Memories of 1972

My father is furious.  My mother is ready to kill me.  Daddy’s gone through the time on the engine and my mother has gone through her gas card receipts and they know what I’ve been up to.  My weekly trips to the beach have to stop.  I’ll never forgive the line boy at the Myrtle Beach airport.  He said to my dad, “What are you doing flying Suzanne’s airplane?”

I could have gotten away with my scheme for all four years of college if he hadn’t opened his big mouth.  My girlfriends and I only went once a week and our grades were good. We never skipped the same class two weeks in a row.  Who were we hurting?  Well, maybe we were hurting my chemistry grade, but I really didn’t care.  I hated that class.

My mother tells me that there is a job opening at a local hardware store.  I’m to report on Monday morning.  She has it arranged already.  I’ll be working in the toy department, since I’m not exactly a tools and hardware type of person.  This is horrible.  This place is smelly and the aisles are crowded. It is a place where I would never go voluntarily.  I am pissed.  Maybe I should steal the plane and run away again.

I show up at work and learn the various boring things that I’m supposed to do.  I walk around and look at the toys, wind a few up just to be obnoxious, then go back to the counter and hang out.  The more I can wind up, the more obnoxious the noise.

At the end of the day, I am informed of the closing routine, and know immediately I’m going to hate it.

“Suzanne, please get the vacuum and vacuum the aisles in the department, then wipe the counters so everything is spotless for tomorrow,” the boss demands.

One of the guys I’m working with is selling Amway.  He sees this as a temporary job, though I have my doubts he will ever get rich with any kind of multi-level marketing.  He goes to all of these meetings that are kind of like pep rallies.  He tries to get me to go.  No, thank you.

I see this job as a sentence to hell.

I wonder if vacuuming is my job because I’m the only girl but I bit my tongue.  How do you turn on a vacuum?  I am not going to ask for help.  I can figure this out.  If I can fly a plane I can do anything.  I find the switch and start to vacuum.

On Aisle 3 I confront the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen.  I quickly suck that bastard up with the vacuum cleaner before it can get away.  I finish and I go home, but not before I stop at the library and look up alternate careers.  My mother may have squashed any dreams of a career in interior design, but I can do better than this.

And I did.

Summer, 1973 – The Job From Hell

My father is furious.  My mother is ready to kill me.  Daddy’s gone through the time on the engine and my mother has gone through her gas card receipts and they know what I’ve been up to.  My weekly trips to the beach have to stop.  I’ll never forgive the line boy at the Myrtle Beach airport.  He said to my dad, “What are you doing flying Suzanne’s airplane?”

I could have gotten away with my scheme for all four years of college if he hadn’t opened his big mouth.  My girlfriends and I only went once a week and our grades were good. We never skipped the same class two weeks in a row.  Who were we hurting?  Well, maybe we were hurting my chemistry grade, but I really didn’t care.  I hated that class.

My mother tells me that there is a job opening at a local hardware store.  I’m to report on Monday morning.  She has it arranged already.  I’ll be working in the toy department, since I’m not exactly a tools and hardware type of person.  This is horrible.  This place is smelly and the aisles are crowded. It is a place where I would never go voluntarily.  I am pissed.  Maybe I should steal the plane and run away again.

I show up at work and learn the various boring things that I’m supposed to do.  I walk around and look at the toys, wind a few up just to be obnoxious, then go back to the counter and hang out.  The more I can wind up, the more obnoxious the noise.

At the end of the day, I am informed of the closing routine, and know immediately I’m going to hate it.

“Suzanne, please get the vacuum and vacuum the aisles in the department, then wipe the counters so everything is spotless for tomorrow,” the boss demands.

One of the guys I’m working with is selling Amway.  He sees this as a temporary job, though I have my doubts he will ever get rich with any kind of multi-level marketing.  He goes to all of these meetings that are kind of like pep rallies.  He tries to get me to go.  No, thank you.

I see this job as a sentence to hell.

I wonder if vacuuming is my job because I’m the only girl but I bit my tongue.  How do you turn on a vacuum?  I am not going to ask for help.  I can figure this out.  If I can fly a plane I can do anything.  I find the switch and start to vacuum.

On Aisle 3 I confront the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen.  I quickly suck that bastard up with the vacuum cleaner before it can get away.  I finish and I go home, but not before I stop at the library and look up alternate careers.  My mother may have squashed any dreams of a career in interior design, but I can do better than this.

And I did.

The Last Bath

We began our day at the New Life International school and orphanage. Some kids live here and others just come to school here. School attendance is compulsory until age 18 but we have seen so many kids along the beach and in the streets. One of the street children, about 10 or 11, told us that if he didn’t sell everything he would get beaten when he got home.

There is really no enforcement of children don’t go to school. Children at the orphanage come from a variety of backgrounds. We brought food for them.

What stuns me is how small these children are. I haven’t researched the public health data, but the children seem small. The orphanage had lots of books but not lots of new books. My friends and I gathered books for an orphanage in Sudan, and we could do that here if needed. I just don’t know. We can’t do everything but we can do something.

The street vendors are relentless. Today was my first day shopping and we haggled on prices. I started with $180 USD and still have about $100 left, and I bought a ton of stuff.

