Pumpkin Coffee

“hi Sarah,how are you?My name is Maxwell the Missionary,we met in a car from 37 to kaneshie, Accra on Tuesday.I believe you are good and your friends.”

This is directly copied from my facebook inbox, sent from a guy I met riding a tro. We talked for only about 15 minutes and I only told him my first name. That’s what I would call determination…facebooking ‘sarah’ and looking for the white lady in Ghana.

I remember meeting this guy. I had 3 bags with me and about a 1’x1’ space to fit them all in (one was filled with only books because I was coming from the Accra office and they have a pretty large lending library). He was good about having most of my backpack in his face so when he handed me (as well as the rest of the tro) a story printed on a small scrap of paper I decided to be nice and feign interest for the sake of my heavy backpack. Apparently not many other people in the tro felt the same way I did because they, almost in unison, threw the story either out the window or onto the floor of the tro. Seeing that I was reading his story and pinned under my bag of books (captive audience) he decides to pursue a conversation. He talks about the bible and religion, asks me if I go to church (of course I say I do to avoid a horrible conversation) and then finally asks me what I’m doing in Ghana. It was only about a 15 minute tro ride…I was moving from near the peace corps office to the station where I would catch the first of 3 tros I have to ride in order to get home. It was all a very nice chat using mostly fake and some real information (don’t worry mom most of what I said, aside from my name, was a complete fabrication). Apparently I need to start using a fake name. I didn’t before because I am pretty sure I would just confuse myself. Oh well.

This story wasn’t too exciting but I had to tell you the backstory in order to have the story below make sense. The story itself in not very great but it is written in such a Ghanaian manner that I actually laughed out loud reading it for the first time.

This is the exact story that he handed me when I met him in the tro that day:

Blood on the Door

Hide! During a bloody war, a cruel commander decided to murder everyone in a small village. Shortly after the massacre began, a fugitive observed that after the soldiers killed each one in the house, they smeared blood on the door od the house to indicate deatj inside. Quickly, the fugitive sneaked to the house where his friends were awaiting certain death. At once the idea came to them-kill their goat and smear its blood on their door!
the task had barely been completed when the soldiers approached. After slaughtering the residents of the neighboring houses, they came to the door smeared with goat’s blood. But they made no attempt to enter. They thought the deadly work had already been done in that house. Although everyone was murdered, this fugitive and his friends behind the blood-marked door were saved.
Decide! If you had lived in that war zone would you have hesitated to hide behind the blood-marked door? Death and judgment are coming for all of us, yet many are refusing to escape through the blood of Jesus. The Bible says that the result of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and after death is the judgement (Hebrews 9:27).
Because of your sins, the death penalty is upon you-not from a cruel commander, but from a righteous God who hates sin. That same God loves sinners, and has provided a way of escape from eternal punishment.

***I wrote that a few days ago (when I didn’t have internet) and its just been sitting on my computer…now to the present!***

Yesterday I had a wonderfully meeting at University of Cape Coast (UCC) regarding the wetlands curriculum we’ve been working on. But getting to this wonderful meeting was NOT so wonderful at all.

I was super excited to go to this meeting, I had been emailing with the professors and they were returning my emails and setting goals for the meeting and project. I was just beside myself. So the night before I pick out my “I’m going to an organized meeting where everyone is going to keep their shoes on the entire time” outfit (batik skirt, shirt that hasn’t been washed 1000 times and still looks like a shirt), so I was feeling good. Since I can’t go to the meeting and make it back to my site in the same day I decide to stay at my directors house for the night. I’m packing my overnight bag and keep thinking to myself “you’re only going for one day, pack as light as possible” so I do. I have stacks of papers and my computer and other ‘productive meeting paraphernalia” so I decide its best to sacrifice my other normal traveling crap…like the first aid kit I usually travel with. Yeah. I’m bright.

The next morning comes and I get dressed in my fabulous meeting outfit and start walking down my hill to catch a tro to Takoradi. Now I think maybe I was a bit too excited because its so early not many tros are even running. I walk down to the intersection where I can usually catch one and nothing. So I resign myself to trotting down to the market and waiting at the station. Which, since I’m in a good mood, doesn’t really phase me (the power of not looking like a total hot mess…who knew). As I’m getting to the station I see a tro, they are calling for people to fill it and since no other tros are in sight…I need to make this one. As I’m calmly, on even surface (as flat as a dirt road can be anyway) walk over to the tro I EAT IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! My first thought was “again! Really?”. I get up and pretend that nobody saw me (lie) and get into the tro. Its not till I’m halfway to Takoradi (when my foot gets wet) that I realize I am bleeding from both knees. CRAP! I dig in my purse and come up with a used tissue and one finger size band-aid. I wish I were joking about that but I’m really not. This is not going to help me, one knee is really gross (and in the real world I probably should have gotten stitches..2 inch long vertical gash that opens with my knee) and the other is just annoyingly bleeding everywhere. I have NO IDEA what to do now. Since I’m still bleeding and have literally no way to stop it. I end up having to call my NGO to help me out…originally I called to ask to have someone meet me with a first aid kit but those just don’t exist here, so they brought me back to the office for lack of anything better to do with me. I get there and they hand me what equates to flat cotton balls (which left fizz everywhere), tape and RUBBING ALCOHOL as their medical kit. Leslie happened to be at the office, who is nurse/first aid trained and takes over. Poor girl had to listen to me whine and swear for a good ten minutes while she attempted to remove the gravel with cotton balls and RUBBING ALCOHOL. Lesson learned  universe…I will travel with my med kit from now on. Not only that but I had to put pants on and ruin my outfit. 

Sorry this is such a rambling, disjointed post but the word document was open for almost a week on my computer and every time I saw it I would just add a few sentences 9except for that last part about the falling...i added that all at once in a fit of annoyance...so, actually, that probably doesn't make much sense either...sorry-o!)

I heard that pumpkin coffee is back for fall and i cant tell you how sad i am to be missing it this year!!!!! So have a cup and then tell me about it!!!

Enjoy the beginning of the fall leaves!

<3