April 10-13th, 2009, Adugyama, Ghana

Friday, April 10, 2009, Adugyama, Ghana:

Sweet porridge: maize, sugar, and water
cooking over smoking corn cobs.

Nana clutches a rooster,
rusty orange, brown,
pins its feet.

He screams.
She ties fabric around its foot
puts it in the animal room,
ties a big brick around it.
The cock drags its brick to the corner.

There is a yam room, arms of green tendrils
reaching from the pile of brown, yammy bodies
Roots.

Bea is in the food cellar, once Sara and Ama's room
Now, Plantians, cocoa yams, palm nuts, flys, bugs, stack of shoes
Sarah cleans the shower room, brushes out the dust and water.
Kwaku Baah, Yaw Bimpe, and Ama watch a movie in the back house, an American movie. The electrician comes to replace the socket. Sarah sweeps my room and helps me put up my mosquito nest.

Pathways, childrens' drawings:
computers, trees, houses, cars, airplanes, people, numbers, maps, countries, lines dots, dashes, horizontals, verticals, place, my name, store, boisterous voices, charts, the boy draws four boys drawing.

I ate two bananas this morning and ginger cookies and sweet maize porridge. The sound of a truck. A little girl upset is now on the back of a boy, cool, cloudy day, music from the spot, A drawing of jet airplanes, ONe boys draws a rendering of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.. A cock crows, It's Good Friday. A boy draws a computer, A broken piece of wood is used as a ruler. Ball point pens and paper. Ten boys now at the table. Too many. Seven are drawing. Space shuttles, Dark lined car. I kick the older boys out. In the evening, I eat duck made by Bea, took photos of goats in room, Kwaku Baah eats Fufu. Sitting outside at night, hot with crickets.

Saturday, April 11, 09:

Teaching Kwaku Baah how to make stars.
Nana's voice, Bea's voice, Mr. Atta's voice.
"Mache" , Machay", Sarah says "Good Morning".
The beats from the Spot, the neighborhood bar, roosters, pathways, neighbors getting water creaking doors, Yaw Bimpe is making an antennae, digging a hole for the tall bamboo T.V. antennae.

Looking for bananas, Bea's cooking yams,
Ama's looking in the mirro at her face.
The children are playing 'kitchen' with tin cans.
The chickens are with me looking for maize.
Ama broke the mirror by walking into the doorway.
We pick up the pieces. I think about making a mosaic with it.
Sarah says we're getting low on water
and takes my container to get more.
I open the door to let the chickens out.
Four children are drawing now,
sitting with their ballpoint pens.
I eat an orange and some tea bread.
Reggae at the Spot, Peter Tosh, Lucky Dube.

April 12, 2009, Easter Sunday:


Corn measured by a tin can (Pomo Tomatoes),
the size of a coffee can.
A kernel put on the table for each nine cans full.
Bea fill three large bags
for a woman who will sell it in the market.
Ama draws shapes, rectangle, square, triangle.
Yaw Bimpe looks at his race car coloring book.
I read my Neruda, Residence on Earth.
The radio, the news, beats of music,
The children sing a song An ja ja.
A boy with a home made hat rides
by on a bicycle carrying another boy.
A woman carrying a large basin of water, a metal basin.
Nine can fulls of corn kernels in a Pomo Tomato
can the size of a coffee can
equals one kernel on the table: one rubber.

Sacks of maize, plastic mesh, waven sales, chickens wait their turn. A mother scolds her child, Kwaku Baah did a drawing this morning. His own stars, little dots and interesting lines. Bea pointed to a pineapple and said, "draw that." Red flower of thorns, red dirt, pressed tight to its mother, dust the eys look about and rises, Iron dust, stones and sounds of steps on Earth, pressing gravity, calloused feet, persistent earth.

Monday, April 13, 2009:

Heavy rains on tin roofs,shouts of families,
goats sneaking maize, the dog, arced, sleeping,
a teak leaf on the top of a woman's head walking
in the rain, dark greys, deafening tin,
colored pencils, scribbled drawings,
laborers waiting in the porch,

a little boy playingin the stream of
heavy rains runs behind Mr. Atta.
His mother runs after him saying
she will beat him for playing
in the cold, rushing stream. The boy
hides behind Mr. Atta's leg.
Mr. Atta doesn't want her to beat him
and says he will beat her if she beats him.
She argues with him awhile.

Sokodua: The Chewing Stick Tree
Yaw Owusu chews the stick from the chewing stick tree.
The bark is peeled and the stick when chewed splits apart
into fibers. They floss the teeth.
It's used by children and adults
along with toothpaste and toothbrushes.

I sit underneath the Sokodua tree
watch the boys play soccer.
Shade, thick leaves, boards for a seat
a lizard poops on my foot,
I look up and see its back end
right above me.
Children show me how
to peel the bark and chew the stick, dusty
sounds of feet, brush the red ground
kicking and bouncing shuffles

I face north towards the Sahara,
Sunset, football match, children hamm for photos
I put my camera away, comfort boards under me the trunk as my back rest, ants, chickens, two trees uniform standing, The sunset to the west rounded forms. A little house to my right, a grand mother her grandson. Wooden place.
Does she live there? Concrete crumbling concrete bricks stacked around the house. Mr. Addo explains they put little shacks on the land and stay there until their house is built to keep others from squatting.

April 13th, 09:

Water carrier, balance
of history, tenacity,
functional, gravity of time,
strength and usefulness,
necessity, clear, a pond, a basin,
crown, life force, poise,
structured spine, sufficient movement,
drinker and supplier,
level sculpture, transporter,
wood carrier, pillow carrier, Etoo,
Enchechera, green plantains and ground nuts,
bananas, fire and food, matches,
pots and pans, eggs, lingerie seller,
amuduro, kenkey, pineapple, oranges,
green apples stacked like Mayan temples
improbably balanced
proportioned shirts and pants
pressed towards the sky,
slight movement, neck,
a necessary dance, a merchant's pageant,
utilitarian and purposeful,
The smiles of girls
running after tro-tros, handing pesewas,
hardboiled eggs not falling
handed through van windows.
Tro-tros move and eggs follow
to return some change.
Bread follows, loaves of white
and tea bread shapes with sky backgrounds
toilet paper, satchets of nsuo, water,
baskets basins, tubs, sewing machines,
cocao, palm nuts, mattresses,
fabric pads on the crown as their resting
place bobbing with the crowds,
a timeless balance.