For the first week of my time here, all the volunteers and me are staying in a hostel. They've got dorms and I've got my own room but nevertheless I always sleep lightly when there are volunteers in the house. I'm like an anxious parent, ready to look after my little ones at a moments notice.
Last night I woke up at about 3am and saw a boy sitting in a plastic chair at the end of my bed. I thought he was a volunteer so I said hello but got no reply. Assuming he was asleep, I sat up and moved forwards to touch his arm in order to wake the figure, but when I did, I found that there was no one there. My hand touched air and I couldn't see him any more.
I was so disturbed by this that I couldn't go back to sleep. The room was hot, and the noises of the night in this new country were unfamiliar. I stayed awake imagining shadows until the room started lightening at 5am and I could see there were definitely no unexplained apparitions in it.
At that point, comforted by daylight, I remembered that I was a person with extremely poor eyesight, lying next to my glasses in the dark. It's very easy to imagine a chair is occupied when it isn't. I also remembered that sightings of ghosts are very rarely reported close to, in the day; which reflects the reduced need for over-imaginative fabrication to explain what people like me are seeing. Ultimately, my new Ghanaian home probably isn't haunted.
All the same, I don't want to turn out the lights tonight.
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