Raining cats

Tell Tale Signs

Sunshine is the laughter of nature. Live out in the sunshine. The sun and air are good medicine. Nature is a good nurse for tired bodies. Let her have her way with you. God's grace is like the sunshine. Let your whole being be enwrapped in the Divine spirit. Faith is the soul's breathing in of the Divine spirit. It makes glad the hearts of human beings. The Divine spirit heals and cures the mind. Let it have its way and all will be well.
-God Calling, August 17


I’ve experienced a bulging sadness vibrating through me for two days. It doesn’t feel like I’m sad, but if I pay attention to the signs my body is giving me, then I must see that my swollen, sore lymphnodes are telling me just that. And honestly, its true, I do have a bit of ache in my chest this week for home. Anytime I connect to home via phone, email, or packages, I get really sad. Especially when its measured against the loneliness that I experience here. I want to clarify, I do not labels these emotions as negative, they simply just are a part of life. I can’t be blissful each and every moment. This part of my experience is simply just that, part of my experience.

Its amazing what I’ve learned about myself emotionally by being aware of my body. I may have written about this before, but its worth mentioning again. A few weeks after arriving, I got burned really bad. In one week, I had the worst sunburn ever and I burned my mouth pretty badly on my breakfast, causing my palette to blister. When I asked myself what was going on with me emotionally, I saw that I was really feeling burned by someone’s abrasive, sarcastic comments. Another experience like this occurred not long after; I had a tormenting blister and in the same week, my under arms chaffed. I asked myself if someone was possibly rubbing me the wrong way and yes, there was a person I’d been butting heads with everyday in class. Its amazing to me. I can even look deeper into at the fact that when I’m not so sensitive, these same conditions don’t affect me, so it all begins with me. Likewise, the answer lies with in me; the sooner I come to peace with the person I’m in conflict with, the sooner my body heals. Usually, this means resting and taking time to soothe my inner conflict. I must slow down for each part of me, physical and emotional to heal. Once, I became aware of this, I feel thankful for these little ailments, the are like tell tale signs to my growth.

Its not always clearly connected in my mind, the physical and the emotional so I often consult the dictionary. Today I looked up swollen which was defined as bulging. Then I looked up sore and it was defined as painful, sad or angry. Then I look up throb and it was defines as to beat or vibrate strongly. It all made sense then. Though, I would not have admitted that I was feeling sad and homesick because I try not to dilly dally with those feelings since I’m isolated here and it seems a bit dangerous and maybe even self pitying. However, I suppose that if I don’t acknowledge the emotion, my body will show it to me in another manner, because it needs to get out somehow. Whether its through writing about it, talking about it, creating art, exercise, or unfortunately, an infection or illness. It really makes since now to think about each and every illness we have and what it could be connected to.

One of my friends here, had parasites. So, I asked her what a parasite does? Well, it feeds off of a host. She looked at me puzzled. Then I asked her if anyone in her life was feeding off of her emotionally. Sure enough, one of her family members heavily relies on her as their emotional outlet.

The easiest to see, for me, is weight. It’s a layer of protection we place around our bodies. No matter what you can say about, at its root, being over weight is about protection. I’ve watched two women here open themselves up to the possibility of romance and with that simple act, they have shed pounds and inches, while many others have gained. Which also seems likely, since there is an enormous amount of unwanted attention forced on women here, so I can see where we would sub-consciously desire a bit of added protection around this largely aggressive male-dominant culture.

Next time you’re battling an illness or ailment, ask yourself what it is doing to you. Then apply those words to the rest of your life and see how it pans out. I’m guessing some bits of truth will be revealed.

Raining Cats

1/22/08 As I write this, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around what happened just now. I’d just woken up and I was sitting on the sofa, waiting for my bath water to heat on the stove. I was still pretty sleepy, staring at nothing on the floor, trying not to fall back asleep. The sun was just coming up, so the sky was beginning to lighten up. Just then, in my peripheral vision, through the window, I saw something fall into the courtyard. The blur looked pretty big and I could here it, scrambling between the wall and the water tank. I assumed it to be a bird, since I don’t know any other animal to be cruising around in the air and there’s an enormous family of birds living in and on my roof. As I stood up, I saw ears poke up, white ones, I got scared at first and then a cat popped its head up and looked at my just before it fell back into the space. My heart sank.

I walked out and I could see it hiding in the dark, his eyes squinting, but he never made a noise. I tried to talk to it, and soothe it, but it just sat there. I opened the courtyard gate, since the walls are about 8’ high and left it open until I had to bathe. I checked again, he wasn’t there anymore, I looked in and around and beneath, but couldn’t see anything since it was too dark.

I went to work and decided I’d look again when I got home. I came home and began constructing my washing board and while I was sitting in the courtyard, I saw the cat move, so I climbed as close as I could and he’s just lying there, scared, awake, maybe hurt and I can’t reach him. I have some tuna I will try to lure him out with, but its not like I can take him to the kitty vet, cats aren’t eaten here like dogs are, but they aren’t pets either.