The Last Bath was more than I’m ready to put in writing. The fact that human beings were captured, brought to the river, bathed, greased up with cocoa butter and palm oil, sold to the highest bidder, branded, then marched to the castle were they were crammed in the dungeon for as much as 3 months, until the ship arrived, is something I cannot wrap my head around. The inhumanity is astounding. The path to the river is sacred ground so we walked barefoot. We touched the river, paid homage to our ancestors, and ultimately walked back. I’ll get more into this and other parts later. It’s hard to talk.

We rode back into town, had lunch at the hotel, then did some shopping. It was fun. We had a debriefing with a very moving prayer time, then dinner. I’m out of words. I will organize my photos and will share.

Peace, my friends. This is a pilgrimage all should take.

Facing my fears

We got up early today and traveled out to the Kakum National Park.  No one will believe this but I am TERRIFIED of heights. I have been obsessing over the rope bridge at Kakum National Park since our very first planning meeting.  One way or another, I was going to do it.

Anyone who knows me well knows that besides a fear of heights, I have some social anxieties and I have to push myself sometimes.  This entire trip has required me to push myself outside my limits, but now I’m comfortable with these people.  At dinner last night, John and I were teasing each other about going across the bridge, and I told him if I could then SURELY he could cross the bridge.  There was a fair amount of trash talking and ultimately neither one of us could get out of crossing that rope bridge, 100 feet in the air, over the tops of trees.  There are actually a totally of 6 or 7 bridges.  I’m not sure how many, but there are a lot!

We got up to the bridge and there was no question that I’d do it, but I was so scared.  I can’t even describe my level of fear.  “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself” was said by someone who never looked down from a rope bridge in Ghana.  But we’re on this pilgrimage together, and nowhere was that more evident than today on the bridge.

In our tour group was a family from the UK with four children, one an infant in a carrier strapped to the front of the mom.  She’s currently teaching in Egypt and they’re here on holiday, and they all went over!  Do you think this made me less frightened?  No!  Not in the least!  I didn’t even think about them.  Instead, I obsessed over the number of people on the bridge.  The guide told us that the maximum was five.  FIVE!  Whatever happened to the elephants they said went across the rope bridges to test them?  Surely five of us wouldn’t weigh as much as an elephant!

I took the first step, petrified.  I started reciting to myself the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the 23rd Psalm, and all the other prayers I’ve ever memorized throughout my lifetime. Then I started singing to myself.

Whether Shanna and Sharon have superhero hearing is something I’ll never know for sure, but Shanna said look at the back of her head and step with her.  I counted every single hair on the back of her head.  She stepped and I stepped.  Then Sharon started asking me questions.  I didn’t forget my fear of plummeting 100 feet to my death, but I was distracted enough that I can’t remember the exact number of bridges that I crossed.  I just know it was a lot.

John and Gale also made it across right behind me and the three of us joined hands to help hold each other up as we went up and down the hills through the jungle.  I had left my cane in the bus and I am so proud of how well I did.  This entire trip has been one giant leap of faith after another.  I’ve made new friends and I’ve learned a lot about myself.

But I never need cross another rope bridge again in my life.

Facing my fears plus other observations on Ghana

We got up early today and traveled out to the Kakum National Park.  No one will believe this but I am TERRIFIED of heights. I have been obsessing over the rope bridge at Kakum National Park since our very first planning meeting.  One way or another, I was going to do it.

Anyone who knows me well knows that besides a fear of heights, I have some social anxieties and I have to push myself sometimes.  This entire trip has required me to push myself outside my limits, but now I’m comfortable with these people.  At dinner last night, John and I were teasing each other about going across the bridge, and I told him if I could then SURELY he could cross the bridge.  There was a fair amount of trash talking and ultimately neither one of us could get out of crossing that rope bridge, 100 feet in the air, over the tops of trees.  There are actually a totally of 6 or 7 bridges.  I’m not sure how many, but there are a lot!

We got up to the bridge and there was no question that I’d do it, but I was so scared.  I can’t even describe my level of fear.  “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself” was said by someone who never looked down from a rope bridge in Ghana.  But we’re on this pilgrimage together, and nowhere was that more evident than today on the bridge.

In our group was a family from the UK with four children, one an infant in a carrier strapped to the front of the mom.  She’s currently teaching in Egypt and they’re here on holiday, and they all went over!  Do you think this made me less frightened?  No!  Not in the least!  I didn’t even think about them.  Instead, I obsessed over the number of people on the bridge.  The guide told us that the maximum was five.  FIVE!  Whatever happened to the elephants they said went across the rope bridges to test them?  Surely five of us wouldn’t weigh as much as an elephant!

I took the first step, petrified.  I started reciting to myself the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the 23rd Psalm, and all the other prayers I’ve ever memorized throughout my lifetime.  Then I started singing to myself.

Whether Shanna and Sharon have superhero hearing is something I’ll never know for sure, but Shanna said look at the back of her head and step with her.  I counted every single hair on the back of her head.  She stepped and I stepped.  Then Sharon started asking me questions.  I didn’t forget my fear of plummeting 100 feet to my death, but I was distracted enough that I can’t remember the exact number of bridges that I crossed.  I just know it was a lot.

John and Gale also made it across, and the three of us joined hands to help hold each other up as we went up and down the hills through the jungle.  I had left my cane in the bus and I am so proud of how well I did.  This entire trip has been one giant leap of faith after another.  I’ve made new friends and I’ve learned a lot about myself.

But I never need cross another rope bridge again in my life.