When we get to America

In exactly one week’s time – give or take an hour or so – my children and I will be touching down at Dulles International Airport in Virginia for the start of a long-awaited, well-deserved 6 week vacation.

Now, I’ve said time and time again to visitors and travelers that are thinking about coming here that Ghana has everything you could possibly want, albeit at a price. But some things, well, some things just don’t have a price, if ya know what I mean.

So here for your reading pleasure (and maybe some food for thought) I give you some 25 of the things that I will relish when we arrive in the United States next week, after not being home for more than 3½ years.

1. Drinking Diet Coke, icy cold straight from the can, one right after another simply because they’re so cheap, and because I can.
2. Lighting the stove with the mere turn of a dial, and not the turn of a dial and the pfffft of a wooden match.
3. Waking up to the sound of a lawn mover cutting the grass instead of the scree, scree, scree of a straw broom sweeping up the previous day’s rubbish.
4. Flipping the channel and finding a baseball game on it instead of a soccer match.
5. Hearing the children cry out that they want pizza for dinner and ordering one or two for delivery, instead of groaning about how long it will take for me to make them from scratch (that’s if I have all of the ingredients in the first place).
6. Buying gasoline in gallons instead of petrol in liters and having the ability to pump it myself if I want.
7. Drinking real coffee and not instant.
8. Walking into an air conditioned room and needing a sweater instead of turning on the ceiling fan and removing yet another item of clothing.
9. Eating pasta with a sauce from a jar of Ragu rather than homemade (you really do get sick of homemade after a while).
10. Having mail delivery come right to the house and not having to go retrieve it from the post office weeks after it’s been mailed.
11. Eating fast food that really is fast as opposed to waiting 30 minutes for fried chicken and chips at a local “fast food” restaurant.
12. Dialing an 800 number at any time of the day or night, even if I get a recording, and knowing that my call is important to them and it will eventually be answered.
13. Working on my tan with people who are doing exactly the same thing and no one raises an eyebrow or questions my sanity.
14. Speaking in my normal cadence with my New Jersey accent and everyone will understand me.
15. Being called Barbara or “miss” or “lady” as opposed to “obroni.”
16. Scarfing down a sack full of White Castle hamburgers instead of the single burger that I cooked and which the boys didn’t eat (only because I hid it).
17. Not worrying about coming home to a defrosting fridge or freezer because the power is out or because my prepaid meter ran out of money.
18. Enjoying the night air and the dance of fireflies instead of running inside as quickly as possible to avoid the mosquitoes.
19. Having access to a clothes dryer and not just a clothes line.
20. Listening to rock and roll or oldies music instead of gospel or high-life.
21. Paying with a credit card if I want to and not worrying that someone has just copied down the number to try to buy a computer online later.
22. Relaxing on beautiful sandy clean beaches instead of ones used mainly as a latrine.
23. Having my choice from among dozens of magazines bought for a few dollars rather than just Oprah magazine for $25.
24. Visiting my friends and family in the real world and not just the cyber one.
25. Saying goodnight to my mom with a hug and a kiss rather than a whispered prayer.