Sleep delays my life

When I first got to Paga I was taken aback to hear that people go to bed around 8pm and get up at 5am, or even earlier. How on earth can you go to bed so early? I asked them incredulously. They invariably just shrugged their shoulders and grinned a silent, knowing answer back.

So now a month into my Ghanaian experience I find myself drawn to my own bed earlier and earlier as each evening passes. I haven’t quite made the 8pm cut off just yet, but suffice it to say I haven’t been too far off at times. I think the intense heat just drains the energy from you so that after you have eaten and washed (for at least the second time that day) the thought of just lying down and recharging those tired bones is too enticing to deny. That said I haven’t remotely compensated with the early morning starts that are the norm here. So perhaps I am just one lazy white man.

But then what does one do after dark here? There is nowhere to go, as we eat at home and there isn’t exactly the option of cinemas and coffee shops to distract. There are local bars – called Chop Shops – but the lure of alcohol isn’t enough to drag a tired body out into the dark night. We sleep with the ceiling fan on every night which does its very best to reduce the temperature a degree or so – just enough to be adequately comfortable to fall asleep. It also drowns out the foreign sounds that might keep one awake in wonder as to what they belong to. One cool night after a huge rain storm I turned off the fan before going to bed. Lying down I began hearing a chorus of strange sounds I had never noticed before. I heard the frightened yelping of some anxious animal (I’m hoping a dog) and the drunken calls of some rowdy men who most likely just crossed the border and stopped off for the night before completing their journey the next day. There was an ugly choir of toads from a nearby pond, each seemingly competing with their neighbour to make the loudest, most obnoxious sound a reptile could make. Then there were the puzzling scraping sounds on the roof and walls of our house guests – the lizards. After five minutes of identifying new sounds –  thuds, clatters, calls and bangs –  I decided that the fan needed to go on again. The reassuring, hypnotic whirr blotting out whatever activities were taking place right outside my window. I also double checked that the door was well and truly locked.

If the nights are troubled by the odd unidentified sounds, the mornings arrive with a trumpet call of cacophony. The Muslims begin their prayers at ridiculous o’clock, which is the wake up call for man and beast alike. The cockerels begin their competitive calling matches. One proud old bird circles our house endlessly in the morning, marking this as his territory with an annoying incessant crow that could drive a man completely insane at such an early hour. I shut one ear from the prayers and the other from the cockerel and fool myself into thinking I can still sleep on. Mind over matter. But then the other birds begin. There is a tree outside our house with at least one hundred exotic looking yellow birds who like nothing better than to commence their day by bickering and catching up excitedly on gossip as they put the finishing touches to their nests which dangle from the boughs in balls as if they were the fruit of the tree. I have never seen so many birds in one tree before. Clearly ours is the finest tree in the district as it is the most prized residential location for this particular yellow species.

Soon the people begin to pass by and gather in the clearing directly in front of the living room. There are three trees that provide welcome shade and everyone wants their spot under one to sit and wait. For what I am not sure exactly, but by 8am there can be up to 50 men there arguing, chatting, some praying on their prayer mats, others roaming about selling sun glasses and flip flops. Just ahead of them on the road the enormous trucks are lined up, ready to pass through the border as soon as it opens. Some people lie underneath them in respite from the sun while the more enterprising have brought hammocks that they tie to the belly of the vehicle and somehow manage to continue their sleep. By 7:30am it is already impossibly hot and time for my first wash of the day. I have a full bucket of clean water with which to do so. Hunched down in my modern bath devoid of running water I throw the first jug of cold water over my head and then, only then do I truly become awake. It’s a startling offensive jolt of a start and one which I never look forward to. By the time the bucket has been drained of water and me of my yelps, squeals and shudders the shock has just about subsided. When I’ve dried off and had a quick bite of toasted tea bread it’s time to cycle up the hill to the clinic.

When I arrive I am again covered in sweat, dust from the road and fumes from the filthy lorries speeding past. My face red with effort from cycling in the heat I find myself already beginning to dream of my bed under that comforting, reassuring fan, a half hour earlier tonight I decide. I groan slightly to myself at the day’s work ahead of me, making children cry and trying to reassure them in a foreign language or with bribes of sugar. I sigh at the thought of yet another day which will bring rice for both lunch and dinner and daydream about the supermarkets at home before being jolted back to reality by a question.

