Oh Julie.

Meet Julie. Auntie Julie, some call her.


I sat talking with her on the telephone last week, cutting in and out as she babbled abut how bad the 'network' is. The shotty MTN cell service is a trait characteristic of all of my phone calls to Darmang. They usually last about one-two minutes before the service goes bad and we have to call back again. This conversation was the same.


"Hello. Akosua? Hello."
"Hello. Julie? Julie? Hello? Are you there? What?"
"Oh the network is no good."
"What?"


After the service improved we began to talk about how life was, reminiscing about our go-fish games, the goats, and my deep fear of chickens and toilets.


Julie is my Ghanaian mother as she calls herself, the woman that I lived with, cooked with, and endlessly laughed with. She is over sixty years old and a day does not pass when she ceases to amaze me as she stands with a giant ax cutting down a tree while chasing the chickens around the yard. If anyone has found the fountain of youth, it is her. 


When I was there last summer, Evan and I decided to teach her go-fish. Despite her vivaciousness, go-fish was not a game she easily picked up. It generally went like this...


"Akosua (my Ghanaian name), do you have six?"
"No, go fish."
"Oh bone (meaning bad)"

The next turn, "Akosua, do you have six?" And the next. And the next. For five rounds she asked only me, and she asked only for six. After a few more times we encouraged her to ask someone else. "Okay" she agreed finally seeming to understand. We waited for her turn to arrive and when it did she asked,


"Akosua, do you have six?"


"Daabi (no in twi), go fish"


"Oh bone!"


As I laughed at her unyielding persistence, I couldn't help but feel silly myself as I reflected on what had just gone on minutes before the game of go-fish had begun.


Right before our game had commenced, I had went into the outhouse, a place I had come to dread in every way. It was a hole in the ground, filled with small black gnats that flew up and mosquitoes that circled your head. As I walked in, a few new creatures had joined the crowd- three large lizards. With that I ran out screaming, white with fear (whiter than usual).


Julie ran over, desperately trying to help my panicked self. Once my breathing began to slow I explained to her that there were lizards in the outhouse and I couldn't use it. She stopped dead in her tracks, look to Diana (her daughter), said something in twi, and broke out into hysterical and infectious laughter. She repeated whatever it was she said in twi, crippled over in hysteria. She then proceeded to go into the outhouse, batting away the lizards with a giant stick, shaking her head.

"Oh obruni."

As ridiculous as it was, after that point Julie would not let me use the outhouse without first making sure there were no lizards. I still don't know if she did this to mock me (I hope so) but I'm pretty sure it's because she is a mother, always worried about her weak, little American, and always loving in every, single way.