The early 1980s were trying times for the country and people of Ghana. 1981 ended with a bang. A military coup that was staged on December 31, 1981, ushered in a level of chaos that would linger for several years. As if the state of political insecurity was not enough, a pair of climatic disasters in the form of drought and wildfires destroyed both cash and food crops in the 1982–3 farming season. The delay in the start of farming due to the failed rains resulted in a brief period of severe and widespread hunger, amid which the government of Nigeria ordered at least a million Ghanaian migrants to leave that country. The arrival of the migrants swelled family sizes and increased mouths to feed. Any of those events on their own could cause hardship for a lot of people, but in combination, their effects were dire. The women in this study were middle-aged or already senior citizens during these trying times and experienced the hardships in their unique ways as illiterate women in rural areas. Their recollection of the events and impacts on their lives is the subject of this chapter. I argue that the cumulative effect of the problems of the early 1980s created a layer of hardship with long-term negative impacts on the women’s quality of life.