This week started with Varun home and a birthday party at Jamboree for one of Sara Gail’s classmates. It was so nice to finally go to a party together! The girls had a great time playing with their friends and they enjoyed the sweet treats even more! After the party we all went home and spend some quality time together.
After the girls went to bed, Varun gave me a special treat with a belated Valentine’s Day dinner at home, with a special drink as well: lamb with mint sauce, pasta arrabiatta, and cream of cauliflower soup. It was delicious!
The next day we started our normal weekly routine, but this week started with the girls doing a little play before school. It’s always nice when the girls eat their meals well rather than making mealtime a battle. Plus, they enjoyed the extra time to play together, especially since Sara Gail goes off to school for the day.
Abigail and I still had a busy day ourselves with a few errands to run. She does enjoy the time alone with me, and she’s always happy to have first pick at the cart we choose for our shopping!
The week continued as usual with our busy schedule of play dates. I’m hoping all these play dates will help give Abigail enough exposure to being around other kids before she gets to school. Sara Gail had a hard time separating to start school, but maybe I can ease the transition for Abigail by taking her to all these classes. I’m sure it still won’t be an easy transition for her.
Later that evening it was clear that the rainy season had begun here. It’ll be good for the plants and animals around here. But, it will certainly making driving around here a bit more difficult with all the flash flooding that can occur. Luckily, we were just going to be staying home for the evening.
The next day poor Sara Gail had a fever and had come down with a cold. Just to be on the safe side, I kept Sara Gail home and had a quiet day of rest. Abigail wasn’t a huge fan of having less attention paid to her than usual, but she was more than happy to have her big sister back home.
Luckily Varun spent most of this week in town. He did have a quick trip to another city just about an hour’s drive from here, where the main shipping port is located, named Tema. Since I’ve recently complained to him that I’ve lived here in Accra for a year and have yet to see a beach, he sent me a picture of the beach there near the port. While there are nice resorts for the tourists that visit here, most of the beachside is not what you’d be used to in the US. It’s not really clean or nice enough to spend the day laying out in the sun on the beach. Hopefully we will eventually get to one of these nearby resorts so we can all enjoy a beach day together.
Finally, the weekend arrived, and we got spoiled with Varun home for a long weekend. I also had arranged for a special treat for him, as well as the girls and I. Back in India, Varun’s favorite fruit is the jackfruit. It’s not very common in the US, in fact I don’t think they can even grow there. We’ve seen the occasional jackfruit pieces in Indian stores back in the US, but Varun has never been interested in eating it since it had been imported and wasn’t as fresh as he likes. So, one of the times I had gone to the fruit stand near our house, I saw one: a giant jackfruit! I asked the vendor about it and they told me that they can get me jackfruit any time for only 20 cedis, which is about $4 USD! I had arranged to pick it up for Varun that week and it had finally ripened enough for us to dig into. We could tell because the whole kitchen smelt like jackfruit! It’s not the easiest process to cut into and get to the fruit bits, but it is more than worth it! And then, after we finish the fruit itself, we use the seeds to cook into a delicious Indian meal as well! One of my favorite parts about Indian cuisine: they use every part of a plant! Either to eat itself or sometimes as a plate! The jackfruit was a huge hit with all of us, especially little Abigail, she couldn't get enough of it!
Well, that ends another week here in Accra. While it wasn’t all that eventful, it does mark one year of us arriving here in Accra. If I may just take a moment to reflect, it’s been quite a tumultuous year for the Raghunathan family. Uprooting from our quiet life in Charleston to move to suburban Africa.
Abigail has grown from a little infant to a busy, walking, talking toddler!
Sara Gail has been going to school for almost a year now, making new friends and moving from one home to another, just within Accra.
Poor Varun has gone from minimal travel to traveling almost every week, from a surveyor reporting to a supervisor, to the head of an office that overseas all of sub-Saharan Africa, from Togo to Western Sahara. And finally, there’s me: settling into a routine with two little ones to take care of just to move across the world while trying to maintain a routine of some sort for them. It took a lot of time, tears, sweat, and effort, but we finally all settled down in a new, comfortable home over here. Who knows what the next year here will bring for all of us? I hope you all continue to check in every week to find out!
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