Back at Nalerigu

I spent the night at the Accra Baptist Guest House on the 20th Nov, had an interesting conversation with a couple from Oklahoma going home from a teaching mission in Kumasi. Dinner was hamburgers which were good. Any American travelling abroad knows how remarkable that statement actually is.
I got my American cash exchanged in Ceti. Surprisingly, this term is a hold over from the origins of trade along the Gold Coast, what Ghana went by in my youth. A ceti originally meant a "stick" of two hundred cowrie shells, presumably after the snails who inhabited them had been asked to leave. The New Ceti was worth fifty old ceti or 10000 cowrie shells. It is now worth about $0.26 and is one of the stabler West African currencies. It is divided into 100 peshewari which is a name derived from the colonial days, meaning the smallest coin available and made of gold.
I had to get up at 4:15 to make the plane to Tamale after a night disturbed by the cries of black kites, guinea fowl and extremely low flying jets. The Cantonments are just south of the airport.
The three hour trip from Tamale to Nalerigu was an experience. The rains had rutted the roads into a maze best navigated free-style. It has been three weeks since the last rain, which is the last rain for about four months. The dust right now is minimal, nothing like the several feet of flour-fine redness that will cover the roads in drifts by season's end. The short paved bits were taken at 70 mph, goats included.
Baptist Medical Center is very much as I remembered it. There are new buildings, partially finished and vacant, still crowded wards and solemn zamu guards that open the screen doors for you before you know they are there. I am staying at the same guesthouse as before, although the only resident at the moment. My room is has a single bed, a ceiling fan and a naked light bulb. Bowa, the house cook, my cook, has a two-week menu posted for the residents but not for reference, it appears. “TIA- eat what you get.”

I worshiped this morning, and early afternoon, at First Baptist Church of Nalerigu. It is much as I remembered it: noisy, hard benches, nursing mothers, passing babies from mother to auntie to auntie as needed, the long prayers and the longer bi-lingual sermons. By far the most animated and joyful part was the “parade” (my word) offering. Each row files up to the offering box amid glad cries, singing, out-stretched arms and small offerings.

I am always uplifted by worship when I am abroad. The small golden things of the spirit can be found more easily, perhaps, when one compares it to the mounds of discarded shells which the world values more highly.