The Way It Is

I haven’t written much lately because life here has become routine. It’s normal for me to wake up to the thwack-thwack of a shoe-repair man swinging a tool behind him that strikes against a wooden box, advertising he is nearby for all those who need their shoes fixed. But today, the first time I've ever needed one of these repairmen, they were nowhere to be found! The water goes out sometimes, but not for as long as it used to when we didn’t have water tanks. It’s still a frightfully cold shock to shower in the mornings though (working on getting a water heater out of our landlord). The power outages continue, forcing me to wear a headlamp while the pasta finishes boiling (the beauty of a gas stove is that it’s not electric). It’s not that noteworthy to find the perfect pair of shoes on the arms of a hawker, roaming about with 10 pairs in his arms. He says 80,000, I say 40,000, and we settle on 60,000. I ride a tro-tro now and then, but not as often as I used to. When I visit a specific former coworker, the fact that she grabs a breast or pinches my butt no longer surprises me, but still makes me feel my personal space has been violated. For lunch, I eat fried yams or rice and beans from the street sellers across from our office, though I did recently see a man preparing to cook dog, something I'd never seen before. I drink water out of a plastic sachet. That’s just life at Kelewele Junction.