The crazy thing is that I can not figure out where he came from. Well, the roof, but I can’t see how he got into the roof. Its been puzzling me all day, very odd. Very very odd indeed.

I’ll be sure to post the outcome of my four-legged friend.

While on the topic of bizarre occurrences, I locked myself in the house the other day and it was hilarious. I left through the courtyard with my bike and came home for lunch, parked my bike out front and entered through the kitchen. When I was ready to leave, for a meeting, my key wouldn’t open the lock. I was trapped! I couldn’t leave through the courtyard because the padlock was on the outside from that morning! I tried the lock a dozen times, it had always been tough with one little sweet spot, but nothing was working. Eventually, I cranked open the slatted window, and called to a girl passing by. She looked around, confused, its really hilarious now but I was pretty late. I kept calling her and finally she saw me but didn’t speak English. I kept jiggling the handle and finally pushed the keys to her beneath the door for her to try to open it. Sure enough, it worked from the outside, just not the inside. The door opened and the girl looked so scared to see a white lady on the other side.

I thanked her and hurried off to my meeting and laughed so hard the entire way.

Oh but why?

1/23/08 I could complain about the number of people who’ve come to me for money this week, then I thought, oh but why? That’s what we say here. Each word sounds like its own little sigh. Ohhh, buuut whhhhy? So, instead, I’ll take the time to describe my walk this evening.

Each night, I walk further into the bush. I take a path behind my house and every evening, I start out a bit earlier and walk a bit farther. I’m always disappointed when it gets too dark and I know I have to turn around. I walk through these hills and valleys and the air gets warm then cool then warm and cool.

Tonight, I climbed a hill and stood atop some rocks and looked out over the empty land and watched the sun go down, in all its glory. These walks have replaced my morning tea as my favorite part of the day. If I do nothing, but take that walk, with those big steps, and deep breaths with my arms swinging, I still feel like its been a perfect day.

Food for thought

I must express something I’ve tested several times and found always to be true. I feel the best, meaning, most energetic, clear headed, content physically and emotionally, when I eat a certain way:

Fruit, only, for breakfast
Vegetables and Starch
Or
Vegetables and Protein

It’s from the book Fit for Life. It made sense to me when I read it, so I tried it and the state of lethargy that I’d experienced after most meals over my entire life, disappeared. Not only did the lethargy disappear, but my energy actually increases after I eat, like I’ve fueled up and now I can really go. This is not at all how we are taught to eat.

The simplest was I can imagine it, is that with fewer things for my body to break down at one time, more energy is reserved for me to live on. So, no processed foods, they just don’t work well for me.

The insanity in all of this is that I don’t eat this way all the time, even though I know that know matter what, I’m going to feel tired, lazy, brain dead and probably have gas, in other words, complete discomfort, all of which I do not experience when I eat according to that simple formula. To add to this baffling truth, the discomfort usually lasts for nearly two hours after eating so this means I spend 2,190 hours of self inflicted physical discomfort a year that easily could be prevented.

I really saw this affect after coming to Africa, where I was not able to choose my own menu for the first three months. After resuming my previous eating habits, I as immediately thrown back into feeling good. Well, after I stopped craving the junk, which took a few weeks. Now I feel wonderful most every day.

Everyone here reacts with shock that I don’t drink soda and they want to know why. I tell them its just sugary water and that I prefer plain water. They look at my like it really makes sense and then they look at the bottle of Coke, which is flat here, and seem perplexed. Also, if you really care to know, I no longer support Coca Cola in any way, which means not buying Dasani bottled water, which is also sold here. The reason is that Coca Cola moved into a small village in India, several years ago, and began using their water. Now, before this the village had plenty of water for all of its uses, drinking, cleaning, cooking, farming, and livestock, but Coca Cola had enough money to dig really deep pumps, so that they got to the water first and the villages’ wells began to dry up. Coca Cola actually pumped 1.5 million liters of water a day out of this ground that didn’t belong to them. The water that the villagers could still get tasted bad and had a terrible odor, it caused rashes and people began to get sick. Years went by and finally, people began to protest, to no avail, since the government was the only entity reaping any benefits. There was a protest of several 1000 and Coca Cola agreed they would send a water truck into the village every day, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough water to care for all of the villages needs. I wish I had a happy ending for you, but I don’t. That’s it, the end. And I don’t buy Coke or Coke products. I’m out here living in a place just like that, where my water gets pumped out of the ground every night and I just can’t imagine someone taking it away from me. I went a day without water here and it was horrible. I couldn’t bath, I had nothing to drink, I couldn’t wash anything. How can people hurt people so easily? I guess because they forget that we’re all the same. I don’t care if you stop drinking Coke, I just can’t contribute another penny to their greed, and trust me, they won’t miss it, everyone in Ghana drinks Coke, it’s the only thing here to drink, besides water.