Did you sleep well my colleagues ask daily. Oh yes, very well I lie before returning the question. I wouldn’t know how to begin explaining to them how different things here are from what I’m used to. They always smile back, happy that I am content and comfortable in their country. And in an inexplicable way I really am, I just don’t know how to put in words or even quite understand it myself.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

My arrival in Paga has coincided with two equally dramatic calendar events: the rainy season and Ramadan.

Both regularly provide loud and atmospheric reminders that this is their time.

The rains strike quickly but with some warning. An unbearably hot day of around 36 degrees with sunny blue skies will suddenly become so dark, within only a minute or two that you will need to turn on the lights just to read a page in your book. Angry black and grey clouds roar overhead bustling against and over each other, racing impatiently to their final destination. With them comes the wind. The first taste is a touch of a light breeze that makes the curtains flutter and brings with it a cool fresh relief into the stuffy house. A few minutes more and stationary fans will begin to move, powered by the uninvited wind tunneling through the house. There are no windows here, not as we know them at least. Instead there are a series of open glass panels whose angles you can change by forcing a leaver. You can never really close them but you can change the angles of their tilt should you feel the need for more or less air from outside. Soon the wind is racing through the house and then comes the thunder and lightening. Enormous pounding blasts of thunder that make the ground shake and warn everyone to take shelter ASAP. And then the sky empties. In only a few minutes the ground outside is a river and the rain so solid that you can barely see a tree just a few metres in front of you. To be in it for more than two seconds is to be soaked thoroughly to the skin. But nobody risks this. For once there isn’t a soul to be seen outside. No cyclists, no cars – not even a goat. I have seen more rain fall in ten minutes here then I expect Ireland gets in a good rainy six months. It’s biblical and fascinating to watch. The ground cannot keep up with the speed of the deluge and everywhere becomes one muddy lake within seconds. Soon into the storm the electricity goes out adding to the drama and afterwards the mobile phone networks go down. It’s like the opening scene of an apocalypse movie, every few days.

And then after a few minutes, or an hour, the sky has exhausted itself and just as suddenly it all ceases. The wind is instantly gone but the air remains cool and clean as if a brand new supply has just been delivered as a reward for the days of oppressive heat just gone.  It will take a few hours for the sun to reach its full potential again, all the while the Ghanaians talk about how cold it is. I watch them shivering as I laugh to myself – the temperature will be around 20 degrees or so – a heatwave for Ireland!

Ramadan announced its commencement in as just an obvious manner. It was all the more startling as its triumphant arrival happened at 5am. We live opposite the tiniest mosque I think I have ever seen. It is a beautiful, unimposing building that has more charm than space and for the first week here I hadn’t recorded a single soul entering or leaving the building. I would estimate that it could hold 10 believers, at a squeeze.

Because of its inactivity I assumed that it had been abandoned for a more modern, larger version somewhere nearer the centre of town. And then, on the first day of Ramadan I was awoken by an abrupt deafening wailing that seemed to come from the corner of my bedroom. I shot up in fright and confusion and quickly recognised the Arabic lilt of the call to prayer. There was no imam hiding in my wardrobe – the source was clearly from the miniscule mosque that I had mistakenly believed to be dormant. I was utterly flabbergasted that a tiny mosque could make such an all consuming sound. I have travelled to many countries where I have been woken by such prayers but the volume here was clearly made to compete with any thunder that nature could throw in its way. Or perhaps their aim is to be heard across the border in Burkina Faso. If that was the case then they certainly succeed.

Not only is the call to prayer broadcast for all in the region to hear but so is their entire nightly service, and every prayer during the day and evening too: all at impressively godly volumes. It has got to the stage that I have witnessed the repetitive chants so often and with such volume that I have found myself singing them to myself while waiting in line in the local shop or while cycling to work, as if it were some catchy new pop song.

Who knows, perhaps a miraculous conversion is in the making. More likely however is that I am now so sleep deprived that my brain has resorted to repeating simple phrases over and over again, unable to deal with anything more complex.

Like the cool relief that the rains bring I am counting down the days for the end of the holy month – and the uninterrupted sleep which will follow. I expect it to be utterly divine.