Thus it is with Alan and Mary Brody. We met in 1973 in Ghana, West Africa when we were all young. The Brody's went on to travel the globe working with UNICEF to improve the lives of children, women, and communities. If Alan's name sounds familiar, it's because you've read Alan Brody's words on Riehlife.

Recently I visited the Brody's in Iowa City where they invited me to stay for a week while I took a week long workshop in memoir writing. Mary and Alan are a "Salt & Pepper" couple who have been married for decades with a brood of children and grandchildren to revel in. They are "very married" in the affection they show even in the midst of occasional aggravation.

In 1970s America mixed marriage was still a tricky business. I knew Alan's side of the story. My father often says that the best decision he made was to marry my mother. Alan says that his decision to ask Mary to marry him was his last decision. The rest of his life unfolded from there.

As we stood in the yard taking down the badminton net, I asked Alan what it had been like for Mary to decide to marry him. "Ask her," he smiled.

Mary loves her garden. Each morning she comes out to greet her flowers blooming in a riot of colors and shapes. She knows each one as if they were her children. I knew I'd get her most eloquent answer while she watered her flowers.

Janet: "Mary, when Alan asked you to marry him, was it hard to say 'yes'?"

Mary: "No," she said simply, and then with great eloquence connected 1 + 1 + 1 +1 = (at least) 4 to share with me the secret to a happy life. Here it is, folks!

1) Just say "yes."

No, it wasn't hard to say "yes." There were other successful intermarriages in her family, so that wasn't a big deal.

2) Go where life leads you.

In her culture the woman follows the man, so she wasn't concerned where they lived--Ghana or the United States. What she didn't know then was that they'd travel to Nigeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, China, and Swaziland during their long distinguished diplomatic career.

3) Life is vast and mysterious. "When you look out at the sea, there is no end to it. When you look up in the sky, you cannot count the stars. People think they are powerful, but when you feel the wind blow, then you know what true power is."

4) Thank the Man Upstairs.

"Every day I wake up and my feet touch the floor, I'm happy I have another day. The Man Upstairs decides when and what. I just go along with the plan."

Meanwhile the flowers had finished drinking the water and listening to Mary's endearments. We eased inside to finish drinking our milk tea. In the kitchen I shared her answer with Alan. He said, "Oh, this sounds like a good story for Riehlife." And so it is.

Long ago a Ghanaian friend asked me, "Janet, what kind of old woman do you want to be?" This story is the answer to his question: the kind of old woman I am becoming.

Here's my prize-wining essay on Womens Memoirs. "Passage into Elderhood" Just in time for my birthday.

Here's a note of thanks to Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler of Womens Memoirs:

Dear Kendra & Matilda,

As usual you’ve found an inventive way to honor our circle of sister memoir writers through your contest. I’m honored to tie with Heather Cariou for the First Place, Grand Prize Award. Oooooh. Love the designation.

To publish the piece on my birthday is a special treat, and a gorgeous way to start my day. As one of the legion of holiday babies it’s always wonderful to be acknowledged on the actual date of our birthdays.

Janet Riehl

Heather Summerhayes Cariou's story "The Sweet Ghost of Christmas Past" is published today on Womens Memoirs

My story "Passage into Elderhood: Happy 60th Birthday" will be published soon. This is the story of the most wonderful day in my life in Busua Beach on the coast of Ghana. As a yummy addition you'll find out how to make kelewele (fried plantains).

Read a related story of Happiness Diet: Go to Ghana and Lose Weight

Books For Africa is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving as the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent. Since 1988, Books For Africa has shipped over 22 million primary, secondary, post-secondary, and community library books to 45 countries in Africa. Books For Africa has received the highest ratings from Charity Navigator and the Minnesota Charities Review Council. The mission of Books For Africa is to end the book famine in Africa.

Please Help Us Send Over 20,000 Books to Rural Ghana in Honor of the Ghanaian Ambassador's Visit! Here's the message they sent me:

Dear Janet,

As someone who has lived among the people of Ghana, you may have witnessed the limited educational resources available to many Ghanaian students. At Books For Africa, we strive to increase literacy and improve educational access by providing high-quality text and library books to schools and universities, libraries, orphanages, and community centers throughout Africa.

Books For Africa is pleased to welcome His Excellency Daniel Ohene Agyekum, Ghana's Ambassador to the United States, as the keynote speaker at the annual BFA fundraising luncheon on Wednesday, April 28, 2010.

In honor of the Ambassador's visit, Books For Africa will be sending a 40-foot sea container of over 20,000 BFA books to Ghana. It costs $9,800 to send a container to Accra. Please help us deliver these books to the people of Ghana by making a donation to this project.

Books For Africa has had the opportunity to coordinate with Peace Corp Volunteers in Ghana in the past, and conducted a meeting with the Peace Corps Country Director in Ghana in January of 2010. We look forward to continuing to partner with Peace Corps Volunteers to provide educational resources and increase literacy levels across Ghana.

Minnesota Headquarters | 253 East 4th Street, Suite 200 | Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101 USA

Georgia Warehouse | 2971 Olympic Industrial Dr. SE, Suite C | Smyrna, Georgia 30080 USA

Tel (MN): 651.602.9844 | Fax: 651.602.9848 | bfa@booksforafrica.org | www.booksforafrica.org

Lillian is a mosaic artist and gifted educator. She jurored a show in which Karen Silton's mosaic "Miriam's Well" was exhibited. The show was "The Art of Tesserae" at Second City Gallery in Long Beach.

