won't get flooding like that for the rest of the season. The roads are really full of potholes! So much worse than anything I've ever seen in Boston.

We relaxed in their living room and, of course, I started to fall asleep on the couch. Not long after the power went out. Samuel was excited to get a chance to use a battery operated LED lantern that he had just gotten. I think they were glad that I was going to get to really experience what it was like to live the way they do. They only have electricity a few days out of every week.

Samuel went out for a while. I napped and read a book for a bit and then it finally started to rain.

Samila made an outrageous soup that she called "Light Soup";  it was hot and tangy. I've looked it up on the web and found the ingredients to be surprising because they were different than I tasted, but I'm looking forward to trying it at home. Fortunately, Samuel gave me an enormous container of the pepper sauce the last time I was here so the toughest ingredient is already in my kitchen. I think I'll wait until Tobias-Talia is gone though since they don't like hot foods.

I took a shower, but since this wasn't one of the few times when water runs through their taps, I used the bucket shower method. It was refreshing.

I went to bed around 9:15. In US time that would have been 5:15, and that's a bit freaky to consider. The concerts were still going. I read a book that my cousin Kay recommended before I slept for a nice long time.