window view

sarah suggested that i describe the view out my window, and that's a
great suggestion. thanks, sarah!
i have one window in my bedroom, and it looks out the back of the
compound. i overlook what is basically an alley. picturesque, yes?
it's a small dirt road that ends outside my window. a few small
houses or one larger compound are in a u-shape around the road. there
is one light on the outside of one of the houses, and it is bright
blue. the buildings are small and look like the slightest wind would
knock them over. wood boards, dirt, and a bit of concrete are the
walls. some of the roofs are corrugated metal, some not. one wall is
painted a bright blue and yellow, some others are the reddish color of
the dirt here.
the family or families who live there are always outside. there is at
least one small baby, and that poor baby cries all the time. there
are several small children playing. the women are always bent over
their coal stoves making whatever meal comes next in the endless cycle
of mealtimes here in ghana. i don't see men back there as often,
probably because they are in the fields farming or off doing whatever
work they do. there are always at least three goats roaming about and
many chickens. the roosters of course begin to crow at about 4am, but
my wonderful fan helps to drown out that obnoxiousness.
directly outside my window, straight down, is the gutter. falling in
a gutter in ghana has quickly become my greatest fear. gutters are on
the edge of every road in ghana, and anything and everything is
disposed of in these ditches. people use the bathroom, dump
dishwater, toss trash, whatever, into these gutters. they are usually
uncovered, just waiting for someone who is not paying attention to
fall face-first into that absolutely filthy nastiness. i think i am
more afraid of falling into a gutter than getting malaria or worms or
those things. it's that gross. anyway. that was quite a tangent.
so yes, a gutter is outside my window, to catch the excessive amounts
of rain we get almost daily right now. the street is of course
littered with trash, but after a while you stop noticing such small
details.
so that's my window view. not an exceptionally beautiful view, but
it's still ghana!