Rod is a hard-working development chief living at Busua Beach in Ghana. Thus, he is more commonly addressed affectionately by his honorary chief's title of "Nana."

He's just written a wonderful poetry book which reads like a closely observed love letter to nature and his adopted country of Ghana. "African Rainbow 'Round the Sun" is certainly worth getting your hands on.

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On January 7th, the day I arrived back in the United States, President John Evans Atta Mills was formally inaugurated as President.

I was there for the duration of the elections. On the day I arrived in Ghana, December 7th, a Sunday, the initial elections were held. They were hailed by the election watch commission as a model for democracy throughout the world, and a beacon for fair elections within Africa. A run-off election was held on December 28th. I could tell by the two local polling places I passed that day that Ghanaians had fulfilled their promise and turned out yet again. This, in a country where going to the polling place may involved great expense and sacrifice.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, my West African speech gave way to my Midwestern speech. I am going home...to my ancestral home, the place of my father awaits, heart beating as promised, and the place of our foremothers and forefathers. This December homecoming pilgrimage to Ghana has been a thorough-going success and given me exactly what I needed at this time of the year and in my life. I salute my West African heart home and the people of heart that land contains...and welcome its new president, installed yesterday, January 7th.

Many things occurred getting on the flight at Accra, at the Amsterdam airport, on that aforesaid flight over the Atlantic, and in the Memphis, Tennessee airport. Perhaps they can be spoken of later. No space of the journey is left vacant.

Upon setting foot inside my apartment and the balance beam scales therein, I discover that I have been on the HAPPINESS DIET: GO TO GHANA AND LOSE WEIGHT. Can't you just see the cover page headlines flogging that article in the women's self-help magazines in America? 10 pounds to be exact. I am now at a weight lower than before my move to St. Louis, a year-and-a-half ago. I have now lost the 10 pounds that I gained during the Winter of My Seclusion...and a few more besides. This is good. May the trend continue.

I'm pretty fried--yes, fried--I think that's a combo of tired and frazzled--and going to bed now...after a theoretical 24 hours of travel, but more because of the time changes. I'll be laying low over the next few days as I catch up on my writing and my biological body.

Because I'll only be staying in two locations, I'll be taking a few more things with me, including my laptop. I hope to pick up a mobile phone once I'm there for calls within Ghana. I have SKYPE on my computer, so if I can get wireless access, that would open up a new option as well to keep in touch with friends and family in America. We'll see.

I'm mostly there to visit old friends I worked with 30 years ago and make some new friends. I'll being staying first in Busua Beach at African Rainbow Resort. Go to their website to see where I'll be staying and some of the wonderful side trips from there. I'll mostly be writing and swimming and relaxing. I'll turn 60 on December 29th and feel better about this birthday and my life as a whole than I have in quite a while. That's really my best birthday present...this greater feeling of being well within my skin.

From there I'll move back to Accra, the Capitol city, where my old friends live. I'll be staying independently and connecting with them as their schedule allows.

For those of you whom GHANA is a new place, here are a few coordinates. It's in West Africa, near the equator, and on the Greewich meridian. It is bounded in the NW by Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), on the eat by Togo, on the south by the Atlantic ocean, and the West by La Cote D'Ivoire (known as the Ivory Coast).

Ghana's total area is 238,537 sq. km (92,100 sq. miles). Other large cities beside Accra are Tamale, Seckondi-Takoradi, and Kumasi. The terrain is composed of plains and scrubland, rain forest, a tropical climate...a population of 17.7 million as estimated in 1997.

There are 10 regions namely the Northern, Upper West, Upper East, Volta, Ashanti, Western, Brong-ahafo, and Greater Accrra.

Therefore, whether you are new to our community here or whether you are a long-time reader, I invite you to browse the archives. They are rich and full. And the top bar contains information about my poetry book "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary."

We'll see you, reliably back in this space in after January 10th. Until then, Darlings, it'll be catch as catch can.

Stephanie tells us: Adinkra symbols are pictographs that reflect a specific proverb or saying of the Akan tribes. My husband John and I lived in the Asante region of Ghana, so seeing them brings back rich memories. Adinkra symbols are hand-stamped on funeral cloth, carved into wooden stools, used as molds for gold weights, and incorporated into architecture. These five short poems, each about a different symbol, are one Ghanaian poet’s lyrical explanation of their meanings. The titles are in Twi, one of the 56 dialects in Ghana. I’ve given the English translation off to the side.
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Sankofa ("Return and Fetch It")

That bird is wise.
Look. Its beak, back turned, picks
for the present what is best from ancient eyes,
Then steps forward, on ahead
To meet the future, undeterred.

Donno Ntoaso (Double Drum)

My news of new love is so great
I need a double drum to celebrate.

Owo foro dobe (“A snake climbs the raffia palm.”)

It is a sign for diplomats
That a snake’s careful climbing skill
Can find a safe path up a raffia palm
through a thorny-jungle world.

Mpatapow (Peace and Reconciliation Knot)

You tied a single wisdom-knot
Into my foolish line
Of thought.
See. It caught
Your knots of peace: mine,
Yours, the world’s and God’s that men forgot.

Ananse (Spider)

Children of Ananse Kokuroko are we all,
The wide world our spider’s web.
And love, desire or need
Has sought us out to diverse points on this world-web.
Where’er we are, there are some strands to grasp
Strands to let go, leave, ignore.