things I think about

Pease porridge.

Actually I was just looking up porridge. That's what we called the hot cereal we ate in Ghana, and that's what my oatmeal has recently been tasting like (I've started microwaving it for convenience sake - no need to stand over the stove for five minutes to prevent burning, and one less thing to watch). Now I'm definitely going to keep microwaving it - I think it tastes even better that way - because it's more like the porridge in Ghana that I have fond memories of.

Why fond memories? Well, I didn't have to make it. Isaac would be up at the crack of dawn every morning, making a big pot of it. We, the house dweller - volunteers and some local staff - would shuffle in the morning, grab a bowl, plunk some in, and then begin the doctoring. Christine had somewhere scored brown sugar (she was there almost a year - she had all the good connections), and Katie liked to walk nextdoor to buy evaporated milk. (We were up in the hills away from almost everybody else - but for some reason there was a compound behind us with people selling some things from a make-shift shop. It was a great source of cayenne peanuts, "biscuits," and the like.)

Gill wouldn't eat the porridge so she'd go scavenge eggs in the morning from neighbors around who would sell them.

I would sit there in my lappa (just a piece of cloth wrapped around me) and start the day with some tea and porridge. I always liked it best when Fred was there, because he hits the ground running - although he is notoriously late at all times. When I wasn't at Dayton's, where he would sometimes get bread instead. Not good bread, but it was good enough. He slathered it with mayo (that he keeps on a shelf in his "kitchen" - there is of course no refrigeration at camp) and he finds me odd that I don't like bread that way.

Ex-roommate says I'm antisocial in the mornings, but that isn't true. I just don't like her. With people I like, such as my housemates in Ghana, I like seeing them when I first get up and starting the day with them.

All this I think, to avoid killing the electrician shouting above my head.

Actually, I've been flashing back a tremendous amount recently. I'll be doing something and all of a sudden it's like I'm climbing the Sun Temple again. Or picking huckleberries back in Alaska again. Or on a boat in the Galapagos. Or snorkling. Or ... any of the myriad things I've done in my relatively short life. Maybe it's provoked by the personal statement I just finished for application, or maybe my life is flashing before my eyes.

Whatever it is, I need another cup of coffee and to rush to my Torts review session.